Anti-Valentine’s Day, Fake Amy, Harlem Shake, and Bad Dancing

Anti-Valentine’s Day

My lab mate Amy decided to throw a Valentine’s Day party, but not a traditional lovey-dovey one. Since most of the people here are away from their families, the theme of the party was Anti-Valentine’s Day. We set up decorations, created games, and made a cake all with anti-love themes. My favorites were the cupid with his own arrow stuck in his back that I saw as a jpeg image and decided to recreate on the wall with chalk for everyone to see, and the hearts where you could write down the name(s) of people that had crushed your heart in the past and then thrown the heart into the bonfire and watch it burn ß yeah, we’re a little morbid, but it was a hit.

I made a piñata from an Amazon box, cardboard, butcher paper and a bunch of photos that I took off the internet. The piñata was heart shaped and had anti-Valentine’s decorations on the one side and Valentine’s decorations on the other. Once we were able to actually gather everyone around to view the destruction, this turned out to be a highlight of the evening. Apparently, Amazon makes their boxes to last and therefore one of them probably wasn’t the best idea for using for the center of the piñata, but the advantage was that a lot more people got to take a swing at it.

We made people (a very international crowd filled with people of various different ranks and providing good blackmail photos of higher ranking people spinning in circles and walking crazily as they swing at empty air in a quest to hit the target) put a blindfold on, spin on the ground around the stick a few times and then they got one good whack at the ghastly heart that I created. We found out that 550 cord is weaker than an Amazon box. After the 15^th person or so had taken a swing, the heart was almost non-existence, the 550 cord had snapped twice, and the box, although showing some signs of abuse, was mockingly still intact, so a knife was used to weaken it and one final whack sent pink and red candy flying everywhere. Good times. 

Fake Amy

Amy, my lab mate, was set to go on vacation and as the date grew near, certain people started to mope because she’d be leaving. The night before she left, she, and few others, got together and created a plan for helping people deal with her absence. This plan required a carefully staged pose, a color printer and some heavy-duty cardboard. The night after Amy left for vacation, was a party to celebrate the promotion of one of our German counterparts and the guy that would miss Amy the most. We arrived with a life-sized Fake Amy and sent everyone into hysterics. Fake Amy was posing with her knees bent, her hands to her face, and an “Oh My” look on her face. She instantly became a hit and was passed from one guest to the next. Everyone wanted a picture with Fake Amy and with her expression of “uh-oh” there were some funny-ass photos. Since Real Amy has been gone, Fake Amy has been coming out a lot socially and standing in for her.

Both the Seans, Andre, and Dave decided to pose in the shower as some cross between  Rockettes and demure women, with Fake Amy watching on with her “Oh-no what did I just walk in on” expression. It’s a priceless set of photographs. Blackmail for the future.

Harlem Shake

Half of the people reading this blog might have heard about the latest craze going viral on YouTube, that of the Harlem Shake. Andre has been wanting to make a Harlem Shake Afghanistan video since the thing came out, but everyone had been slightly adverse to the idea. That was until there were about 30 people at a party having a good time and Fake Amy came out. The song came on and everyone decided, “what the hell…let’s do this.” It actually became so much fun that everything the song came on (the play list at the party wasn’t that long), people would get up and start yelling for the video camera. I don’t think that our video is the best, but we definitely had fun making it.

There’s one version where Dave duck-walks with Fake Amy across the front of the screen. I think that’s the best. I attempted to impersonate The Loney Island’s “Creeper” dance, but with my lovely skill, I didn’t manage this very well. My friend said a looked like a demented hamster dancing. So when Andre, finally puts the video up, you can all take a look and have a good laugh at my expense.

Latin Dancing

To continue the bad dancing theme started in the above section of this post, we had a joint birthday/going away party the other night. Our NCOIC turned the big 4-0 on the same day that one of the triage guys turned 28 and both our German lab people are nearing the end of their deployments. We combined all this for a nice little BBQ and bonfire time. Andre played DJ once it was determined that Dieter was banned from choosing music (no one liked his picks) and as such a bunch of Latin music was added to the mix. Between Andre and my friend Pedro and the bad encouragement of everyone else in the camp, I attempted to dance various different Latin dances. I can safely say that I do still suck at dancing, but that I had fun…and it’s a good thing that Pedro has steel toed boots.

Moving On

On last note to mark for this entry. I’ll be moving Kandahar Air Force base in May. New adventures await me there.