Every year since I was in college, I call my father on Veteran's Day and thank him for his 20 years of military service. Thanks, Dad! (This is not a cop-out--I already called him. Haha.)
I grew up as an Air Force brat, and I wouldn't trade that upbringing for anything. I can't really imagine life any differently. What would it have been like if I had been born to a family that lived in the same town my entire life, with parents who worked the same jobs for all those years? I will never know. Nor do I care to know.
As a result of my father's military service, I got to live in many interesting places, I learned to make friends quickly, and I'm a great problem solver who is resilient when things go awry. What a life!
I have the military blood -- I hesitate to put down roots, I look forward to moving every so often, I am independent of my family (though I love them very much), I seek new adventure wherever I can get it, I want to experience new things and take advantage of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. This is who I am. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Bath Time
For weeks we have been saying that Coco needs a bath...badly. Yes, his breath stinks and it doesn't help that he licks himself in order to get clean and then smells like his foul breath, but his body odor went beyond that--not strong, just unpleasant when he got up in your face. For weeks, we kept putting it off. Until last night.
Let me backtrack first. The first time we ever gave Coco a bath, he sat down in the sink and quietly tolerated it. But this is the same cat that will jump into your warm bath water provided it's just water and not stinky bubbles and stuff. Coco is very docile. However, the last two times we bathed the kitties, we bathed Timmy first. Timmy does not like baths. Timmy howls and moans and tries to escape, and an unwitting passerby who heard him would think we were abusing him by the way he carries on. As a result, Coco was spooked and also put up a fight. So, we had to rethink this strategy.
Yesterday, after our guests left, both cats were asleep on the couch. And, as is typical in his old age, Timmy drooled all over the cushion. The wet spot was about the size of a quarter. When he realized this (I don't know if he woke up completely) he started licking the couch to clean it. We watched him, amused, because he seemed to be sleep-licking. Then we went back to watching TV, and when we looked back, Timmy was still licking the couch, and by now the wet spot was the size of a softball! Gross! He was just in a licking kind of mood. And eventually, he moved over to Coco and started licking the sleeping cat. It was at this point that we decided the baths were in store because while Coco has bad breath, Timmy's breath is horrid, and poor Coco would smell like Timmy's bad breath on top of his already unpleasant BO.
Coco did pretty well. I'll tell you that there is nothing quite as funny as a cat who is soaking wet. And their little rat tails (so fluffy when they're dry) hold so much water! I'm the designated holder while Eli is the designated washer/rinser. We both got equally wet trying to keep the cat in the sink. At one point he jumped up and clawed desperately at Eli's shirt. We were laughing so hard it was difficult to unhook his claws. There was this look of utter desperation in his eyes.
Then Timmy got his bath. Thankfully, Timmy is not as agile as Coco, and he also doesn't have front claws. He's much easier to keep in the sink, though he did try to make a run for it a couple of times. Mostly, he just howls and meows and extends his limbs as taut as he can, as if he were stiff-legged. We got even wetter.
I wish I had a camera, because they are so funny looking. But mostly, I wish I could keep that image of a freshly-bathed, fluffy kitty for a little longer. Later in the evening, Timmy, mostly dry, jumped up to sit with me on the couch, which is highly unusual since Eli is his favorite (and he doesn't try to hide it). I think he was snubbing Eli because Eli was the one who sprayed him. Haha. (Coco didn't care. He curled up on Eli's lap about 30 minutes after...such a forgiving heart). And I'm happy to report that Timmy is white again (for now), and Coco doesn't stink (as bad).
Let me backtrack first. The first time we ever gave Coco a bath, he sat down in the sink and quietly tolerated it. But this is the same cat that will jump into your warm bath water provided it's just water and not stinky bubbles and stuff. Coco is very docile. However, the last two times we bathed the kitties, we bathed Timmy first. Timmy does not like baths. Timmy howls and moans and tries to escape, and an unwitting passerby who heard him would think we were abusing him by the way he carries on. As a result, Coco was spooked and also put up a fight. So, we had to rethink this strategy.
Yesterday, after our guests left, both cats were asleep on the couch. And, as is typical in his old age, Timmy drooled all over the cushion. The wet spot was about the size of a quarter. When he realized this (I don't know if he woke up completely) he started licking the couch to clean it. We watched him, amused, because he seemed to be sleep-licking. Then we went back to watching TV, and when we looked back, Timmy was still licking the couch, and by now the wet spot was the size of a softball! Gross! He was just in a licking kind of mood. And eventually, he moved over to Coco and started licking the sleeping cat. It was at this point that we decided the baths were in store because while Coco has bad breath, Timmy's breath is horrid, and poor Coco would smell like Timmy's bad breath on top of his already unpleasant BO.
Coco did pretty well. I'll tell you that there is nothing quite as funny as a cat who is soaking wet. And their little rat tails (so fluffy when they're dry) hold so much water! I'm the designated holder while Eli is the designated washer/rinser. We both got equally wet trying to keep the cat in the sink. At one point he jumped up and clawed desperately at Eli's shirt. We were laughing so hard it was difficult to unhook his claws. There was this look of utter desperation in his eyes.
Then Timmy got his bath. Thankfully, Timmy is not as agile as Coco, and he also doesn't have front claws. He's much easier to keep in the sink, though he did try to make a run for it a couple of times. Mostly, he just howls and meows and extends his limbs as taut as he can, as if he were stiff-legged. We got even wetter.
I wish I had a camera, because they are so funny looking. But mostly, I wish I could keep that image of a freshly-bathed, fluffy kitty for a little longer. Later in the evening, Timmy, mostly dry, jumped up to sit with me on the couch, which is highly unusual since Eli is his favorite (and he doesn't try to hide it). I think he was snubbing Eli because Eli was the one who sprayed him. Haha. (Coco didn't care. He curled up on Eli's lap about 30 minutes after...such a forgiving heart). And I'm happy to report that Timmy is white again (for now), and Coco doesn't stink (as bad).
Sunday, November 9, 2008
EAMC
So, yes, last night I spent several hours in the emergency room of the East Alabama Medical Center for the second time since we moved here in July (I last went July 30/31). It's a good thing that the staff at the hospital is pretty incredible, or I might be dead right now (asphyxiation). It also makes me feel that more confident about having my child in that hospital...the only "big" hospital for miles.
I told Eli I was going, and he said he'd come with. I told him that he didn't need to, but rather to stay home and entertain his parents who had stopped through on their way back to Mobile from Williamsburg, VA. When Mother-in-law heard that I was going to the ER, she insisted on coming. So, we had several hours of quality one-on-one time to talk and talk and talk (except when I was breathing on my magic peace pipe). The nurses are competent and friendly. My only (minor) complaint is that I did have to endure an IV hookup hanging out of my arm for several hours, and then they ended up not using it. And that's the end of my complaints. Pretty good, huh?
Now let me tell you the part that had my heart breaking in two.
As Mother-in-law dropped me off to go register, I could hear the sirens of ambulances pulling up at the back door. When I got inside, the triage check-in nurse was telling people that it would be a 5-hour wait because they had just gotten several ambulances and a helicopter. I knew it wouldn't be that long for me because if you can't breathe, they generally get you in pretty quickly. So, I went and sat and read, waiting for Mother-in-law to park and come in.
At some point, this horrendous wailing and screaming started. It was awful. It went on and on, and I finally figured out that it wasn't a patient in pain, because the pain in this lament was more painful than anything you would be sent to the ER for. I tried to ignore it, but my eyes welled up with tears and I was crying all over my book. When the verbal mourning subsided, a group of people who had just come from the back huddled near the exit door with somber looks on their faces. I remember that a woman they knew came in from outside right then, and one of the men said something too low for me to hear, but the woman stopped in her tracks, looked at them, and started saying, "No. He's not." And she started crying and walked outside, walking away from the ER. I remember thinking, Why isn't someone going after her to comfort her? But they just stood there stoically. The remaining woman in the group starting crying, but not audibly, and I saw her open her phone, dial a number, and start talking to someone. She stepped outside to finish the conversation. The wailing started again.
It would be at this point that the triage nurse would call me back to take my vitals. My eyes were wet when I went into the little room, and he asked what I was reading. I showed him my copy of Little Women, and he said he understood the tears. I shook my head, to indicate the the book wasn't what was sad, and he nodded slightly. Then, these two women came to the door (I only heard them since my back was to the door) and asked if they could go back and be with the woman who had just lost her husband, and I started crying again. The nurse told them that he needed to check how many people were already back there since there was a big group already. Anyway, the women were denied by another nurse (the one who counted the visitors) and made a little scene, and then they were able to go back. As he was finishing taking my stats, the nurse mumbled something under his breath about them making Tuberville's wife mad. (Tommy Tuberville is Auburn's head football coach.)
I was shortly called back to a little triage station, and before I turned left down the hall after the nurse, I looked right, and there, lined up on the wall, were men wearing khaki pants and white polo shirts with the Auburn logo and the Under Armor logo. As far as I could tell, it was the football coaching staff. And then I was whisked away.
[**UPDATE** The story was just posted.
Auburn mourns Virgil Starks]
I will never forget the woman's cries as she found out that her husband was dead. And honestly, it reminded me of a funeral I attended for a teacher at my school who had been shot in the head during a bar brawl two years ago. Everyone asked me if I had ever been to a "black" funeral before, which I hadn't. I cried all through that funeral as the family paraded by the closed casket, and women screamed and wailed and cried out to Jesus, children stood silently by, crying and weeping. The mother threw herself across the casket crying and not wanting to let go, and had to be escorted back to her seat. Women fainting, men catching them. A collective wail of mourning. The funeral lasted for hours.
The person with whom I attended the funeral didn't shed a tear, saying that most of it was a show. That all "black" funeral were like this. I didn't know what to think.
After last night, I know that grief was real, both at the funeral and at the ER. It just was too piercing to my soul to be someone "putting on a show".
I came home finally (after about 4.5 hours in the ER), kissed my husband goodnight, and told him that I love him, and that I don't want to live without him. He was asleep, but he mumbled, "Okay." :)
I told Eli I was going, and he said he'd come with. I told him that he didn't need to, but rather to stay home and entertain his parents who had stopped through on their way back to Mobile from Williamsburg, VA. When Mother-in-law heard that I was going to the ER, she insisted on coming. So, we had several hours of quality one-on-one time to talk and talk and talk (except when I was breathing on my magic peace pipe). The nurses are competent and friendly. My only (minor) complaint is that I did have to endure an IV hookup hanging out of my arm for several hours, and then they ended up not using it. And that's the end of my complaints. Pretty good, huh?
Now let me tell you the part that had my heart breaking in two.
As Mother-in-law dropped me off to go register, I could hear the sirens of ambulances pulling up at the back door. When I got inside, the triage check-in nurse was telling people that it would be a 5-hour wait because they had just gotten several ambulances and a helicopter. I knew it wouldn't be that long for me because if you can't breathe, they generally get you in pretty quickly. So, I went and sat and read, waiting for Mother-in-law to park and come in.
At some point, this horrendous wailing and screaming started. It was awful. It went on and on, and I finally figured out that it wasn't a patient in pain, because the pain in this lament was more painful than anything you would be sent to the ER for. I tried to ignore it, but my eyes welled up with tears and I was crying all over my book. When the verbal mourning subsided, a group of people who had just come from the back huddled near the exit door with somber looks on their faces. I remember that a woman they knew came in from outside right then, and one of the men said something too low for me to hear, but the woman stopped in her tracks, looked at them, and started saying, "No. He's not." And she started crying and walked outside, walking away from the ER. I remember thinking, Why isn't someone going after her to comfort her? But they just stood there stoically. The remaining woman in the group starting crying, but not audibly, and I saw her open her phone, dial a number, and start talking to someone. She stepped outside to finish the conversation. The wailing started again.
It would be at this point that the triage nurse would call me back to take my vitals. My eyes were wet when I went into the little room, and he asked what I was reading. I showed him my copy of Little Women, and he said he understood the tears. I shook my head, to indicate the the book wasn't what was sad, and he nodded slightly. Then, these two women came to the door (I only heard them since my back was to the door) and asked if they could go back and be with the woman who had just lost her husband, and I started crying again. The nurse told them that he needed to check how many people were already back there since there was a big group already. Anyway, the women were denied by another nurse (the one who counted the visitors) and made a little scene, and then they were able to go back. As he was finishing taking my stats, the nurse mumbled something under his breath about them making Tuberville's wife mad. (Tommy Tuberville is Auburn's head football coach.)
I was shortly called back to a little triage station, and before I turned left down the hall after the nurse, I looked right, and there, lined up on the wall, were men wearing khaki pants and white polo shirts with the Auburn logo and the Under Armor logo. As far as I could tell, it was the football coaching staff. And then I was whisked away.
[**UPDATE** The story was just posted.
Auburn mourns Virgil Starks]
I will never forget the woman's cries as she found out that her husband was dead. And honestly, it reminded me of a funeral I attended for a teacher at my school who had been shot in the head during a bar brawl two years ago. Everyone asked me if I had ever been to a "black" funeral before, which I hadn't. I cried all through that funeral as the family paraded by the closed casket, and women screamed and wailed and cried out to Jesus, children stood silently by, crying and weeping. The mother threw herself across the casket crying and not wanting to let go, and had to be escorted back to her seat. Women fainting, men catching them. A collective wail of mourning. The funeral lasted for hours.
The person with whom I attended the funeral didn't shed a tear, saying that most of it was a show. That all "black" funeral were like this. I didn't know what to think.
After last night, I know that grief was real, both at the funeral and at the ER. It just was too piercing to my soul to be someone "putting on a show".
I came home finally (after about 4.5 hours in the ER), kissed my husband goodnight, and told him that I love him, and that I don't want to live without him. He was asleep, but he mumbled, "Okay." :)
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Breathing Room
During the past three weeks, my asthma has gotten worse and worse. Yesterday at school I started having a mild asthma attack but of course I had left my inhaler at home. So I mooched a Diet Mountain Dew from one of the seventh grade teachers to hold me over until I could get some albuterol.
Well, I got home, used both my inhalers, and my breathing did not get better. In the middle of the night, I used my rescue inhaler a couple of times, and one time Eli covered his head with his pillow and asked me to go use my inhaler because I was making so much noise trying to breathe (though I had already used it!).
Today, we took his cousins, S and A, to campus and then to the football game. I have never been as winded and unable to breathe as I was today. Short jogs chasing the cat who got out of the apartment made me breathe heavily. Short climbs uphill walking around campus killed me. Climbing the stairs to my seats about did me in. This is the worst its ever been.
Now we're home, and I'm trying to calm down and get my breathing to regulate, but I'm just able to take shallow breaths. My chest is starting to ache. I just told Eli that I'm thinking about going to the emergency room, and he told me to come into the back room, away from cat dander and dust and see if it gets better. Well, it's not getting better.
And, of course, I don't have an asthma doctor here yet. I only have one choice. I'm going to wait a little longer to see. At the rate I'm going, I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight.
**UPDATE** I went to the ER and I can breathe better now, but it's not perfect. The nice docs did not want to give me steroids since I'm pregnant. It's so good to breathe.
Well, I got home, used both my inhalers, and my breathing did not get better. In the middle of the night, I used my rescue inhaler a couple of times, and one time Eli covered his head with his pillow and asked me to go use my inhaler because I was making so much noise trying to breathe (though I had already used it!).
Today, we took his cousins, S and A, to campus and then to the football game. I have never been as winded and unable to breathe as I was today. Short jogs chasing the cat who got out of the apartment made me breathe heavily. Short climbs uphill walking around campus killed me. Climbing the stairs to my seats about did me in. This is the worst its ever been.
Now we're home, and I'm trying to calm down and get my breathing to regulate, but I'm just able to take shallow breaths. My chest is starting to ache. I just told Eli that I'm thinking about going to the emergency room, and he told me to come into the back room, away from cat dander and dust and see if it gets better. Well, it's not getting better.
And, of course, I don't have an asthma doctor here yet. I only have one choice. I'm going to wait a little longer to see. At the rate I'm going, I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight.
**UPDATE** I went to the ER and I can breathe better now, but it's not perfect. The nice docs did not want to give me steroids since I'm pregnant. It's so good to breathe.
Friday, November 7, 2008
From Zorro to Google
You know how I mentioned that I listen to books on tape while driving to work? Well, on Tuesday I decided that I would listen to Zorro by Isabel Allende. Eli got it at some point from the discount bin at Books-A-Million and I hadn't listened to it yet. So far in the story, Diego (soon to be Zorro) is fifteen, and his father has shipped him from the Spanish colonies in California to Spain to be educated in the traditional Spanish manner (where, if I am to understand it, he takes lessons with the world's greatest fencing master). Anyway, he's not to Spain just yet. The ship had to stop in the Azores to take on fresh water and fresh food. And then my mind wandered...
You know how people will Google their own names from time to time, just to see what shows up? Well, for a few years I've been searching the Internet to try to find my friend Jennifer Paterson (yes, with one "t"). I'm hoping that someday Jennifer will Google herself and find this post and let me know how life has been in the last, oh, 15 years.
As Air Force brats, when we were in 7th and 8th grades, our dads were stationed in Altus, OK. Jennifer and I played basketball together at Altus Junior High (though she was arguably a better player than me). She also swam on the swim team at WOSC with several of the other officer kiddos. Sometime during eighth grade (and this is why my mind wandered) her dad, Bruce, was stationed in the Azores, and they moved away. We kept in touch for a couple of months, sending videos and letters back and forth, and she even once called me from the Azores via a ham operator, but eventually we lost touch. She got busy with life, becoming a cheerleader and excelling at basketball on her little island. I often mention Jennifer in passing (though not by name) to my students because Jennifer was the first person I ever met who had a step-mother. And due to all my reading, I was under the impression that all stepmothers were wicked (thanks a lot, Cinderella). It boggled my mind that Jennifer and her step-mother, Loyce, got along.
Fast forward to the age of the Internet, and I, myself tried to Google Jennifer at some point, and all I was able to find was that she was a Miss Arizona contestant in 2001, Miss La Paz County. There's not trace of her after that.
So, Jennifer, if you ever Google yourself and come across this e-mail, it's me, the girl formerly known as Erin Greenawalt!
And to everyone else, thanks for humoring me while I walk down memory lane.
You know how people will Google their own names from time to time, just to see what shows up? Well, for a few years I've been searching the Internet to try to find my friend Jennifer Paterson (yes, with one "t"). I'm hoping that someday Jennifer will Google herself and find this post and let me know how life has been in the last, oh, 15 years.
As Air Force brats, when we were in 7th and 8th grades, our dads were stationed in Altus, OK. Jennifer and I played basketball together at Altus Junior High (though she was arguably a better player than me). She also swam on the swim team at WOSC with several of the other officer kiddos. Sometime during eighth grade (and this is why my mind wandered) her dad, Bruce, was stationed in the Azores, and they moved away. We kept in touch for a couple of months, sending videos and letters back and forth, and she even once called me from the Azores via a ham operator, but eventually we lost touch. She got busy with life, becoming a cheerleader and excelling at basketball on her little island. I often mention Jennifer in passing (though not by name) to my students because Jennifer was the first person I ever met who had a step-mother. And due to all my reading, I was under the impression that all stepmothers were wicked (thanks a lot, Cinderella). It boggled my mind that Jennifer and her step-mother, Loyce, got along.
Fast forward to the age of the Internet, and I, myself tried to Google Jennifer at some point, and all I was able to find was that she was a Miss Arizona contestant in 2001, Miss La Paz County. There's not trace of her after that.
So, Jennifer, if you ever Google yourself and come across this e-mail, it's me, the girl formerly known as Erin Greenawalt!
And to everyone else, thanks for humoring me while I walk down memory lane.
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