Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Psycho .. party of one.

So Saturday night was another Parent's Night Out.

Instead of actually going out we decided to stay in and just BBQ because not all kids could be watched. Usually it's the same four or five of us... this is our clique. Not by any means do we portray to be the "cool kids".. basically we're a bunch of old NKOTB fans. We are very accepting since we are all in the same boat.. and we let anyone hang out with us.

Anyways this week, there was an extra person invited to our bi-weekly Pow-wow. She is new to the island and her daughter is friends with my friends kid. So feeling bad that she was new.. she was invited to hang out.

She seemed normal enough at first. Then she did the first of many very strange things... and you'll see why.

We are standing in the living room and she whips out her phone goes something along the lines of "Hey I need all your phone #'s.. you first!" she looks at *T*. *T* relucently gives her # and then I'm standing next to her.. and she's like "you next". At that point I didn't know what to do so I gave it up. She then proceeds to call both of us and says " here this way you have me in your phone already".

*T* and I look at each other with this really confused look. I think maybe she's just lonely cause she's in a new place and just chalk it up to her newness.

About a half hour goes by and food is done so we sit outside around the patio table to eat. So "Newbie" looks up and goes.. ok.. so everyone tell me about yourself. We all looked at each other and really no one said anything. We all know each other and really don't think there's anything to tell. To break the silence I go " I work". Newbie goes.. everyone here is stay a home moms so we all work. ( Are you kidding me .. i know that.) I realize at this point it's all downhill tonight.

Newbie proceeds to start her life story. I paraphrase " Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm not embarrassed by this but I thought I'd let you all know I'm Bi-Polar" At that exact moment punkin starts calling for me and one of *L*'s kids bring her out to me. I have to get up and go inside but I never get to hear the rest of the story.

I come back outside about 10 minutes later and she's still talking and all my friends basically just have "deer in the headlights " look on their faces. For the next half hour everyone rotates in and out of the house from the table and this lady never shut up. She talked about extremely inappropriate things that no one really gave a crap about. Hot guys, her sex life, her husband .. a lot of it I blocked out. It got so bad that *J* and I started text messaging each other under the table cuz no one could get a word in.

I rotated into the kitchen with *C* and she looks at me and goes .."were you and *J* texting each other" I said yes.. you could tell" she goes " yes I was trying to text you but I couldn't get the thing to send look" she has this text that says " hey are you 2 texting shit?" it was the funniest thing .

Anyway we all finally went inside and started to play singstar. (It's like Kareoke only super fun) That was the only way she finally stopped talking.. but she complained about all the songs that she didnt know any. That's the point no one knows all the songs thats the fun part.

Eventuall the night came to an end. I was about to go upstairs to go get the sleeping punkin out of the playpen when Newbie asked if I could drive her home. She apparently walked and didn't plan on staying as late as she did. I said yes.. it was 10:45., what was I gonna do make her walk home alone in the dark.

Now the day before the punkin was running a fever and was being a little crabby but that morning she was fine. I go upstairs to get the punkin, I pick her up and carry her downstairs. At the point she proceeds to PUKE all over me. It was like she knew she was going to have to go in the car with that lady. At that point *J* volunteers to drive the newbie home.

I have friends who are bi-polar and I've worked with people who are bi-polar... and they're all relatively normal. Most are on medication... but none of them have randomly spewed that info to me on the first day I met them.

I feel bad about this whole thing.. but I really have no desire to hang out with her again, even if it's not her fault.

Does that make me a bad person?

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Upswing

I know I haven't written in a while.. I haven't really been motivated to write about the Army and Army life. It's been really crappy around here with that so I figured, I'd just not say anything. I'm finally going to explain what's been going on.

The past few months things have been kinda at a standstill with the hub and the Army.

The last time my hubby was in Iraq he broke his leg/ankle.. nothing serious but serious enough for him to have to have surgery and be put on a Med profile. After his surgery he was supposed to have physical therapy.. but out of his 36 appointments... he was only permitted to go to about 8 or so of them. He never heeled properly so was told he can't run anymore.

What's the biggest part the the PT program ..... running.

Partly because of that, partly because of the actual injury and partly because my hubby likes McDonald's a little too much.. he's had a really hard time keeping his weight down.

He's been on profile for a really long time.. and hasn't been promoted since prior to 2003. He'd been given the benefit of the doubt for a long time and now it was time to shit or get off the pot.

This time since he's been in the sandbox, there was almost a complete change of command in his unit and the new command basically thought he was a crappy soldier because of his weight and seemed pretty hellbent to med board his ass right out of the army.

Hence mine and his complete loss of faith and dis-illusionment with the Army.

Apparently some time last month ,after he failed his last tape, his 1SGT realized the hub is not a shitbag. He made the hub his personal pet project to get him off the flag and get him promoted. This was the new goal. PT twice a day, strict diet plan.. the whole nine. He was getting taped today and this was basically it.. pass or civilian life.

So everything was very up in the air..but things finally are looking up..

Today he passed his tape test.. that means he is off his med flag, able to re-enlist and able to get promoted. All total he's lost 44 lbs ( he was heavier than we initally thought). Is it wrong for me to want to kiss the 1SGT for being all HOOAH?lol

This is a big relief for both of us. The not knowing what the future was going to hold for us has been very stressful and nerve-racking... now it seems that everything's gonna work out( knock on wood). I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I guess I can still write my blog since I'll continue to be an Army wife.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The 9/11 blog

Everyone has there 9/11 story.
This is mine.

I woke up to the phone ringing, it was really early so I didn't think much of it. I had stayed the night before up at my parent's house and they had all left for work. The answering machine had clicked on and whoever it was hung up. I decided I should probably get up. As I got to kitchen the phone rang again. I answered it.. it was the dentist confirming an appointment I think my stepdad had. I hung up.. not more than 3 minutes later the phone rang again. This time I decided not to answer it and let the machine get it... after all it wasn't my house and no one ever called there for me.

Beeeeppppp. It was my stepdad and this was the message.

"Hey are you awake, can you hear me. Turn on the TV someone just said that a plane flew into your mom's building. Call me back"

That was where I was when it happened. I was standing in the living room in disbelief. No way.

At lot of the day is a blur.. it just all kind of blends together, cuz everything seemed to happen so fast.

I turn on the tv.. just as the second plane is going through the second tower. That one was my mom's building. I call my stepdad and tell him what I'm watching.. he tells me he's leaving work and headed home. I try and call my mom and no one answers at her desk. So I call her cel... I hear it ringing.... from my purse. I forgot that I had borrowed it from her and never got to give it back to her before she left for work. There was no way to get in touch with her.

All this was before 9 am.
So we waited.. and waited. Everyone started calling the house... asking if I had heard from her. No. That was so hard.. having to get answer everyone questions when I had no answers. At that point I was all by myself in the house, trying to hold myself together for everyone else's stake, still wondering where my mom was. If she was ok.

My stepdad got home. My husband at the time.. drove up from our house as soon as he saw what happened. I was glued to the TV... looking at people in the street, seeing if I could recognize her.

That's when her building collasped. At that point I started screaming, I don't remember exactly what I was screaming I just remember screaming and falling to ground. My ex came over and had to hold me to keep me as calm as he could.

My stepdad started telling me.. that wasn't her tower. Her tower was still standing. No, I knew that was her building.. but he kept telling me that it wasn't. I guess I wanted to believe that.. and calmed me down a little. I still don't know to this day if he was trying to calm me down or if he really didn't know... I was right that was her building.

So we waited some more. Then the other tower fell. At that point there was nothing I could do. The phone kept ringing and still no mom, and still no answers for everyone who called. About 11/1130am a call came from my stepdad's office. My mom had called his office thinking he was still there, she was calling from a payphone and there was a line but she wanted to let everyone know she was ok and could his secretary call the house. She would try to call again as soon as she could get farther away from what is now known as Ground Zero.

What had happened to my mom?

She was at her desk on the 54th floor when someone on her floor had said that there was some kind of explosion in the other tower. They didn't know it was a plane at that point because of where the plane hit and where they were in the other building.

She was in the building when the bomb went off in '93 so she and her co workers were like.. we're outta here. They decided staying in the building wasn't the best idea.. so they went to the stairwell and started down.

I'm not sure how many floors down they had gotten when they had made an announcement staying that a plane had accidently hit the tower and it was an isolated incident and it was safe to go back to your desks.

Thank god they didn't go back.

They kept going down and at about the 30th floor there was this loud noise and the building started to shake uncontrollably. They held on to the bannister and waited for the shaking to stop. That was when the second plane hit her tower. Eventually it stopped and they made their way down... and out. She said that the firefighters that day were amazing and if it wasn't for them keeping everyone calm a lot of people would've lost it.

She made it out of the building approx 15/20 minutes before it came down. She started walking and eventually found a phone to call us. She had actually called my Uncle first because he was in a building about 15 blocks from where she was and she knew he could see everything from his windows.

He never called any of us. I dont remember what the reason was.

She managed to call my stepdads office.. then after walking a little more she managed to call the house. It was so great just to hear her voice.

They had the city on lockdown and there was no way out. She ended up walking up to my cousins' apartment which was really far from where the towers were. The next day my stepdad managed to get into the city and get her.

Finally she was home.
She was ok.
She lost friends that day. ..
I never take her for granted anymore knowing how close I was to losing her
.. and I never take her cel phone anymore....just in case
The end

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Hawaii

I have a love/hate relationship with this place.

There are positives and negatives to living in a place like this.
The weather, the water, the eye-candy... it really can be paradise.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely don't take for granted that I wear flip-flops and capris 365 days a year. Most days I love living here, then somedays I feel like I don't truly get the chance to experience what Hawaii has to offer.

I basically live life like a single working mom with no time for much of anything else. I might as well still be in Jersey except I've got no family here. I do, luckily, have friends that are the most amazing military wife family a girl could ever ask for.

I live in the most Romantic place on earth and I 've spent more time here alone than anything else. This seems to be the thing with me here.

When I was stationed here with my ex-hub we were here 20 months and I spent 14 of those here by myself while he went to Oki, Australia, San Diego and wherever else the Marine Corps decided to send him.

This time around in the 18 months I've been here so far the hub has been gone 11 of those months between NTC and the sandbox. I know what I signed up for but that doesn't make it any easier.

There are days where I see happy newlywed couples walking through the mall all happy, holding hands and being cutesy. I think how dare they rub their happiness in my face like that, totally not their fault, just the jealousy I feel ..that they have what I want and miss terribly.

We are now on the downside of this deployment and we only have roughly 5 months left which isn't much time. It's hard to believe that a whole year has almost gone by.. it seemed so fast yet so long.

I can't wait for him to come home, so we can once again be one of those cutesy(not so newlywed) couples that I see in the mall.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Reliving my Youth

Today I am 16 again.

90210 (the new class,lol) and the new New Kids on the Block cd both came out today.

I'm like a giddy little school girl. Sitting in Ms. Tamaru's Chemistry class talking about "OMG did you watch that new Beverly Hills show last night, like isn't that Brandon guy soooooo cute."

Hehe, oh the good ole' days.

Otherwise I got nothin.
My life is pretty lame as of lately.

I keep wanting to blog about things but by the time I get around to the computer, everything I want to blog about I either forgot or just seems irrelevent by the time I sit down.

I don't feeling like complaining about the Army and the politics of the Army today.

Today was a good day. =)