Things Were Not as I Thought....

I did as was planned. I went to the pool, and I swam. Let me tell you, it was sad! I cannot swim nearly what I used to be capable of swimming. I won't go into details in order to avoid public humiliation. But I will say that my endurance doubled the very next day. Maybe it will triple today, but who knows? Why must we get fat and old? Not fair!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I doubt I will be posting anything for a few days, so Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! The plan looks like this: tomorrow run errands in the morning, then pick Evan up from school, and head to Kentucky for the holiday. I will be back this Friday, as I have to work this weekend. No rest for the wicked!

For Me....

This is for me, and only me! It takes some convincing, though, and I don't think that should be the case at all. When John started this whole endeavor of reenlisting, we already had gym memberships. The problem was that the gym we were using had Nautilus equipment and nothing more. So while we are still paying for that membership, we found it justifiable to join our local YMCA. This way, we have access to all of the features that were offered at the old gym, but we can also add to the equation access to indoor and outdoor tracks for running, classes galore (aerobics, swimming, karate for the Kid, etc.). But the thing that got me the most excited was that there is this enormous heated indoor pool for my use! Why would a pool excite me? Requires some background info.

I was never athletic. I was always the nerd that did well in school. My junior year of high school, a friend persuaded me to join the swim team, and so I did. I have always loved the water. I kept it up the rest of my high school career. I was by no means going to win an olympic event, but I could do it. And it did things for me that I cannot easily explain. I felt better about myself. While I will always be on the larger end of the spectrum, everything was toned and taut. The smell of chlorine reminds me of that to this day!

So here I have access to these resources and have not used them once! My son has. My husband certainly has. But I have not. And I have this need to do something for myself for once, which is mingling with the fact that I am not happy with the way I look after seven years of marriage and motherhood. So this is a way of taking care of myself.

The first thing I have to do is locate a competition suit for fatties. If you have not had the joys of wearing any type of performance swimwear, then I need to elaborate. They are designed for comfort during workouts. Racer backs to keep the fabric off of your shoulders, preventing friction. High cut leg openings for the same purpose. And tight...very tight to make you all sleek and streamlined in the water. In other words, they hide NOTHING. I am not relishing this task. And for this purpose, they don't tend to make them for fatties. Swimmers are not usually fat, for one thing. But this swimmer is. I have located said suit. Plain black---yay! Black at least is slimming a little bit, though I doubt it will make a difference. It is on hold for me to pick up during my run-of-the-mill housewife errends tomorrow. If I add a cap and goggles to the equation I am set!

The problem is that I feel guilty. It is as if my doing this for myself will somehow subtract from how much is available to my overindulged child and spoiled husband. Heaven forbid I spend seventy bucks and a couple of hours a day on myself. Please don't be mistaken. John is all for it. He knows I need and want to do this. And as it is right now, we are mismatched. He is cute and fit now, and I am....well, NOT. So here I go. Maybe by the end of his first deployment, I will be as fit as I used to be.

Oh My God, Really????

Theiving Monkeys Out of Control? Breaking into homes and stealing soft drinks? Maybe they are thirsty! Sorry, folks, I know there are people getting hurt. But monkeys? Really? http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071117/wl_asia_afp/indiawildlifeanimalmonkeysoffbeat;_ylt=Al7FBoXi.bYaDXj2v881ij_9xg8F

Once Again......

My Buckeyes. Big Ten Champs again. Fourth straight victory in the saga that is Ohio State vs. Michigan.

But this year, I am sad. We were robbed of the championship when we lost last week, and it sucks. I still don't understand why we are being denied a chance at the title. Look at all of the other teams that have fallen. Why is LSU number one? Why is their one loss any less significant than ours? Because they are in the SEC? Who cares? That is just geography. But regardless, I am a Buckeye. And there are now 365 days until we will see you again, Michigan! As for the rest? Meet ya in Pasadena!

Not Cool....

University of Michigan "The Victors" Now for a cheer they are here, triumphant! Here they come with banners flying, In stalwart step they're nighing, With shouts of vict'ry crying, We hurrah, hurrah, we greet you now, Hail! Far we their praises sing For the glory and fame they've brought us Loud let the bells them ring For here they come with banners flying Far we their praises tell For the glory and fame they've brought us Loud let the bells them ring For here they come with banners flying Here they come, Hurrah! Hail! to the victors valiant Hail! to the conqu'ring heroes Hail! Hail! to Michigan The leaders and best! Hail! to the victors valiant Hail! to the conqu'ring heroes Hail! Hail! to Michigan, The champions of the West! We cheer them again We cheer and cheer again For Michigan, we cheer for Michigan We cheer with might and main We cheer, cheer, cheer With might and main we cheer! Hail! to the victors valiant Hail! to the conqu'ring heroes Hail! Hail! to Michigan, The champions of the West! Okay. If OSU loses on Saturday, I have to dress up as a Michigan fan and sing this song on video as a payoff to a bet I made. Do you know about this rivalry? That it has been around for a century? I am from OHIO. I am a BUCKEYE. Read these words. I cannot bring myself to sing these lyrics. I will cry and be disowned by my people!

Domestic Hell

Picture this...You have a very stressful career where very ill people rely on you. You have a child who you swear is a male version of Veruca Salt of "Willy Wonka" fame. You have a husband you have to keep motivated on a daily basis, and just about every responsibility in the home rests on your shoulders. Do you have the mental image? Good!

Now picture this...Keeping in mind the above-mentioned lifestyle, you find yourself home alone. The male Veruca is safely in the hands of a competent child care service. The man has been successfully motivated for the day and has left for the gym. The largest of the day's tasks have been completed and checked off of the to-do list. So here is my question: What would you do???

I have candles lit, and thus the house smells like a freaking apple orchard. Other than the hum of laundry equipment, the house is silent. I have just started reading a great novel which I would love to pick up right now. I need to blog. So where is the problem?

The problem is that house is so messy that a stranger could possibly mistake it for an abandoned crackhouse! There are dishes piled on the counter, and a dishwasher full of clean dishes that are begging to be put in their place. My kid's playroom resembles a city dump. I have been off since Monday morning, so why is it like this? Better yet, my husband's only responsibility in life is to PT twice a day, period. Why hasn't he done this? The first question, I can answer by explaining that laundry has consumed my days and nights for three days. Yes, there was that much of it! about 15 loads! Now I have about 24 hours before my work week starts again (less if you figure that I must sleep at some point) and I am going to have to scramble and slave if I want to have a reasonably habitable home by the weekend. You see, I have taken a much-needed and well-deserved DAY OFF this Saturday for the big game. I refuse to be thinking about dirty dishes or laundry while I watch said game, or my neurotic self will be thinking about those things instead of how badly OSU is beating Michigan.

All of this has caused the gears in my brain to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise. I don't know which, as one should never have to figure how the cogs in my brain operate! And part of me, albeit teensy-tiny, makes me believe that I can lick the role of Military Spouse quite well. The only responsibilty the Man fulfills is of the seasonal variety, for which I can pay a neighborhood kid twenty bucks to perform---lawnwork for the chick who is allergic to grass and trees and anything that is green. As it is right now, I thrive on the moments when the Man and Kid are out of the house and I don't have to vacuum circles around them. It is hard to get the dust and lint off of sofa cushions and fluff said cushions when there is a 180-pound man laying on them. It is very difficult to get laundry finished when said Man returns from the gym, leaving a small heap of sweaty gym clothes and a wet towel on the floor next to an empty hamper. ( If you are a Man or know a Man, I do not have to explain this---it is beyond the capabilities of a Man to actually aim for the hamper!)

I know that it is inevitible that I will revisit this post months from now, when Man is likely to be deployed. And I will weep because he is nowhere to be found. I will miss the heap of sweaty clothes on the floor by the hamper or the imprint of his rearend on the sofa where he always sits. I will lament over my ability to watch a chick flick without a pop-up reminder flashing on the screen for some random Man entertainment like wrestling or Jerry Springer.

But as for me, right now, I am in my own little domestic Hell. So while Man is gone and Kid is gone, I will blare my chick music (of which I am not permitted to listen while Man or Kid is present) and I will clean their home. Then this weekend I will watch as my football team beats Man's football team to a pulp in a home that smells of Pine Sol and carpet freshener!

Should require no explanation.

Idiots are Everywhere!

Have I ever mentioned how appalled I am by stupidity? Tonight, John and I were watchibng some documentary on the War, and my heart was breaking for these guys who were telling their stories about how they were treated like heroes for their service, when inside they felt like monsters. I am worried about John going off to war, and that fear is based on the physical danger he will face. But underneath that fear is the fear that my husband will come back as somebody different, that he will be in emotional pieces that may not fit together so well after all is said and done.

So anyhow... We are watching this show, and these guys are telling these heart-wrenching accounts of what happened and the horrors of war, then they cut to this dumb kid who told about how he was promised that, if he joined the National Guard, he would stay stateside. Excuse me? Huh? We are at WAR, son! Do these people not realize that a recruiter's prime job is to sign up fresh meat? Did he not realize that he was signing up for the ARMY National Guard? Anyone with any lick of sense would see through the promise. Was it in a contract? I bet not.

Then there was this chick, crying about how she signed up for college monies. She never dreamed she would be sent to war. Heaven forbid she had to actually EARN the money for college. Did she really believe that she would be handed an education for nothing in return? Did her mother, unlike my mother, not teach her that nothing in life is free? That you don't get something for nothing? She was probably better suited to a scholarship program or federal student aid. After all, if you want college money, they will give you that, and you do not have to ship off or withstand gunfire to do it.

Then, there was this overall feeling of disdain for the military, about how they train "killers". They focused a lot on Marine Corps boot camp. Cut to a young recruit taking a bayonet to a dummy, chanting "KILL!" with each jab. How violent! How brutal! The veterans were talking about how they were trained to kill, to stare the enemy down and simply react, like a machine. They were complaining, and the whole time, I was thinking "Do you not realize that the training you received is probably why you are able to complain about it to a camera?" You signed up for the ARMED Forces of the U.S. Did you think you were going to go over there and hand out pamphlets? One has to wonder what the hell these kids were thinking they were getting into. When, not if, my husband goes over there, I actually want him to be a "killing machine", as they put it. This means he is likely to come back intact, physically and emotionally. He will be better able to do the job asked of him. And yes, it sucks that women and children get caught in the crossfire. They were telling about how a woman was approaching a humvee, and they had weapons drawn, telling her to stop, and waving emphatically. She didn't stop, and they had to shoot her. Afterwards, on her person, they found a white flag. Sad, but sorry to say, she was stupid. These men are in a place where the people who are the biggest threat blend in with the civilians. They could have a bomb rigged to themselves and all they have to do to take out many of our men is get near enough that the detonation of whatever they have on them will hit these guys. So if you are trying to surrender, and they have their weapons drawn and are telling you to stop, wouldn't you stop? Wouldn't you ensure that they knew you had no malicious intent? Dumb.....dumb, dumb, dumb. Now our men are in pieces because they had to take the moron out.

I am a normal and sane person, and I hate to see any innocent person hurt. But I do not expect our men to put themselves in danger because of someone's gender or age. Does anyone really believe that, should these people come over and start something on our homeland, that they would have any regard to whether I was a civilian or female? Hell no they wouldn't! And our guys are in a place where an empty Coke can on the side of the road in a ditch may be a bomb! Where the enemy may be driving alongside them in a car rigged to explode and kill them. There was a clip on You Tube showing our guys driving through Iraq in a humvee and they were in traffic. Instead of sitting in traffic, they nudged the bumper of each car that was in front of them, so the car would move and let them pass. The users were making comments about how asshole-ish this was, that it is no wonder that Americans are hated. My response to that is that I hope to hell they would NOT sit in traffic and wait for the asshole next to them to explode himself in his car. These hippie tree-hugging morons want the guys to be sitting ducks, awaiting their deaths.

So anyhow, I got pissed off in a serious way, as you can tell. I don't really get into the politics of any of it. All I need to know is that my people are over there, in harms way, and I am the girl who roots for the home team, so to speak. If the powers that be say to come home, they will, and if they say send more in, they will. The way I see it, my job, as an American is to say I do not care, but that I am in support of my brothers and sisters. But I do believe that all of this crap is putting even more spin on an issue that is already about to spiral out of control. And before people let themselves be influenced by the things being said, like how these kids were fooled, they need to stop and think about it. I am sure there are some legitimate complaints about this war and the treatment of our men and women that are returning from combat, but these idiotic non-issues are not them.

Sorry to be MIA for Awhile

Nothing is really going on here other than the monotonous drone of recruiters' mouths. A while back, we discovered that John will need a waiver to get back in. WAIVER...as in the potential deal-breaker variety. He has continued to lose weight and get into shape to the point that the I need to post an after picture to the after picture I posted before. Haha!

So anyhow, we never expected it to be this difficult for a Marine with an impeccable service record to get back into the military. We have had correspondence with US senators, congressman, and even our state's governor. Blah! I am tired of dealing with the military, and I am not even the one reenlisting.

In the meantime, I am getting more and more frightened by the minute. Just about the time they will tell John he is good to go, even more hell is going to unleash in the Middle East. It's bad enough with Iraq and Afghenistan. What in the blue hell is going on with Pakistan and Iran and Turkey??? I am still waiting for this to be renamed World War III. As my good friend Tony pointed out, there are already more nations involved in this than were involved in WWII. I was freaking out about the reenlistment issue when it was just Iraq and Afghanistan. Now I just wanna smack John on the back of the head and ask what he was even thinking!

Other than that, work is blah, my kid is still rotten to the core, and life is mundane. I will have more to report later, as John is meeting with a A Few Good Men today in Louisville, Kentucky to run through a PFT and figure out where we need to go from here.