Hot and Cold

Hello!

Sorry it’s been a while since you heard from me. I’ve been busy. I think I have seen about 90 people with colds in the last week. And, yes, I had one myself. It’s probably due to the change in environment. We breathe a lot of dust here, and probably a lot of spores from the mold growing in the air conditioners. Somehow we all get colds.

I won’t complain about the A/C though. It’s great. There is a huge contrast in the worlds on opposite sides of the door. My sister Marie would have loved it when she was a kid. I don’t have too many memories of Marie as a kid. I recall some Mr. Magoo fights and the Tent Bub episode, but not too many more. I do recall, however, that she had a small obsession with temperature extremes. If we were freezing our fingertips playing in the snow, she would want to imagine a desert island with the sun pouring down thickly. If we were on our way to a hot (but scenic) desert destination in the back of a stifling van with no A/C and a heater that couldn’t quite be turned off all the way, she would want to imagine a snow storm.

I think every kid thinks those thoughts, but Marie thought them a lot. And vocalized them a lot. Well, she would love this place. The A/C is cold enough indoors that your ears and fingers slowly get a little tingly. You have hardly noticed it because it is so subtle, like a frog in a pot. But then, when you go outside, the instant blast of warm air feels great on all the little cold parts of your body. There’s almost always wind, too, so it feels like the heater in your car turned on really high on the way home from sledding. Then, after a few moments of bliss, you realize this is the kind of heater that does not turn off. Sweat will soon be dripping down the small of your back and through the nether regions, unpleasantly moistening your shorts underneath the uniform. The converse pleasure is felt when you go back indoors.

I have had enough time left over after sick call to take on another project. A couple of months ago, I established a health promotions committee in the command, but we hadn’t done anything yet. We are now pushing ahead full steam with 3 different projects. We are doing a biggest loser competition, a running club, and a tobacco quitting group, all with incentives. It has been interesting. There has been great participation. here are currently 17 people quitting tobacco, which is great. The funniest thing about it was the negotiation for the incentives.

I sat down with my Skipper and Command Master Chief to negotiate what I could give away. The Navy is very clear on health promotions and tobacco cessation, and supports the programs on a large scale. In my command, however, the support is less enthusiastic. I was sitting there with the leaders of the command: Master Chief, lifelong Copenhagen dipper conducting a nightly deployment countdown by watching his cigar supply dwindle, and my skipper, a recently relapsed dipper (albeit on the sly) and frequent countdown participant. I wanted to send the winners of all our competitions to Sigonella, Italy for a little while. I thought it would be doable, but I was quickly shut down. My next attempt was to send the winners to Bahrain - still pretty cool. Great shopping, nice hotel, etc. Shut down. I finally settled on sending the winners to a spot that is pretty much exactly like the one we are at (military installation in the desert) but where you can get beer. Great. The final prize for the health promotions contest is beer. To be truthful, there are a couple of other prizes, too.

That’s about all that is going on. Except the foot problems. I am a well-qualified expert on blisters and athlete’s foot. You can even throw a little pitted keratolysis in there (that means really pungent, stinky feet growing corynebacteria).