Sound off!

(No, I'm not telling you to turn your sound off. In fact, you should turn it on.)

These Navy guys jog past our room on the base almost every morning. I'm absurdly delighted by the fact that these leader/follower type military chants aren't just from the movies.



(My apologies for the poor quality of the video.)

"Join the Navy, see the world!"

In case I haven't been clear (or, um... saying much of anything at all), I've been in San Diego for the past week, doing a rotation at the Children's Hospital here. Jack got here 2 weeks before I did, which means he'll be leaving a week from now.

And that means I'll have to move, because currently we're staying on the Navy base here-- well, one of them; there are several-- and since I'm not military, I won't be able to stay here once Jack's gone. It's a good deal while it lasts, though. And it's quite interesting to present your ID to a camo-clad Marine every time you want to come home!

Also, this kind of cracks me up:


Nope, definitely not on a ship. But instead of calling the different floors on a building, well, "floors," the Navy calls them "decks." I get a kick out of it every time.

We're staying in the BOQ, which stands for "Bachelor Officer Quarters"-- though in fact you don't have to be a bachelor (obviously) to stay here. (And actually, it's not technically a BOQ-- it's combined bachelor quarters, which means both officers and enlisted can stay here.) It's kind of a cross between a hotel and a dorm. It's a hotel in function-- electronic room keys, private bathrooms, daily housecleaning and fresh towels, etc. But it's definitely more dorm-like in appearance. The carpet and furniture are ancient and kind of ratty, for instance. And we also have the time-honored dorm-room-style painted cinderblock walls:


And the bathroom-- though clean-- is lined with grubby tiles, and the sink and toilet have a vibe more industrial than domestic.


But. One excellent thing about being a military wife whose husband is Navy?

As opposed to other branches of the Armed Forces (I enjoy the joke "Join the Air Force, see the Midwest!"), Jack and I will tend to be sent to slightly more scenic locales, on average.

view from our balcony the first evening I arrived (the only cloudy day so far), looking west from Coronado island

view from our room to the west (we've decided, with the help of Google Maps, that it must be San Clemente island we can see there in the distance... or at least, that's our theory)

view from our room to the southeast (where you can see mainland San Diego across the bay)

nerd humor

A new medical joke, as related to me by my resident today:


So a bunch of doctors go duck hunting. Before long, a huge flock of ducks flies overhead.

The family practitioner looks up and says, "Looks like a duck... sounds like a duck... let me just check with a specialist."

The internist looks up and says, "Looks like a duck... sounds like a duck... I'd better go look it up just to be sure."

The psychiatrist looks up and says, "Looks like a duck... sounds like a duck... but does it know it's a duck?"

The pediatrician looks up and says, "Looks like a duck... sounds like a duck... aww, but he probably has little baby duckies and a cute little mama duck waiting for him at home..." then puts the gun down and bursts into tears.

The surgeon looks up and immediately raises his gun and shoots. Then he turns to the pathologist and says, "Go make sure that was a duck."

bookworm

Whoops, I guess I have a blog or something, don't I?

So this weekend I took it upon myself to organize our books. The textbooks are now in a separate section from the other nonfiction books, which are organized by subject, which are now in a separate section from the fiction books, which are in alphabetical order by author.

The mysterious thing is, somehow I ended up with more books than I started with. At least, they all fit on the shelves before I organized them... but afterwards, I had to pile a good number on top. Weird.

the newly organized fiction section, with books atop the shelves

the newly organized nonfiction section (yeah, we have a lot of books)