Best Thanksgiving Memory

Thanksgiving has always been a wonderful holiday.  While we were in the Navy, Thanksgiving was a holiday observed by banks, the Post Office, and the rest of the world; but not the Navy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have memories of celebrating Thanksgiving on ships, in the air, and days before and after the "real" day, because the Navy had other plans.   There was the Thanksgiving when we invited our vegan friends to dinner and they brought garlic cheese bread.  It was moldy.  It was gross.  But they didn't mind the potatoes and stuffing.  We enjoyed the turkey.

There were many Thanksgivings spent alone.  And for an introvert, it was pretty okay to have some down time.  Many, many well meaning friends tried to entice me to dinners and parties and such.  I sometimes fibbed a little ... had other plans with other (not quite) people, like my sweet girl Allie.   I could imagine nothing more awful than making small talk with family members in tense situations and not knowing anyone.  Instead, when Paul was deployed, I would sleep, relax, read, write, and just BE.  It was awesome.

The best Thanksgiving memory ever was our first Thanksgiving in Guam.  80 degrees.  Sunshine.  Guam.  We invited all the single guys working with Paul on the Niagara Falls over for dinner.  We cooked the turkey, the potatoes (from a box.  Real potatoes on Guam were outrageous $$), and stuffing.  Everyone else brought something to drink and ... a plate, a knife, a fork, and a spoon.  We didn't have enough flatware for everyone.

We were really poor, just starting out.  But it didn't matter.  We had such an awesome time.  Everyone thought the meal was fabulous.  No one minded that I left the little plastic bag with the giblets inside.  Well, no one really knew.  I made the stuffing on the stove top. 

Happy Thanksgiving.  Here is to you and your families - two legged and four legged.  Cheers.

Beaches

More than just sand.

Soon, but never soon enough.  Happy Monday.

Monday memories

When I think about memories, I think of two very specific people.  My Grandfather and my first GSD, Allie.  Yes, I consider her a person.

Paul would describe Allie as not a dog at all;  rather, she was a transcendental being sent to earth by aliens to observe life.She had a general disdain for dirt, mud, rain, and cold cement.  She did love the water, the beach, and surprisingly, the snow.  She really loved our sofa and our bed. 

We loved her more than words could ever convey.  Her allergies scarred her body but never her spirit.  She loved Paul and tolerated me.  Oh sweet ironies, you don't pick dogs; they pick you.  We were grateful to have the time with her that we did.

From All Allie All the Time

From All Allie All the Time

From All Allie All the Time

From All Allie All the Time

From All Allie All the Time

From All Allie All the Time

Where ever she is now, she is definitely chasing seagulls, chewing on bones, and eating puppy treats. Our sweet girkie.

Monday Memories

It's freezing.  I needed a reminder that summer will return.  Soon.

From Summer Weekends

From Summer Weekends

Monday Memories

From a photo shoot with my g/f Jewels.  It was a wonderful evening.

From FridayNight

Here comes winter

This is what it looked like last year.  And suspect it will look like this year too.

From 2010-02-13

Hopefully, we will have a little fall first.

Monday Memories

And a shout out.  My friend, Jewels, is an AMAZING photographer.  When we go out shooting, we always have so seriously much fun.

Here is Jewels having fun.

From Saturday morning shoot

Want to see her work?  Check out her out here.  And here. (Rock Star!)

Monday Memories

From Oscoda - October 2010

Thinking about the sun, sand, surf and V.  If I spend much more time in Oscoda, I will have to start an Overheard at the V blog.  But for now, this is memory enough.

Happy Monday.

Monday Memories of Big Ted

Years ago, a lifetime ago, I lived in a condo in Irvine. We (that's the royal we- Paul, Allie and I) split our time between our place in OC and our home in San Diego. I didn't mind the time and loved my friends there ... loved everything except the traffic...oh, and the weather. Sun all the time got to me. (Commence funny and witty barbs here).

Miss Allie loved her poofy toys. Her favorite toy was Big Ted, as seen here in her mouth. Seriously, that was the name on the toy when I bought it. She would bark, shake and kill Big Ted every chance she could. Mostly she would chew on Big Ted. But Big Ted wouldn't die.

I could get Ms Allie to bare her teeth. I would say, 'Get Big Ted' or 'Where's Big Ted' and she would bark, growl and shake Big Ted.

One day, I was chasing Ms. Allie around the small table in the living room. She was growling, shaking and trying to kill Big Ted. I was chasing her, trying to get Big Ted from her. It was our little game. As I was chasing her, yelling 'Get Big Ted - Where's Big Ted?' a good friend of mine was walking up to my front door. She cautiously approached the door - calling my name, asking if everything was ok. Out of breath from chasing Ms. Allie, I said - sure all good, why?

She said, "who's Big Ted and why are you yelling his name? and where is Paul?" We all had a very good, hearty chortle. All these years later I can still laugh about Ms Allie and Big Ted.

Monday Memories

Prepping for Randy's retirement. Everyone worked to make sure that it was perfect. It was.

Monday Memories

This weekend, we were in Chicago for a friend's retirement. Randy Spence retired after serving our country and the Navy for 36 years. I will write more about that later. Suffice it to say there were no dry eyes. Wow.

For our Monday memory, I am reaching back a few years to Paul's tour at Chicago and my own personal ride on the MIC boats because, well, I had a few connections. :)

Happy Monday.

Monday Memories

My grandfather. He loved his beach in Port Huron, could name every freighter coming and going in the channel and could throw a mean skipper.

I still miss him, all these years later.

Monday Memories

My friend Jewels has a great blog and does a really cool thing called Flashback Fridays. She posts great pictures that she has taken over the years and it's so much fun to see what a great photographer she was before digital - and of course, still is.

I only have been serious about pictures since digital film and my "memories" are not nearly as extensive. We have some fun pictures that bring back memories - some wonderful, some bittersweet, some with not-so-hot focus. But all worth sharing.

So today commences Monday memories and I can think of no better picture than of our sweet angel, Allister with her Red Wings collar and Frisbee, having a blast on her beach in Chicago. We could barely get her to leave.

Happy Monday.

My first glimpse

I got a get well card (you know, as well as one can get with a pin in her foot) from a friend who shared a story about a friend of his. His friend had surgery and asked the doctor why he didn't tell her that it would hurt so much. The doctor said, well because you may not have had the surgery. Well DUH, that's a no-brainer. There is a reason that I maintain that my podiatrist is the master of understatement. This evolution has been difficult, more difficult than I imagined. Thanks William for the card and the chuckle.

I didn't write or blog much in the first couple of days because, frankly, I was sleeping and pretty darn doped up. I learned a number of things on this journey. Vicodin does nothing for me. Nada. Anesthesia is not my friend. I vomit, a lot. And a 40 something woman throwing up in a bucket is NOT a pretty sight - not evening being the one looking in the bucket. Add to it the fact that I couldn't bathe, drugs weren't helping the pain, not even Vicidon, I wasn't happy, my brand new screaming fast 4gb RAM, dual core chip WASN'T PICKING UP MY WIRELESS NETWORK and oh by the way, I had a pin in my foot, no wonder Paul wanted to got back to work. And fast. I wanted to go back to work to get away from this!

Eventually, we upgraded the pain meds and lo and behold, Percocet did the trick. A few comments on Percocet. Now painting the picture of me in bed, with my Bucket and my unwashed Billy Idol hair, betadyne-red foot with saturated wrap AND PIN and ice covering as much as possible and... we are on the phone with the medical professionals batting around medicines like I (we) are pharmacists. Truth be told, I have very little recollection of the medicine conversations between Paul and me and the medical professionals. I vividly recall the foot-on-fire feeling, and Bucket in my arms and the final decision to get the Percocet. Fine, I am thinking to my drug-induced self, get the damn Percocet and let's call it a shop, shall we?

So yesterday, I ended some other pain killer and decided that it was a good time to end the Percocet too. So at dinner, after my two Tylenol (which frankly come nowhere close to that Percocet feeling), Paul mentions that Percocet is an opiate. You know, Paul the chemist, Paul the engineer, Paul who should have been a pharmacist, Paul who knows everything.... I about spit out my food. An Opiate? OPIATE IF YOU MISSED IT. Holy crap - I had no idea that it was such a powerful drug and no wonder I felt so good!

I took a peek. I mean it's my PIN in my FOOT, albeit temporarily. I had to look. And let me just say that it isn't pretty. And there is a good reason that the podiatrist didn't show me the pin before surgery. There is a good reason that he didn't tell me how much it was going to hurt. He also forgot to get mention how my foot would swell and how disfiguring a pin in the toe would make it look. Let's just say it's going to be a while before I get another pedicure.

So I am back to me. No more bucket, no more pain meds, no more drug-hazed days. Just me with a couple of crutches hobbling around with a pin in my foot. And it hurts. And it is going to hurt for six weeks.

Message in a Bottle

When our good friends HWC Homeworks (Jim) was working on replacing our front door, a most unusual thing happened. Jim was removing the old frame and cut the wire to the door bell. In perfect Jim fashion, he offered to fix it, said it wouldn't be a problem but I took a moment to reflect on the event. No door bell. No solicitors who can't read the no soliciting sign. No petitioners requesting signatures and of course, money. No interruptions. Hmmm.....it was tempting. So we decided to be wild rebels and go without a door bell. Ah ha, no door bell. So how is it working out? Keep reading....

In our backroom, I have a wonderful work station with my computers and we had large shelves from the Container Store that we brought with us from California. I love them but we were becoming cluttered with too much stuff. So we have downsized our stuff and our capacity to store it. It is incredible how quickly one can purge when there is no more room to store. Discipline! So we spent the afternoon culling through documents, scanning some, shredding others and filing only that which we absolutely had to keep, working to get our stuff down to a manageable level. This was step one in reducing our clutter and entropy...or just stuff.

I have a lot of stuff but only a few things with significant sentimental value. When I lived in Orange County, I had to adjust to fire season. Most people wanted to know about earthquakes but I was most terrified of fires. If you have not lived in places with high fire threats, there simply is no way to explain how quickly one can be in trouble. I kept a bag, tucked away in the closet with the most important things I had - my passport, my marriage license, copy of my will and insurance papers and my dog Allie's proof of vaccinations. It was amazing how little was truly important if I had to vacate the condo in the middle of the night. Now all that stuff is online and located remotely if I ever need it. So I don't even need to emergency bag.

I have a few items of true importance. I have a piece of beach glass that hangs on a necklace around my neck, the glass a find while walking on the beach with my grandfather when I was about five years old. A pair of earrings that Paul bought me while traveling around the Middle East. And our old phone answering machine. Yup, an answering machine. There are a couple of messages on the machine with which I couldn't bear to part....a voicemail from our friend (and vet) Dr. Rick thanking Paul for the invitation to his Change of Command/Retirement ceremony; a voice mail from our friend and pet sitter Catie, sharing her tales on one of her last days with our beautiful Allie; a message from Joyce (who works with Dr. Rick) letting us know that they had Allie's remains safe and sound, telling us that we could come pick her up for the last time; a voicemail from Paul's friend (and former Navy colleague) Shawn, who spent a year in Iraq and I just was grateful to hear his voice; and a message from Paul's friend Big Johnny welcoming Paul to retirement. All messages of caring and kindness reflecting loss and change. All messages that once in a while I just need to hear.

So how is it working out without the doorbell? Well, not so well. The new stained glass, fiberglass door is a monster and no amount of knocking can be heard. While it keeps away the unwanted and unwelcome, we are missing those for whom we would throw the door open widely with reckless abandon. Those we just need to see and hear once in a while. So should you come visiting, please come to the side door - we can hear you there. :)

Good night from EGR.