Random Notes Of Today

Feeling Loopy

As I sit down to write this, my belly is full of Southwest Chicken Salad, lovingly prepared by the missus. It’s the first real meal I’ve had in several days, as today has been the first in a while where I haven’t felt out of sorts. I sort of felt like I did in the aftermath of my great African Sickness; I’ve had no appetite, been nauseas; felt dizzy and disoriented and generally just been out of sorts. Needless to say, this meant that church was a bit rough this past Sunday. I think my sermon was as disjointed as I felt; it certainly seemed flat and jumbled to me! Thankfully, I seem to be on the mend and may once again have a head that feels attached to my shoulders (please, no snide comments from the relatives)…

Wedding Bells

This past weekend I welcomed two couples into the fraternity/sorority of the old married folks. Actually, both the husband and the wife of the first couple had been in that fraternity before not once, but twice. Hopefully this third marriage will stick. He, an Army staff sergeant, aged 36 years, and she, a teacher, aged 42, both went through some counseling with me and are signed up for a marriage retreat next month. I sure hope this marriage works for them. I often wonder how many of the couples I marry will one day end up in divorce. I’d like to think that none of them will, but the statistical odds are stacked heavily against me.

The second couple was much younger, with both bride and groom young sailors relatively fresh in their respective Navy careers. I wish them the best as well, as a dual-military marriage takes a lot of work, skill and grace to maintain. As an aside, I must tell you that I, your humble narrator, saved the day at this wedding. It seems that a certain bridesmaid never showed up, for reasons yet unknown to me. I received word that the bride was upset—now her wedding party was unbalanced—was her magical day destined to be asymmetrical? After noting to the groom that the married life is seldom well-balanced or running on an even keel, I struck upon a solution. His mother was wearing a nice skirt and jacket in lavender, the official color of the wedding. Aha! I walked the groom over, and (being a smart aleck) said, “Have you met this beautiful young lady? I am sure that she would be happy to participate in your wedding by standing up with the bride.” Sure enough, she did, and the wedding proceeded on merrily...

Frustrations with PSD (But at Least It Snowed Today)

For those of you lucky enough to not know what a PSD is, it’s the office that handles all of our records, orders, etc. (hence the name personnel support detachment). I am currently frustrated with a small segment of our PSD here at NAS Whidbey Island as the ID card desk has been giving me the run-around. Over the past few weeks my ID card (which we use to log on to our computers) has occasionally given me trouble. The contacts on the chip are probably wearing out, not surprising as the card is two years old and has deployed with me all around the world.

Well, on Friday morning it stopped working almost entirely. I have to enter the card thirty to forty times in to the slot before it will magically read; and even then the computer will often lock-up on me. When I can get on, I can read but not send email as the program can’t read my card to digitally sign my messages. So, I called over to the ID office to see if I could squeeze in an appointment to get a new card. No dice. The lady (civilian) said that I had to set up an appointment with their earliest available slot later on this week, but that I could come in during their walk-in times, from 1700-1900 Monday through Thursday.

So, this afternoon I stayed late at the office and dutifully went over at 1645 to get in line for and ID card, only to be told that there were no more appointments that day. Hello, what happened to the non-appointment walk-in time? As the waiting area was packed, I suspect that the office staff was way behind and cancelled the walk-in time in order to finish off their appointments for the day. I am going to haunt the office tomorrow morning when they first open up in hopes of sweet-talking someone into letting me get a card as I’d rather not wait until Thursday afternoon (my scheduled appointment time) to get a new card. Uggh!!!!

Oh well, at least it snowed this morning; about an inch in all. Of course it’s all already melted as the sun came out this afternoon. Still, I was able to walk in the midst of the “storm” down to the schoolhouse to do the chaplain’s presentation at indoc. I’d forgotten what it is like walking into a the cold wind and wet flakes of a snowstorm. Exhilarating!

Civil War Songs in the Bathtub

As Sarah is nightly immersed in the waters of our tub, so too have I nightly sunk under the gloriously warm rivers of words flowing forth from Shelby Foote’s Magnum Opus: The Civil War: A Narrative. Always a good Baptist, I believe in full immersion when it comes to reading; especially when it involved history and the retelling of the lives (and deaths) of real people. My wife considers my obsession with history to possibly be grounds for committal, but I am unrepentant and so I find myself not only reading about the Civil War, but dreaming about it. On the computer I play Civil War games and while Sarah bathes I sing her old spirituals and songs from or about the Great War of Northern Aggression (there, I hope my Southern readers are happy). As anyone who has ever heard me lead hymns on a Sunday morning can aver, my voice is not the greatest. Sarah doesn’t seem to mind however as I sing loudly “We Shall Walk Through The Valley” and “Two Brothers (Civil War)” and other great songs over and over again; improvising my own words, yea sometimes even full verses, as the spirit of music leads me…

Final Notes

The big brown truck came today, bearing gifts as it always does. Today’s box contained a gigantic body pillow for my increasingly, umm, increasingly beautiful wife. Supposedly this pillow will help Melissa get a better night’s rest, but I don’t see where I fit into the picture. I suspect that she’ll be staking out an even larger claim on the bed for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, years of sleeping with dozens of stuffed animals crowded around me have prepared me for this moment.

Also, I’d like to give proper respect to Benny and Michelle V. and their newest little V-ette. Benny is the first father in history to have a daughter born who is taller than her daddy.