Moose and Dall Sheep and Bears... Oh My!

I leave for Anchorage today and fly into Lake Clark National Park tomorrow. My husband and I will take a day trip to Homer with a friend of his and then spend the weekend of the 21st in Anchorage. He flies to Wyoming that Monday and I’ll fly to Minneapolis for my brother’s wedding on Tuesday. I imagine Minneapolis is the first chance I’ll have to blog, e-mail, and catch up on phone calls.

Frat Boy

Yesterday morning when we were running together Frosted Pink Lipstick told me to talk to Frat Boy about X, X, and X. So I did, and he really didn’t care one way or another about anything I presented, and I liked that about him. I’m a mood matcher; if the people around me are high-strung so am I and if they’re chill I’m laid back too. I try to surround myself with calm people because I’m happiest when I feel at ease. I have a lot more friends that smoke dope than snort coke.

I grew up in a house of secrets; my mother would tell me what in our lives was too shameful to leak to the neighbors (Now don’t tell the neighbors or anyone in the family about this. It’s not something they need to know). And like most people it seems like I actively shun or accept everything that holds significance from my youth. I’m done with secrets because they’re permission for the perpetrator to continue his behavior and Mad Dog’s behavior isn’t OK with me. He’s mean because it excites him. He gets off on it. And that’s why I decided that Frat Boy and I should also talk a bit about Mad Dog. It was really more of a monologue than a discussion, but I had to get it off my chest, and he was willing to listen.

I vented everything, it only took a few moments because I talk unbelievably fast, and explained to the Lieutenant that I wasn’t telling him because I expected him to do anything but because I wanted him to know. I told him that I felt like everyone was keeping Mad Dog’s secrets and that I couldn’t imagine how that would benefit the Det. I told him morale was low and that these days it’s hard to find anyone who wants to go to Cuba. He countered that I could come to him with anything and thanked me for letting him know what was going on. He said something like this had happened on his last Det, there was a tyrant of a BU1, and he turned a blind eye to the situation until mid deployment, which was a mistake, because it was too late to correct everything that had gone wrong. He told me he would keep his eyes open and make sure to address issues as they arose. I told him thank you. And then I checked out on leave.

It’s the most wonderful coincidence that the day I was [maybe] going to ask to get pulled from the Det is the same day we were given a new OIC who has personal experience with the issue that plagues us.

On Mood

It’s the eve of my trip to Anchorage, Lake Clark National Park, Homer, and Minneapolis. I should be excited. I should be packed. But sometimes you want something to happen, and it doesn’t, and it makes you sad. And then all of the happy stuff doesn’t seem to matter so much. That happened tonight so I’m a little blue and having a hard time finding the motivation to pack my bags.

Mad Dog Vs. Frat Boy

Mad Dog is out of hand and this morning, the day before I go on leave, I was going to request that I be pulled from Det Cuba to go to Kuwait with the main body. Well… maybe I was going to do that. At least I was seriously thinking about doing that. I even took the time to imagine how I would look in desert camis and had little fantasies about wearing the tan suede boots that don’t need to be polished. But now I don’t have to make the request. Our Officer In Charge (OIC), the five-foot tall Indonesian accent with frosted pink lips, has been replaced with a six-foot-three 240-pounds-of-muscle frat boy who drank his way through engineering school. He’s a natural leader with strength and charisma. Mad Dog has met his match.

Chapter 3 of How Not to Put Your Wife's Mind at Ease*

This morning:

The craziest thing happened this morning. I woke up to a bear on this side of the electric fence.

What?!

Yeah, I woke up to a weird noise and so I hopped up out of my sleeping bag and went to the window and saw a bear on my side of the fence. He kept nosing the fence and then jumping back when he got shocked.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

No. And so then he decided if he was stuck on this side of the fence he might as well see what was here so he started inspecting my porch and came up to my door so I blew the air horn in his face and he took a leap back and then jumped through the wires of the fence to the other side. I had to go fix the fence after that.

I cannot believe that.

It was really easy to fix.

That’s good.

Yeah, it was pretty crazy.


I didn't think to ask him why he chose the air horn over the shot gun.


*For Chapter 2 see comments on previous post.