It's Magical!

We had professional development today.  It is a program we support once a month that gets senior leaders out of the office for a bit to learn about other offices, leadership styles, and available resources.  Today’s meeting was with a Civilian Ambassador Advisor who works on Kandahar.  I still don’t know what he does specifically.  He reminded me of the guy in the movie “Office Space” who burnt the building down.  His voice, his stutter, and his looks all assisted in making this assessment.  At the end of his briefing he asked if we had questions.  I wanted to ask him if he ever found his stapler.  I didn’t, but that was what I was thinking. 

Other than that, today has been a quiet day.  I made good use out of my magical deployment bowl due to the last minute task given to me by my XO to prepare the theater for Senior Leader Development.  I was on my way out the door to head to lunch when he walked by and asked if I was leaving to set up. 

XO: “Are you leaving to go set up for SLDP?”

ME: “Um, no, I didn’t know I was doing that today.”

XO: “Well, somebody needs to and you set this up didn’t you?”

ME: “No, actually the LT did when he was working day shift”

XO: “Well, Battle Captain…”

ME: “Roger Sir, on my way.”

Since I did not have time to make it to the dining facility, I made a big bowl of macaroni and cheese prior to heading over to the meeting site.  MMmmmm delicious!

This bowl has seen both Iraq and Afghanistan now.  While I was in Iraq, Kraft developed their single serve macaroni and cheese packets.  Since macaroni and cheese is my all time favorite dish, my parents lovingly sent these packets to me in their care packages.  Kraft had yet to create the single serve cup, so the problem I ran into was that I could not find bowls with which to prepare my beloved meal.  Dad sought to resolve this and stumbled across the perfect bowl to send, a deep, white, stamped “break and ship resistant,” Corelle bowl.  I could then consume my favorite snack whenever the mood struck. 

Unfortunately, the same issue arose here in Afghanistan.  Members of my family would send macaroni and cheese packets (which take up less space in a box than the cups) and I could not acquire a durable bowl.  To fix this, Dad sent what we now call the deployment bowl.  This bowl is well traveled and well used!  It is magical because it is still in one piece after all these years and deployments.