Last night was the Khaki Ball for our area. What, pray tell, is the Khaki Ball??? (No matter how many times I type "khaki," I always mistype it...) The Khaki Ball is a special dance just for Chiefs, Senior Chiefs, and Master Chiefs to celebrate the initiation of that year's class of new Chiefs.

All the new Chiefs wore their khakis (imagine that!), while the spouses got all gussied up. My friend AA and I kept telling other Chiefs, "Hey! You're wearing the same thing as MY husband! How dare you?!"

It was pretty funny, at least after the third or fourth drink.

Yeah, don't ask me how much I drank. Let's just say it was a LOT.

What else could I do?? Some of our friends didn't drink and were content with the water on the table, so they donated their drink tickets to us. What else were we supposed to do, NOT use them??? Not likely!

The dinner was really good. Navy balls of any kind, from the actual Navy Ball every October to celebrate the birth of the US Navy to each command's Christmas party, tends to have just okay food. Last night, probably because we were in an actual nice hotel, featured some really good food. They had some sort of breaded chicken with a cheesy sauce, as well as salad with raspberry vinaigrette and a lovely tomato-cucumber salad dressed with oil and vinegar. It was just really, really good!

We had a guest speaker after dinner. Apparently this man is a retired Navy commander, disabled vet, the whole nine yards. And he was funny as all hell. But there was no real point to his speech. It seemed like just a string of really funny things to say; there was no real cohesion to his speech. I had to pee partway through his speech, and I couldn't tell how much longer he was going to go on because he'd already said ten minutes before that he was getting ready to wrap it up. I felt bad sneaking out, but I HAD to go, else I would have had a childish accident.

Once he was done yammering and all the necessary prayers and thanks to God (why is the Navy so religious anyhow? And I didn't think chaplains could pray to Jesus in uniform. I know saying "God" is okay, but I thought "Jesus" was off-limits. Oh, well. I think we should have a Jewish chaplain one day. Why can't we pray to the Jewish God once in a while???) were given, the dj started up his music. And boy, did he have GOOD music!! I tell you what, dancing to Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" is so much fun! I get tired of hearing it on the radio, but it's really a workout to actually dance to. I loved it! My friend AA were on the dance floor nearly every song. We had to -- we were drinking too much!

In between sets of songs, they started giving away door prizes. There were the regular $25, $50, and $100 gift certificates to the Navy Exchange (which I really wanted), as well as cool prizes like stainless steel cookware, a KitchenAid stand mixer, and golf clubs. I kept listening for our numbers, but they never came up.

I had just about given up winning ANYTHING last night and had shut my eyes for a bit. At this point it was nearly midnight, and I was very bleary. I thought the final gift was the golf clubs, which went to another new Chief from our ship, so we were stoked that someone from the ship had won. All of a sudden, the announcer mentioned they had one more item to give away -- the GRAND PRIZE!! The next thing out of his mouth was number 028, my number!!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I won the GRAND PRIZE!!!!!

(For the second time in a row, but anyhow...)

What was the grand prize?? Check it out!

That, dear friends, is a ceremonial cutlass, worn only during the most formal of ceremonies. It is also not a cheap piece of equipment. It's not necessary, but I think it's pretty damn cool that we won the ceremonial cutlass the year Kurt was promoted to Chief!

Do you think Poolagirl will let me join her tribe of Pie-Rats, now that I have my own cutlass??

*wink*