Insert Tab A into Slot B 30 May 2009

Every time I put my headphones on, I think of my trip to DC a couple weeks ago with a couple of girlfriends.  We’d stopped in at a shoe store in Dupont Circle where we got some amazingly personal service, so personal that we got several group hugs from our salesman after we each paid for our brand new shoes.  Later we came back to pick up the other salesman so he could show us to this particular coffee shop, but he couldn’t figure out why his earphones had such a strange cord.  Because mine are the same way, one side much shorter than the other, I was able to show him that the longer end is meant to go behind one’s head so that only one cord drapes down from the head.  He was flabbergasted and insisted I put them in his ears for him.

Then on the way to the coffee shop, he gave us his entire life story — all about his former partner and what that partner did to him and how he was going to exact his revenge and what he’d already done to get retribution.  It was just… amazing.  Except my new shoes ended up giving me bleeding blisters by the time we got to the coffeeshop, and I haven’t been able to wear them since.

Aww.

It was one of those absolutely perfect days today.  I’m sure some would argue, since it wasn’t all that warm, but after the cold, frigid, rainy days we’ve been having, it was perfectly heavenly to me.  Yesterday was still cold, only hitting 60º.  I had to wear a coat as we walked to dinner and then to the Depot of Home.  A coat!  When it’s just a couple of days from June.  We’re not in Seattle anymore, Toto!

Today was sunny and bright with high, puffy clouds.  It was in the mid-70s with a breeze that was just enough to cool things down in the sun.  When I told Kurt that I didn’t want it to get any warmer than that (wishful thinking, I know), he replied that I’d love Hawaii.  80º and partly cloudy every day, with somewhere on the island getting some rain.

Yeah, I suppose Hawaii would be nice, but I like having a winter too.  Over the last few years I’ve come to realize that I much prefer the winter to the summer.  Not the common preference, I know, but I just don’t like the heat and the sun and the warmth.  Plus I’ve got very fair skin, and if I forget to slather myself with sunblock, I burn.  I’d rather be cold and add more layers to my clothing than be wearing as little as possible and still be hot.  Maybe if I lived somewhere with central air conditioning, I’d change my mind.

Says the girl who’d like to move to southern Virginia next.

My best friend lives down there, and she’s already setting up the sprinkler almost every day so the kids can run through and cool off.  Amazing.  We used to live there, when we were first married seven years ago, and I can remember coming out of our nicely cooled apartment into the oppressive humidity and heat.  It was like getting smacked in the face with air from a hot, wet oven.  You don’t walk from one place to another so much as you swim there — or at least it feels that way with the humidity.  Sometimes I feel as though I should grow gills, just so I can breathe in the summertime.

I guess Pascagoula, Mississippi, is right out then…

Actually we’re starting to hatch a bit of a plan.  It might come to nothing, but it’s worth a shot.  See, the Navy is building lots and lots and lots of destroyers, which is Kurt’s preferred ship.  He hasn’t been on one in ten years, though he’s diversified and been on a cargo ship and a frigate since we’ve been married.  So we’re thinking, maybe he could get a ship in the process of being built up in Bath, Maine, where they build lots and lots of ships (that, and Pascagoula).  Maybe we could even get one that’s scheduled to be homeported in Norfolk, Virginia, so that when it does go out to sea, taking my husband with it, I will be close to my best friend and my family while he’s gone.

Who knows, though?  There might not be any space for him on a precommissioned ship.  Just keep your fingers crossed, okay?

I shall think of a sharp retort… 28 May 2009

The time is passing me by far too quickly. I don’t even want to think about the end of June. I’d rather just stick my head in the sand and pretend it’s not coming.

The War College graduates somewhere around the 20th of June, and the graduates are sent off to their next duty station within the week.  Three of the women that I became close friends with, most particularly my good friend BG, are all moving in mid-June.  It’s going to be so quiet around here with them; most of my social life revolves around BG, and Grace loves to play with her sons and the children of another lady moving in June too.

I just found out too that Ms Cheez-It is moving in August to South Carolina.  Her husband is an RP (Religious Personnel; they’re the folks that assist the chaplains in the military), and the school for chaplains and RPs is transferring from here in Newport to South Carolina.  I don’t see her much anymore, but she’s one of those people that you’re glad to have in your neighborhood because you know you can always count on her.  She’s been Grace’s emergency contact at school for the last two years.  Now I’ll have to find someone else.

My immediate next-door neighbors are leaving at the end of the summer too.  Kurt’s looking forward to that because it means that he’ll be able to park the little car in our common driveway instead of on the street.  But the neighbors across the street are another family that’s moving in mid-June, so he’ll have that parking spot for most of the summer.  I can’t see that the housing company will fill these houses that quickly.  When we first moved in, more than half of the units on my street were empty, and they stayed that way for a good eight or nine months.

Not everyone is moving, though.  My one friend’s husband was stationed here before being accepted into the War College, so they won’t be moving away till next summer, around the same time that we’ll be re-locating.  And my other friend, her husband is being sent to Iraq in a few weeks.  He finagled his situation to allow his wife and his son to stay here while he’s in Iraq so that his son can finish his last year of high school here.  That took some doing.  The War College wasn’t keen on having him attached to them while he was in Iraq, mainly because he’s in the Army and we’re a Navy base.  His wife jokes that it’s because the naval station doesn’t want to have to figure out an Army funeral with all the trappings if anything bad were to happen.  But we keep telling one another that nothing bad will happen to him.  So he’s having to report to his next duty station and head to Iraq from there, but leaving his wife at this base in housing when he’s attached to another base is a difficult thing to accomplish.  He managed it, though, so she’ll be here for another year.  It’s best for both her and his son.  Not only will his son not have to worry about making new friends at a new school his senior year, but his wife will have all her friends around as a support system while he’s in Iraq, instead of having to form a new support system at his next duty station.  It’s a win-win situation, for sure.

It’s just so sad to think of how quiet it’s going to be without all my friends here.  Usually it’s me moving away from my friends, not my friends moving away from me.  It’s going to take some getting used to.

Not just another holiday 25 May 2009

While making dinner tonight, I sliced my left pinky finger with a knife.  I was de-skinning the chicken thighs that I was preparing, and they were nearly frozen because my refrigerator is sort of on the fritz.  I never even felt the slice into my skin.  Oops.  Fortunately it’s not a deep cut, but it did bleed profusely.

The thing is, I was working with raw chicken when I sliced my finger.  If I die of salmonella tomorrow, you’ll know what happened.

No, of course I won’t die!  Sheesh.  I have a strong immune system, let me assure you.

What an amazing weekend!  We had something going on every day, though most of it involved hanging out with good friends and eating delicious foods.  I had two bratwurst boiled in beer and grilled last night — is there anything more delicious on a warm spring afternoon?  Especially when you’re eating with good friends whose company you really enjoy?  I don’t think there is.

Kurt had talked to me earlier about finding something really fun to do today.  He didn’t want to sit around and watch tv, which is our usual thing to do over the weekend.  I think the winter cabin fever has finally gotten to him.

This morning he found a craft fair to go to, up in Pawtuxet, as part of Gaspee Days.  I’m telling you, this is why I love living here in Rhode Island.  You don’t have to study history; it’s literally all around you, wherever you look.  Here I am, thinking I’m at a craft fair, when really I am helping to celebrate a victory of the colonists over the British military.

See, in June 1772, the HMS Gaspée ran aground in Narragansett Bay here in Rhode Island.  It had been sent to the colonies to enforce some pretty unpopular laws.  When it ran aground, the colonists saw a chance to exact a bit of revenge on the British military.  They rowed out, looted and burned the ship, and wounded its officers.  Later on, a Bostonian minister wrote a sermon using this affair to warn against corruption in the British government and the greed of the British monarchs, and the reprinting of these sermons helped to increase the colonists’ agitation that ultimately led to the Revolutionary War.  The Gaspée Affair is now recognized as the first overt action in the build-up to war.

Each year, the residents of Warwick throw a party to commemorate this event, including burning the Gaspée in effigy.  That’ll be on 14 June this year.  I might have to go back for that!  The website for Gaspee Days calls it “Rhode Island’s Original Water Fire,” which cracked me up.  See, every summer the rivers in Providence are set alight with bonfires as an art installation, and it’s called WaterFire.

I wish I had known all this before we went.  I learned all this just by looking up “Gaspee Days” on the internet.  But that’s the story of my life — it’s only till after I get home that I realize the significance of whatever it is that I have seen.  That’s what happened when I went to Italy my senior year of high school.  One of these days I will get my act together enough to learn about something before I go there!

One can hope, anyhow.

Photos (and even a video of Grace dancing!) are HERE, and I will be adding more tomorrow.  Thank goodness for digital!  I can’t even imagine how much all this would cost if I had to develop all that film, though I do know that film still rules when it comes to professional photography.  I just need to hone my skill and get good enough to warrant using film.  Maybe one day…