This past week was… what?

Different; yes, that’s the right word, different!

It began normally enough, but by noon Monday “odd” was in full swing. First, the internet died, then my phone died, then the weather went from questionable to lousy, then I started to feel a like I might be coming down with something.

As it turned out, the internet was on and off all week; off pretty much all day, and more or less “on” at night… when I’m never using it. Naturally, we don’t have TV cable, so when the net is off, there’s no TV either. It would have been a great week for getting outdoors and taking pictures, since there wasn’t much else for me to do, but it decided to rain, sleet and blow all week!

Fine, I’ll read then… so I grabbed my trusty Kindle and then realized that since the net was down, I would be reading things I’ve already read… as long as they we recent enough to be loaded on the device, of course.

Oh, and as it turns out I was coming down with something; I had the pleasure of my first cold in over seven years… Is somebody trying to tell me something?

Without the internet, email, phone communication, text messages and TV, plus bad weather and a stupid cold, it was a week of splendid isolation for me, and then came the weekend.

She Who Must Be Obeyed had big plans. She had “requested” tickets for the U. S. Army Band Christmas concert at Constitution Hall Friday evening, and so off we went. The weather had improved quite a lot by Friday evening; it was cool and misty in Washington. The concert was much like what you would see in the Boston Pops Christmas show… only all of the musicians were wearing full dress Army uniforms, as they are all active duty military. Oh, and that the opening song was the National Anthem.

Snoopy made an appearance, wearing camos… but Santa Claus was entirely out of uniform! I was very impressed at the quality of the musicians: Excellent. Yes, it was a great show… and what other Christmas concert features the audience standing up for a rousing chorus of “The Army Goes Rolling Along” followed immediately by a young lady in dress uniform singing “Santa Baby”?

Great fun!

Saturday evening was a fun one too. SWMBO and several others in her office had invites to the White House to see the amazing Christmas decorations there. (Oh, those are called “holiday” decorations these days, sorry.) While she was off rubbing elbows with the “beautiful people” I was left on my own to work out my version of Southwestern pumpkin soup; I finally got the right balance between heat and pumpkin so that the richness of the pumpkin isn’t overwhelmed by heat; success at last!

Then there was Sunday. There is no way that I can get out of going to the Christmas (Holiday) festivities at Mrs. M’s office, so in a way I got lucky. The actual office festivities are being held during working hours at the office… or somewhere in the building, thus for me to get in there is a hassle ; security is , well let’s just say “stringent” at the Pentagon, so I had the option of attending an event at the “Air House” instead. Now as I understand it, this is the residence of the Air Force Chief of Staff at Fort Myer, Virginia. I met the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff, although I wasn’t sure that’s who he was since the military folk were in civilian clothes and he introduced himself as “Mark”.

I’ve had to attend quite a number of military events with my wife in recent years, and I’m always amazed at how easy it is to pick out the General Officers. No, it isn’t what you might think! They are the ones who are relaxed and act like “regular” people. They stick out their hands and say “Hi, I’m Bob” and then you shake their hands and say, “Hi Bob, I’m Don.” and have a normal conversation. The lesser ranks are too nervous around all of those stars, and they stand out. At any rate, I’ve been fortunate to have met a lot of great folks at these things over the years…

Well, that’s my report on the week, now it’s Monday again, the internet is working so far and I’m trying once again to get caught up on emails, posts and all the rest of “normal” life. Thank you Lord for an… interesting… week!