85 posts tagged “qotd”
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.
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.
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.
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.
How are you celebrating St. Patrick's Day?
I'm enjoying enduring another day of rather Irish weather: rainy, drizzly, and all around wet and miserable. While saints don't do much for me personally, I'm not going to argue with a day on which so many people proudly wear my favorite color and drink my favorite beer. I actually started last night with a Guinness to celebrate the achievements of the latest class in M's squadron to qualify at the Boat. Some of our friends from Texas were amongst the CQers, so of course we had to go out to congratulate them and find out where they're headed next. Maybe now that they're through, there will be enough available CODs for M's class to have a chance to touch a real airplane before he's spent a full year out of the cockpit. I'm not holding my breath, though. I suppose it gives us more time to enjoy Guinness while we wait.
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.
What brings out your competitive nature?
Word games.
I know for a fact that this game also sets off my mother's competitive nature. She can get downright wicked when it's time to show off her prowess with the English language--we're talking no mercy here. So, she gets a special shout-out for being the genetic source of this trait in myself as well as the fact that today is her birthday. Happy birthday, Mom!
Yesterday was the first day of the Chinese New Year. The Chinese year 4707 is the year of the ox. What's your Chinese zodiac animal and what does it say about you?
I was born in the year of the Rat. Moreover, I am apparently a Wood Rat. Quoth the above-linked website:
Not nearly as self-confident as they appear on the surface, Wood Rats will never expose this vulnerability to others. They’re successful despite their perpetual fear of failing. Wood Rats enjoy being with friends and family and fortunately for them, feelings of love and respect are mutual.
Hmm... I'll leave it to my friends and family to determine whether that's accurate. I like my husband's Chinese zodiac animal, though--I get to leer at him and say, "M, you dog!" (Hey, it was funny the first time. Probably. Well, I thought it was funny. Okay, I still think it's funny.) Water is his element, which I find apropos for a Navy guy.
Less independent, Water Dogs become more self-confident when they’re part of the pack. They prefer being in the pack rather than being the pack’s leader. They’re faithful, affectionate, flexible and relaxed.
He's certainly faithful, he's very affectionate with me and the kitties, he has to be flexible in order to deal with the vagaries of a career in the Navy, and he's laid-back and easy-going. Whaddya know, an exceedingly general set of terms happens to fall in with a few of his personality traits. I'm going to go ahead and guess it doesn't have too much to do with birth year, but it's still fun.
