Plans change and a pig gives it’s life..

It seems as of late that a lot of times when I get in a groove or start to have a plan for the weekend, month, year, life, etc. the AF quickly reminds me of my need to be flexible! I am a slow learner (hence needing to be constantly reminded) however I am starting to see a pattern developing. I have also surprised myself by not getting my feathers as ruffled as I use to when our plans suddenly changed..maybe there’s hope for me yet. All that to say that this last weekend was one of those plans quickly changing weekends!

First my friday run got all rained out (seriously folks it rained ALL thursday night,  ALL day on friday and into saturday morning..not cool). I had a feeling on thursday (which was my day off of running) that I should run since they were forecasting heavy rain for friday but due to the unfortunate reality of getting the second part of my root canal done on thursday morning I opted to take my chances (I have a serious drooling problem when my mouth isn’t numb, I didn’t want to even see how running with a numb mouth would turn out.."it’s just sweat people..really”)!

Anyways, we had originally been planning on heading up to New York to meet up with the in-laws for a weekend there since they were passing through. However, there was some inspection going on at the base and the hubs wasn’t sure if he would be called in to work during the weekend so we had to cancel the NYC trip (although it was probably good considering the weather and the fact that it was 9/11). Before we had planned the NYC trip the hubs had told me about a squadron picnic bbq thing that was happening this saturday, but once we decided to go to NYC as far as I knew we were no longer planning on attending this said bbq. When we realized we had to cancel, we started making other tentative plans for the weekend but nothing was said about the bbq (which had long since left my spastic brain). We planned on going out to breakfast, finding some fun marathon running clothes (next week folks..ahh) and then meeting up with some friends that night for dinner (all tentative since we weren’t sure if the hubs would have to work).

Friday night rolls around and the hubs tells me that he doesn’t think he is going to have to work after all (yay)! However he then proceeds to bring up the squadron bbq (which I had totally not remembered), another plan switcharoo, and we had to nix the shopping (sadness) but we were still able to go to breakfast and meet friends for dinner (and if you feed me I am happy so it was okay).

Okay, now here’s where the story gets a little tramatic..

Earlier saturday morning, before we get to the bbq, the hubs proceeds to inform me that part of the bbq includes a whole pig roast which the guys were starting about 3-4am so that it would be ready for that afternoon. humm…interesting…but I didn’t give it much thought (I usually don’t eat at these things anyways and I was still focusing on the fact that it was raining and they said the bbq would happen come rain or shine..i don’t do rain)!

One thing I have to point out is that the hubs recently changed squadrons, he is still in the same group but there are many squadrons in one group and they tend to switch the guys around at least once a year. Therefore, I hadn't really met anyone in this squadron and had no idea what to expect.

As we arrive at the bbq the air was still a bit damp but at least it wasn’t raining anymore. I guess there was some mix up on the actual start time so we arrived with hardly anyone else there. But don’t worry the guys that had been up roasting the pig since 3am had also started drinking around that time so they provided the entertainment!

As we are walking up, smelling all the good bbq smells, I approach the grill and there it is…a Whole pig on the grill with it’s empty eye sockets staring right at me! What the heck! Yeah i jumped a little (or a lot) which provided ample material for the guys to start teasing me with. It all started with the wave of a roasting hoof…and they were off! I had never seen a whole pig roasting before and I had to literally stop myself from regurgitating the said breakfast from the morning. Now to some people it might not seem like that big of a deal but let me give a little background information.

Yes, in high school I was miss Ag girl herself. Although we lived in a very suburban area I was in the FFA (Future Farmers of America) which in my 4 years enabled me to raise two lambs and two pigs to show and sell at the local county fair. I loved it! And the pigs by far were my favorite. I had no idea what a personality they could develop. Although I knew that when I sold them they were not going to some nice family to be raised as their own child, I had allowed myself to live with some sort of hope that maybe ..just maybe..their buyer would see their true self and not have the heart to end their life. I don’t know why I even allowed myself to live in that dream world since my own parents were part of the buyers and therefore had my little Jamima’s bacon in our own freezer! umm..yeah..

so as you can imagine when I walked up and saw the almost alive looking pig roasting in all its beer marinated and crispy glory I started to have some major flashbacks to my own little piggy days. This pig was no longer just dinner to me…I could now only see my little Jamima! Yes, it was traumatic and yes I had a hard time looking over there and I tried not to think about the little pig that sacrificed it’s life so that we wouldn’t be left hungry. However, I do love a good pulled pork sandwich and when it came down to it my stomach won out :0

It was very yummy but I couldn’t get the picture of the poor little piggy out of my mind and it literally haunted me the rest of the weekend..maybe I should go vegetarian..it makes you think! I am doing better now but I would prefer next time to have the head and feet already gone before I see a pig providing us dinner!

Am I crazy for being so traumatized?!