Sunday, October 31, 2010

9


I finally got to talk to R last night.

Pffft. Listen to me, "finally." When he deployed in 2003, it took two months to get my first letter and I thought that was awesome! Of course, we weren't married then, so perhaps my perspective was somewhat different. The other thing that skews my perspective this time is living in Europe. "Down range" is no longer halfway across the world, and in fact is only ahead by a single time zone. It feels closer and quite frankly I don't know if that makes it easier or harder. On the one hand, logistically he could be back home in a couple of hours, but in practice he's as unreachable as the moon.

Took Heidi on a long, meandering walk this morning. Bright fall colors have begun to darken to that charcoal gray grunge look, but this tree is hanging onto its red. These spots reminded me of something utterly alien to northern Europe - as though a bit of Africa had set up shop beside the river. I spent several minutes observing it from different angles, and this shot is my favorite. Very straight forward and direct, which is an acurate reflection of how I'm feeling today.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Family Time

All three of us on the floor today, and Heidi expresses her approval.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Flirty Witch.


Rather at the last minute, Ro decided she wanted to "dress up" to work the school function she was earning extra curricular hours at this evening. So we recycled a costume shirt and hat (for the third time - at least) and in the end she was glad to get in the spirit, as after her shift was over she got her boogie on with her friends and had a great time. This is the only picture I took today, and that's just fine with me.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The scene of the crime

I was really mad today. Like, scrunch my face up and growl menacingly until the dog runs and hides under the bed mad. Unfortunately, my dog doesn't take me at all seriously so it's more like grumble intermittently and pout until I can't stand my own company mad. Is that the next "stage" in this whole, adjusting to the new normal crap? Because it sucks. And it's pissing me off. I'd like to go back to feeling normal now, thankyouverymuch.

I did a lot of cleaning today but I was still mad. So I decided to channel that energy into murdering a plate of brownies. Pretty gruesome, innit? Wait 'til you see me on the scale tomorrow - now that will be ugly.


Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Day Five

Ugh! Only five days in and I already dropped a day! I really let yesterday get away from me. Started out strong and goal-oriented, but didn't take care of myself and burnt out by noon. I have a little stretch routine I try to do first thing upon waking up - usually right there in the bed, but now that R is gone, I've moved the furniture to have floor space in the living room. Yesterday, not only did I skip the stretching, I pretty much forgot to hydrate after my bagel and two cups of coffee. Yeah. No wonder I crashed at noon and woke up three hours later with a massive headache. The lesson here is not to be so focused on my to do list that I forget the everyday stuff!

Speaking of everyday stuff, I took Heidi out to our favorite walking route this morning and was rewarded with a 20 minute break in the cloud cover, allowing the low, streaking autumn sunrise through. Really magnificent.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Triptych feather


The only thing I can think about when I look at this picture is the old joke:
Erotic is using the feather,
Kinky is using the whole bird.

I guess leaves aren't the only thing that fall in autumn. A flock of pigeons were picking over a recently harvested corn field this morning. Heidi chased them off and dozens of these feathers were left behind.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Partly Cloudy


The last of the storm clouds moving out this morning. I take that as a good omen.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Day One


Every summer (and every other Christmas) when I was a kid, I did what most children born in the 70s did: went from one divorced parent's house to the other's. My parents were great with each other (and with me) so thankfully I didn't have to deal with the contentious baloney that a lot of my peers went through, but I did sit there on the plane by myself at eight years old, crying my eyes out with my face pressed against the hot summer window, wondering if I could still see whichever parent I was leaving through the shiny wall of windows at the terminal. It didn't matter that I knew I was going straight to the loving and enthusiastic arms of the other parent, or that I'd been making this type of trip - in one form or another - every year since I was two, or that in a few minutes a very pretty lady who invariably smelled like expensive perfume was going to give me a pillow, a snack, and a plastic pin in the shape of wings.

What mattered was that I felt like I was basically personally responsible for my grief because I genuinely wanted to make the trip. I had absolutely no way of differentiating between the inevitability of being sad to leave one person and happy to see another. For me, it was all wrapped up in one big package - the sadness, the giddy anticipation, the painfully self-aware knowledge. I don't know if that's normal or not, but what I do know is that I've spent pretty much the rest of my life trying to avoid that particular combination of feelings.

So it kind of took me off guard this morning, sitting in my car and crying my eyes out with my face pressed against the glass window, trying to catch the last glimpse of my husband as he walks away, feeling the exact same way as an eight year old on a plane in June.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Smiling


Taken over the weekend during our trip to Amsterdam. I can't believe how smoothly everything went - how happy we all were, how there were no glitches in schedules, how beautiful the weather was. For being our last family trip for a year, I couldn't have asked for a more perfect time.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

A little dingy


Not a lot to say right now. Gearing up for our weekend in Amsterdam.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Before


This is what my marriage feels like in the days leading up to a deployment.