Life in the desert

I never thought I would wake up in the morning and think, only 93 degrees this morning?  Kinda chilly.  But it's true.  In the morning, when I walk the sandy hill up to the hospital, the weather is a nice sunny, mid 90's temperature.  By the afternoon, the sun has hits its peak and the wind blows sand into my eyes.  I know eyelashes are meant to protect your eyes from things getting into them, but honestly, when your eyelashes are full of sand, what good is being done??

The hospital here is amazing.  It is surprising what can be done with limited equipment and resources. The nurses here are top notch, able to scrounge around and think outside of the box when it comes to supplies.  The patient population is pretty stable; active duty Army are most of the clientele, but there are some Navy and Air Force service members thrown in for good measure.  I am pumped that we get to wear scrubs tops with our desert cammie bottoms...but I never in my life thought I would be so ok with wearing my boots everyday.  I have become very close to my "glow belt"...since this is an army base, we have to wear the refelctive belt pretty much at all times.  The old Maura used to rebel against things like this, especially since the effectiveness of a glow belt in the glaring sun won't make me any more visible to oncoming traffic, but the new Maura is just trying to acclimate to Army life with as little difficulty as possible.  No, I will never use "tracking" or "hooah" in normal conversation, but I am at least understanding the implications of "hooah" when used in the vernacular by soldiers.  In context, the word can be used so many ways.  Be it positive, negative, a war cry, a sound for anger...soldiers embrace the "hooah" mentality with a surprising love.  I, myself, continue to say va bene instead...not many people know what the heck that means, but for me, it's a little way to stick to the man.

I am off today and thank goodness I was.  It was the first time I got to sleep in and so had a regular nights sleep since I arrived in this time zone.  Here is hoping I can sleep again tonight!