There is a building on the base that houses a small, but very full Shopette (I posted about these before...but quickly, a Shopette is where you can buy your gas coupons, alcohol, snacks, and convenience items; rent/buy DVDs; and ours will order larger things for us -- like fans or humidifiers); a chow hall (open to family members and guests who are accompanied); an ATM and cash cage; and our APO boxes--with small attached mail facility; the club; a small exercise room; and a nice little playground.
Needless to say, this is often the center of activities. Whether it is the Support Our Squadron club (which might, in another era, have been an Officer's Wives Club - except we don't have enough officers for that here), an ad-hoc toddler music and motion class, a jumping off point for going on a trip to some place.
With this central role, it is of course where most of base life happens. It figures loudly in people's good and bad memories of the place.
Eric works long days, so Eileen and I will often sneak over to meet him or someone else for lunch there. Right now, with Eric out of town (he'll be back on Monday), Eileen and I sneak over around lunch time and to pick up our mail in the middle of the day. It is an easy way out of the house, since everyone there speaks English. Though, like Los Alamos (only more so--since it is about an order of magnitude smaller in terms of population), there is no anonymity there.
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