Absence

Shakespeare said that parting was sweet sorrow... he was right.

But sorrow it is, though have the consolation of knowing it isn't meant to be permanent. I put Maia, and a friend of ours (who arranged to visit for three days on her way home from China, where she has been for the past ten months) onto planes to Amherst, for an annual Quaker gathering.

Now, even if I'd had the $1,500 it costs to attend (that doesn't include airfare), or if they for some reason (as they did our friend) were so enamoured of me they chose to offer me a guest rate ($150) I still would be here, at home, alone... because I am not alone.

The horses need to be fed, likewise the mice, the geese (of which we have one less, sigh... she ought to have been good for another 6-10 years, but all flesh is grass, and some returns to dust sooner than others) as well the dogs, the chickens and the parakeet. The snakes I can afford to not worry about, unless the eggs, due any day now, should choose to, then I need to find a couple of dozen pinkie mice; with immediacy (though I have a probably source... so I'm not likely to have to send an order for next day shipping to Canada).

But it still sucks.

I have things to fill my time (and with a modicum of careful questions I got most of my plans approved with her mother before Maia left, so there shouldn't be too much heartache when I do them).

I have trees to trim, and one to remove, I have ground to till (for late corn and tomatoes), I have roses to water, photographs to take (one of the trees is being removed because it is dying, and the bark beetles have given it great (and wonderful) excrescences of hardening sap... incipient amber, all of which glows in the afternoon light, so I have 20 minutes or so of time in which I can see it all in the frame of the lens, defined by the magnification of the bellows, abstract and intimate, at several times life size, inner fire and bark to capture on film.

So I am not full of empty hours, but I am lacking in company to share the house with. It's been awhile since we had space to ourselves, then again, it's been a while since I had time to myself.... Have to make hay while the sun shines, so I guess this is a week I can treat as time behind the cloister wall, "Introspection, thy name is solitude."

I hope that 10 days from now I shan't be cursing myself for not getting enough done.

Today the ruminations, tomorrow the tiller.

State of the Army

I know I have a small readership, but recent events cause me to think it might be worth tossing a little bread on the waters.

This past week, while tooling about (I think it was to the airport to retrieve our guest from China) I heard news that the DoD was planning to call up the IRR.

That is, for those of you not up on Acronym, the Individual Ready Reserve... those soldier who are either within eight years of the date they enlisted, and have left active duty, or who have; for whatever reason, elected to take a Active Reserve contract and move it to the IRR (in the IRR one is not required to attend drill, the most one is expected to do is prove, once a year, that one still has a uniform).

The main difference between an IRR call-up and a Ready Reserve (Guard and Reserve troops who attend drill every month, you know, one weekend a month, and two-weeks a year) is that they can call people up one by one.

They need a mechanic, no need to call up an entire company, because we have one here in the IRR.

I can see two reasons for this, one there are not enough troops in the units they are calling up or they don't have the people in the ranks (officers are a bit different, technically they can be recalled to duty until they are dead, in practice this is rarely used, but the current Army Chief of Staff was so recalled).

In either case this is a bad sign, it means we can't meet the needs we have with the troops on hand. Rumor has it that some people are being selected not because they have military skills, but because the skills of their civilian jobs are needed in the Army (which explains things I heard about calling up linguists and tech specialists from the civilian sector... sort of a rough and ready version of what the Army calls cross-levelling).

It will also, I think, play poorly in Peoria. There are grumbles in the ranks about how the Active Reserves are being used too much, family members who are asking soldiers to get out (it's a maxim that if the spouse thinks the soldier should/can stay in, the soldier will, but if the spouse wants the soldier out, no more re-enlistments) and this is not going to go over well with husbands and wives who were happy the troop left active duty.

And those people have opinions, they are vocal. If one takes parents into account the 5,600 people being called up will have at least a thousand people who have strong feelings about the matter, and they will speak out... after all who is going to be able to tell them to keep quiet when they can retort... "My "x" is in Iraq right now."

But it bodes ill for our security... we are pulling water from deeper in the well, someday it will run dry.

TK