fire fire fire

Yesterday I walked to work looking at the black smoke rolling up to the sky. I figured the Haji flea market with its fifty wicker booths had finally bit the dust – Persian rugs offered to a Persian god. But I got closer and saw that it was the palace. I little shack we built on the second deck mezzanine was fully engulfed in leaping orange flames. The water trucks still hadn’t shown up. A total loss.
By the time the fire was completely out the area was destroyed. The chandeliers had crashed down and the fascia stone was falling off, concrete flaking off revealing the cheap, forced construction Saddam had mandated when he rebuilt this place in 1991. “Rebuild what the Americans destroyed in three months or I will kill you,” was his mandate, or something like that.
Once they let us go inside I walked up to my office thru swishing water and heavy smoke and saw that two rooms inside were totally gutted by the fire – all plaster and wood completely charred. My office was unharmed except for the smoke smell and lack of AC. What could have been a bad situation turned out to be not so bad as it could have been. The DFAC had to serve MRE's for lunch. I got cheese tortellini, among my favorites from the governments collection. And peole carried on with what they had to do. I chaired a meeting to establish an SOP for submitting work requests. And the IT's did a great job. Despite their offices being destroyed by the fire they had the palace back online in a matter of hours.
Nothing further to report.
When I walked to work this morning there were high white cloudes in the sky. They turned the sunlight a grey pink in places where it passed thru them. I haven't seen anything like that in a long time.