The Fish-Eaters

I found this article today. I’ve never actually put these ideas together, before, which shows that I’m either slow or just have never read them in the same context. One more strike against conventional wisdom?

After all, “everyone knows” that:

1. Everyone should, in their best interests, eat more fish and less of the other meats, especially red meat. Fish is packed with Omega-3 fatty acids and all sorts of other wonderful nutrients, and all the cultures that eat fish with regularity are healthier, smarter, and better across the board.
2. Commerical fisheries are depleting our oceans of fish, creating a situation where many species of fish are rapidly vanishing.

It’s fascinating that we don’t see these two common-knowlege items positioned together. Instead, we’re led to believe, it’s our evil gluttonousness as a society, and the nefarious commercialists of Big Business who conspire to deplete our oceans of fish. How interesting if it’s really because we’re all trying to be nutritionally correct and health-conscious, and that increasing demand is placing too heavy a burden on the fishing industry?

Hmmm. Makes you wonder. Well, it makes me wonder, anyway. Funny, you never hear anyone crying about depleting the world of cows or pigs, do you? Perhaps, as a wild flight of fancy, this might be because it’s natural for we humans to eat things that we’ve domesticated for the purpose of eating . . . and when we eschew domesticated foods in favor of wild ones, the meagre resources of wild species that reproduce naturally aren’t enough to satisfy the needs of human population. Intriguing . . .

Six weeks and counting

How obnoxious. The site just “ate” my first version of this post–and it was long, too. Serves me right–I know better than to not back it up!

I’m having a less-than-optimal Friday because I slept badly last night. I woke up at 2 a.m. and ended up awake for two hours, watching DVRed episodes of Project Runway until a little after 4. Part of this was the fault of my two kitties–they discovered that they could see a patch of the bottom of their food bowl, and in kitty-land, all food bowls must be full at all times, or one must meow repeatedly in one’s owner’s ear and/or bat playfully at their face as it rests on the pillow until it is brought to their attention that the food bowl is in its sorry state. So I crankily gave in to their obnoxiousness (I should refuse on principle and lock them out of my bedroom, but I can’t imagine doing that), and then I was too awake to go back to sleep.

I do know the source of this insomnia, though–it’s been called to my attention this week how very near my deployment I am getting. And I’m starting to worry about it, I guess. My head was spinning with that kind of detail-planning that you do, particularly when you should be emptying out your head and preparing to sleep. Well, as insomnia goes, anticipatory worry really isn’t such a terrible cause–all my previous bouts of insomnia this past year have been related to crying jags and breakup stuff. Ugh! Excitement/anticipation/worry about going somewhere new and trying out something new are definitely worlds better than the other!

But it left me feeling stupid, headachey, and slightly irritable today (naturally when a blog post would get eaten by a site that I’ve always found before to be reliable–it’s Murphy’s Law, I suppose!). I don’t think I look my best, either. When I drove up to the gate to the base this morning, the security guard who checked my badge said cheerily, “Hey there, Captain! How ya be?” to which I smiled and responded much as usual, “Good–how’re you?” But then he started laughing uproariously and said, “Mmmmm hmmmm” quite knowingly . . . leaving me to wonder if he was implying that 1) he knew I was lying and I wasn’t having a great day, or 2) I looked like I’d made a hasty “walk of shame” from some unusual overnight location (though I suppose you’d have to call it a “drive of shame”), or 3) if I just looked so pale and black-circled and wet-haired that he just couldn’t help laughing . . . Well, anyway, it made me feel oh-so-slightly paranoid. Oh well!

The thing that got me so worried is this: I’ve been having hassles with the preparations for deployment. It came to my attention Tuesday that before I deploy, I’m supposed to get trained with Security Forces for a week. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but next Thursday I’m leaving until the end of the month for some other training that’s essentially the same thing, only with a group and on a more in-depth scale. However, base policy apparently says that I must get this week-long training to deploy from here. Unfortunately, the only times that it is to be offered is during the fourth week of October and the last week of November. And the date that I’m required to be in Baghdad is Tuesday of that same fourth week of October. Hmmm.

Add to this problem the fact that I’ve tried repeatedly, and only just today managed to get ahold of any of the people within my organization who are supposed to have anything to do with this. I’ve called, emailed, and no one replies or responds. Arrrgh! However, it does sound like someone is going to realize that the two weeks of training I’m doing should suffice to replace the one week of training I can’t do. It may end up taking special permission from the base commander, but I guess they’re working on it!

Here’s hoping that things go more smoothly from now on . . .