Anything But Ordinary

If you look, you will see
That this world is a beautiful accident
Turbulent, succulent, opulent, permanent, no way
I wanna taste it
Don't wanna waste it away
...
Is it enough to love?
Is it enough to breathe?
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed.
Is it enough to die?
Somebody save my life!
I'd rather be anything but ordinary, please!
-Avril Lavigne, "Anything But Ordinary"

One of my friends: So...you're a magic ninja who works with top-secret space stuff?! You know that makes you sound like a Bond girl or something out of a bad action script, right?

The end of the week was nice. You forget how nice it is to occasionally share actual real meals with people. Yesterday, I had lunch with MSgt. P who was working days down on main base while she took some class or other for her master stripe (she doesn't read this, but belated congrats anyway!). Then today was the major I met at my first drill's birthday, and Chief invited me along to lunch with them. It ended up being about seven of us total at this burger place in Lompoc, and it was fun to get to know some of the girls a little better. Another girl and I rode with Chief and Major on the way back and we got talking about how Major used to work the range (launches) and VAFB was intended to be an alternate launch site for the shuttle and he ended up taking us on an impromtu tour of some interesting places on the base. For instance, a canyon road where the rock sides actually got cut down and all of the road signs are seriously short so the shuttles' wings could fit as it was transported to SLC (space launch complex, pronounced "slick") 6 on South Base and another place on North Base where a Titan II missile had exploded in its silo back in the 60's (the damage is still pretty impressive!). I thought it was pretty cool, anyway (one of my friends just told me it sounds like it was a "nice nerd moment". It was!). I even got to prove I knew at least something about space when he was explaining something about the dynamic pressure affecting the rockets and I could speak almost intelligently about q-limits and knew what max-q was. Major was really encouraging about the fact that I'd applied for the officer slot, which made me feel slightly less stupid for even considering it much less doing it. Chief just groaned and muttered something about how the commander at the 148th was going to have his head on pike. I didn't quite catch all of it ;-)

The recruiter was actually out all day yesterday and most of the day today, so I got stuck with starting to create some briefings for the student flight (does it bother anyone else that I am IN the student flight??). I have absolutely NO idea what kind of information they want on some of them or even what format they want, though, so I'm just doing "information shells", making them look readable and at least somewhat interesting to look at, and letting the higher-ups fill in the blanks. Apparently there are advantages to having to do presentations constantly in ERAU classes - creating BS presentations is a breeze, assuming you can find the info, of course =P (Recruiter threatened to have me give the briefings, too, but I'm 99% sure he was joking. He'd better be, anyway...)

Went to kickboxing but skipped FIGHT last night. I was just too bloody tired and my arm started bugging me again. I did get to see F before I left, though, and got a hug from him. He hasn't been in class for a while. This weekend is going to be about cleaning, though. I cleaned the bathroom and most of the kitchen this evening, so I'm proud of myself. I also hit the halfway mark with the final strawberry recipe today:
the strawberry vodka. The (really quite scary looking - apparently vodka leeches color) berry/vodka mixture got squished within an inch of its life, resulting in this (much tastier looking) liquid which then got mixed with about a cup of a thin sugar syrup. The whole thing fit quite nicely into the original (clean!) vodka bottle - although I don't have a narrow-spout funnel. I have a turkey baster, though, and it worked, albeit more slowly. (WHY I have a turkey baster is beyond me, as I've never prepared or cooked any whole fowl in my life, and I'm always looking for a funnel. Weird.) Anyway, it has three more weeks of sitting there looking pretty and then it's "done." I don't know if it will get stronger or weaker with the sitting, but I'm hoping weaker, because right now one shot could knock out an elephant, and just the fumes would probably at least get one pulled over for a DUI.

Tomorrow is vacuuming and laundry, even though my dresser has decided it no longer wants to hold its drawers, so I'm not quite sure what to do about that or what to do with the laundry once it's clean. Hrm. After that, I'm planning on a Leverage mini-marathon and either some cross-stitch or (I hope!) some knitting!!