New

After a long and distinguished career as an Air Force spouse, I will be retiring in the spring with the treadmarks from Uncle Sam's boots still on my ass everlasting gratitude of my country and a miniscule small barely adequate if I was a German Sheperd pension. We will be moving to the Puget Sound area, and Lloyd will have to find a job so we have food. Let's face it: no one ever got rich off the military. Except Dick Cheney, of course, and he only eats elderly nuns, crippled children and wide-eyed kittens. I hear he likes the kittens best because he loves to suck the juice out of their eyeballs and spit the skins at the crippled children just before he crunches their bones between his teeth. It's probably just one of those internet rumors, though. Like the one about my stripper pole. Sheesh, don't people have better things to do than make up ridiculous stories and spread them around the internet?

Anyway, Lloyd would like to work as a pilot, but we recently read a stories about these guys, so I'm not sure how well that's going to work out. I mean, only so many pilots can work the street corners in one town before they start having turf wars, right? I can just see them strutting down the sidewalks in their most enticing uniforms, pushing and shoving each other to get to the best prospective employers: 'Hey, Mister! Over here! I'll take you around the world! Satisfaction guaranteed!'

Major economic indicators at Osan (knockoff bag and pirated video sales) are strong and unchanged from the time of our arrival here. Back in Seattle, where the intellectual property theft that drives the economy is lost to the annals of history instead of parading itself on every street corner, apparently the conditions are not quite so rosy, and it might be a while before Lloyd finds a job. Before you get all huffy, yes, I could work and leave Lloyd home with the boys. We did talk about that but we agree that it's better if he works for money instead of me. Plus my main skills these days are tapping and producing milk, and there's not much of a market for those. But there totally SHOULD be. I have an awesome idea for building a human milk factory but I can't seem to find any investors.

In light of our upcoming reality, we are doing some things differently now. We're practicing for the days to come when we have to make Christmas presents out of empty beer cans and tape and play with boogers instead those spendy thrift store toys. We have stopped throwing away diapers after only one use, and for dessert we make the boys lick the old popsicle juice and applesauce spatters off the walls. And I only go to the thrift store on bag sale day. Oh, okay, that one's a lie. I would NEVER skip the thrift store just to save a little money.

But the big exciting change is meal planning. For every day in September, I have plans for both lunch and dinner. Some days I have complete meals figured out but I still have some holes to fill. People claim you can save tons of money on groceries by doing this because you buy just what you need to make your pre-planned meals instead of throwing things willy-nilly into the cart. I'm not sure who these 'people' are but maybe they're on to something here.

I'll keep you posted as September progresses. Tonight is lime cilantro chicken. I have no recipe, but I figure I'll just make one up and enter it in the Pillsbury bake-off contest and win the million dollars. Who knew meal planning could be so lucrative? I just need to incorporate some refrigerated dough of the appropriate brand and come up with a snazzy name. I think 'Island Chicken' has a nice ring to it. I could put it on sticks and bake it with the biscuit dough, sort of like a Cuban corn dog.

That's the news from the kitchen in Korea! And, Lloyd's your man if you're looking for a pilot to take you on a wild trip. In an airplane, I mean.