Yeah, um, About that Picture Thing

So here's the deal, short and sweet bcause I need to go to bed, and by 'bed' I actually mean 'sleep in my office on a cot which is difficult because of the size of my office, and I know you're wondering why I'm sleeping in my office and I would love to tell you but I can't and not because it's one of those I could tell you but I'd have to kill you kind of things, no, I can't tell you why I'm sleeping in my office because I don't really know, I'm just doing what we all have been told to do so that nobody gets the advantage of sleeping in their own bed while others are out in the field, well, except for the guys who live here and actually have beds here in the barracks, but the rest of us can find cots, which is really an ironic way to spend our four-day Veterans' Day weekend, though we are perhaps not technically veterans because we're still in the Army, though someone should tell that to the VA because they keep sending me pamphlets encouraging me to take advantage of my Montgomery G.I. Bill benefits...'

But I digress. Of course. Where was I? Ah, yes, pictures...

Three weeks ago I go to the field for a training exercise and the Wife, not wanting to stay alone in the apartment travels to Ettal, Bavaria for a conference or something. Ettal, being a small Alpine town that survives almost solely on sales of beer and spirits brewed by the Benedictines there (which seems so right for so many reasons), has just enough elevation to make the Wife generally nauseous the entire time. The Wife still brings me back beer. Pope beer, no less. I love that woman. (I'll post a picture when I'm allowed to go home.Of the beer.) But the Wife is with Child, henceforth known as the Bean (don't ask), and is stressed out in her justified maternal concern. Stressful week.

Two weeks ago, kitty #2, henceforth known as 'the Stupid Cat' or 'Knut' (as in Knut Hamsun, Norwegian author and, unbeknownst to me until after naming the Stupid Cat, Nazi sympathizer. My bad.) starts vomiting with increased and alarming frequency. Fantastic. Have I mentioned how much I love cats? The Wife makes multiple trips to the vet with Knut over the course of the week, and despite much debate over the monetary value of a Stupid Cat, Knut is still with us. Mind you, the Wife actually does like cats, for real, and this made for a second rather stressful week.

One week ago, kitty #1, who happens to be an Arrogant Prick in a Kitty kind of way, though I really respect his independence and intelligence relative to the Stupid Cat, and who shall be henceforth referred to as Razz (as in short for Raskolnikov, murderer and conflited protagonist of 'Crime and Punishment'; that one I knew), roused himself from a 10-hour nap to grab a bite to eat. During the course of his meal, a bag fell off a door handle, he freaked out and developed an immediate limp. We let him go for the weekend, hoping the world's most flexible cat had simply sprained something and could just 'walk it off.' He couldn't. A Monday trip to the vet revealed that a cat freaking out on a hardwood floor in the middle of the room can, in fact, break his own femur just below the hip. Dear Lord, that has to be an indescribably excruciating experience, about as awful as anything I could possibly imagine. Dad, care to throw some insight on that one? Mind you, I was freezing my GI nuts off sleeping in the woods while the Wife handled all of this business. Good woman, that one. A little stressed about the whole matter though. This cat we actually like.

So let's review, the Wife has spent a week fighting altitude sickness, a week carrying a vomiting cat to and from the vet, a week worrying about her favorite furry friend, has spent roughly a grand on kitty medical expenses, has one Stupid Cat quarantined in a bedroom who won't stop sneezing, and another half-shaven and greatly humbled cat wearing a lamp shade on his head and with a four-inch seam on his thigh who needs to be tended to rather frequently, and her husband (whose unit just showed up on the DoD deployment rotation, while out in the woods) comes home only long enough to grab a fresh pair of socks and try to explain why he has to go try to perform geometric miracles in stuffing a cot into his office so he can sleep there instead of at home.

And she's six months pregnant.

If you think I'm about to tell her she needs to pose for the camera so I can show my internet public, (anonymous, afraid-to-be-named public, at that) just how fat her tummy looks...well, you're going to have to give me a little time on that one.