Deployment Souvenir

While this crazy kid enjoyed some playdough time


(on a side note: i would have NEVER let the Boyo do this at his age. The mess! I'm not totally thrilled about it now, but.... eh. I'm pregnant)

We finally cleaned this puppy off and put it in the living room.  It had been sitting in the garage since February when it arrived from Iraq via tough box.  We vacuumed it six or seven times while it was out there, but did not want to move it in until we could carpet clean it.  My generous neighbor is always letting me use hers, so its just been a time/laziness issue, so I finally got off my duff about it.

I love how hideous it is.  The outer pattern is nice, actually, but the Turkish hunters slaying oddly faced deers and lions is bizarre at best and downright oooogly at worst.  But I think its awesome.  Its a genuine Turkish rug (machine woven, lets not get crazy), from Iraq, that sat on the floor of the FOB of Mr. 1st LT's site since at least the invasion, and possibly under Sadaam.  We vacuumed 4 to 5 sandboxes of genuine Iraqi desert out of that thing (so. gross.) because apparently, while it sat in the office, it was never once cleaned.  We have also used the steam cleaner on it twice, which yielded terrifying Ganges like water.

Definitely looked better when done, but if you sit in the living room for a while in the evenings, you start to get a "rug" smell.  Sort of dusty meets sandstorm meets carpet.  We're hoping it airs out more over time.  If not, I  guess I have to investigate how many millions of dollars it would cost to have a ginormous rug professionally cleaned.

But as of now, it was freeee, freee, freeee! :) (Not stolen, rescued from the trash!)

So now we have a little piece of the Middle East in our house, one which I am sure will come in genuinely handy back in LA, considering so many places there have tile or hardwood flooring. The reds in the rug go perfectly in our living room.

Almost makes up for not having a husband for seven months!