Category: military

The Spouse Event

"Sara, look at her shoes! They're gorgeous. Bitch."

So tonight I’m going to my first spouse event here at our new base. This is kind of a weird situation because normally the Major is part of a squadron, so there is an automatic wive’s (spouse’s, sorry) club that has regular meetings and social events. Additionally, when we’ve first checked in before, I’ve been contacted right away by the CO’s wife, welcomed, offered babysitters and shopping tips. Here, not so much. But that isn’t anyone’s fault — it’s because the Major is working more of an administrative position. It also has to do with his being one of only about 200 Marines on a Navy base. There’s no squadron to “take care of us” and there just aren’t that many other Marine spouses around. But the Marine Aviation Detachment is trying to take up the slack, which is nice.

I’ve never been a huge joiner when it comes to spouse events. I guess part of me thinks that it’s silly that we’d all be friends just because our husbands work together. At least if WE worked together we’d know that we had similar backgrounds or interests, maybe, but the spouse groups are often quite the hodgepodge of people from every corner of everywhere. And I’m all for a diverse group of friends. And I don’t like stereotypes in general. But to me, throwing together a group of women becuase of who they’re married to is kind of like assuming that two gay guys will be a perfect couple because, well, they’re both gay. That being said, I have also always found a small subset of these women with whom I’ve gotten along great and forged good lasting friendships. And I’ve made other friends who are great to know while we’re at whatever base we’re at, but those are often the types of friendships that  you sort of know won’t last when one of you moves on. And those are nice to have, too.

And it wouldn’t be a wives’ club post if I didn’t mention the “knives club” aspect of these groups. As in any gathering of women, there are often a few who prefer backbiting and gossip to actual friendship and see these groups as an ideal setting for making snap judgements, saying nasty things and excluding people when possible. I haven’t run into a lot of this myself — aside from a few cases when attendance at such events was disputed due to being a ‘fiance’ rather than a spouse; or once when someone’s hubby deployed for a non-squadron billet and some ladies said that the wife left behind was not actually a squadron spouse anymore and should not be coming to events (nor should she receive any support from all of us despite the fact that she was left at home without her hubby, caring for the house and family… cuz that’s not hard.) And there are always a few wives who believe that they have somehow earned their husband’s rank and should be treated accordingly…that’s pretty fun. ANYWAY, crappy things do happen, but generally these organizations are a good source of support. And I have to say that even if you don’t really bond with anyone, even the nastiest of biddies will tend to rally around another spouse when they are truly needed. I didn’t cook my own meals for months after having my kids… that alone was worth more to me than I can ever express.

So I go tonight not knowing anyone. Actually, that’s not true. I know (and like!) one other Marine spouse here, but I don’t know if she’ll be there. Maybe I’ll actually make a new friend. Friends are nice. Wish me luck not being shy and also not being an asshole. Sometimes I struggle with both.

Even Wronger.

I. Am. an Idiot.

For anyone capable of reciting the months of the year, it was probably clear in my last post that Turbo will certainly be Kindergarten-eligible next fall unless you are using the Mongolian Trinomial calendar, and really — who uses that old thing anymore? I was. confused. And really, that’s nothing new.

We celebrated Columbus Day at our house by visiting the hospital. The Major had some surgery to correct a gym-related accident he had a few weeks ago. In retrospect, this was a fairly major (no pun intended) event, but I managed to downplay it until this afternoon, largely because he wasn’t making a big deal out of it. But when I considered how to pick his recently-under-anesthesia’d ass up from the hospital and get him home, it occurred to me that doing this with two small kids in tow was not going to work. Thus began the scramble. Through a combination of a very good friend (who deserves a post all her own … not sure how we’d be doing living here if she hadn’t moved her family here 6 months before us) and her awesome babysitter, I got that handled. But it was a stressful and tiring day, and I’m expecting it to be a rough night and probably a tough day tomorrow too, with pain, etc. And that’s not even figuring on how to explain to the the tiny guys that Daddy can’t pick them up or hug them, and that they can’t jump on him… Wish us luck!

Pass the Duct Tape, Please

You know how when you were in college, you slept on a mattress on the floor and most of your furniture came from IKEA and had to be assembled with those crazy hex wrenches? Well, we haven’t moved on from that phase yet. A lot of my furniture is from IKEA. I actually really like the whole Swedish minimalist aesthetic, but in reality, the stuff looks pretty good and is cheap enough that you don’t get too upset when the moving guys (who visit us military spouse types every 2-3 years) bang it up, sweat all over it, break the legs off, etc. Or at least you’re supposed to not get too upset. But, dammit, I’m upset.

If you’ve ever put together IKEA furniture, you know that it revolves around “locking cams” and bolts, right? And if you decide to, say, take this furniture apart because you are a government-hired moving person getting minimum wage to manhandle the beloved goods and household belongings of a family that includes at least one person who puts his or her ass on the line to protect your freedom, you might want to make careful note of where those all-important locking cams and bolts end up! Like, you might want to, say, put them all in a baggy and make sure that they get attached to the actual piece of furniture that they belong to. Maybe. Just a thought.

But not everyone can come up with ideas as brillant and original as that one that I just shared with you.

It seems that OUR particular government moving people have not ever experienced the frustration of having all the pieces of their furniture laid out in front of them, with NO WAY to put them together to form a useable object. Like, say, a CRIB. Or my damned BED. Or the GUEST BED on which I have actual guests planning to sleep this weekend!! Currently, the guest bed is fully assembled, reliant totally on the small wooden dowels that go between the parts to hold them in place politely while those big bolts and cams do all the dirty work of making sure things actually STAY put together securely. I even put the boxframe and mattress on the bed, and dressed it up in all it’s pretty sheets and pillows. The Major came in surprised, “oh! you found the hardware!” When I told him no, he looked at me quite skeptically. I explained that I thought that if our friends laid in the bed carefully, the distribution of their weight over the surface area of the mattress would prevent any one tenuous joint from having to bear too much of a load, thereby ensuring that they did not actually find the bed collapsing on top of them. Or under them, to be specific. Do you think it is rude to ask your houseguests to please refrain from performing any variety of the horizontal limbo in your guestbed to ensure their own safety?

Don’t worry. I’m going to come up with a solution before they arrive.

The solution for the lack of hardware for the crib was to buy a whole new friggin crib at Walmart. I was the most angry crib-buying mommy they’ve probably ever had in that Walmart baby department. “Give me the cheapest crib you’ve got!” When the pimply adolescent Walmart employee pulled the giant box out of the shelf for me, looking somewhat frightened, I eyed it skeptically and then proceeded to pick it up and drag it BY MYSELF up to the register, abandoning my shopping cart and ordering my 4 year old to WALK. NOW. I can’t believe I had to buy a whole new crib. But Lunchbox doesn’t deserve to sleep in a pack and play for the rest of his babyhood when there’s a bunch of perfectly good crib pieces leaning against the wall in his room, right?

The last piece of the no-hardware puzzle that needs solving is my bed. I loved that bed. It had a built in bookshelf in the headboard. Which is totally obsolete now that I read everything on my iPad, but it’s still a nice idea.

And do NOT suggest that I go to the hardware store to pick up replacements. I tried that. These are special secret-squirrel IKEA-specific Swedish metric system parts that are not available in your neighborhood Lowe’s. IKEA is only helpful if the parts weren’t included in your original purchase. I haven’t yet tried duct tape. Maybe that will work.

It’s a fort! It’s a doghouse! It’s a spaceship! And look, we have four thousand of them!

No, Turbo, it’s a box. And yes, we still have four thousand of them. Only they have been flattened and placed strategically in that pile in front of the front door because Mommy is desperately trying to get them broken down and out of the house so that I can figure out what kind of floor our new rental house actually has. Cuz I haven’t seen it yet.

Turbo and Lunchbox have spent the last week proving the old idiom that the best toy you can give your kid is the box it came in. They spend their evenings smashing and crashing around the living room and play room in their newly received kid-sized boxes, screaming like banshees and giving me a chronic nervous headache. They spend their mornings whining and crying because their spaceships/doghouses/forts have mysteriously vanished overnight, though the back of the truck holds a boatload of cardboard that looks suspiciously familiar to their tiny eyes.

We’re close, though. I think there are four more boxes upstairs and maybe four downstairs. And there’s a crapload of crap in the hall. Both halls. That’s because the Major’s organizational strategy seems to consist largely of taking things that don’t belong in one place and deciding that he isn’t sure where they belong. So they end up in the hall. And I think they’re all slated for the attic. And I’m so tired of looking at it all that I think I might actually haul it up there into the 125 degree sweatbath myself.

Turbo is turning four this weekend. And we’re having houseguests. If that isn’t motivation, I don’t know what is! I know this blog has been less than scintillating lately… and I would like to tell you that I’ve got all kinds of gems saved up for you. But I’d be lying. For now I’m just trying to maintain my sanity and sobriety — turns out unpacking is easier if you’re just a teensy bit tipsy because you no longer care where things go. Makes it tougher the next day though:

“Major, why did I think it would be a good idea to put my curlers in the pantry?”

“I dunno. You said something about the stairs being tall and not wanting a workout, and then something else about curlers and coffee and killing two birds with one stone in the morning. I’m not sure. I don’t really listen when you talk.”

“Oh, ok. Thanks.”

My time as a human luggage rack…

Traveling with kids…ah, the curiousity, the excitement, the four million questions every thirty seconds of a five hour plane ride — what memorable and wonderful family building moments we have shared in the past two months. I sit in a Starbucks writing to you today because I do not actually have a desk and chair in my home… though we hope that our stuff will be showing up at the end of this week. Then there’s just the little issue of unpacking thirty thousand boxes and putting everything where it will go… but that’s another drama.

We spent almost a month driving around the great state of California, just me, Turbo, Lunchbox and absolutely anything that we could stuff into a small four door car. This included two carseats, a stroller with a stand-on attachment, many stuffed animals, Legos and random assorted hotwheels, a sleeping bag, two pillows, diapers, wipes, overnight diapers, etcetera, etcetera. It was a bit of a mess trying to unpack and repack the car at every destination — plus, California is kind of big and we actually went through several climate changes while there, so I had the trunk working like a huge suitcase, shufflling jeans to the bottom, shorts to the top; stashing sweaters over here and tank tops down there. When it came time to reduce this all down to the gear that we’d fly east with, well… that was hard. My mother in law shipped a large box of our stuff out to us, and I left a good amount of stuff in the car when it shipped (shhhh!) In the end, I was dropped off at the airport with three large pieces of luggage, a stroller with a stand-on platform attached, three carryons, and a carseat for Lunchbox. Oh, and two small kids. In otherwords, I was basically immobile once delivered to the curb of the United terminal at LAX.

I’m typically airport girl. I love traveling, and have done so enough for work and pleasure to have my airport approach down to a system. A finely tuned machine. It works best when I’m on my own, and I’ve streamlined the process so as to move very quickly, carry very little and do the absolute minimum of waiting. I can’t control security, but I can certainly have my laptop out, baggie ready and shoes off before I even get to the conveyor belt. I can choose the shortest line, dart into it quickly and plop my carryon luggage up on the belt before the long line has even crawled a step. I can have my boarding pass and ID all ready to go and slip them effortlessly back into the right pocket of my pants before stepping through the beepy thing that hates metal. And I can sit at the gate, quietly sipping my coffee and eating my breakfast, glowing with the confidence that my luggage will absolutely fit in the overhead bin and that I will waste no time waiting for checked bags. Bag checking is for suckers.

This system broke down the second I found myself on the curb at LAX surrounded by my luggage and children, being eyed warily by those speedy carryon only business travelers who moved like I once could. I might have broken down crying right there if I hadn’t happened to glance over and see another woman standing on the curb looking less than confident. She had at least five big bags at her feet, three kids running around her, and three carseats to contend with. She also had a seabag at her feet, and I knew she was a fellow military spouse. When I finally got moving with all my crap, kids safely installed on the stroller contraption, I paused next to her — maybe to offer her some empathy, but mostly to get some for myself.

“Military?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Me too,” I told her.
“We’re moving,” she said, indicating all of her belongings.
“So are we!” I laughed, nodding at the bags hanging off every appendage. “Where are you headed?” I asked her.
“Hawaii!” she said, and looked really excited. Then her husband returned and picked up half the bags she had at her feet. I was glad to see that she had help. And sort of sad that I didn’t…but the Major was helping… he had found us a house, we just had to get there!
“Good luck!” I told her, as I shuffled on towards the curbside check in like a desperate Madison Avenue exec approaching the only bar for miles around. (I may have  watched too many episodes of Mad Men last night.)

I hope she’s gotten where she was headed and that her family is more settled than mine at this point. I’m just glad I bumped into her — even that casual exchange of words helped me remember that I’m not the only one struggling with all the difficulties that military life (hell, any life, really!) can present! There are lots of us out there, moms who make things happen for our families because we have no choice in the matter and because we can’t imagine NOT doing it. The airport experience wasn’t my favorite part of the journey, but it is one that I’ll remember because you know what? I did it!

When the Major picked us up on the other end and all our bags came off the baggage claim, he picked up a couple and struggled with how to hold half of it and manage the kids. “Wait a minute,” he said. “How did you carry all of this and the two kids by yourself on the other end?”

I told him the truth. I honestly don’t know! But somehow I managed it. Things work out when they have to.