Meanie Barbarenie

So, Sarge is coming home from his 6 month deployment this week. Yay!
Anyhoo, I hate calling attention to myself, and really do not like to meet his work superiors. Mostly because I'm worried that if I ever see them again, I wont recognize them.

Remember in Heartbreak Ridge, Clint Eastwood and his guys come off the plane, and the big crowd is there to meet them. Families hugging, parents, wives, kids, whatever. And Clint is the only guy with no one running up to him, and he sorta walks through the happy crowd all alone, and then as he's nearing the back, he sees Marsha Mason. Cue crinkly Clint smile, and you know all is good.

Well, that's pretty much my position. I don't want to be in that huge crush of people, don't want my private moment captured for mass consumption by television cameras, don't want to talk to anyone but Sarge. I don't want to have to smile and nod when the Officers and Shirts thank me for the "sacrifice" I made by letting my husband do his job.

So yesterday in our semi-weekly phone call, Sarge lets me know the details of his return, and mentions that the "Big Wigs" will all be there too. I say, "Well, you know where I'll be." There's a bit of a silence, and he says, "Well, you can send Piko de G to the front then."

I'm feeling like a bit of an asshole.

YARRRR!!!

If we are at the gym and your mobile rings loud enough for me to hear it over my headphones. PLEASE ANSWER IT IMMEDIATELY!!! DONT LET IT RING 8 TIMES!!!
Ok, so it's not a ringing phone in a movie theatre, but I dont go to the movies anymore. So to me this is just as anoying.

What the?

I was watching Transporter 2 the other night Jason Statham....yummy....), and I noticed something that was very distressing. Was it the ridiculous ammount of impossible stunts? Jason Statham's uber-sexy voice? The excessive gratuitous violence? The fact that, that Audi had not a scratch on it?Jason Statham's bulging muscled arms? Ahem.
No... Well, yes, BUT, what I really noticed, and what especially bothered me was that formerly very cute Matthew Modine, has somehow turned into , Ed Begly Jr!!!!
There goes my Louden Swain fantasy...oh how I wanted to be Linda Florentino in 1985.

YES!

PIES 24.12(156)defeat the Blues 17.10(112)!! My boy Alan Didak finished with 26 possessions, 13 marks and two goals. WOOT! They are in 6th place on the ladder, and have a chance at making it to the Granny. No more Colliwobbles please!! GO PIES!

Amazing!

I saw the strangest things today. One was amazing, and the other was just "huh".
Piko de G and I were on the way to Michael's to buy some Perler Beads. We entered the DC Metro Speedway, north towards College Park on our way to Bowie. As we neared our exit, I happened to glance to my left and saw A CAR GOING THE WRONG WAY ON THE INNER LOOP!!. Yes, you read that right, a car going the wrong way on the inner loop. That is against traffic, north instead of south, traveling the same direction as me, not in the opposite direction. Granted the car was on the inside shoulder, and not going very fast, but still!

Two questions immediately come to mind. How the hell does one get turned around on the Beltway, and where the hell are you going? Now I have seen people pull to the side, after missing their exit, and then reversing along the shoulder. But this, this was something new. Naturally I created my very own driving hazard by calling The Librarian on my mobile to report what I just saw.

The "huh" item was on our return trip. I saw a wooden swing set mangled to a pulp on the side of the road. I guess it's not that strange, but it looked like it was fully assembled at the time of it's jettisoning. I'm used to seeing the sadly abandoned mattress on occasion, but who puts a fully assembled swing set on their truck? Roof? Whatever?

So many questions, no answers.

The Best Smackdown Ever!

Today was a pool day again, and Piko de G was rocking out the kiddie pool. I noticed that a couple of kids had come in with what looked like their Grandmother. They were in the "big kid" pool area so I wasn't really paying that much attention. However, about 15 minutes into their swim I heard a minor commotion, and Grandma yells at them. Then, the best ever, "You better share, or we're GOING HOME RIGHT NOW!!". Yeah, whatever, I've heard that phrase about a zillion times at the pool. But no, not 5 minutes later "Get out of the pool! I saw that!! We're going home!!" And they did.
Holy $hit! That Grandma don't mess around! Awesome.
I must note that it costs $4.00 a person to swim at our pool, so they basically paid $12.00 to swim for 20 minutes.

The One With The Swimming

So I will do my best to make sure that this does not turn into a parenting blog. But unfortunately most of my interactions these days are with other parents.

On to the swimming.

This happened today, and it kind of pissed me off.
Piko de G and I were at the pool this afternoon, and it was great. School has started in our county, so that means the pool was mostly empty. We did the kiddie pool, and some "big" pool splashing. Piko de G is rocking her new life jacket, and even jumped off the top rung of the pool ladder. Towards the end of our day two ladies showed up with 6 kids between them probably 6 months-7 years old. Cool I thought, kids for Piko de G to play with. They all jumped in and commandeered toys that were left in the pool by another kid and started dumping water out of the pool onto the deck. Great. Piko de G gets in the pool, and starts playing with one girl who is probably a little younger than her in a blue bathing suit. This is going well, and they are sharing swimming goggles and floaties. Fabulous. Yeah, not so much.

I would say about 15 minutes into great playing and sharing the little hellion in the blue bathing suit TRIED TO DROWN MY KID!!!. I seriously looked up to see her hanging off of Piko de G's neck, trying to swing her into a flying crossbody and into the water. I kind of think that maybe "Devil in a Blue Bathing Suit" had slipped and couldn't think to put her feet down, and ended up flailing madly and grabbing onto the closest thing. I got up from my chair and headed to the pool to untangle the kids, but the second that kid saw me get up she let go of Piko de G, and ran off to her mom. Poor Piko de G, was standing there in the middle of the pool with a "What the FU** just happened?!" look on her face. I asked her if she was ok, and her face just collapsed (those aunties who know her, yeah, you know *that* face). I had to wade in and get her. After that she just wanted to leave, "That girl in the blue bathing suit pulled my hair!!!".

And Mother of DIABBS? Yeah, she pretty much sat there and took it in. AND THEN as I was getting Piko de G dried off, she came over and was all "Is she ok? I think my kids like to splash a little too much". Whatever lady, stay away from my kid.

People are Annoying. Part I

I know with a broad general title like "People Are Annoying" I'm going to have many an entry regarding this subject. Hence the "Part I".

So Sarge has this friend, his name is...hmmmm..."Sarge's Best Friend Forever" (SBFF). He's a pretty cool guy, always there when you need him, willing to help out, even at the cost to his own familial obligations (a whole other story, SBFF needs his OWN blog). He is usually very funny and easy to get along with, a bit high strung, but hey, what better target for my bitchy jabs. I call him SBFF because he has a bit of a man-crush on Sarge (SBFF, if you're reading this, we have discussed this, you know it's true, your wife agrees with me, and it's not like I'm using your real name!!), and it's just fun to tease "tough military guys" about things like that. Sarge, eh, he could care less, and even knows who I am talking about when I say "Your boyfriend."

Ok, you're asking, if he's so great, what is he doing in a post titled "People are Annoying"? Well.

I am 100% Japanese, and I'm American, as in born and raised IN AMERICA. I hate being called "Oriental", I feel like it's just an outdated term. What the hell, why beat around the bush, I just don't freaking like to be called that. It does not bother me that my mom refers to herself as Oriental, or that other people don't mind being called Oriental. HOWEVER if you are my friend, and you once refer to me as Oriental, and I ask you politely (well, lets be honest here,TELL you) to call me Asian, I WOULD EXPECT YOU TO RESPECT MY WISHES!!!


I'm not saying that SBFF does not respect my wishes. No,no,nooooooooooo. He does call me Asian, but to the exclusion of my ethnic sub-ethnicity, if you will.

Let me explain.

SBFF and his wife were over at our house hanging out, and SBFF's Wife notices my shadow box with the 1001 cranes "I" folded for my wedding. I explain to her the Japanese tradition of folding the 1001 origami cranes, and how when we got married Sarge and I couldn't afford to have them set into a fancy pattern, so my mom framed them for us in a shadowbox. Note that I mentioned that it was a Japanese tradition. SBFF jumps in and says all sarcastic like "You're not Japanese! You're AAAAAASIAN!!!!!!" Holy Crap! I about shit my pants. I was so freaking out of my mind with disbelief that someone would even try to argue my ethnicity with me that I just gave him my WTF?! glare of doom. I know SBFF will say that he was just playing with me. Whatever. He didn't think it was so funny later when I made a crack about his Alopecia affected eyebrows. This happened almost a month ago, and it still pisses me off when I think about it.

And I wonder why Sarge and I don't have more friends. Poor Sarge.

Maybe not so observant after all.

So I had insomnia last night and could not fall back asleep at 3:30am. I was pretty upset because I have a fitness test this morning and wanted to be reasonably well rested. Anyway, I think that my biggest problem is that I suffer from what I call "Restless Brain Syndrome" this usually happens as I am either trying to fall asleep, or after I have woken up in the middle of the night and am attempting to drift off again. What happens is my brain will not stop running, I will make lists of things that I should do the next day, ideas for projects, plants to buy for the garden, books I want to read, and it never ends. It truly pisses me off. And then the next morning I cant remember half the things I was thinking about the night before. I refuse to turn on the light to write these things down, because then I know I would never get to sleep.

So ANYWAY, last night I was thinking about how almost daily I send my friend, let's call her "The Librarian" because, well, she's a librarian, an e-mail about some observation I have made, or a mini-rant about something that has struck me as stupid or annoying. I never thought about starting a Blog, because well, my life is just that boring, but this, a daily observation, well that I can do.

So my first observation, is that well, sometimes I'm just not that observant after all. I am horribly bad at remembering names and faces. If I meet you once in one setting, and then again in another, I wont have any idea who you are. And 2 minutes after hearing your name, I wont remember it either. Now maybe this is not an observation issue, and more of a memory one, but what the hell, it's the story in my head at this moment.

I was not always this bad at remembering people, when I was in school, it was not a problem, I was meeting new people all the time. Then when I was working (retail unfortunately) it was not a problem either. I think my troubles all began when I married my husband...we'll call him "Sarge". We met and dated, and he proposed to me after he was reassigned to a new base (he is in the military), unfortunately/fortunately this base was in a non-English speaking country in Europe, with only about 100 military personnel there. So I went from meeting and interacting with 100's of people a day to only about well, none. We pretty much kept to ourselves and avoided the drama that a small military community tends to churn. And we continue this self imposed isolation even after moving back to the US, and living in base housing for the past 5 years. Let me put it this way, when I sign my child("Piko de Gallo") up for pre-school the only person I will have to put down as an emergency contact is The Librarian, and she lives 2 hours away. This is bad. Though The Librarian tells me that this will all change when Piko de Gallo starts school and I am forced to interact with other parents. Oh the joy.

So getting back to my inter-personal observation issues. I have been noticing that this is a problem for me alot lately. I have been going to the gym regularly 5 days a week for about 5 months now, at the same time every day, for probably the same length of time each visit. So as you can imagine I see the same people all the time. But if I were ever to see any of these people outside the gym, I don't think that I would recognize them. Oh, I recognize them when I see them at the gym, I'm not that bad off. There's "The Lady Who Looks Like She Could Be My Aunty", "Dreadlocks Guy", "Friendly Old Guy #1", "Friendly Old Guy #2", "Tall Guy Who Looks Like Zidane", "Weightlifter With Vitiligo", "Hot But Stinky BMW Guy", "Friendly Blond Lady", etc. Do you see a pattern here? I can only remember you if there is something that makes you stand out. Very good looking? Very, well, *NOT* good looking? Smell very good, or very bad? Or look like someone famous, or someone I know? Talk to me on a regular basis? Ok, then I will remember you. But not really. Because, just the other day I saw the Zidane guy at the post office, well, I didn't realize it was him until 10 minutes later when we both walked into the Gym at the same time. People probably think I'm a stuck up bitch, but really I just cant remember you.

The same goes for the people Sarge works with. Fortunately for me everyone wears a nametag on their uniform. But if you're out of uniform at the Commissary, I'll blank you like there's no tomorrow.