I think May 30th is a calm sounding date; ceremonial, processional, well rounded. Maybe if Keith and I ever do a vow renewal ceremony, we'll choose this date.
His family has gone, almost as quickly as they came. Each time they visit, it's more and more enjoyable. My sister in law has evolved, slowly, from being a comfortable family member to a real friend. It helps that we have so much in common; the men we are married to are very similar in composition, though her man is a much more intense version than mine.
I like family meals. I like being the one preparing them. Keith and his brother were on the deck, grilling the chicken wing drummets, my niece and the dogs kept them company. I got to bustle around inside, making dinner rolls, corn on the cob and salad, setting the table. It was a delicious meal and full of summer flavor, right down to the pink lemon aide and the butter worn down in the middle from the corn being rolled in it.
Now the house is quiet and I have a lot of work waiting for me, piles of laundry, breakfast dishes, beds to be made. But guess what came in the mail on Saturday?
My documents! Both of them! I actually did get divorced in July. I did the mental equivalent of closing my eyes and putting my finger on the page in picking that date. Seeing the dates brought up a huge amount of memories that weren't as much images as they were feelings. I saw the wedding date in early June and remembered vividly the utter wretchedness of that May before. I remembered it like a sickness in my gut.
I remembered the livid colors of summer bright like a propaganda poster; smeared green of trees, road banks, lawns, hot blue sky, emptiness. My life then suffered under the burden of an all encompassing malaise, dropped too suddenly from a childhood that in no way prepared me for the real world or for even knowing who I actually was.
I needed my marriage to define myself, to jettison me out into adulthood. I married the first man I ever had a real conversation with, the first male coworker I ever shared a shift with. He was the bagel maker, I was the dough mixer, it was that simple.
In a way my marriage did define myself, but only in complete contrast to what I had chosen. I came away from it with two central truths about myself. My mistakes did not have the power of definition and I could be undone and be put back together better in the end.
Some things are lost forever though. But I don't think innocence is something a person is allowed to keep in life. It gets wrenched away one way or another and then replaced with faith and grit and a conscious choice to focus on what is beautiful even though a person is knee deep in the shit.
Anyway, I'm procrastinating. I know some of you are wondering if I was pregnant or not and the answer is not. For a gal who is usually comfortable being so open on this blog, I'm remarkably reluctant to talk about this. I feel completely disenchanted with the whole thing. Just done. Moving on.
Which tells me it must have hit hard, but I'm not feeling it. I feel merely a large, disinterested numbness. I'm feeling like I want to hate the whole thing, not just the process of getting pregnant, but having children, having a family. I want to not want it at all.
I've thought, in a passing sort of way, about what it would feel like if I didn't want children. Who would I be? I have no idea. It's beyond the reach of my imagination.
I'm also feeling like it's not at all real. It's all an illusion. I feel like the idea that an egg could implant and grow a child inside my womb is just a fairy tale, a bizarre fairy tale, like stories about creatures who are half fish, half human and breath water. Like, of course I can't get pregnant, it's just plain weird to think that I could, where did I get that strange idea from in the first place?
Other people get pregnant. Other people get launched into biological motherhood, other people carry on their genes and the human race and get transformed from who they were into this other person, this mother, this parent. They grow and deepen, their lives are challenged and enriched, they spread out, they're fertile, maternal.
But not me. I'm unnatural, static. I'm denied, a biological dead end. I'm looking through the glass wall and I'll never feel it, can't even imagine it. And I feel like I would be a terrible parent anyway. Who am I to think I could be a mother, a good mother? How dare I hope for it. I'm marked out, I'm marked to remain at shallow end of life's experience, forever oriented to self, going around and around the same little well trampled ground of experience, like a donkey at the mill stone.
I was talking to my mom a while ago and she said in passing, "I had your brother fifteen months after you, we planned it that way..." and I had to stop her.
"Wait, wait, wait, you planned it?" I asked. "You not only got pregnant, but you got pregnant on schedule?"
This was not the first time I'd heard this story, but my god, it struck me in this whole new, profound way. Some women not only get pregnant, but they get pregnant when they want to. Their body actually functions in rhythmic cycles that they can jump on or off and ride on through to the first or the next child. My own mother is one of them.
But not me. If I get pregnant it's not because it happened naturally. It's going to happen because I worked hard and paid a lot of money to manipulate my body. I'm going to soak my body in chemical hormones and have sex on schedule. I will have to wrest that experience out by force of will, directly through the intervention of science.
It's starting to sink in. At first I was all, hey, I could be one of those women. This is an interesting experience, I'll know what it feels like to be one of those women. But I'm not really one of them, I'll get pregnant of course I will.
But actually no. I really am one of those women in their thirties who want children desperately and can't get pregnant. And it's not so much interesting as it is awful. It's humiliating, it's emotional, it's way too real.
And this blog post is way too long and wow, did I dive on through the numbness, definitely feeling it now. But it's better to feel, to let it flow through.
It'll pass and I'll be left with what's true: an appointment with an OBGYN clinic, and my documents. And I will be a mother one way or another, it doesn't matter how. I'll have the family I was meant to have, the family that was always meant for me. I just have to move on through this space to get there.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
May 29th
At some point, Keith's brother's family will arrive and I will have to cut this short. It's a lovely cool and dry morning, when I took the girls out, the sky to the east was white with haze burning off. There are wild grape vines every where, and white daisies and these bright yellow flowers that look like golden rods but softer.
I went blog hunting and found this quote on another army wife's blog:
"I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer..." — Rainer Maria Rilke
I went blog hunting and found this quote on another army wife's blog:
I don't know who Rainer Maria Rilke is, but I like it.
We bought a bunch of those frozen pops the last time we went shopping and Keith is addicted to them. It's not quite eleven in the morning and he's on his third one, a lurid purple color. The previous one was neon blue. This does mean that there is more ice cream for me though, since he's forgotten all about that.
Yesterday Keith took the Ranger into the shop for what he thought would be a quick trip to fix a leak. Five hours later, I was making an emergency trip in with much needed supplies; two sloppy Joe sandwiches, BBQ chips and a Gatorade. He worked another three hours and had to leave the truck in the bay over night.
The bolts in the head are rusted completely into the manifold and three of them broke off, so he has to drill them out now, very carefully, with a left hand drill bit. Or something. He spent all yesterday evening researching where he could find the right drill and the right techniques.
I guess it's a touchy job and if he does it even slightly wrong, it means he has to pull the engine and at that point will want to buy a whole new engine.
I told him I saw our profit margin disappearing and "the bank" was cutting off any further funds. I also explained that any future projects would be very closely inspected for unseen risks and that "the bank" would be very cautious in the future about extending him any loans next time. I also told him that there was no way in hell he was buying a whole new engine.
When I talk like this to him, it just makes him laugh helplessly.
"What if I pay you in kisses?" he offered.
"The bank is no longer accepting kisses as legal tender," I said sternly, which of course made him laugh harder. "And don't you give me any BS speech about how you need to buy the tools instead of rent them."
At that point he was pretty much incapacitated. And they came, I have to go.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
May 25th
I have stumbled across an ancient computer game, one that my brother Jesse and I have designated a "family treasure." There is not one sibling among us who has not, in their time, built a conquering empire, one that spanned entire dynasties.
It's all in the city planning, you see. The intricacies of city planning are endless. How best to provide services in efficient loops, with access to markets, mills and industrial sections? Where to place the military section? How to plan for excess food supplies in case of disaster?
And all the while, a pleasant little Asian inspired tune jingles and little city dwellers walk the streets, each to their own purpose. There is the sound of water falling and food cooking and acrobats tumbling.
I almost burned the spaghetti sauce yesterday while playing.
The sky is overcast, huge thunderheads are piling up over the trees and around the edges the light glitters. I hear a neighbor mowing a lawn somewhere.
Keith and I went to an Army Combatives competition a few days ago. At first we weren't going, and I was thinking about getting some hot chocolate and changing into PJs when Keith got a call from one of his guys.
"What? When? How long?" I heard him bark and that was that. We were off, the windshield wipers flashing as a light evening rain fell.
When we arrived, it was about seven thirty in the evening and the clouds had rolled on. The scene at the gym looked like a shot from Army Wives. There were knots of men, some in full ACUs, some with the pants and a tee shirt tucked in. They were joking and laughing and standing around or sitting on a low embankment wall. And there were Army wives in flip flops and pony tails, walking arm in arm or with an armful of baby. And of course there were children, shouting, running around in little packs.
Inside the gym it smelled like stale sweat, rubber mats and some unexpected floral scent; the combination made me think of a bathroom that someone sprayed a can of Glade in just after use. We sat on the bleachers with some of the other guys from the company and we all waited for their platoon sergeant to be called up.
When he did, our whole section just erupted. The sergeant was in a cage with another guy, a mean looking guy who looked like he could take care of a whole lot of business. They both wore boxing gloves and mouth guards.
As soon as the fight began, my husband became a living megaphone. When he wants his voice to project, boy does it project.
"Make him pay! Bring the pain!" he bellowed from somewhere deep in his chest; it seemed to come echoing off the far walls, where high up the windows were slanted open to the evening sky. My ears kinda hurt. I kept waiting for some of the staff to come on over and tell our section to settle down but then I would remind myself that this was the Army and not high school.
It was the only match we saw that went a full three rounds. By the third round, both men were exhausted and wary of one another. They had both taken and given some really hard punches and now had their heads down, chests heaving, watching each other as they circled.
They were both standing when the final bell rang and we had to wait a few moments before they added up the points to declare a winner. It was our guy. Keith left me outside the men's bathroom for ten minutes when he went to try and talk to him afterward. He had no luck, I had a lot of weird looks.
Outside, walking to the car, I saw some booths selling cotton candy and popcorn. I took a closer look and realized that it was run by my FRG. Or what would be my FRG if I went. It was a really strange feeling. Those are the women in my company, the wives of the men my husband works with every day and even though I have no idea who they are I'm still bound to them by that common thread.
I kept looking back, thinking that I could be there in that booth if I wanted or just leaning up against it, talking about how much we've gotten in and the guy's training schedule and who got promoted and who made points and who didn't and who just had a baby and who just got in a huge fight and called the MPs and got her husband in trouble.
I did meet one Army wife, her husband introduced her to me. Immediately I became like nine years old. It's not just I'm shy, it's that I'm like a shy young girl. It makes it ten times worse. I keep telling myself to be gracious and ask her about herself, but my mind went blank and all I want to do is huddle up, wrap my arms around my knees. I kept reminding myself to sit up straight for goodness's sake and look interested. She was sitting in the bleachers above me so it wasn't as though I had to make conversation, I just felt like I should.
I was thinking the other day that when all the Lost Boys grew up, most of them decided to join the Army. A lot of them are just like Lost Boys, a little shy, a little wild, passionate and dedicated, but easily distracted, easily hurt.
Keith rescued one of his sergeants' men from a terrible car loan. He had bought the car at Budget Car Sales and told the guys about it at PT. Immediately the sergeant's heart sank. He called Keith over and after looking through the paperwork, realized that the man's payment would be two times what he had thought it would be.
The three of them headed straight over to the dealership where my husband got into a down and dirty, red faced shouting match with the unfortunate car salesman and then his increasingly unfortunate manager.
"I saw his normally red face go two shades darker," said the sergeant with a grin, "and I knew to get the hell out of his way. I thought he was going to start throwing punches."
After several hours of some intense negotiations the dealership completely redid the man's loan, bought a truck from the sergeant (his loan on it was about to go under water) and offered Keith a four by four Ford Ranger for seven hundred cash.
He slept on it. I told him if he wanted to sell the Can and buy the Ranger it was fine by me. That day we both went in to check it out. The car salesmen had a pink shirt and sharply pointed shoes. I liked him at once, a feeling made up mostly of a kind of compulsive compassion. He seemed like a man who keeps trying and trying and each time making it just enough to keep his dignity intact.
Keith and I drove the Ranger around. It's an '84 with a hundred forty miles on it, lifted three inches, dented, rusted around the wheel well, but sturdy and willing. It's got heart. The upholstery is in good condition and smells comforting; the smell reminded me of trips to the dump with my grandfather and buying a cream soda on the way home.
I liked riding around, feeling the springs bounce, the jerk of the truck as my husband changed gears, the hot air whipping my hair in my face.
"I like her." he said. "And she's got six hundred dollars worth of brand new tires on. I saw the receipt in the glove box."
So now the Can is on Craig's list and we currently have two dented trucks, one rusting car trailer and my Honda in the short little driveway. Keith was out there last yesterday afternoon in a tee shirt, working on the headlights.
It's all in the city planning, you see. The intricacies of city planning are endless. How best to provide services in efficient loops, with access to markets, mills and industrial sections? Where to place the military section? How to plan for excess food supplies in case of disaster?
And all the while, a pleasant little Asian inspired tune jingles and little city dwellers walk the streets, each to their own purpose. There is the sound of water falling and food cooking and acrobats tumbling.
I almost burned the spaghetti sauce yesterday while playing.
The sky is overcast, huge thunderheads are piling up over the trees and around the edges the light glitters. I hear a neighbor mowing a lawn somewhere.
Keith and I went to an Army Combatives competition a few days ago. At first we weren't going, and I was thinking about getting some hot chocolate and changing into PJs when Keith got a call from one of his guys.
"What? When? How long?" I heard him bark and that was that. We were off, the windshield wipers flashing as a light evening rain fell.
When we arrived, it was about seven thirty in the evening and the clouds had rolled on. The scene at the gym looked like a shot from Army Wives. There were knots of men, some in full ACUs, some with the pants and a tee shirt tucked in. They were joking and laughing and standing around or sitting on a low embankment wall. And there were Army wives in flip flops and pony tails, walking arm in arm or with an armful of baby. And of course there were children, shouting, running around in little packs.
Inside the gym it smelled like stale sweat, rubber mats and some unexpected floral scent; the combination made me think of a bathroom that someone sprayed a can of Glade in just after use. We sat on the bleachers with some of the other guys from the company and we all waited for their platoon sergeant to be called up.
When he did, our whole section just erupted. The sergeant was in a cage with another guy, a mean looking guy who looked like he could take care of a whole lot of business. They both wore boxing gloves and mouth guards.
As soon as the fight began, my husband became a living megaphone. When he wants his voice to project, boy does it project.
"Make him pay! Bring the pain!" he bellowed from somewhere deep in his chest; it seemed to come echoing off the far walls, where high up the windows were slanted open to the evening sky. My ears kinda hurt. I kept waiting for some of the staff to come on over and tell our section to settle down but then I would remind myself that this was the Army and not high school.
It was the only match we saw that went a full three rounds. By the third round, both men were exhausted and wary of one another. They had both taken and given some really hard punches and now had their heads down, chests heaving, watching each other as they circled.
They were both standing when the final bell rang and we had to wait a few moments before they added up the points to declare a winner. It was our guy. Keith left me outside the men's bathroom for ten minutes when he went to try and talk to him afterward. He had no luck, I had a lot of weird looks.
Outside, walking to the car, I saw some booths selling cotton candy and popcorn. I took a closer look and realized that it was run by my FRG. Or what would be my FRG if I went. It was a really strange feeling. Those are the women in my company, the wives of the men my husband works with every day and even though I have no idea who they are I'm still bound to them by that common thread.
I kept looking back, thinking that I could be there in that booth if I wanted or just leaning up against it, talking about how much we've gotten in and the guy's training schedule and who got promoted and who made points and who didn't and who just had a baby and who just got in a huge fight and called the MPs and got her husband in trouble.
I did meet one Army wife, her husband introduced her to me. Immediately I became like nine years old. It's not just I'm shy, it's that I'm like a shy young girl. It makes it ten times worse. I keep telling myself to be gracious and ask her about herself, but my mind went blank and all I want to do is huddle up, wrap my arms around my knees. I kept reminding myself to sit up straight for goodness's sake and look interested. She was sitting in the bleachers above me so it wasn't as though I had to make conversation, I just felt like I should.
I was thinking the other day that when all the Lost Boys grew up, most of them decided to join the Army. A lot of them are just like Lost Boys, a little shy, a little wild, passionate and dedicated, but easily distracted, easily hurt.
Keith rescued one of his sergeants' men from a terrible car loan. He had bought the car at Budget Car Sales and told the guys about it at PT. Immediately the sergeant's heart sank. He called Keith over and after looking through the paperwork, realized that the man's payment would be two times what he had thought it would be.
The three of them headed straight over to the dealership where my husband got into a down and dirty, red faced shouting match with the unfortunate car salesman and then his increasingly unfortunate manager.
"I saw his normally red face go two shades darker," said the sergeant with a grin, "and I knew to get the hell out of his way. I thought he was going to start throwing punches."
After several hours of some intense negotiations the dealership completely redid the man's loan, bought a truck from the sergeant (his loan on it was about to go under water) and offered Keith a four by four Ford Ranger for seven hundred cash.
He slept on it. I told him if he wanted to sell the Can and buy the Ranger it was fine by me. That day we both went in to check it out. The car salesmen had a pink shirt and sharply pointed shoes. I liked him at once, a feeling made up mostly of a kind of compulsive compassion. He seemed like a man who keeps trying and trying and each time making it just enough to keep his dignity intact.
Keith and I drove the Ranger around. It's an '84 with a hundred forty miles on it, lifted three inches, dented, rusted around the wheel well, but sturdy and willing. It's got heart. The upholstery is in good condition and smells comforting; the smell reminded me of trips to the dump with my grandfather and buying a cream soda on the way home.
I liked riding around, feeling the springs bounce, the jerk of the truck as my husband changed gears, the hot air whipping my hair in my face.
"I like her." he said. "And she's got six hundred dollars worth of brand new tires on. I saw the receipt in the glove box."
So now the Can is on Craig's list and we currently have two dented trucks, one rusting car trailer and my Honda in the short little driveway. Keith was out there last yesterday afternoon in a tee shirt, working on the headlights.
Monday, May 24, 2010
May 24th
Every thing in life is significant.
Being human is divinely inspired.
If you wish to love God, then love the people around you.
If you wish to worship God, then be fully present in your own life.
There. Those are my loosey-goosey, New Agey bits of profundity that I have gathered since my last post.
And yes, I still believe the Son of God came to earth, was born human while remaining fully Divine, was crucified for my sins, went down to the gates of hell, shook death loose and rose bodily on the third day, eventually ascending to God, and now lives in me, so that my life is His life.
I also like to believe that God literally created the entire world by simply speaking the words, and that He did it in six days and that it pleases Him. I like to believe this because it's beautiful, because it speaks to the power of words and because I think God doesn't like to live in the logical all the time.
Oh gosh. I just put a blank CD in the player and now suddenly the dining room is full of the resonant, melancholy sound of a fiddle and just as suddenly I'm back in the Rockies in the late afternoon and the sun is long and amber across the meadow grass and glinting in my eyes and I'm hot and dusty after a long ride, drinking stale Dr. Pepper from earlier in the morning. The air is clear and we are going home, pouring back down the mountain to join the stream of people from 1-70 to 1-25, towards the smell of dinner cooking and the sky full of evening light.
My parents were searching through boxes of my stuff last week, in the hopes my documents were there. They didn't find them, but they did find Ferdinand the Bull. Dear Ferdinand, rubbed red velvet, staunchly set hind legs, purposeful shoulders and little cloth horns which flopped over, for years traded back and forth between my youngest brother and I.
"Oh, oh, go give it to Jesse!" I cried.
I love being alive. I'm cleaning the counters and I rejoice in the smell of Fantastic and the slick shine of the surface. I love the limpid golden dark in the eyes of my dog, her little doggy soul given so freely to me, the elegance of her spine and the thick nap of fur between her little ears. So fearfully and wonderfully made.
And then I lose my temper at them in the night, when Lynn doesn't let Abby back on the bed and they create a major ruckus. And then I get embarrassed because I have lost my temper at the dogs in the presence of God. But then I just offer all of it up, because all of it is what's real in that moment and He wants what is real.
There's no use waiting for the next life to be fully alive. It's a complete waste of this one, and He gave us this one. I'm grateful for every piece of life I've already lived; the taste of lake water in my mouth, the soles of my feet flying white across the grass, the blur of falling snow caught in the lamp light, the bus rounding the corner cumbersomely, its flat impassive face blinking a somber warning, the creak of the doors being folded back and the smell of the green plastic seats.
I get lost in my childhood lately. But I'm not just grateful for that, for the deep green heart that I grew up in, the paths in the woods that I knew and playing with my Barbies in the waterfall from the culvert that crossed under the road, popcorn and Cool-Aid sleepovers, family picnics in the pine woods, the branches high above swaying in the wind, a wiffleball, Ruffles potato chips and Tootsie Roll Pops.
It's not just that, it's going to Tony Clamato's in my first little black dress, sleeveless with a square neck, having fillet Mignon with a mushroom port sauce and later, outside on the square and my ex husband smoking a cigar, his white shirt glowing in the lamp lights, arrogant and happy for that one moment and I'm not yet twenty years old and I have no idea how beautiful I am.
It's the sound of CCR, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Kahlua on ice, necklaces of sterling silver on black lacing, driving to my first real job in my first car, a deep pink Chevy Cavalier with all the windows down, driving back from the lake soaking wet, barefoot, drunk on the air, living in despair each and every day within that marriage, knowing I've destroyed my whole life and sucking on the rinds for any savor it could give me.
And later, meeting at the Thai place that we loved to separate the wedding gifts, most of which hadn't even been taken out of the boxes and then much later driving down to the Boston Museum of Science in the pouring rain, with Pe Noi, who asked me out at the restaurant. Red curry sauce, Thai ice tea sweating in the glass, his bedroom with the mismatching curtains from Walmart that I had put up, China town and steaming dumplings on trolleys, his heavy gold watch and out last trip up into Vermont that summer, and I'm only twenty two years old.
Twenty two and I have my first apartment with a friend for room mate and I work with my hands upholstering cornices and seat covers in a basement in Manchester. I'm tanned and arrogant with my body's strength, finally owning my own innate sensuality, divorced, barefoot, own one pair of jeans and my father's old woolen sweater. I'm ridiculously in love with a young Japanese man of twenty five whom I'd met through the Internet that summer. David Grey's "Forgive Me" and Coldplay's "Yellow" play on the radio and the towers go down that fall; all the cars have their heads lights on, an unbroken steam of light down the highways.
All of it. I'm incredibly grateful for having lived all of it. The best part is that now I'm here. My husband is coming home for lunch and he's long legged and blue eyed and passionately in love with me and we stay up hours at night keeping each other awake talking and if I could dissolve into his delicious, freckled skin for just a moment I would.
It's the last week of May in Kentucky and everything around me is drenched in green, out on the golf course retirees in shabby shorts putter around in their carts under the hot sun. Strawberries are a dollar eight five a carton, the air is filled with the delicious honey suckle smell and inside we need the AC on all the time, my sewing project piled on the ironing board, shoping list on the fridge, walking shoes by the door, certified copies of documents coming to me by mail all the way from the NH courts, blogging almost done; all this is my life.
I love it.
Being human is divinely inspired.
If you wish to love God, then love the people around you.
If you wish to worship God, then be fully present in your own life.
There. Those are my loosey-goosey, New Agey bits of profundity that I have gathered since my last post.
And yes, I still believe the Son of God came to earth, was born human while remaining fully Divine, was crucified for my sins, went down to the gates of hell, shook death loose and rose bodily on the third day, eventually ascending to God, and now lives in me, so that my life is His life.
I also like to believe that God literally created the entire world by simply speaking the words, and that He did it in six days and that it pleases Him. I like to believe this because it's beautiful, because it speaks to the power of words and because I think God doesn't like to live in the logical all the time.
Oh gosh. I just put a blank CD in the player and now suddenly the dining room is full of the resonant, melancholy sound of a fiddle and just as suddenly I'm back in the Rockies in the late afternoon and the sun is long and amber across the meadow grass and glinting in my eyes and I'm hot and dusty after a long ride, drinking stale Dr. Pepper from earlier in the morning. The air is clear and we are going home, pouring back down the mountain to join the stream of people from 1-70 to 1-25, towards the smell of dinner cooking and the sky full of evening light.
My parents were searching through boxes of my stuff last week, in the hopes my documents were there. They didn't find them, but they did find Ferdinand the Bull. Dear Ferdinand, rubbed red velvet, staunchly set hind legs, purposeful shoulders and little cloth horns which flopped over, for years traded back and forth between my youngest brother and I.
"Oh, oh, go give it to Jesse!" I cried.
I love being alive. I'm cleaning the counters and I rejoice in the smell of Fantastic and the slick shine of the surface. I love the limpid golden dark in the eyes of my dog, her little doggy soul given so freely to me, the elegance of her spine and the thick nap of fur between her little ears. So fearfully and wonderfully made.
And then I lose my temper at them in the night, when Lynn doesn't let Abby back on the bed and they create a major ruckus. And then I get embarrassed because I have lost my temper at the dogs in the presence of God. But then I just offer all of it up, because all of it is what's real in that moment and He wants what is real.
There's no use waiting for the next life to be fully alive. It's a complete waste of this one, and He gave us this one. I'm grateful for every piece of life I've already lived; the taste of lake water in my mouth, the soles of my feet flying white across the grass, the blur of falling snow caught in the lamp light, the bus rounding the corner cumbersomely, its flat impassive face blinking a somber warning, the creak of the doors being folded back and the smell of the green plastic seats.
I get lost in my childhood lately. But I'm not just grateful for that, for the deep green heart that I grew up in, the paths in the woods that I knew and playing with my Barbies in the waterfall from the culvert that crossed under the road, popcorn and Cool-Aid sleepovers, family picnics in the pine woods, the branches high above swaying in the wind, a wiffleball, Ruffles potato chips and Tootsie Roll Pops.
It's not just that, it's going to Tony Clamato's in my first little black dress, sleeveless with a square neck, having fillet Mignon with a mushroom port sauce and later, outside on the square and my ex husband smoking a cigar, his white shirt glowing in the lamp lights, arrogant and happy for that one moment and I'm not yet twenty years old and I have no idea how beautiful I am.
It's the sound of CCR, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Kahlua on ice, necklaces of sterling silver on black lacing, driving to my first real job in my first car, a deep pink Chevy Cavalier with all the windows down, driving back from the lake soaking wet, barefoot, drunk on the air, living in despair each and every day within that marriage, knowing I've destroyed my whole life and sucking on the rinds for any savor it could give me.
And later, meeting at the Thai place that we loved to separate the wedding gifts, most of which hadn't even been taken out of the boxes and then much later driving down to the Boston Museum of Science in the pouring rain, with Pe Noi, who asked me out at the restaurant. Red curry sauce, Thai ice tea sweating in the glass, his bedroom with the mismatching curtains from Walmart that I had put up, China town and steaming dumplings on trolleys, his heavy gold watch and out last trip up into Vermont that summer, and I'm only twenty two years old.
Twenty two and I have my first apartment with a friend for room mate and I work with my hands upholstering cornices and seat covers in a basement in Manchester. I'm tanned and arrogant with my body's strength, finally owning my own innate sensuality, divorced, barefoot, own one pair of jeans and my father's old woolen sweater. I'm ridiculously in love with a young Japanese man of twenty five whom I'd met through the Internet that summer. David Grey's "Forgive Me" and Coldplay's "Yellow" play on the radio and the towers go down that fall; all the cars have their heads lights on, an unbroken steam of light down the highways.
All of it. I'm incredibly grateful for having lived all of it. The best part is that now I'm here. My husband is coming home for lunch and he's long legged and blue eyed and passionately in love with me and we stay up hours at night keeping each other awake talking and if I could dissolve into his delicious, freckled skin for just a moment I would.
It's the last week of May in Kentucky and everything around me is drenched in green, out on the golf course retirees in shabby shorts putter around in their carts under the hot sun. Strawberries are a dollar eight five a carton, the air is filled with the delicious honey suckle smell and inside we need the AC on all the time, my sewing project piled on the ironing board, shoping list on the fridge, walking shoes by the door, certified copies of documents coming to me by mail all the way from the NH courts, blogging almost done; all this is my life.
I love it.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
May 19th-20th
May 19th
Some very lucky person comes to my blog from Orange, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur.
Wow. The name alone is sheer deliciousness. Every time I see it I'm carried away. Blue coasts. The Alps. Provence. Cloves, oranges, roast duck, rosemary, vineyards, honey and salt spray.
And then there's my morning, which was finding a tick on my shoulder, not realizing it was a tick, pulling at it until, of course, the body came off and the head remained buried in my skin.
Welcome to Kentucky.
Poor Kentucky, I do rag on this state. It's really not such a bad place to be. In her defense, I should confess that I hated Colorado for the first two years. I really did. I couldn't stand the dust, the vast brown landscape throughout much of the year-the green burns off mid summer, the housing developments, the vast stores, the commercial conformity, the hippy, back to nature, granola, rock climbing, skiing, camping mania.
Suffice to say I am just contrary and will dislike anything at first. So if I were forced to remain in Kentucky for two more years, I'm sure that I would come to love it. Unfortunately, I doubt I have that much time and consequently, the state will remain under appreciated.
Yesterday I bought a boat load of flowers. I have begonia, lobelia, something that looks like a tiny carnation, lemon basil, a green pepper plant and a German Johnson tomato. (Isn't that a charming name?)
Last night Keith and I watched "The Lovely Bones." I'd read the book and liked it well enough. I knew that the movie would be at times very difficult to watch, but I also was fairly sure that it would be redemptive in the end. I don't mind dark, so long as it ends in the light.
I was right, but holy crap.
(I'm going to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it, you are forewarned.)
The part at the end, where all the murdered girls are gathering under the green tree, to pass into the deeper heaven, that had me pretty much bawling my eyes out. My rib cage was heaving, that's how hard I was crying.
It's a visually beautiful movie, and well worth watching, but it's not an easy movie. I felt like I'd been through the emotional ringer when it ended, Keith and I both did.
May 20th
I can expect my period any time now for the next four days. After the twenty fourth, my period will be late, according to my last cycle. But not officially late, because my period usually always comes a few days later than the last month.
Also, we haven't heard anything further about the couple with the baby, which isn't too surprising. They couldn't really have been wanting to put their child up for adoption, it seemed too fantastical. And I don't know what to feel about that anyway; should I want two parents to give up their child? It seems perverse; I don't want to hope for their failure as parents. I want them to become better parents. But if they can't care for her and are going to neglect her, then that's a different story but it seems wrong to want it and I can honestly say that I don't. Thank goodness.
On a different note, the tick's head is still buried in my shoulder, presumably. Keith told me not to worry, that it would "bubble up and pop out." Which is a vivid description from such a usually unimaginative guy.
Lastly on the update front, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and I told him about how we were waiting for August to be referred for fertility treatments, that I had tried to make an appointment for August but the fellow on the appointment line said he could only book them a week in advance.
The doctor got a little twinkle in his eye and said "How 'bout we tell a little fib? You should be in the referral system by Friday."
Hooray!
Some very lucky person comes to my blog from Orange, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur.
Wow. The name alone is sheer deliciousness. Every time I see it I'm carried away. Blue coasts. The Alps. Provence. Cloves, oranges, roast duck, rosemary, vineyards, honey and salt spray.
And then there's my morning, which was finding a tick on my shoulder, not realizing it was a tick, pulling at it until, of course, the body came off and the head remained buried in my skin.
Welcome to Kentucky.
Poor Kentucky, I do rag on this state. It's really not such a bad place to be. In her defense, I should confess that I hated Colorado for the first two years. I really did. I couldn't stand the dust, the vast brown landscape throughout much of the year-the green burns off mid summer, the housing developments, the vast stores, the commercial conformity, the hippy, back to nature, granola, rock climbing, skiing, camping mania.
Suffice to say I am just contrary and will dislike anything at first. So if I were forced to remain in Kentucky for two more years, I'm sure that I would come to love it. Unfortunately, I doubt I have that much time and consequently, the state will remain under appreciated.
Yesterday I bought a boat load of flowers. I have begonia, lobelia, something that looks like a tiny carnation, lemon basil, a green pepper plant and a German Johnson tomato. (Isn't that a charming name?)
Last night Keith and I watched "The Lovely Bones." I'd read the book and liked it well enough. I knew that the movie would be at times very difficult to watch, but I also was fairly sure that it would be redemptive in the end. I don't mind dark, so long as it ends in the light.
I was right, but holy crap.
(I'm going to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it, you are forewarned.)
The part at the end, where all the murdered girls are gathering under the green tree, to pass into the deeper heaven, that had me pretty much bawling my eyes out. My rib cage was heaving, that's how hard I was crying.
It's a visually beautiful movie, and well worth watching, but it's not an easy movie. I felt like I'd been through the emotional ringer when it ended, Keith and I both did.
May 20th
I can expect my period any time now for the next four days. After the twenty fourth, my period will be late, according to my last cycle. But not officially late, because my period usually always comes a few days later than the last month.
Also, we haven't heard anything further about the couple with the baby, which isn't too surprising. They couldn't really have been wanting to put their child up for adoption, it seemed too fantastical. And I don't know what to feel about that anyway; should I want two parents to give up their child? It seems perverse; I don't want to hope for their failure as parents. I want them to become better parents. But if they can't care for her and are going to neglect her, then that's a different story but it seems wrong to want it and I can honestly say that I don't. Thank goodness.
On a different note, the tick's head is still buried in my shoulder, presumably. Keith told me not to worry, that it would "bubble up and pop out." Which is a vivid description from such a usually unimaginative guy.
Lastly on the update front, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and I told him about how we were waiting for August to be referred for fertility treatments, that I had tried to make an appointment for August but the fellow on the appointment line said he could only book them a week in advance.
The doctor got a little twinkle in his eye and said "How 'bout we tell a little fib? You should be in the referral system by Friday."
Hooray!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
May 18th
Well, where to begin?
Yesterday morning, Keith called me as he normally does and during the course of the conversation, mentioned that he'd had breakfast with our old friends from Colorado, who are now cozily ensconced on base.
While he was there, the wife mentioned that one of her man's soldiers had stopped by with his wife and infant girl. She noticed that they appeared to be completely ignoring the child and said something.
They replied that they weren't sure they wanted her any more and were thinking of putting her up for adoption.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Ok, so Keith said immediately that he and I were wanting to adopt and he would have to talk to me about it. Of course I was all in.
So, all yesterday I called and bugged my husband to contact our friend to find out more about the situation. Did they have family they were thinking of giving the child to? Were they thinking of an open or closed adoption?
Keith couldn't get a hold of him until this morning. The girl is six months, give or take a few months, and her parents definitely expressed a desire to put her up for adoption. So Keith told him that we were "all about it" and of course the fact that we would pay for all the legal work. (I've already found four lawyers in Louisville who specialize in adoptions.) So our friend will pass this on to his soldier and now we are waiting to hear back.
Will this happen? Who knows. It's so hard to imagine raising an infant for half a year and then deciding one doesn't want to raise that child any further. Maybe it's putting an untold amount of stress on their relationship and maybe they are very young and want to the do the right thing instead of possibly losing it with the child, and possibly losing the child to the foster care system.
Of course the odds of this adoption happening are very small. But of course I've already invested a lot of emotional energy into the situation. I'm thinking about how we need a crib, a changing table, a car seat, a swing, pacifiers, bottles, rubber tipped spoons, rice cereal, applesauce, onesies, burping clothes, loads of diapers.
I'm thinking of how we would change her name, put her given name now as her middle name and give her the first name that we always planned to give to our first daughter. I want to do this not to erase her heritage from her birth family, but to cement the fact that she's a genuine part of ours, that when we dreamed of our first daughter, it was always her, even though she's not our biological child. I don't want her to feel like she was added on.
I've thought about sleeping schedules, how Keith would have to move the man room downstairs so the spare room could become the nursery and the man room become the spare room, I've imagined moving with the child when we PCS in a year and how we would set up the rooms in the CO house, if we end up moving there. I've imagined family holidays this year, with her on my lap or scooting around on her bum, chewing on a bright little rubber key chain and being irritable because she's teething.
Sigh.
Anyway, in addition, I must add that I am experiencing some interesting symptoms that make me think I am pregnant, this is certainly not like any other monthly cycle I've had before. I have to wait another seven days before I can find some answers. Keith and I are both holding our breath and not talking about it, which is our survival strategy after almost a year of dashed hopes, month after month.
So, there is the possibility that after having no children, I might have two in short order. There is the much better possibility of having two crushing disappointments, one right after the other. I'm writing all this out on the blog because whatever happens, when it happens it will be very impactful and I don't want to have to write a massive blog explaining everything from the beginning.
In addition to all this, our housing manager called to say the roof of the CO house has sprung a leak, which is like the kiss of death to any home owner. It could be just an isolated leak that simply needs a patch for about a hundred dollars. Or it could be something serious and underlying which would cost about twenty thousand dollars. The roof is new, so we are really, really hoping for small and patch. But we're still waiting to hear for sure.
Also, just as soon as we got everything paid off or paid way down, Keith's brother came down this weekend to claim the man room TV, which was part of the deal when Keith bought his work truck from him. I always thought that was a bad deal to make and I was very clear with Keith that if he lost his TV before we could afford the one he wanted, he would be TV-less for months.
Keith solemnly swore to be TV-less for as long as needed. And well, by the time his brother finally took the TV away, we were at a pretty good place financially and Keith had waited almost a year, dreaming, researching....we ended up going out TV shopping that very day, as soon as his brother left, the gargantuan TV hulking, tarp covered, in the back of the little Toyota. It was the very cutting edge of technology back in its day, a whole decade ago when Keith bought it in Germany.
I wonder just how many sharply hissed marital spats the unfortunate salespersons as Best Buy are privy to each year before the glittering wall of flat screens? Many, I can't help but think. We, I am afraid to say, we not above the call of the wild.
Keith saw a 60 inch LED/LCD 120hz Sony beast and immediately lost his marbles. The sixty glorious inches of blind blowing picture clarity and brilliance went to his head like sweet, sweet wine.
"It's only three hundred dollars more," he hissed at me.
"Plus taxes, and the wall mounting stand alone is three hundred dollars. That's nearly a thousand over our budget," I shot back, glowering, wondering where my normally deliberate and reasonable husband had gone to.
"But it's zero percent interest financing for three years," countered the man.
"I'll get a zero interest card from USAA."
Arms were flung out in despair. We were hung like gutted fish before the screens, faces washed out, our heads humming with the background noise of all the programs, the games and the tinned music from the speakers. I felt slightly sick to my stomach and almost wavered, but I held firm, like the Rock of Gibraltar in sea of excessive spending.
In all of this, our fresh faced young sales associate tip toed around delicately, averting his head at the worst moments, politely pretending not to notice another couple coming apart at the seams. I rather liked him, he reminded me of my youngest brother, sweet natured, with a sharp sense of humor.
"Fine!" burst out my husband, after everything was said and done. "Fine! I won't get any."
"No TV?" I asked, puzzled by this sudden shift. "What will you do?"
"I'll stay down stairs and drive you crazy until you give in!" he cried, looking daggers at me.
"Fine!" I declared passionately, eyes lighting up with the fire of Battle: "I'm up for it!"
And we turned on our heels and strode from the hall of consumer hell, each of us stewing away. Before we disappeared between the isles I looked back in time to see a huge grin on the face of our associate, it looked like he was having a hell of time trying not to laugh out loud. I couldn't help but grin myself in sudden humor. The unexpected pressures of marriage can strand a person in some of the most ridiculous positions ever.
Of course then the truck wouldn't start because he'd left the headlights on. We had help from a couple of gangly Kentucky boys who push started the car. It was raining and we'd been shopping for over two hours at that point.
However, things began to get better when Keith at some point decided not to follow through with his plan of domination by irritation and instead drove back on base, where we purchased a fifty five inch LED/LCD 120 hz TV from LG. By the time he got it home and dragged it up the stairs, he was repenting of his earlier madness, which was my cue to finally express my own, pent up anger.
"And it wasn't just three hundred dollars more!" I bellowed at him, stomping down the stairs to angrily wash up and sputter away to myself.
Then the dog pooped on the carpet and Keith needed my help to set the gargantuan TV up on its little stand.
"Honey," he said in a small voice. "I...I'm sorry. I just saw that other TV and I just lost my mind, I don't know..." His voice drifted away in wonder as he thought back to just how mysteriously and powerfully compelling was his attraction to the behemoth still wall mounted at Best Buy.
"I know," I said, because I'd felt it myself. It was like entering another dimension, where money and prices suddenly had no meaning anymore and anything was possible and within reach. I'd had to hold on to the idea that three thousand dollars was an inane, impossible price for a television with every bit of my sanity, and I'm a tight fisted Yankee SOB.
Then we cleaned up the poop and had chili for dinner and went to bed early, exhausted.
That TV! Fifty five inches is no joke. It's a massive piece of the wall now, and as thin as the width of my hand. The clarity is such that even movies like "Black Hawk Down" look cheaply made, even down right weird. The TV has a brain and apparently coordinated all our remotes on its own. It also tries to connect to the Internet. It's a little intimating, I won't lie.
And we're never going to Best Buy again.
Yesterday morning, Keith called me as he normally does and during the course of the conversation, mentioned that he'd had breakfast with our old friends from Colorado, who are now cozily ensconced on base.
While he was there, the wife mentioned that one of her man's soldiers had stopped by with his wife and infant girl. She noticed that they appeared to be completely ignoring the child and said something.
They replied that they weren't sure they wanted her any more and were thinking of putting her up for adoption.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Ok, so Keith said immediately that he and I were wanting to adopt and he would have to talk to me about it. Of course I was all in.
So, all yesterday I called and bugged my husband to contact our friend to find out more about the situation. Did they have family they were thinking of giving the child to? Were they thinking of an open or closed adoption?
Keith couldn't get a hold of him until this morning. The girl is six months, give or take a few months, and her parents definitely expressed a desire to put her up for adoption. So Keith told him that we were "all about it" and of course the fact that we would pay for all the legal work. (I've already found four lawyers in Louisville who specialize in adoptions.) So our friend will pass this on to his soldier and now we are waiting to hear back.
Will this happen? Who knows. It's so hard to imagine raising an infant for half a year and then deciding one doesn't want to raise that child any further. Maybe it's putting an untold amount of stress on their relationship and maybe they are very young and want to the do the right thing instead of possibly losing it with the child, and possibly losing the child to the foster care system.
Of course the odds of this adoption happening are very small. But of course I've already invested a lot of emotional energy into the situation. I'm thinking about how we need a crib, a changing table, a car seat, a swing, pacifiers, bottles, rubber tipped spoons, rice cereal, applesauce, onesies, burping clothes, loads of diapers.
I'm thinking of how we would change her name, put her given name now as her middle name and give her the first name that we always planned to give to our first daughter. I want to do this not to erase her heritage from her birth family, but to cement the fact that she's a genuine part of ours, that when we dreamed of our first daughter, it was always her, even though she's not our biological child. I don't want her to feel like she was added on.
I've thought about sleeping schedules, how Keith would have to move the man room downstairs so the spare room could become the nursery and the man room become the spare room, I've imagined moving with the child when we PCS in a year and how we would set up the rooms in the CO house, if we end up moving there. I've imagined family holidays this year, with her on my lap or scooting around on her bum, chewing on a bright little rubber key chain and being irritable because she's teething.
Sigh.
Anyway, in addition, I must add that I am experiencing some interesting symptoms that make me think I am pregnant, this is certainly not like any other monthly cycle I've had before. I have to wait another seven days before I can find some answers. Keith and I are both holding our breath and not talking about it, which is our survival strategy after almost a year of dashed hopes, month after month.
So, there is the possibility that after having no children, I might have two in short order. There is the much better possibility of having two crushing disappointments, one right after the other. I'm writing all this out on the blog because whatever happens, when it happens it will be very impactful and I don't want to have to write a massive blog explaining everything from the beginning.
In addition to all this, our housing manager called to say the roof of the CO house has sprung a leak, which is like the kiss of death to any home owner. It could be just an isolated leak that simply needs a patch for about a hundred dollars. Or it could be something serious and underlying which would cost about twenty thousand dollars. The roof is new, so we are really, really hoping for small and patch. But we're still waiting to hear for sure.
Also, just as soon as we got everything paid off or paid way down, Keith's brother came down this weekend to claim the man room TV, which was part of the deal when Keith bought his work truck from him. I always thought that was a bad deal to make and I was very clear with Keith that if he lost his TV before we could afford the one he wanted, he would be TV-less for months.
Keith solemnly swore to be TV-less for as long as needed. And well, by the time his brother finally took the TV away, we were at a pretty good place financially and Keith had waited almost a year, dreaming, researching....we ended up going out TV shopping that very day, as soon as his brother left, the gargantuan TV hulking, tarp covered, in the back of the little Toyota. It was the very cutting edge of technology back in its day, a whole decade ago when Keith bought it in Germany.
I wonder just how many sharply hissed marital spats the unfortunate salespersons as Best Buy are privy to each year before the glittering wall of flat screens? Many, I can't help but think. We, I am afraid to say, we not above the call of the wild.
Keith saw a 60 inch LED/LCD 120hz Sony beast and immediately lost his marbles. The sixty glorious inches of blind blowing picture clarity and brilliance went to his head like sweet, sweet wine.
"It's only three hundred dollars more," he hissed at me.
"Plus taxes, and the wall mounting stand alone is three hundred dollars. That's nearly a thousand over our budget," I shot back, glowering, wondering where my normally deliberate and reasonable husband had gone to.
"But it's zero percent interest financing for three years," countered the man.
"I'll get a zero interest card from USAA."
Arms were flung out in despair. We were hung like gutted fish before the screens, faces washed out, our heads humming with the background noise of all the programs, the games and the tinned music from the speakers. I felt slightly sick to my stomach and almost wavered, but I held firm, like the Rock of Gibraltar in sea of excessive spending.
In all of this, our fresh faced young sales associate tip toed around delicately, averting his head at the worst moments, politely pretending not to notice another couple coming apart at the seams. I rather liked him, he reminded me of my youngest brother, sweet natured, with a sharp sense of humor.
"Fine!" burst out my husband, after everything was said and done. "Fine! I won't get any."
"No TV?" I asked, puzzled by this sudden shift. "What will you do?"
"I'll stay down stairs and drive you crazy until you give in!" he cried, looking daggers at me.
"Fine!" I declared passionately, eyes lighting up with the fire of Battle: "I'm up for it!"
And we turned on our heels and strode from the hall of consumer hell, each of us stewing away. Before we disappeared between the isles I looked back in time to see a huge grin on the face of our associate, it looked like he was having a hell of time trying not to laugh out loud. I couldn't help but grin myself in sudden humor. The unexpected pressures of marriage can strand a person in some of the most ridiculous positions ever.
Of course then the truck wouldn't start because he'd left the headlights on. We had help from a couple of gangly Kentucky boys who push started the car. It was raining and we'd been shopping for over two hours at that point.
However, things began to get better when Keith at some point decided not to follow through with his plan of domination by irritation and instead drove back on base, where we purchased a fifty five inch LED/LCD 120 hz TV from LG. By the time he got it home and dragged it up the stairs, he was repenting of his earlier madness, which was my cue to finally express my own, pent up anger.
"And it wasn't just three hundred dollars more!" I bellowed at him, stomping down the stairs to angrily wash up and sputter away to myself.
Then the dog pooped on the carpet and Keith needed my help to set the gargantuan TV up on its little stand.
"Honey," he said in a small voice. "I...I'm sorry. I just saw that other TV and I just lost my mind, I don't know..." His voice drifted away in wonder as he thought back to just how mysteriously and powerfully compelling was his attraction to the behemoth still wall mounted at Best Buy.
"I know," I said, because I'd felt it myself. It was like entering another dimension, where money and prices suddenly had no meaning anymore and anything was possible and within reach. I'd had to hold on to the idea that three thousand dollars was an inane, impossible price for a television with every bit of my sanity, and I'm a tight fisted Yankee SOB.
Then we cleaned up the poop and had chili for dinner and went to bed early, exhausted.
That TV! Fifty five inches is no joke. It's a massive piece of the wall now, and as thin as the width of my hand. The clarity is such that even movies like "Black Hawk Down" look cheaply made, even down right weird. The TV has a brain and apparently coordinated all our remotes on its own. It also tries to connect to the Internet. It's a little intimating, I won't lie.
And we're never going to Best Buy again.
Friday, May 14, 2010
May 14th
If anyone likes Weather with a capital W, y'all should come on down to Kain-tuck, where something strong is always brewing. In fact, parts of Kentucky are referred to as "Tornado Alley." Who knew? I thought that was all Kansas. The military lifestyle has certainly highlighted my sad lack of geographical knowledge. I'm still surprised when I'm reminded that Cincinnati is relatively close by and Illinois next door.
Which leads me to one of my strains of musing lately. Why is Kentucky considered part of the South? Isn't it much more a part of the mid west? What highlights this is the fact that right above is the solidly Midwestern state of Indiana, with its solidly Midwestern accent, German work ethic and precisely trimmed hedges.
Cross the muddy Ohio and one is plunged at once into a distinctly southern accent and a proud Confederate history, which overlays their Colonial Western frontier history. However, out in Colorado, going to Kentucky meant "going back East." And to the east is in fact Virgina, which is sort of South but really much more East. So.... Kentucky must be smack dab in the Mid South Eastern region of the US.
Anyway, the weather report here is calling for a warm and yeasty atmosphere above which brooding clouds will roil and stew. Going outside is completely enervating, one becomes immediately as limp as a piece of collard greens thrown into a hot pan. This weather may explain why, no matter what I do, the upstairs always smells moldy.
"I'm intrigued by your beauty and honesty," said my very flattering husband, near the tail end of a marital discussion of Import (which is the fancy phrase for an argument in the making).
"Intrigued, huh?" I asked, batting my eyelashes and forgetting what else I had planned to say.
"You're a fascinating and beautiful woman," he explained.
And that was the end of that discussion.
We are very close to completely paying off Tier Two debt, since we used his reup bonus to pay off my credit card and the ATV loan and a large chunk of the Star Card. This lifts a huge, invisible burden off of us. Since now we need to merely make one payment, we are hoping to pay off the Star Card in three or four months.
Then maybe we can pour that money straight into savings and/or into an extra mortgage payment on the house in Colorado. If we make one extra mortgage payment a year, we'll have it paid off in ten years instead of fifteen, which would mean in ten years, not only would Keith be retired, but we'd own the house outright.
This is the American dream. Work hard, save your money, and make solid investments. I'm all about it.
Speaking of Colorado, there's a possibility that we could be moving back there in a year. Keith's 1st Sergeant got a code lifted from his ERB which was requiring him to stay with this unit and move to GA. He called Keith about a week ago to say we have ten minutes to decide where else to put in for.
Fortunately, Keith was home for lunch at the time, so he ended the call and we looked at each other. How to decide. It's not so easy to just decide back to Colorado, because that puts Keith right back into the deployment cycle.
"I'm meant to be in a line unit," Keith said, after a minute. "It's what I do."
"I know," I said, because I really do. I understood that when I married him.
So we put in for Colorado. Who knows what will happen. It was such a strange little interlude, sometimes I wonder if it wasn't just my imagination. But it would be so marvelous if in a year we were moving back home to Colorado instead of to Georgia.
What makes it even better is that the two year lease our renter has would be up that fall, in November, so we'd only have to find temporary lodging for the summer and then move back into our own home.
We still day dream about that home.
"Remember the garage?" Keith said wistfully, just last night.
We seem to be waiting on a lot of stuff lately.
Which leads me to one of my strains of musing lately. Why is Kentucky considered part of the South? Isn't it much more a part of the mid west? What highlights this is the fact that right above is the solidly Midwestern state of Indiana, with its solidly Midwestern accent, German work ethic and precisely trimmed hedges.
Cross the muddy Ohio and one is plunged at once into a distinctly southern accent and a proud Confederate history, which overlays their Colonial Western frontier history. However, out in Colorado, going to Kentucky meant "going back East." And to the east is in fact Virgina, which is sort of South but really much more East. So.... Kentucky must be smack dab in the Mid South Eastern region of the US.
Anyway, the weather report here is calling for a warm and yeasty atmosphere above which brooding clouds will roil and stew. Going outside is completely enervating, one becomes immediately as limp as a piece of collard greens thrown into a hot pan. This weather may explain why, no matter what I do, the upstairs always smells moldy.
"I'm intrigued by your beauty and honesty," said my very flattering husband, near the tail end of a marital discussion of Import (which is the fancy phrase for an argument in the making).
"Intrigued, huh?" I asked, batting my eyelashes and forgetting what else I had planned to say.
"You're a fascinating and beautiful woman," he explained.
And that was the end of that discussion.
We are very close to completely paying off Tier Two debt, since we used his reup bonus to pay off my credit card and the ATV loan and a large chunk of the Star Card. This lifts a huge, invisible burden off of us. Since now we need to merely make one payment, we are hoping to pay off the Star Card in three or four months.
Then maybe we can pour that money straight into savings and/or into an extra mortgage payment on the house in Colorado. If we make one extra mortgage payment a year, we'll have it paid off in ten years instead of fifteen, which would mean in ten years, not only would Keith be retired, but we'd own the house outright.
This is the American dream. Work hard, save your money, and make solid investments. I'm all about it.
Speaking of Colorado, there's a possibility that we could be moving back there in a year. Keith's 1st Sergeant got a code lifted from his ERB which was requiring him to stay with this unit and move to GA. He called Keith about a week ago to say we have ten minutes to decide where else to put in for.
Fortunately, Keith was home for lunch at the time, so he ended the call and we looked at each other. How to decide. It's not so easy to just decide back to Colorado, because that puts Keith right back into the deployment cycle.
"I'm meant to be in a line unit," Keith said, after a minute. "It's what I do."
"I know," I said, because I really do. I understood that when I married him.
So we put in for Colorado. Who knows what will happen. It was such a strange little interlude, sometimes I wonder if it wasn't just my imagination. But it would be so marvelous if in a year we were moving back home to Colorado instead of to Georgia.
What makes it even better is that the two year lease our renter has would be up that fall, in November, so we'd only have to find temporary lodging for the summer and then move back into our own home.
We still day dream about that home.
"Remember the garage?" Keith said wistfully, just last night.
We seem to be waiting on a lot of stuff lately.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
May 13th
I finally have Internet, and time, and of course now I can't think of anything interesting to blog about.
Oh, I know. So, I received an e-mail from Bethany that had a list of Waiting Children. Most of them were from homes and orphanages in Eastern Europe. Out of those children were two boys, aged two and three, that jumped out at me. They looked like a cute little Keith, square chin and chubby cheeks.
"But Jenny," you may say, "I thought you were going to try domestic infant adoption."
"Well we were," I would reply. "But the adoption process for Waiting Children is expedited, mainly because they may have health issues or are older. Bethany also helps out more financially, making it more within reach. And those children are adorable."
I had Keith look at the pictures and Keith said, fill out the preliminary application and we'll see.
One of the many hard things about this process is that Keith and I are not on the same page. I want to move ahead full steam with adoption, which ever option works out. Keith is more steady and keeps coming back to trying for biological children. I recognize that we balance each other out well, but sometimes I get frustrated, I feel sometimes like he standing in the way of something I'm called to.
But that doesn't make sense, because Keith and I are one person through marriage, and I can't be called to something alone. We have to go forward together, or it isn't "legit." Or something. This is an inherent belief of mine through this process. We move forward together or not at all.
It's one of the things that I believe will help me recognize when it's the right time and the right child; Keith will be on board one hundred percent when that happens. I don't know if this is right or not, but it's part of my faith in this whole process. In the meantime, I simply fall in love with child after child that aren't meant to be ours.
Anyway, I went ahead and started to fill out the preliminary application until I got to the part where it asked about the date of dissolution of previous marriages.
I can't remember.
What's worse is, I lost the divorce decree a long time ago. Not only that, but I can't remember the date of my first marriage, and I have of course lost the certificate. I can't remember my ex husband's middle name. I can't remember the address we lived at. I can't remember the name of the justice of the peace who married us; I can't remember what he looked like.
I. can't. remember.
Here's what I do remember. I remember the exact corner of the the street where the justice's office is located. I remember it was summer, I've narrowed it down to June. I remember because I thought it was ironic that I was getting married in a month that had always been my very last choice for a wedding.
I remember the lawyer's office location, right over an upscale antique store. I remember looking at the judge in the wood paneled courtroom, and the leaves out along the side of the road, so it must have been summer time, three years later.
Give me a car and I could drive straight to both locations. In fact, lately I've been homesick for things like intersections back home, things that when I lived there I took completely for granted. It was back ground, scenery.
Now I want to go back there just for the pleasure of seeing that road side go by. Like that bend in 101 as it approaches the reservoir, on the left that turn off that heads up into the hills and connects back to the road that circles the lake and back onto 101 right before the cemetery. I know all those roads, even the narrow dirt ones with the high banks on either side from the road being worn down over the years, the roots of the trees revealed, twisted and dust covered.
You'd think that after having made one of the biggest mistakes of my life that I'd at least have sense enough to keep track of the paperwork. But no. I don''t even have journals from that time. I actually destroyed them after the marriage failed, since I wanted no written record of that pain to keep me bitter. I wanted to be able to move on with an open heart.
I have no record of it at all. I can't write to the Office of Vital Statistics for a certified copy until I can give them frickin' dates. And I don't remember.
So now that mistake is reaching out from a blurry past to mar the present. Keith and I are planning a trip back there in September. I can look up these places and ask for dates. Once I have the dates, I can go in person to Concord and ask for the certified copies. I'll feel like I'd have wrestled my past into submission then, laid it out in nice, neat piles of paperwork.
Take that, past.
Oh, I know. So, I received an e-mail from Bethany that had a list of Waiting Children. Most of them were from homes and orphanages in Eastern Europe. Out of those children were two boys, aged two and three, that jumped out at me. They looked like a cute little Keith, square chin and chubby cheeks.
"But Jenny," you may say, "I thought you were going to try domestic infant adoption."
"Well we were," I would reply. "But the adoption process for Waiting Children is expedited, mainly because they may have health issues or are older. Bethany also helps out more financially, making it more within reach. And those children are adorable."
I had Keith look at the pictures and Keith said, fill out the preliminary application and we'll see.
One of the many hard things about this process is that Keith and I are not on the same page. I want to move ahead full steam with adoption, which ever option works out. Keith is more steady and keeps coming back to trying for biological children. I recognize that we balance each other out well, but sometimes I get frustrated, I feel sometimes like he standing in the way of something I'm called to.
But that doesn't make sense, because Keith and I are one person through marriage, and I can't be called to something alone. We have to go forward together, or it isn't "legit." Or something. This is an inherent belief of mine through this process. We move forward together or not at all.
It's one of the things that I believe will help me recognize when it's the right time and the right child; Keith will be on board one hundred percent when that happens. I don't know if this is right or not, but it's part of my faith in this whole process. In the meantime, I simply fall in love with child after child that aren't meant to be ours.
Anyway, I went ahead and started to fill out the preliminary application until I got to the part where it asked about the date of dissolution of previous marriages.
I can't remember.
What's worse is, I lost the divorce decree a long time ago. Not only that, but I can't remember the date of my first marriage, and I have of course lost the certificate. I can't remember my ex husband's middle name. I can't remember the address we lived at. I can't remember the name of the justice of the peace who married us; I can't remember what he looked like.
I. can't. remember.
Here's what I do remember. I remember the exact corner of the the street where the justice's office is located. I remember it was summer, I've narrowed it down to June. I remember because I thought it was ironic that I was getting married in a month that had always been my very last choice for a wedding.
I remember the lawyer's office location, right over an upscale antique store. I remember looking at the judge in the wood paneled courtroom, and the leaves out along the side of the road, so it must have been summer time, three years later.
Give me a car and I could drive straight to both locations. In fact, lately I've been homesick for things like intersections back home, things that when I lived there I took completely for granted. It was back ground, scenery.
Now I want to go back there just for the pleasure of seeing that road side go by. Like that bend in 101 as it approaches the reservoir, on the left that turn off that heads up into the hills and connects back to the road that circles the lake and back onto 101 right before the cemetery. I know all those roads, even the narrow dirt ones with the high banks on either side from the road being worn down over the years, the roots of the trees revealed, twisted and dust covered.
You'd think that after having made one of the biggest mistakes of my life that I'd at least have sense enough to keep track of the paperwork. But no. I don''t even have journals from that time. I actually destroyed them after the marriage failed, since I wanted no written record of that pain to keep me bitter. I wanted to be able to move on with an open heart.
I have no record of it at all. I can't write to the Office of Vital Statistics for a certified copy until I can give them frickin' dates. And I don't remember.
So now that mistake is reaching out from a blurry past to mar the present. Keith and I are planning a trip back there in September. I can look up these places and ask for dates. Once I have the dates, I can go in person to Concord and ask for the certified copies. I'll feel like I'd have wrestled my past into submission then, laid it out in nice, neat piles of paperwork.
Take that, past.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Written May 8th
Home, clean, sweet smelling home.
"Oh, I love our home!" cried Keith impulsively as we came through the door, wrinkled, weary and unspeakably dirty. How I love our home too. And lemon scented bleach, Oil of Olay body wash and brand new tooth brushes. The best part of camping is when it's over.
Now I sit here listening to Vivaldi's Concerto for Oboe and Violin while outside a cool wind whips through the trees and in the basement, a load of whites is churned in bleachy bubbles.
We stopped for breakfast at Denny's before we got here. I was wearing clothes that I had slept in for the last two nights and my hair was the kind of wild that can only be created by the wind repeatedly combing on layers of grease and dust. It was the kind of hair that people buy in drug stores around Halloween, to compliment their costumes. Trying to get it back into an elastic was like wrestling with a live animal.
The coffee was worth it though.
I left that park feeling profoundly grateful for my own life, for what I've been able to make of it. On Friday night I was struck by the sight of a very large young woman driving aimlessly around on a four wheeler, wearing blue patterned PJ pants.
Maybe it was the wind in the trees, or the constant low growl of all the vehicles from the woods, or the RVs across the pond from us, with laundry hanging out or the way her eyes met mine once-her eyes were flat with a kind of inert hostility.
Whatever it was, I felt like that young woman captured something inherent about that community; a quiet and simmering despair.
Keith got chummy with some of the guys there and learned that they grew their own marijuana and used meth. That explains how every one we met there were missing teeth, their mouths sunk in. That and/or poor dental care.
But what must it be to live that kind of life, to be born into it, stuck, stuck like at the bottom of a scummy pond, weighed down. So close knit it suffocates, no where to go, nothing to do but get drunk, get high, ride around. Decades of it, generations of it.
How does a person lift themselves out of it? How far away to they have to go, or would they carry that depression, that feeling of being worth so little, right around with them, in the marrow of their bones, the source of a constantly unfolding degradation no matter where they went?
I don't know that girl, but I know depression when I see it, knowing it so well myself. I'm certain she would hate me for pitying her, I think that's part of the message her eyes were giving me- stay away and don't you pity me. But I don't know if it was pity I was feeling so much as horror for her, horror at the realization that it's all real, people really do live like that.
"Oh, I love our home!" cried Keith impulsively as we came through the door, wrinkled, weary and unspeakably dirty. How I love our home too. And lemon scented bleach, Oil of Olay body wash and brand new tooth brushes. The best part of camping is when it's over.
Now I sit here listening to Vivaldi's Concerto for Oboe and Violin while outside a cool wind whips through the trees and in the basement, a load of whites is churned in bleachy bubbles.
We stopped for breakfast at Denny's before we got here. I was wearing clothes that I had slept in for the last two nights and my hair was the kind of wild that can only be created by the wind repeatedly combing on layers of grease and dust. It was the kind of hair that people buy in drug stores around Halloween, to compliment their costumes. Trying to get it back into an elastic was like wrestling with a live animal.
The coffee was worth it though.
I left that park feeling profoundly grateful for my own life, for what I've been able to make of it. On Friday night I was struck by the sight of a very large young woman driving aimlessly around on a four wheeler, wearing blue patterned PJ pants.
Maybe it was the wind in the trees, or the constant low growl of all the vehicles from the woods, or the RVs across the pond from us, with laundry hanging out or the way her eyes met mine once-her eyes were flat with a kind of inert hostility.
Whatever it was, I felt like that young woman captured something inherent about that community; a quiet and simmering despair.
Keith got chummy with some of the guys there and learned that they grew their own marijuana and used meth. That explains how every one we met there were missing teeth, their mouths sunk in. That and/or poor dental care.
But what must it be to live that kind of life, to be born into it, stuck, stuck like at the bottom of a scummy pond, weighed down. So close knit it suffocates, no where to go, nothing to do but get drunk, get high, ride around. Decades of it, generations of it.
How does a person lift themselves out of it? How far away to they have to go, or would they carry that depression, that feeling of being worth so little, right around with them, in the marrow of their bones, the source of a constantly unfolding degradation no matter where they went?
I don't know that girl, but I know depression when I see it, knowing it so well myself. I'm certain she would hate me for pitying her, I think that's part of the message her eyes were giving me- stay away and don't you pity me. But I don't know if it was pity I was feeling so much as horror for her, horror at the realization that it's all real, people really do live like that.
Friday, May 7, 2010
May 7th
I'm writing from the warmly beating heart and overly large bosom of Kentucky. This part of Kentucky smells like sorghum, bourbon and biscuits and all the blackberry tangles are a riot of little white blossoms.
Keith had his official swearing in ceremony, which I attended, in a curve friendly little dress and heels, at the request of himself. I didn't expect to be so deeply moved by the sight of my husband, his hand in the air, proudly swearing to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States, but I was.
It was a pretty little ceremony, on a grassy quad beside a brick building. Two soldiers held the American flag up and the rest of the men stood in formation. It was a very sunny, peaceful morning and everything was drenched in rich, Kentucky green. The CO said "Outstanding!" a lot and seemed to be always bouncing on the balls of his feet even when he wasn't.
I was also presented with a plaque and shook hands with the CO, who thanked me for giving my husband over to the service of his country for another ten years. I told him I was proud to do so.
The CO asked if Keith wanted to say a few words and he surprised me by absolutely wanting to. He strode out in front of the small formation and said that when he first moved here, he'd heard that their company was the best and that he had found it was true and that it was a privilege to be working with the best. After his confident, casual little speech all the men grinned and there was a general cry of "Hooha!"
Keith then put his arm around me and bent down, but I was shy and turned my head and he got my cheek instead of my mouth.
"No kisses for me, woman?" he asked, with his blue eyes so shy and light, so I stood on tiptoe and kissed him full on the mouth to the amusement of the men.
So now I'm officially an Army wife; I have the plaque to prove it. I'm unexpectedly attached to it and have put in on the mantel. It doesn't match anything else up there, but that doesn't matter.
We left immediately afterward to go adventuring. We had booked the girls in a nice little kennel for two nights and had researched some good ATV trails in Kentucky. We left the house, loaded down the four wheeler, tent, gear, food and booze; three hours later we arrived at our destination only to learn that the flood water had closed the site down, even though we'd called ahead and been assured it was still open.
So there we were, stranded in the hot afternoon, all packed up and no place to go. Then we found This Place. This place is a privately owned RV park and tent camp site, with ATV trails. When we first arrived we were so glad to find a place that it seemed like heaven. Shortly thereafter though, our impressions began to evolve.
We began to realize that people actually live here. Here, the RV lifestyle is not so much about retirement, the thrill of the open road and taking the grandchildren to see the Grand Canyon. No, no. Here, it's all about parking the working refrigerator outside the RV which is up on cinder blocks and sheltered by a tarp canopy. Here, it's about building a little deck off the RV and putting potted plants out there and then driving your golf cart around and around the little pond that is the center of this community.
But there's also a pool hall/laundromat/restaurant, and a shower and toilet hut. The bath house is unspeakably mildewy and soapless, but it does have running water. The restaurant is very good, we had breakfast there. It looks like the rec hall of a summer camp and stirred up good memories.
Our neighbor came out to chat with us, an older woman with only a few teeth left and comfortably barefoot. She's a talker and a born mother, with warm dark eyes and a wrinkled face like an old apple. She told us about the baby ducklings on the pond, her husband's night shift, her younger son at Ft. Campbell, her mixed breed wolf dogs.
She lent us duct tape for the holes in our tent. I should pause here to talk about the tent. In Colorado the tent was fine, because there is no insect life in Colorado worth talking about. In Kentucky, the insect life is liable at any moment to simply up and carry off the humans should it take a hankering to.
We also choose to bring along the queen sized air mattress instead of the single, which made for more room for us, of course, but now our tiny tent looks either like a bulging, aging alien air craft, or as if it were going to give birth to a baby tent at any minute. It is simply bursting at the seams with inflated air mattress.
What with that, and the prominent duct tape and the general faded appearance, our mud covered ATV, our ratty camp chairs and the decades old ice chest that serves as table, foot rest, and counter top, we fit right the heck in here.
We were a little nervous our first night here, so we unwound the cable and zipped it into the tent with us. That way, if someone tried to roll the ATV away, we would be alerted. We also brought a hand gun (seriously) which stayed in the tent with us. Keith's boots also came inside. So, last night, I slept with himself, his boots, his gun and an ATV cable. It does not get anymore hill billy than that, folks. (Unless we'd kept the whiskey in there. We should have, it would have made for a better story. But, sadly, not thinking of atmosphere, we simply locked it in the truck. But it was close by, if that counts.)
Right now there are storm clouds piling up and we have retreated to the pavilion. Our bulging tent is safe under the tin roof, along with everything else. Himself is off on the trails, most of which are seriously mud bogged. We got badly stuck once and almost stuck countless times. The one time we had to use the winch to pull us out off the thick, oozing clay. When we returned, my arms, legs and face were peppered with little bits of mud, it had flown up from the tires like popcorn from a kettle.
We are having ourselves a Grand Old Time. Tonight, there is a poker game up at the rec hall and a person can bring their own drinks, so long as the beer is in a huggie and the whiskey is in a plastic cup. This, my friends, this my husband's Mecca.
As for myself, I have plenty of freshly scented southern air, good books and the Internet. Speaking of the air, they don't lie in novels when they talk about southern air being perfumed. It is. It smells sometimes like strawberries and sometimes like rich, warm earth, pollen and flowers. Sometimes it smells like honey. It's thick with moisture and the pollen; it's like something you could drink, or slather on your skin.
We have to return tomorrow, but Keith is thinking about staying another night. We'll see how tonight goes. Our neighbor told us that people pour in on the weekends, get drunk, get loud and go out into the woods to tear the trails up. I'm not so sure if I'm up for all that or not. Maybe the thunderstorms will hold them off. It's starting to get dark and cool.
Keith had his official swearing in ceremony, which I attended, in a curve friendly little dress and heels, at the request of himself. I didn't expect to be so deeply moved by the sight of my husband, his hand in the air, proudly swearing to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States, but I was.
It was a pretty little ceremony, on a grassy quad beside a brick building. Two soldiers held the American flag up and the rest of the men stood in formation. It was a very sunny, peaceful morning and everything was drenched in rich, Kentucky green. The CO said "Outstanding!" a lot and seemed to be always bouncing on the balls of his feet even when he wasn't.
I was also presented with a plaque and shook hands with the CO, who thanked me for giving my husband over to the service of his country for another ten years. I told him I was proud to do so.
The CO asked if Keith wanted to say a few words and he surprised me by absolutely wanting to. He strode out in front of the small formation and said that when he first moved here, he'd heard that their company was the best and that he had found it was true and that it was a privilege to be working with the best. After his confident, casual little speech all the men grinned and there was a general cry of "Hooha!"
Keith then put his arm around me and bent down, but I was shy and turned my head and he got my cheek instead of my mouth.
"No kisses for me, woman?" he asked, with his blue eyes so shy and light, so I stood on tiptoe and kissed him full on the mouth to the amusement of the men.
So now I'm officially an Army wife; I have the plaque to prove it. I'm unexpectedly attached to it and have put in on the mantel. It doesn't match anything else up there, but that doesn't matter.
We left immediately afterward to go adventuring. We had booked the girls in a nice little kennel for two nights and had researched some good ATV trails in Kentucky. We left the house, loaded down the four wheeler, tent, gear, food and booze; three hours later we arrived at our destination only to learn that the flood water had closed the site down, even though we'd called ahead and been assured it was still open.
So there we were, stranded in the hot afternoon, all packed up and no place to go. Then we found This Place. This place is a privately owned RV park and tent camp site, with ATV trails. When we first arrived we were so glad to find a place that it seemed like heaven. Shortly thereafter though, our impressions began to evolve.
We began to realize that people actually live here. Here, the RV lifestyle is not so much about retirement, the thrill of the open road and taking the grandchildren to see the Grand Canyon. No, no. Here, it's all about parking the working refrigerator outside the RV which is up on cinder blocks and sheltered by a tarp canopy. Here, it's about building a little deck off the RV and putting potted plants out there and then driving your golf cart around and around the little pond that is the center of this community.
But there's also a pool hall/laundromat/restaurant, and a shower and toilet hut. The bath house is unspeakably mildewy and soapless, but it does have running water. The restaurant is very good, we had breakfast there. It looks like the rec hall of a summer camp and stirred up good memories.
Our neighbor came out to chat with us, an older woman with only a few teeth left and comfortably barefoot. She's a talker and a born mother, with warm dark eyes and a wrinkled face like an old apple. She told us about the baby ducklings on the pond, her husband's night shift, her younger son at Ft. Campbell, her mixed breed wolf dogs.
She lent us duct tape for the holes in our tent. I should pause here to talk about the tent. In Colorado the tent was fine, because there is no insect life in Colorado worth talking about. In Kentucky, the insect life is liable at any moment to simply up and carry off the humans should it take a hankering to.
We also choose to bring along the queen sized air mattress instead of the single, which made for more room for us, of course, but now our tiny tent looks either like a bulging, aging alien air craft, or as if it were going to give birth to a baby tent at any minute. It is simply bursting at the seams with inflated air mattress.
What with that, and the prominent duct tape and the general faded appearance, our mud covered ATV, our ratty camp chairs and the decades old ice chest that serves as table, foot rest, and counter top, we fit right the heck in here.
We were a little nervous our first night here, so we unwound the cable and zipped it into the tent with us. That way, if someone tried to roll the ATV away, we would be alerted. We also brought a hand gun (seriously) which stayed in the tent with us. Keith's boots also came inside. So, last night, I slept with himself, his boots, his gun and an ATV cable. It does not get anymore hill billy than that, folks. (Unless we'd kept the whiskey in there. We should have, it would have made for a better story. But, sadly, not thinking of atmosphere, we simply locked it in the truck. But it was close by, if that counts.)
Right now there are storm clouds piling up and we have retreated to the pavilion. Our bulging tent is safe under the tin roof, along with everything else. Himself is off on the trails, most of which are seriously mud bogged. We got badly stuck once and almost stuck countless times. The one time we had to use the winch to pull us out off the thick, oozing clay. When we returned, my arms, legs and face were peppered with little bits of mud, it had flown up from the tires like popcorn from a kettle.
We are having ourselves a Grand Old Time. Tonight, there is a poker game up at the rec hall and a person can bring their own drinks, so long as the beer is in a huggie and the whiskey is in a plastic cup. This, my friends, this my husband's Mecca.
As for myself, I have plenty of freshly scented southern air, good books and the Internet. Speaking of the air, they don't lie in novels when they talk about southern air being perfumed. It is. It smells sometimes like strawberries and sometimes like rich, warm earth, pollen and flowers. Sometimes it smells like honey. It's thick with moisture and the pollen; it's like something you could drink, or slather on your skin.
We have to return tomorrow, but Keith is thinking about staying another night. We'll see how tonight goes. Our neighbor told us that people pour in on the weekends, get drunk, get loud and go out into the woods to tear the trails up. I'm not so sure if I'm up for all that or not. Maybe the thunderstorms will hold them off. It's starting to get dark and cool.
Monday, May 3, 2010
May 3rd
I feel blah. The two straight days of rain probably isn't helping either. I know everything will work out for the best, blah blah blah and August isn't that far away and we'll have some answers then at least, blah blah blah and I have a good life now, blah blah blah.
But I don't want to look on the bright side and/or be reasonable. I want to be stinky and I'm giving myself permission. Sometimes a person just needs to be stinky.
Keith tried to cheer me up by taking me out to the commissary to do some grocery shopping. There's nothing like grocery shopping at the commissary the weekend after payday in the pouring rain to cheer a girl up. Dear man. Actually, it did kind of.
He signed his re-up papers today. He's now "indef," which in Army terms means the Army has him for good now, or at least until he retires, ten years from now, which means no more bonuses, no more chances to change up his job specialty, or MOS. We thought about changing from tanker to something else, because the Army is downsizing tankers and that makes going up a rank very difficult compared to other MOSes. (Is that how one writes the plural of MOS?)
Other men who were E-5 at the same board as Keith are still E-5s. They haven't made points and it's been almost two years and they are good soldiers. (To explain if you are a civilian reader- points are assigned to things like education, army schools, awards, PT test results and the promotion board, basically the whole of a person's career and the sum total must be equal or greater to the points set to achieve a rank. If there aren't enough places for E-6s, for example, the Army will raise the number of points needed to reach that grade. Points for tankers are very, very high compared to other MOSes.)
Anyway, the Army pretty much told Keith that after ten years of tanker training, they aren't going to allow him to switch around now, they've invested too much time and money into making him the grade A tank commander that my darling is, so 19 kilo he will remain.
Though, he is looking at taking the opportunity for six months of paid school time and then putting in his packet for Warrent Officer. It's hard to get into, but it pays well and he would pretty much be his own boss. I think he would be very good at it. We'll see.
I'm going to take my stinky self out for a walk; the sun has finally come out. Maybe a good airing will help.
But I don't want to look on the bright side and/or be reasonable. I want to be stinky and I'm giving myself permission. Sometimes a person just needs to be stinky.
Keith tried to cheer me up by taking me out to the commissary to do some grocery shopping. There's nothing like grocery shopping at the commissary the weekend after payday in the pouring rain to cheer a girl up. Dear man. Actually, it did kind of.
He signed his re-up papers today. He's now "indef," which in Army terms means the Army has him for good now, or at least until he retires, ten years from now, which means no more bonuses, no more chances to change up his job specialty, or MOS. We thought about changing from tanker to something else, because the Army is downsizing tankers and that makes going up a rank very difficult compared to other MOSes. (Is that how one writes the plural of MOS?)
Other men who were E-5 at the same board as Keith are still E-5s. They haven't made points and it's been almost two years and they are good soldiers. (To explain if you are a civilian reader- points are assigned to things like education, army schools, awards, PT test results and the promotion board, basically the whole of a person's career and the sum total must be equal or greater to the points set to achieve a rank. If there aren't enough places for E-6s, for example, the Army will raise the number of points needed to reach that grade. Points for tankers are very, very high compared to other MOSes.)
Anyway, the Army pretty much told Keith that after ten years of tanker training, they aren't going to allow him to switch around now, they've invested too much time and money into making him the grade A tank commander that my darling is, so 19 kilo he will remain.
Though, he is looking at taking the opportunity for six months of paid school time and then putting in his packet for Warrent Officer. It's hard to get into, but it pays well and he would pretty much be his own boss. I think he would be very good at it. We'll see.
I'm going to take my stinky self out for a walk; the sun has finally come out. Maybe a good airing will help.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
May 1st
Someone from TN landed on my blog by searching for "into darkest tennesse." Ah, irony.
I should have woken up and said "Rabbit," for good luck since it's the first of the month. Instead though, I woke up and said, "Crap!" because Abigail had thrown up a pale spill of frothy vomit right beside the bed. At least it wasn't on the bed and at least I didn't, half asleep, step in it while getting out of bed.
Himself has taken the sickly dog off to an emergency visit to the vet. Before he took her, she managed to poop a nice splat on the downstairs carpet and then another little pile on the kitchen floor.
The poor man cannot stand the sight of poop, so he had his shirt up around his nose as he hustled the girl out to the garage. "I'm taking your car!" he called over his shoulder, in the midst of his hurried exodus.
(He was very good about taking a bucket of soapy water and the spray Resolve around to scrub the stain out of the carpets; he's just not good about the bulk removal stage. I'm not saying that I specialize in that, but I did work as a care manager with the elderly for four years and one can't help but become desensitized after a certain point along the way. That, or quit.)
The Kentucky branch of Bethany called and they do take military couples. There was no chance for this information to translate into joy however, before she explained that the reason military families have to be very careful in beginning the adoption journey is that a move will end the process, as it is state based.
Stupid, stupid me. I should have known. How could I have forgotten the little thing of our PCS move to GA? I didn't forget, I remembered, but I should have known it meant an impossibility, not just a difficulty.
Here's how it breaks down. The first step is an informational meeting, the soonest of which is set for June 21st. It lasts all day. After that, the families go home with the papers for the home study. The next step depends on how quickly they get their paperwork together, it takes anywhere from three to six months.
Now, we know the Army and paperwork. Let's just be honest here. It's going to take a goddamn six months. Or, let's be positive and assume it takes three. That leaves eight months to be matched with a birthmother, for her to give birth and for the adoption to become complete.
That is cutting it way to close, especially since PCS dates get moved around all the time. What if we get matched, are in process, and then get moved to GA, ending up in a disrupted adoption plan? Heartbreaking.
Also, costly, as the home studies are state based. We would have to go through the entire process, albeit expedited, in GA. The cost of the home study is two to three thousand dollars. We are not rich. If we pay double for one child, that could realistically impact how many children we end up adopting, the actually size of our family. Which is weird.
Directly after this call, Keith and I left for the dump with all the empty boxes from PCSing from CO. I absorbed all this information slowly during the hot, bumpy ride and the more I absorbed, the more exhausted and dense I became, until I was like a limp rag. I stayed that way pretty much the rest of the day.
Now I just feel stupid for having gotten my hopes up. Of course I can't control having a child. How dare I try. How dare I be proactive. Stupid, stupid me. Children are a gift from God and he's withholding, he's on hold, listen to the music while your party is reached, your wait time will be several years.
I wish I didn't want it so much. I wish I were someone else, someone completely different. I wish I had been born in some hick town in Oklahoma or Wisconsin or Wyoming. I would have wispy blond hair and would use to use mascara to have any eyelashes. I'm nineteen and passionately in love with Keith, whom I went to high school with. He works for the county; he drives a snow plow in the winter, he's an EMT or something.
We make out in his truck, we get married in a little church when I'm twenty, we have a tiny apartment in town, the town with one stop light. I buy lingerie at WalMart and have a ball. I get pregnant three months married. By the time I'm twenty three I have two tow headed children. I'm going to the county college, I want to be a CNA and work part time, my mom will babysit for me.
We're saving up to buy a house, we have arguments about money, I burn the steaks, we sleep tangled up together in our double bed with the blinds tapping against the windows, we bemoan the cost of heating the apartment. I get pregnant again.
And so on. Five years later we have a small house on an acre of land a little out of town, I hang the wash on the line, the first two are in elementary school, I work four days a week, we have birthday parties with helium balloons and a cake I ordered from the local Kroger's. We get a new TV for Christmas, we repaint the living room.
That would be a nice little life.
I should have woken up and said "Rabbit," for good luck since it's the first of the month. Instead though, I woke up and said, "Crap!" because Abigail had thrown up a pale spill of frothy vomit right beside the bed. At least it wasn't on the bed and at least I didn't, half asleep, step in it while getting out of bed.
Himself has taken the sickly dog off to an emergency visit to the vet. Before he took her, she managed to poop a nice splat on the downstairs carpet and then another little pile on the kitchen floor.
The poor man cannot stand the sight of poop, so he had his shirt up around his nose as he hustled the girl out to the garage. "I'm taking your car!" he called over his shoulder, in the midst of his hurried exodus.
(He was very good about taking a bucket of soapy water and the spray Resolve around to scrub the stain out of the carpets; he's just not good about the bulk removal stage. I'm not saying that I specialize in that, but I did work as a care manager with the elderly for four years and one can't help but become desensitized after a certain point along the way. That, or quit.)
The Kentucky branch of Bethany called and they do take military couples. There was no chance for this information to translate into joy however, before she explained that the reason military families have to be very careful in beginning the adoption journey is that a move will end the process, as it is state based.
Stupid, stupid me. I should have known. How could I have forgotten the little thing of our PCS move to GA? I didn't forget, I remembered, but I should have known it meant an impossibility, not just a difficulty.
Here's how it breaks down. The first step is an informational meeting, the soonest of which is set for June 21st. It lasts all day. After that, the families go home with the papers for the home study. The next step depends on how quickly they get their paperwork together, it takes anywhere from three to six months.
Now, we know the Army and paperwork. Let's just be honest here. It's going to take a goddamn six months. Or, let's be positive and assume it takes three. That leaves eight months to be matched with a birthmother, for her to give birth and for the adoption to become complete.
That is cutting it way to close, especially since PCS dates get moved around all the time. What if we get matched, are in process, and then get moved to GA, ending up in a disrupted adoption plan? Heartbreaking.
Also, costly, as the home studies are state based. We would have to go through the entire process, albeit expedited, in GA. The cost of the home study is two to three thousand dollars. We are not rich. If we pay double for one child, that could realistically impact how many children we end up adopting, the actually size of our family. Which is weird.
Directly after this call, Keith and I left for the dump with all the empty boxes from PCSing from CO. I absorbed all this information slowly during the hot, bumpy ride and the more I absorbed, the more exhausted and dense I became, until I was like a limp rag. I stayed that way pretty much the rest of the day.
Now I just feel stupid for having gotten my hopes up. Of course I can't control having a child. How dare I try. How dare I be proactive. Stupid, stupid me. Children are a gift from God and he's withholding, he's on hold, listen to the music while your party is reached, your wait time will be several years.
I wish I didn't want it so much. I wish I were someone else, someone completely different. I wish I had been born in some hick town in Oklahoma or Wisconsin or Wyoming. I would have wispy blond hair and would use to use mascara to have any eyelashes. I'm nineteen and passionately in love with Keith, whom I went to high school with. He works for the county; he drives a snow plow in the winter, he's an EMT or something.
We make out in his truck, we get married in a little church when I'm twenty, we have a tiny apartment in town, the town with one stop light. I buy lingerie at WalMart and have a ball. I get pregnant three months married. By the time I'm twenty three I have two tow headed children. I'm going to the county college, I want to be a CNA and work part time, my mom will babysit for me.
We're saving up to buy a house, we have arguments about money, I burn the steaks, we sleep tangled up together in our double bed with the blinds tapping against the windows, we bemoan the cost of heating the apartment. I get pregnant again.
And so on. Five years later we have a small house on an acre of land a little out of town, I hang the wash on the line, the first two are in elementary school, I work four days a week, we have birthday parties with helium balloons and a cake I ordered from the local Kroger's. We get a new TV for Christmas, we repaint the living room.
That would be a nice little life.
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