I don’t think it’s going to stick, though.
(Also, this is a test post from my new phone. Pardon the lack of artistic merit in the photo; it is too early.)
Author: To the Nth
MilSpouse Friday Fill-In #24
What do you see your life like in 10 years?
It’s hard for me to imagine what my life will be like in ten days, much less ten years. I suspect we will have at least one small human underfoot and I hope I will be as accomplished a private pilot as my husband is a naval aviator.
What do you like most about your job?
I am not currently employed, but my volunteer time with Civil Air Patrol is incredibly satisfying. I have the opportunity to work with talented people dedicated to service, whether in the air, in ground search and rescue, in working with motivated cadets, or in promoting aerospace education. I am proud to be counted among them, and I am blessed to count them among my friends.
What are three things you do every day, no matter what day it is?
This is harder than one might think. I can’t even say I brush my teeth every day, as there are certain fast days on the Jewish calendar where not even a toothbrush is supposed to pass our lips. (I promise I brush my teeth on the vast majority of days, though.) About the only things I can claim to do every single day are:
- Blink
- Breathe
- pump Blood through my Body
Sorry; got a little hung up on the letter ‘B’ for some reason.
What would you do with an extra five hours in your day today?
Pray forgive my hopeless dullness, but I’d probably sleep. An extra five hours of sleep without worry that the phone is going to ring with some crisis that just couldn’t wait until morning is precisely what my husband and I need in the midst of this stupidly busy time.
What is your favorite Christmas (or whichever holiday you celebrate) cookie recipe (please share!)?
Despite the increasingly widespread availability of kitschy cookie cutters in the shape of dreidels, stars of David, menorahs, etc., Chanukah is not traditionally a cookie-making holiday. I wouldn’t turn down a Chanukah-themed cookie — hell, I might make them with our kids someday — but cookies just don’t scream Festival of Lights to me. Chanukah treats tend to be fried in oil, a nod to the story of the miracle of one day’s worth of oil for the Temple’s lamp lasting eight days.
I stretched my Chanukah celebration out one more day to make latkes for my Civil Air Patrol squadron’s holiday party/change of command. Everyone appeared to like the delightfully crisp potato-and-onion pancakes, but I was shocked to learn how many people had never heard of them until that very evening. Where I grew up, even the non-Jews at least knew what a latke was. Guess we really are in the South. As my husband so succinctly put it, “We grew up a lot closer to New York than they did to Fort Lauderdale.”
Are you a military spouse/fiancée/fiancé/girlfriend/boyfriend? Hie thee to ENS Wifey’s blog, snag the questions, and add yourself to the Mr. Linky for this week’s MilSpouse Friday Fill-In!
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Time Passed, Seasons Changed
…and I went for over three months without updating my blog. So, uh, howdy there, readers. (Do I still have any readers? It’s difficult to read what hasn’t been written.) I continue to draw breath, and I find myself capable of putting fingers to keyboard, even if it has tended to be in 140-character spurts over in the Twitterverse of late. I return from my unplanned blogging hiatus with hopes of more regularly filling this space with vignettes from this Navy wife’s daily attempts to make it from Point A to Point B without crashing into anything in between (although I’ll grant you that documenting close encounters of the obstacle kind would at least make for more interesting reading).
The current obstacles I’m trying to dodge have much to do with upcoming holiday leave — or rather, the leave we sincerely hope we will have. Precise details as to start date, duration, and how it will be split are still up in the air, which aggravates me no end because we are unable to start hashing out how we’re going to see everyone we need to see when all of those people have busy schedules that will not necessarily clear themselves just because my husband and I will be bestowing the glory of our presence on the environs. We are extremely lucky that our families live close enough together that we don’t have to make a decision as to our travel destination — I feel for those of you with families in far-flung locations — but it still isn’t ever easy to cram maximum togetherness into an all-too-finite number of days. I want to have as much warning as possible to start working the logistics, but I’ll be happy if what we get is at least a day’s notice to let my folks know to ready the guest bed.
Tonight will be the fifth night of Chanukah, but this picture is from some past year's eighth night.
I’m getting exhausted just thinking about all of it. I think I’m glad that Chanukah is so early this year. Though my husband has been working full days (and then some, including this whole weekend), we are still able to light candles and enjoy a low-key, relaxing little bit of holiday glow. We made my much clamored-after sweet potato latkes with goat cheese the other night, eating standing up in the kitchen with the sizzle of the oil a pleasant backdrop to laughter and conversation about life, the universe, and being Jewish in it. I’m a little sad that we don’t get to light candles with family this year, but I truly treasure the little traditions we have made in nearly four years of marriage, just the two of us.
And then I think of the little traditions that will go unmarked next year, the holidays that will come and go while my husband is deployed in a part of the world where it’s not a great idea to advertise that one is Jewish. It breaks my heart. It reinforces how very lucky I am that in this country, in this time, I am able to identify myself as Jewish — to talk about our Chanukah celebrations with other squadron wives, to discuss plans for Passover, to explain that I don’t eat bacon because of my religion — largely without fear of negative repercussions for it. Antisemitism does still slither in through the cracks even in this relatively enlightened age, as evidenced by vandalism against area synagogues in recent memory, so I am not wholly without concern. But ninety-nine percent of the time? If it comes up in conversation, I have no problem mentioning that I’m Jewish. It’s not that way everywhere, and I’m thankful for the tolerance of the United States.
And if you made it through this meandering return-to-blogging post, I thank you for your tolerance. 😉
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MilSpouse Friday Fill-In #10
What secret indulgence do you act on while your spouse is away? (from Devil Dog Darling)
I will quite cheerfully pour myself a glass of wine and settle in for an evening of reading bad fanfiction.
Man, that’s embarrassing. I should have made up something saucier.
If you were a spice, what would you be? (from New Girl On Post)
I don’t have a good answer for this one. The question asks which spice I would be, but I think I’d rather choose an herb. However, I am not having much success wrangling my pedantic tendencies into submission this morning, so I find myself unable to tell you what kind of leaf I am when I ought to be choosing which bark, seed, root, or fruit I am.
Where do you go for support when your significant other is deployed? (from Texas Meets Washington)
My undergarments remain supportive whether my husband is here or not.
Family and Twitter work wonders when I’m not making lame lingerie jokes.
What is the oldest thing you own? (from A Troop’s Girl)
I am not sure. The oldest T-shirt I own (and regularly wear) is bright red and from the theatre at which my parents were working when they met. Mom was an actress, Dad was a techie. It was a match made in heaven, if heaven is a place where patrons are encouraged to boo, hiss, and throw popcorn at the villains.
How did you envision your future pre-military? (from Daddy’s Duty)
How far pre-military do we want to go? If you asked four-year-old Nth, you would hear about a fascinating projected career as a paleontologist. From about first grade onward, you would be regaled with plans for becoming a marine biologist specializing in cetaceans, particularly in orca communication. Post-freshman year of high school, during which I had a phenomenally lousy biology teacher, my interest in computer science began to solidify alongside an interest in the Russian language. I thought I might wind up working for the State Department or some other federal government agency (a career aspiration not uncommon when growing up in the DC-Metro area.
I had an inkling that my future might involve the military when I started dating my now-husband during my junior year of high school, as he had already gotten an appointment to the United States Naval Academy. As we continued dating and eventually came to the conclusion that we were probably going to wind up married, it became clear that my career would not be as simple as staying in DC to seek a government job. I still struggle with that a little bit, as I have not yet made the leap into wholehearted pursuit of alternate career ideas.
Are you a military spouse/fiancée/fiancé/girlfriend/boyfriend? Hie thee to ENS Wifey’s blog, snag the questions, and add yourself to the Mr. Linky for this week’s MilSpouse Friday Fill-In!
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MilSpouse Friday Fill-In #9
If you could be a fugitive from the law for whatever reason, what would your crime be? (from It’s a Hooah Life)
Sneaking into the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and/or the Udvar-Hazy Center after hours to climb in all the cockpits and make airplane noises. I suspect my husband would be right there with me.
How long do you think you will be a military family? (from Julie the Army Wife)
At least fifteen more years. The length of my husband’s post-winging aviation commitment is such that by the time we would even have the option to consider leaving the Navy, he might as well stay in for the full twenty.
Even after he retires, I suspect we will still consider ourselves “a military family,” if one in a slightly different part of the community.
What’s your favorite recipe? (from Keep Calm and Soldier On)
Aaaaugh, tough one! I have so many I like to prepare at different times of the year, for different holidays, for different moods. We’ll just reach into the hat and pull out a single specimen: my decadent macaroni and goat cheese. That deserves a post of its own; someday, it will get one.
What would you want your last five words to be when you leave this life? (from My Goal is Simple)
This question would be much easier to answer if it were about what I do not want my parting words to be. I have a ton of those:
- “Look what I can do!”
- “Hey, what’s coming this way?”
- “You sure it’s this button?”
- “I have it under control.”
- “Ground’s coming up awful quick…”
As for what I would not mind claiming as my last words… something akin to, “Family, I love you all,” wouldn’t be such an awful legacy.
Where do you hope to retire? (from Pennies from Heaven)
We are Virginians, born and raised, so we have always envisioned ourselves returning to the Old Dominion once our place of residence was subject to our own whim rather than the Navy’s. An air park — it would be terribly convenient if our property had sufficient hangar space for the construction of our kit plane — somewhere in Virginia would be just about ideal. Ooh, or a house on the water where we could tie up a seaplane. We get a great deal of pleasure from imagining our dream home for “someday, after the Navy.”
Are you a military spouse/fiancée/fiancé/girlfriend/boyfriend? Hie thee to ENS Wifey’s blog, snag the questions, and add yourself to the Mr. Linky for this week’s MilSpouse Friday Fill-In!
To the Nth 