Good Morning Kossacks and Welcome to Morning Open Thread (MOT)
We're known as the MOTley Crew and you can find us here every morning at 6:30 Eastern. Feel free to volunteer to take a day - permanently or every now and again. With the auto-publish feature you can set it and forget it. Sometimes the diarist du jour shows up much later, that's the beauty of Open Thread...it carries on without you! Just let us know in the comments.
I may or may not be here for long this morning. That's the joy of being able to publish on a queue: if life gets messy, diaries publish nonetheless.
This week begins a new chapter in our military life but it's a chapter I can't write much about. I can tell you this - I hate meeting new people. Isn't that awful, that a military wife hates the process of meeting new people? I like it once I know everyone but I hate that awkward first few days when it's hard to remember names and I confuse the person who just came from California with the one who just came from Germany. What's sometimes even crazier is when a person walks right up to you and says, "Hey, it's great to see you!" and you have no idea who they are. That happened to me yesterday... luckily my husband saved the day as he had worked with the person 4 assignments ago - about 6 years.
So far, the best part of my new schedule is the morning drive. Just after I publish this diary, I'll be leaving as the sun comes up. We will pass some of my favorite places in Washington DC - the Arlington Bridge, the backside of the Lincoln Memorial, The MLK Monument, and the Jefferson Memorial. At this time of the year, it's still dark but the edges of the clouds slowly change from dark grey to a delicate pink to a more luscious peach and sometimes even a deep orange, the sky itself is a deep blue that looks like rich silk, and all of those marvelous colors and the lights from the street and the monuments reflect in the river as we drive by. Each morning will be a little different but the monuments are stark in almost any light and I just love the way that they look.
Enjoy each others company this morning and for your viewing pleasure I'll give you a few photos that I've managed to take here in DC.
Jefferson Memorial, early morning
Arlington Memorial Bridge, early morning
View of Arlington Cemetery from DC, mid-morning
MLK Monument, mid-day
The Lincoln Memorial, late morning