Happy Halloween

Today was good; not as fun as yesterday, but a bit more relaxed than yesterday. I turned in my laundry so the contractors could take it out, lose all my socks, and beat the rest of it on a rock. I allegedly get it back on Sunday; we;ll see how that goes. We did some culture and language stuff, and then we had some more first aid stuff. All of it was a review. The nice part is that this was the first day of training that didn't start at 4AM. Not that it would have mattered, for we are still a bit jet lagged, and some bonehead still had his alarm set for 3:15AM from the previous day for his 4:00 non-training event. I have also discovered a chronic condition of snoring amongst MTTs. Apparently one of the elite selection criteria (other than a pulse and no deployment time) is the ability to snore at length at unhealthy decibel levels.

On a more serious note, today would have been Mimi's 84th (I think) birthday. I'm not certain of her exact age; she claimed she was 29, and her personality and cultural awareness showed it. She was my wife's Grandmother. Her real name was Frances, but she hated it and changed it to Jane, but everyone knew her as Mimi. Literally, I think everyone knew her, particularly department store salespeople, as she was always fasionably attired. She was the only grandmother I really knew, and she was a total class act. She claimed she was a witch, and she came alive on holidays, particularly Halloween. She taught me a lot about how to treat people, and about how to truly live life. She defied the odds in her life; at the age of 18 she was one of the first people to have open heart surgery. The doctors said she wouldn't live for five years. Despite health concerns and the increasing care requirements for her ailing husband who she was married to for over 50 years, she always had a positive attitude about life. The woman never ran out of energy, and she was an excellent role model, mother, grandmother and great grandmother.

Mimi died suddenly in June. We miss her a lot.