It's a Wonderful CID Life

It's Christmas morning, pouring rain outside the Casa de Leprechaun, and as soon as the clock strikes 0700 hours, I'll begin assembling a small laptop desk. I acquired this mini-workstation in order to set up my "presents" from headquarters: an Army laptop with docking station, flat-panel monitor, and printer. Once the workstation is set up, I'll be spending most of Christmas Day finishing the bits of case documentation from my Temporary Duty (TDY) last week in another state. Although this year I avoided watching that Jimmy Stewart/Donna Reed holiday classic film, "It's a Wonderful Life", I've seen it enough times (approximately 231 viewings, if my calculations are correct) to have the plot indelibly ingrained in my remaining brain cells.
So as I'm working on my case file today, it'll be easy to create my own parallel world to Bedford Falls, for example having ZuZu (my Team Chief) say something like, "Every time you put a suspect in the title block, an angel gets his wings!" That old, irascible meany Mr. Potter is collectively portrayed by the folks who administer TriCare, nickel and diming us little folks to death. My own Spousal Unit is cuter and even more talented than Donna Reed (but much less likely to ever hand over our vacation fund to strangers!), and fortunately, neither of our pups are able to practice the piano when I'm trying to concentrate.

The one thing I have in common with George Bailey? It's the year-round Christmas present of having truly excellent family, friends and colleagues around the world. Some are in harm's way right now, others are just apart from their own families during the holidays while serving our country. So even while I doubt I've been assigned my own version of Clarence, the Guardian Angel-Without-Wings, and spending Christmas Day doing investigation paperwork is "5% Awesome", there's no doubt at all that I do lead a "Wonderful (CID) Life."

Police Navidad, y'all!