Life: Idiotropic

With a two hour distance between my Valencia life and my husband's job, I rarely get a glimpse of the military life or the comings and goings of airplanes that were once the white noise in our home.

Today I drove down to meet with some of the American spouses at a fabulous little coffee shop in Albacete that serves delicious home made chocolates as well as flavorful savory treats.  We sat, talked, and ate as women do when we get together and good-humoredly griped about the many challenges of living in Spain.  We were like a support group sharing our "personal testimonies" of what "Spain" has done to us.  Yes, we all love this country in some ways, but we all have had frustrations and sharing those somehow makes us feel a little less picked on.

I had a few minutes to stop and visit Kirk at his work where we walked out to the parking ramp to see the jets take off.  The ramp was filled with fighters from several nations:  Poland, Germany, Italy... may be others.  It is impressive to see them all take off at once and they were scheduled to take off now.  The pilots all stood by waiting in their gear hot and impatient.  They were ready to go.

These are all the photos I got.  A hydrazine leak brought our firetrucks and stalled the takeoff until after I'd gone home.

I don't say much here about the military side of our life. My girls go to the school on base, my milk is "armed forces milk," I see airplanes every day. It's just the norm.

But tonight we got to do something special. This was the third Chief Induction ceremony that I've attended and by far the best. The personnel wore their mess dress - their formal uniform. Spouses wore formals from simple black to ornate with sequins.

The occasion: the promotion of three amazing guys to the rank of chief.

The room was filled with fancy people and all the VIPs. The food was great. The tables were nicely set. A small table sat in the corner set, but empty to recognize the soldiers who could not be with us - a symbol explained thoroughly in previous ceremonies but not in this one.

It was a nice party - as it should be. Chief is the highest rank in the enlisted forces. Only 1% of the enlisted personnel can have the rank of chief. These are the backbone of the force - the men with the knowledge, the leadership, and the experience. It's amazing. They are the guys that get things done.

One of our friends was being honored tonight. He was there with his wife and daughters and when it was his time to speak, like the two before him, he gave his thanks to God, family, friends, and mentors, and gave roses to his wife and girls. Chuck's the unassuming "country boy" who had us all in stitches with the quote of the night referring to his wife as his "smokin' hot internet bride."

Before the evening began, we gave a series of toasts

• "To the flag of the United States of America"
• "To the Chancellor, Bundesrepublic, Deutschland"
• "To the President of the United States"
• "To the Secretary of the Air Force"
• "To the Chief of Staff, United States Air Force"
• "To the Chief Master Sergeant of the United States Air Force"
• "To Our NATO Partners and Allied Services"

It went so fast, we all felt a bit like part of a college drinking game.

The Airman's Creed came in the middle as they spoke about the role of a Chief.


And, after a beautiful evening of friends, food, and short, but poignant speeches, we finished with the Air Force Song which I, embarrassingly enough, still need to read the words to.

Imagine, that you can make a list of as many friends as you'd like - all the people that you know and like - all the people that you'd like to spend time with, have coffee with, invite over for dinner, and don't have time to, the teachers, coworkers, kids' friends...

And then, you just hand that over to someone and they plan a party complete with dinner and a band. It's at a beautiful castle. You pay a little for your ticket and then just show up. No mess, no cleanup, no stress. Just food, friends, and a fabulous night at a castle.

That was our Saturday night.

I've never been to an AF Birthday Ball. They happen every year, but either it's been bad timing or we just didn't want to go. Sometimes they can fall under the "mandatory fun" category and we all know that if it's "mandatory," then it's not going to be very fun. And this year, despite my bemoaning the fact that I couldn't find a dress that I really was excited to wear, Kirk felt that he should go and I wasn't about to let him to to a ball at a castle without me.

Thankfully his cast (6 weeks for tendinitis) fit inside his pantleg and his little "shoe" was the right shade of AF blue.

We had a wonderfully relaxing evening at Kasteel Hoensbroek. The evening was running horribly behind schedule, so at one point, we started to worry that we might never eat, but the slow pace allowed us to walk around and mingle more than most AF gatherings. And there were so many people there than I honestly like and wanted to talk to - too many, really. Certainly more than I had time to see. All the ladies dressed very nicely - ball gowns of all sorts including one VERY LARGE hoop skirt and one VERY lowcut/revealing dress - both becoming the whispered talk of the night among the ladies. Some things don't change with age. Rivers would have had a great time at this one.

The obligatory guest speaker was kind enough to keep it short and by 10 (it started at 5:30), the dining hour was over and the band began - the AF band from Ramstein singing country, rock, and all sorts of upbeat tunes - not what you would picture when thinking of a military band. No marching music here, but they were all in their mess dress - I should have gotten a photo. It was funny.

A small group of Navy came - there are about 10 on this base. One stood up to toast the AF and said that like a good big brother, they'd buy the AF a drink on it's birthday, so the Navy put money on the bar for us all. I wasn't drinking, but the thought was very nice, and with 350 people there, it was a very generous birthday gift.

Upstairs in the castle was GB's (Great Britain) party - they had loud music and a lot of flashing colored lights showing up in their windows. I was tempted to crash it - just out of curiosity, but Kirk and I were both ready to go home by 11.

A good night... and now I can say I've been to a ball at a castle. Pretty cool.

.... check out the photos that were taken... no great ones of us, but we are in #119... don't laugh.

Until tonight I'd never been to an NCO induction - a really had a very hazy idea of what an NCO actually was, but still, a nice dinner with friends and a reason to dress up and go out with my husband doesn't happen very often.

NCO stands for "non-commissioned officer" - the upper ranks of the enlisted. Everyone was very dressed up. The military all wore their dress uniforms. The women were almost all wearing black. It was the basic military function... cocktail hour with mingling - always my favorite part, introductions and pomp of various kinds, little speeches, dinner (chicken, potatoes and broccoli - nothing stupendous, but it had flavor), and the never-ending speech by a guy who I'm sure has something to say, but just didn't know how to get to the point and needed serious editing because he could have gone on forever and I think that it seriously pained him to stop at all when he really just wanted to spill every story of his 25 year military career right there in front of us all and neatly tie it together with cute little quips and lessons learned. Get the idea? Yeah... it was painful. But, it was fun to dress up. The dinner was ok. It was great to see friends and to be out with Kirk. And, the highlight for me - really - was the singing.

If I could have recorded it someway, I would have. It was fabulous. Part of the introductory pomp included the color guard. After they posted their colors, and before the twangy off-tune singer painfully belted out the Star Spangled Banner, a German man got up and sung the German national anthem. His voice was like something I'd pay to hear on stage - clean and pure and just beautiful - professional with a hit of operatic flare, but nothing so over-the-top that you'd want to gouge your eye out or anything. And though I've sung the hymn put to that same melody in church, I'd never actually heard the German anthem. It was even the first time that Kirk had ever heard the complete song. Really, it was something special. Next time I'll try to record it.