Unstagnant Weekend 
There is always water flowing. 

8:39 pm 
Saturday was an adventure.  We slept in rather late, then packed up to see Fort Monmouth, which we hope will be our new home come this fall.  The rain pelted us the whole way up, and at every rest stop and meal break, I made multiple attempts to reach Brooklynguy, since we were going to be passing through his town.  Unfortunately, his modem was on.  I'd given up trying to call his celphone upon learning he'd turned it off for the weekend.  I tried getting a friend in Florida to email him, but the timing was all off on that and it just fell through.  I later found out we'd passed within five blocks of his house, and had been driving past a computer store right about the time he was in it.  Well, hell. 
    The drive itself was a long slow journey with frequent stops and constant rain that varied in intensity.  There was some fighting between the boys that eventually resulted in the older one being moved to the "way back" seat.  The dogs were well behaved, and only once did Misha look ready to make a break for it, but we stopped that cold.     
    Once we got there, the rain had let up and we got to have a look around.  Fort Monmouth is the home of the United States Military Academy Preparatory School (hope I got that acro right), the place where highschoolers can get ready for West Point.  There are a couple other high profile agencies there, but I forget just what they are now.  I do recall that when I worked at 542d EODCT in Fort Dix back in 90-92, we had a subordinate unit at Monmouth.  It's gotten to be a hobby of mine that whenever we move, I look up the local EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal - bomb squad) unit to see if anyone I know is there.  Most of my cronies have retired by now though.  There is probably no longer any point. 
    The post is very clean and in good repair.  I saw very few of those WWII era buildings that are rotting and crumbling all over Army posts nationwide, the ones with leaded paint, asbestos, and lead water pipes.  Everything there looked healthy and clean.  This means money.  An obviously rich post.  Probably all the high profile units, it has to look good for the brass and civilians, so it gets lots of allocations.  This bodes well; at rich posts, if you need to replace a hinge or a toilet float, you can just go down to the self-help store and pick up the items needed.  On poor posts, you have to file a work order which may or may not get filled within weeks or months, or you go out and buy the materials you need yourself, which in some of these shacks can get to be quite an expensive endeavor. 
    The housing on the post proper was very nice, with brickface and everything.  Predictably, most of these were firmly embedded in Officer Territory, but I was surprised to find that some of these were labeled on the map as Enlisted Housing, too.  Sergeants Major, for sure. 
    On the way back, we passed one of the housing areas that were government quarters, but for some reason located in an off-post enclave, so we drove in to look.  These were the sorts of quarters I am more used to, townhouse apartments with sad siding, mildew stains, exposed wiring.  Still, these were better than on most posts, and many seemed to be under renovation.  This was a very encouraging thing to see, and even the worst units had obviously new windows and doors.  They also had the new style of neighborhood playgrounds that are just now being installed here at Fort Meade, the safer molded plastic modular sets replacing the steel pipe and exposed bolt sort of my childhood. 
    The ride back was uneventful.  Moomie fell asleep in the van.  So did I.  We all went straight to bed. 
    Yesterday was the brunch I'd been waiting for.  Again, we all slept in late.  I actually ironed (gasp!) my favorite shirt - autumn orange with the black embroidery and the marvelous black slacks my mom gave me, which are the only pants I have that look relatively new.  I vacillated on whether to wear the clunky shoes I'd bought for the Gus' party, because they are pretty feminine, but in a gutsy way, then decided that feminine and gutsy is what I was looking for, and did wear them. 
    I left the house at 9:30, even though the brunch wasn't until 11:30.  I hadn't hunted down the location of the place yet and still needed gasoline and cash.  Armed with nothing more than the street name and the name of the deli, I drove in more or less a square around the town until running into the proper street, then followed the street away from town until finding the deli, with fifteen minutes to spare. 
    Krupins was packed.  Apparently it is the best deli in town and everyone in town knows it.  I despaired of finding any of the women I was supposed to meet.  I joined the lengthy line and waited, moving up slowly until the guy doing the greeting, either Mel or Morty, one of the two brothers who own the place, asked me how many in my party. 
    "I dunno, I'm supposed to meet the Nice Jewish Girls." 
    "Nice Jewish girls?  We don't got nice Jewish girls here, we only got bad Jewish girls." 
    He moved further down the line then yelled at me from the end of the counter.  "Hey, I found some nice Jewish guys, will they do?" 
    I finally figured it was hopeless and was heading toward the door when I saw a knot of women in the line.  On a whim I asked if they were the NJGs and they were!  The guy came back around and one of them said to him, "Hey we are six now." 
    "Oh, you're the nice Jewish girls."  He yelled to the front of the line, where the guys now were, "Hey I found the nice Jewish girls, they're back here."  The guys burst into shy giggles as I told the women the rest of the story, to which they responded in laughter. 
    The brunch was great.  We discussed all kind of things, much of which went over or around my head, but it was electrifying anyway.  I certainly was the odd man out, so to speak, with my waffle and eggs against everyone else's lox and whitefish.  I really like these women and hope we do get to do this again, but this time with those of us we never did get connected with. 
    Today the kids were with me, because the sitter's kids were sick again and no replacement could be found.  I only had two productive days last week so it really hurts to lose today, but I took the kids with me to do errands and the post office and bank, then took em to Chuck E. Cheese's to drain them of excess energy in the hopes of getting them to nap a little so's I could work some.  Going there isn't as expensive if you limit the tokens, stress the play structures, and eat elsewhere afterward.  The kids did indeed nap, but my head was throbbing so badly at that point that work was impossible, so I went ahead and slept too, after taking some motrin. 
    It's now 11:05.  With interruptions inside and outside cyberspace, that's how long it's taken to write these things. 
    I am still a bit fragged from last week's nastiness, but starting to lose some of my petrifaction.  I don't want to feel too much though, I keep numb as much as possible.  I don't get hurt so much that way.