Navy

September Snuck Up

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September’s arrival brought with it a refreshing drop in temperature, a breath of autumn that puts me in mind of new school supplies and apple-picking with Hillel.  Alas, I neither have need of new school supplies, nor am I any longer a member of Hillel’s target demographic.  (For the goyim, Hillel is an organization for Jewish college students; I was heavily involved in my college’s chapter back in the day.)  The lifting of summer’s lethargy that comes with the cooler weather is welcome even in my post-academic life, though, and I’m getting excited about the coming fall.

Rosh Hashanah is coming up, with its promises of apples and honey in hopes of a sweet new year.  In fact, friend of mine from college just sent me a link to a delectable-sounding apple and honey challah that might have to find its way into my baking rotation for the holiday.  It would be more fun, of course, if I could look forward to the annual apple-picking trip with a Jewish community of my peers, but we haven’t found a group in our area that evokes the same sort of camaraderie.  Part of it is that we’re stuck between ages or phases of life that have strong support groups.   Having graduated years ago, we’re too old for Hillel.  We’re married, so Jewish singles groups are out.  We don’t have children yet, so we aren’t networking with parents taking their kids to Hebrew school, either.  I know some synagogues have “Young Professionals” groups that cater to those in our situation, but our shul isn’t one of them.

Oh well.  It’s not like we’re stationed someplace with no Jewish community whatsoever, which could easily become the case if we wind up in Japan.  I just get a little sad thinking that for as long as we’re moving at least every three, we will perpetually be “the new couple” at whatever synagogue we attend (let’s face it: there are some shuls where you can be “the new couple” for ten years or more).  It would be nice to meet some local folks our age with whom we could exchange Shabbat dinner invitations from time to time.  It’s tough–some would say impossible–to be a Jew in a vacuum, but we don’t have the luxury of putting down roots in one community and letting relationships develop slowly over many years.  Couple that with the fact that both my husband and I are inclined towards introversion, and we’ve got ourselves a problem for which we haven’t yet found a solution.  But who knows?  Maybe the upcoming year 5770 holds some fresh insights for us.

Ah well, social maunderings can’t detract too much from my overall anticipation of the new season.  My baby (!) brother is turning twenty-one, my college roommate is getting married to my husband’s college roommate (sounds like a sit-com, huh?), and we are lucky enough to be spending this autumn in a part of the country filled with deciduous trees that will soon be turning glorious colors.  Life is good.

Summer Vacation

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I am not the most consistent blogger, as ENS Wifey kindly pointed out a few days ago.  I figure that if she can find the time to send words flowing Internetwards between vet bills, personal injury, and the Navy, in its infinite wisdom, deciding that she and her husband aren’t actually married, then I can probably handle taking a few minutes out of my Sunday morning to dash off a few paragraphs.  I must say that the relatively relaxed time we’ve been having this summer doesn’t make for nearly the compelling read that ENS Wifey’s saga does, but I hope the Powers that Be don’t take that as an invitation to throw anything interesting our way.  My poor readers will just have to endure the tedium of our present tranquility until the Navy sees fit to shake things up for us again.

I still don’t have any curtains up anywhere in the house, and I’m at peace with this fact for the moment.  The cats don’t deign to notice.  My parents and little brother didn’t care whether or not I had curtains when they came for the weekend of my cousin’s wedding.  Neither did my grandparents when they dropped by.  My sister-in-law, her husband, and the ultra-energetic, über-sweet, almost-ten-year-old twins won’t turn up their noses at me when they descend upon us later this evening, either.

The “almost-ten” factoid about our nieces is relevant in that their impending visit gave us an excellent excuse to mount an expedition to Toys “R” Us.  We did find them a birthday present I hope they’ll enjoy, but I’m not gonna lie, the true purpose at the heart of the mission was to drool over LEGO sets.   My husband and I have both been LEGOmaniacs since childhood, so every once in a while we must obey the inscrutable exhortations of our souls (bonus points if you know the source of that phrase) and spend some quality time perusing that wondrous aisle of bricky construction potential.  We were impressed with some of the new “=City sets this go ’round, especially the Farm and Coast Guard Helicopter (beware, the linked pages are noisy).  The set that came this close to coming home with us, however, was the Pirates Shipwreck Hideout.  C’mon, how could I not love the ship’s ribs, the rope bridge, the cannon, and the crow’s nest?  It takes me right back to being a kid and playing out elaborate LEGO plots with my brother.

I’m glad that LEGO has returned to its roots with classic themes like City (used to be Town, I guess), Pirates, and Castle.  For a few years there, it seemed like the company had completely sold out to licensed tie-ins for everything from Star Wars to Spongebob Squarepants.  While I’m not crazy about the continued existence of the licensed sets, it is good to see that LEGO is investing in its own creative ventures with themes that don’t rely on already established characters and storylines.

In the end, the Shipwreck Hideout stayed on the shelf at Toys “R” Us.  “The trouble with being an adult,” said my husband, “is that now that we’re grown up and have an income and enough money to get any LEGO set we want, we’re too responsible to do it.”  Maturity is totally lame sometimes.  Hmm… Chanukah is only four months away, though.

Primary

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In honor of my husband actually being scheduled to fly today for the first time in millennia*, here is a video of fresh-faced young SNAs flying the aircraft he flew three years ago.

Makes the mighty T-34 look pretty cool, huh?  Of course, all my flight experience to date is in wee Cessnas, so take the fact that I would jump at the chance for a T-34 ride with a grain of salt.

* Slight exaggeration. Slight.

Things I think about when doing laundry

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A complete stranger could take one glance at our dirty clothes hamper and know we were a Navy family.  I’m not even talking uniform items, though the flightsuits are a giveaway in their own right — I’m talking T-shirts.  Piles of ’em.  It’s an impressive array of colors and designs, with four and five copies of a few notable ones.  Put them together and you have a washable, wearable timeline of my husband’s Navy career to date, from his plebe year at the Naval Academy to the USNA blue rims he wore throughout his time there to acting as a detailer himself to Aviation Preflight Indoctrination to the VTs (flight training squadrons) to his recent LT wetting down.  I swear the things must reproduce in the hamper, because there is just… no… end… to the Navy T-shirt parade.

I occasionally want to throw up my hands and cry uncle, usually on a day like today, when I feel like I’ve fed a huge chunk of my waking hours to washing, drying, and folding Navy T-shirts in the specially prescribed fashion for which my husband acquired a taste at Boat School (and then passed on to me — hey, don’t knock it; it’s efficient).  It’s enough to make a girl seriously consider the merits of a dry-clean-only wardrobe.

Okay, okay, not seriously.  But there is a certain momentary appeal to hiring someone else to do the washing!

Really, though?  If I’m being totally honest with myself, I love those dang shirts.  I’ve even appropriated a couple of them for my personal pajama use.  Who wouldn’t want to drift off to dreamland clad in a Jewish Midshipman Club shirt with “OYRAH!” blazoned across the back?  They make me think of my husband and the circumstances under which each shirt was added to his wardrobe.  I can already tell that I’m going to be one of those wives who obsesses over her husband’s shirts when he’s away on det.  There’s a lot to be said for a physical reminder like that, especially one you can wear.

I have to wrap this up now, as the dryer just stopped so as to provide me with a further bounty of Navy shirts.  Luckily, their owner just got back home from the shooting range, so I can recruit some help for this round of folding.  Bwahahaha.

Confession

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All right, Post #2 and I’m already making this blog my personal confessional booth!  (Of course, not being Catholic, my knowledge of actual confessional booths is cobbled together from movies and off-color jokes, but that’s neither here nor there.)  Before anyone gets all excited, this isn’t an earth-shattering revelation.

This is not my first blog.  Nor is it the only blog I currently keep.

It is the first one I have consciously devoted to a single subject.  My other ventures into the wonderful world of blogging (dating back to before the turn of the millennium, which makes me feel positively ancient) have been aimed primarily at keeping in touch with friends and family.  My intended audience was comprised largely of people I already knew in real life

My plans for To the Nth are deliberately tailored toward joining the “milblogging” community while retaining sufficient anonymity to let me feel comfortable writing for anyone in the world who cares to look.  I wonder, at this early stage, how successful I will be in maintaining that comfy distance without compromising the inherently personal nature of a blog whose content will be drawn from my own life as a Navy wife.  That is sort of the point: to share what it’s like being married to a Naval Aviator and living the Navy life.

The trouble is, I’m not married to “a” Naval Aviator, an archetype interchangeable with some set of generic squadronmates.  Do you think every Navy pilot would use the phrase “minty urgency” to describe a new lotion?  My husband just did.  I suspect that, being married to my particular Naval Aviator, my idea of “living the Navy life” will be significantly different than that of a friend married to her particular Naval Aviator.

Sometimes, civilians have an image in their heads of a monolithic military made up of cookie-cutter people.  Those of us close to the military are well aware that sharing a uniform doesn’t enforce mental conformity by any stretch of the imagination.  Even within the same community — same job, same aircraft, same squadron — people have different experiences.  I haven’t the foggiest what it’s like for SWO families, or the loved ones of those crazy submarine guys, or heck, even for the families of the enlisted aircrew my husband will be working with every day.

All I can write about is my own version of Navy life.  The trick will be not allowing myself to mistake my individual circumstances — even when others might be able to relate — for some imaginary Universal Truth of Navy Spousehood.