All about lids (part one of ????)

When mere humans are allowed to take pictures of me, I can normally be found wearing some kind of hat.  This compulsion has various explanations, the first of which being I hate to have hair in my face, and a hat is great at keeping my very fine tresses away from the toxic face slime.

Me and the cats, watching some boob tube with Andy.

The second reason I adore hats is because I like to be able to see stuff, and the brims of my favorite hat (a relaxed profile baseball cap like the one I am wearing in the photo above) are great at keeping sun out of my bespectacled eyes.

Another great feature of hats with big brims is that you can hide your facial expressions.  I am very quick to react to things, and I would make a horrible poker player because my face always tells people my emotions.  I don't want people to know what is going on inside my head all the time, so if I need to compose myself before responding, being able to lower my head and grab the nicely curled brim of my hat for a few seconds while I think, that's priceless!

The hat pictured below doesn't facilitate that type of protective behavior.  It has SOOOOO many things wrong with it.

I call it the bucket hat, because it is VERY far from relaxed.  It is very firm, and makes you stand up straight (I guess promoting good posture is one of its best attributes, in fact).  It has these magical properties because it is a military cover with shiny stuff on it.  It also does not fit very snugly, so you have to stand up straight and refrain from bending over quickly.

It is part of my fancy uniform, and I DO NOT like wearing my fancy uniform.  I would much rather be wearing my working duds, which includes being able to carry a knife, or even better a multi-tool, and of course cargo pants with HUGE pockets, and big old boots which make me seem taller than I actually am.

Chris and I wearing my least favorite hat in the world.  Curse you Edith Head!!!!

In the picture above, Andy asked to take a picture of Chris and I in our uniforms at Admiral Gene Brooks' change of command in Juneau a few years back.

However, we are wearing slightly different versions of the United States Coast Guard's Service Dress Blue (SDB) uniform.  I am wearing gloves and my big medals on one side of my jacket, and my other ribbons backwards on the opposite side from where they would normally be.  I also have a white shirt on, while Chris has the normal light blue shirt, no gloves, and the ribbons on the regular side, with her name tag on the opposite one.

I was in the honor platoon, which is why I am wearing the Alfa version of the SDB, and Chris is modeling the Bravo, which we would normally use for events involving non-coasties, during the fall/winter season.

Since I am currently attached to a "field" unit, I wear our Operational Dress Uniform (basically a dark blue fatigue type uniform), which includes a high profile baseball cap.

Unfortunately for me, the current Commandant does not like relaxed baseball caps, so he has mandated a nasty trucker style hat, with no scrambled eggs.  More on that in a later blog.