48 posts tagged “husband”
If you could travel to any place and time for one week, where would you go?
Who do you tell your secrets to?
Or, if we're feeling grammatically correct, to whom do I tell my secrets? As much as I love you, dear Internet, not to you. But hey, I don't paint secrets on billboards (which are not nearly so easily searchable as content on the World Wide Web), either.
Luckily, there are lots of things I am happy to share, things that aren't quite secrets, but you still probably didn't know before. For example, last night I dreamed that someone was splashing though a pond turning neon tetras into turtles with a sort of magic crayon. This was after I dreamed that one of my cousins was acting as kind of a seeing eye person and helping a blind girl to ski, but although it was winter at the top of the slope, by the bottom it had become summer in all its muggy, mosquito-ridden glory. Would you believe that waking up puzzled is not entirely unusual for me?
I'm going to blame this set of crazy dreams on the action-packed couple of days M and I have had this week, owing to a visit from our twin nine-year-old nieces. Their Summer Vacation Ultra-Energy coupled with bonus Giggle Factor is as fun as it is exhausting. I'm still trying to process all our adventures: braving the chilly beach, amassing prize tickets at the arcade, playing a lot of Wii, marveling at butterflies at the botanical garden, paper footballing at various and sundry meals, chasing the cats around trying to put paper hats on their heads, chasing M around trying to put a paper hat on his head, peering into a battleship's nooks and crannies, running amok at a science museum...
I'm flat worn out! Somebody asked me at the CAP meeting last night if I was feeling all right (a question which always makes me wonder how much of a mess I look), but he understood immediately upon hearing that we'd just had a whirlwind visit from a set of nine-year-old girls.
It was a blast, though, and I can't wait to see 'em again.
I started the month of June off right with my final Mission Observer training flight with the Civil Air Patrol. My husband and I suited up in appropriate uniforms and bundled ourselves off to the regional airport, where our stalwart Mission Pilot was waiting with another MO trainee. I was scheduled for the second hop of the afternoon, so I chilled in the flight planning room while M went up with the MP and other trainee to knock out his first Mission Scanner (backseater whose primary responsibilities in a nutshell are looking out the window and keeping a log) flight. The wait gave me a chance to look over the gouge for the GPS in the Cessna 172--old and busted in comparison to the new hotness of the G1000 in the glass 182, but certainly adequate to its task.
A little over an hour later, M poked his head in the door to let me know they were back from the first hop and I should get my stuff together. I was excited not just to go flying again, but that we were going to be flying together as something other than airline passengers for the first time. Of course, we'll be even more excited about it when he completes his MP qual and we're both sitting in the front seats, but this was a good first step. Out to the airplane we went, and after the MP gave me some coordinates to plug into the GPS, we strapped in and got going.
I felt comfortable with the 172's GPS pretty quickly; one advantage of the slightly more primitive set-up is that there are fewer functions to master. The real meat of this particular flight was using the direction finding system--the analog version, with fiddly little needles instead of my nice, darn near idiot-proof Becker with its clear, simple digital read-out. Finding an ELT (practice beacon, in this case) signal with those blasted needles is indeed, as the squadron's saltier fellows warned me, more of an art than a science. I got comfortable enough making the requisite near-constant minute sensitivity adjustments and figuring out approximately where the signal might be coming from, but I am by no means a DFing artist yet. That will come with practice, but I'm not afraid to admit that given my druthers, I would much prefer to be in the right seat of the 182 if a real mission popped up.
Our training objectives met, we headed home and arrived to find that the fuel trucks had just quit for the evening. That turned out not to be such a bad thing, since it meant I got to see what it was like to fuel the aircraft ourselves instead of just radioing the truck out to do it for us. It's not too different from filling up a car, if you had to attach a grounding wire to your car, climb a ladder to get the nozzle up to the tanks, and measure your fuel consumption in gallons per hour rather than miles per gallon. By the time we taxied back to the tie-down spot to secure the aircraft, I felt thoroughly educated.
Our MP was satisfied enough with our performance to sign off on our training paperwork: pending approval up the chain, M was a qualified Mission Scanner and I was a qualified Mission Observer. Woohoo! At our squadron's weekly meeting the following Thursday, the skipper called me up front and center to present me with my first set of CAP Mission Observer wings.
Who do you write down as your Emergency Contact? Why did you pick this person?
Like most married folks, I list my spouse as my primary emergency contact. Unlike most married folks, our situation is not simple enough to say, "That's that!" and move on with the rest of whatever form I'm filling out. With my husband on active duty in the Navy, we're heading into a part of his career where he will be as likely to be thousands of miles away and largely out of touch if something happens to me as he will to be on base just down the road. Even when he isn't actually out on det (deployed, but the C-2A community runs detachment style rather than the whole squadron deploying at once), there will still be plenty of times when he'll be inaccessible. It's just not feasible for my husband to be the only soul on my emergency contact list.
It's strange to think about contingencies in place should anything happen to me; I'm much more used to nailing out the details of how I would be contacted if M were hurt or... I can't type the other one. (Hey, I'm not that inured to thinking about these horrifying possibilities.) Some fellow military spouse friends of mine were confronted with having to fill out all that "Primary Next of Kin" information just before their husbands deployed. That's just what you think about in excruciating detail during the last little bit of time you have to enjoy with your spouse before he goes away for months: how you want to receive the worst possible news of your entire life! Yay!--let's dwell on such cheery subjects as which friends you want called for your support when a somber-looking officer in uniform shows up on your doorstep, or which flavor of chaplain will provide for your religious needs in your time of soul-crushing grief, or how you would notify other family members. Fun stuff, right? Who wants to think about that?
Here's the thing: we do think about it. Sometimes we think about it a lot.
It might seem strange to those outside the military community that we work through every detail of an event as terrifying as receiving news that one's spouse has been killed. It's not exactly something that comes up in normal conversation, especially when the popular image of a military spouse is that of someone who is tough and brave and a pillar of strength and sacrifice for the servicemember and the family back home. Nobody wants her friends and family to think that they are morbid, weak, or--most repugnant of all--that by mentally exploring these scenarios, they are subconsciously willing it to happen. No wonder most people don't talk about it.
But what a relief when someone finally does say something! I have been reading the blog to which I linked above, called SpouseBUZZ, for a few years, and its contributors have made gigantic strides in bringing "anticipatory grief" out of the shadows and showing military spouses that they are not alone in their fears or what they may have thought was a shameful preoccupation with the most painful "what-ifs." Nothing is ever as scary or hard to deal with when you know that other people are dealing with the same thing, and the wealth of posts and comments under the Anticipatory Grief category provides evidence in writing that military spouses are coping with this hitherto lonely and silent pain together, and without being ashamed. For me, and for a lot of other military spouses out there, there's comfort in that knowledge.
Of course, it's easier for me to think calmly and rationally about this difficult subject with my husband home and cooking me dinner fifteen feet away from my seat on the couch. My thoughts are with those currently facing these fears while counting down the months and days until their loved ones are back in their arms.
...I'm told that April showers bring them. Actually, this post hasn't much to do with flowers at all, but I couldn't come up with a better idea for this month's catch-up. If I stretch the metaphor, I suppose I could say that personal firsts have been sprouting like spring blossoms in the past few weeks, and heralding my own growth and bloomi--what, too much? Yeah, okay. Moving on.
I turned twenty-five a couple weeks ago, thus making me older than I've ever been (but now I'm even older). It tickles me to refer to myself as one quarter century old. All in all, I think I'm happy to be closer to thirty than to my teens.
M was able to take some leave for the week leading up to my birthday, so we piled a couple of irate kitties into the car and drove up to the DC area to spend some time with our families and get reacquainted with our old stomping grounds. Valentine, as is her wont, was completely miserable and got carsick on the way up and back, but Vera comported herself much more admirably than she had in the past. We'll turn these cats into travelin' Navy felines yet.
Another first for the week: getting a professional manicure. My mother-in-law invited me to come along with her and my sister-in-law to get our nails done, an indulgence hitherto absent from my experience. I found the exercise a little strange, but by no means unpleasantly so--I'd do it again for a special occasion. My father-in-law joked that it was my first step to becoming high maintenance. I was sure I was going to chip the polish within the first day, but I was pleasantly surprised when it lasted a full week before I destroyed it. Not bad at all, considering my next first that week...
...shooting a gun for the first time! I had wanted to for a very long time, especially since Dad took Mom to the range without me a few years ago. This long-standing void in my life skills repertoire was finally remedied when M and I accompanied Mom and Dad to the range one fine day after a stroll through Meadowlark Gardens and lunch al fresco at Clyde's. The dichotomy of my newly-manicured, shiny pink nails and the black Walther P22 in my hand was not lost on me. I did not distinguish myself as a fabulous shot, but I think I at least hit somewhere on the target every time. My husband (who wears ribbons on his uniform for qualifying "expert" on pistol and rifle) impressed the heck out of me with his shooting. I had a great time, and we might look into getting some more local range time.
I became the sister of a college graduate for the first time a couple days later. Turning twenty-five didn't make me feel old, but watching my baby brother walk across the stage and pick up his [blank piece of paper rolled up to look like a] diploma... well, that was a little surreal. Granted, he did bang it out in just three years, but still! Old big sister or not, I am extremely proud of him and his accomplishments.
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All right, I am going to feel like a big liar unless I actually put some May flowers in this post. Here are a few more from our venture to the botanical garden last weekend.
After having my event canceled twice for nasty weather, we finally got out my first Mission Observer training flight last week. It happened to be a gorgeous afternoon, just perfect for flying--doubly so with CAP footing the bill. Some of my squadronmates put together a really nice little exercise for me. The exercise literally couldn't have gotten off the ground (ha! I crack myself up) without the pilot who took time out of his day to conduct this training, but I was touched that another member was willing to drive all the way out to the airport just to give me someone on the ground with whom I could practice comms. That was a huge help for me, since talking on the radio is one of my shakier, more nerve-tweaking tasks. I know I'm not alone in that, though; a pilot once told me that you can know exactly what you're going to say, have it all planned out in your head, and still pushing the transmit button can have the side effect of turning your brain off. Practice, practice, practice, right? I'm a lot more comfortable with it than I once was, at least.
Speaking of radios, a certain husband of mine who came along to hang with the guy on the ground, took the opportunity to get me back for the last time I talked to him on the radio when he was in an airplane. Imagine my surprise when I ask for a radio check and I hear M's chipper voice pop back with the very words I sprung on him when he was a wee bit busy trying to get his jet situated for a touch-and-go: "Roger ball, sweetie!" As he was quick to point when I (sweetly and gently) socked him in the arm after the flight, at least we were still on the ground and I wasn't being graded by an LSO on my carrier landing abilities when he decided to exact his revenge. I'll concede that point, and it did work just fine as a radio check, but the remainder of our radio communications were thoroughly professional.
This flight was in the fancy, brand-new-off-the-factory-line, glass-cockpit Cessna 182T, and the main thrust of the event was to prove that I can wrangle G1000 well enough to be of actual use to a mission from the right seat. I had been briefed on a set of coordinates that I was to enter into the GPS as user waypoints, which I did while we were taxiing to the runway before takeoff. Once we were in the air, I could select my first waypoint and hit the Direct To button and point us in the right direction. So, so slick. I could have easily entered in a bunch more points as a flight plan and had the autopilot fly the search pattern for us. Ain't technology grand?
I was feeling pretty confident that I knew what I was doing and was showing it to the pilot's satisfaction when the radio crackled. It was our guy on the ground giving us a new set of coordinates and directing us to go there and tell them what we saw. Apparently those sneaky guys planned that little surprise for me when I was taking one last bathroom break before going out to the airplane (very important--ain't no relief tubes in a Cessna, not that they'd be real useful for me in any case). I'm rather pleased that I wasn't thrown off my stride too much; it's nice to know I'm capable of responding quickly to the kind of thing that probably happens quite often in real missions.
One more task remained in this training flight. As we turned back towards the airport, we heard a distinctive trill on our direction finding equipment telling us that a practice beacon (simulating an Emergency Locator Transmitter) was active somewhere in the vicinity. We have something called a Becker DF in the airplane that points the way to such signals, but the pilot cannot see it very well at all from all the way over in the left seat. The person in the Mission Observer position can see it perfectly, though, so it was my job to point us towards the (practice) emergency signal. The pilot put the autopilot in heading mode, meaning that one could change the direction of the airplane just by turning a knob right or left. Turn the knob I did, and lo and behold, the plane went where I wanted it to go! It turned out that where I wanted us to go was over a boat storage facility where the pilot had placed a practice beacon before coming out to the airport. He said those are good places to look on real missions, as boats have emergency beacons just like planes that can go off accidentally.
Things were pretty much wrapped up at that point, so we returned to the airport, landed, taxiied back to our spot, and filled out a bunch of paperwork. M came out to greet us and see how the flight went; I can't wait until I get to go flying with him. (He can't wait, either--he hasn't touched an airplane in over a year, thanks to a backup in the C-2 training pipeline and an overall cut in flight hours across the Navy.) My next flight, whenever we can squeeze that in, will be in the Cessna 172--no fancy-schmancy glass cockpit there, but I am expected to know what I'm doing in the right seat of any aircraft CAP might fly. I might even get to look like one of the cool kids in my very own flight suit--there was a size 34 Short in the depths of the squadron storage room, and they were more than happy to give it to the only squadron member who could even hope to squeeze into it. I picked up some big black leather boots at the surplus store, so now I just have to sew on the appropriate insignia and veclro for patches and stuff before I, too, will have the privilege of smelling like sweaty Nomex. Oh, the glamour of flying...
The smell of gasoline: Love it or hate?
My husband comes home after flights smelling of aviation, a strong component of which is fuel (coupled with sweat and NOMEX). The olfactory sense is closely tied with emotional centers in the brain, so that scent has some surprisingly pleasant associations--surprising given that I don't much care for the smell on its own merits. It is rather pungent.
On 16 April 2001, this guy a year ahead of me in high school asked me to his senior prom. Little did we know that eight years later, we would be married with two cats and a mortgage. So, young ladies and gentlemen looking for prom dates... choose wisely. You might wind up with, in the words of Rita Rudner, "that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life." :-)
Today is "No Housework Day." Tell us: What's your least favorite chore around the house?
Ha, I wish today could be a "no housework" day. I have to wash dishes and do laundry and run around the house in an attempt to rid it of chametz (leavened stuff) before Passover.
I'm not ultra-excited about any of the mundane necessities of housekeeping, but mopping is one chore I am always happy to let M take on. He actually doesn't mind it, preferring as he does to see his efforts cover a wide swath of territory. While I like clean floors as much as the next person, clean, uncluttered kitchen surfaces give me more of a sense of satisfaction. And, uh, a dearth of salmonella outbreaks, or whatever the horrifying consequence of me having an inadequate supply of Clorox wipes would be.
What's the best advice you've ever gotten or given on how to make a relationship last?
"Keep him fed!"
At the lovely bridal shower my mother-in-law's sweet friends threw for me, all the guests added kind wishes and some scrap of marriage advice to a tiny notebook for me to take home. That particular jewel showed up over and over, the distilled wisdom of decades of collective experience with husbands. It may be clichéd to note that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but happiness at the dinner table does have a wonderful way of radiating into other areas of life. Conversely, I've never known anyone who was super pleasant to be around when he or she was hungry, so I do my best to cook healthy (most of the time) and delicious (I hope all of the time!) meals for us to enjoy together.
