Pets

Time is Marching On

2 Comments
Flight Gear Vera

"Your helmet bag is comfy, hooman."

Today is a good day for my own personal ways of counting down until Sampson is home with me and a pair of kitties who would really prefer to have his flight gear conveniently strewn about for feline lounging. Not only did I get to flip the calendar page from February to March, but I get to put the trash and the recycling forward tonight. Recycling is every other week, so I am pleased to note the passage of fourteen more days in this deployment. I am two weeks — one fortnight! — closer to being able to hand trash duty back to my husband, a chore I will gladly relinquish into his capable hands the moment his plane touches down on United States soil.

My parents ventured down to visit me over the weekend, so I am coming down off the high of good food, fortifying drink, and excellent company. I hope they enjoyed their little mini-vacation as much as I did. It was so good to spend time with them, and it was refreshing to have a house full of laughter and loved ones again. I sometimes forget how quiet it truly is with just me in the house. Well, I’ll grant you that the cats can be noisy buggers when they’ve a mind, but they’re not big on witty repartee.

My in-laws are coming to visit next week, which is super-sweet of them. With any luck, my house will still be fairly organized from my whirlwind of pre-parental-visit cleaning this past Friday. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except I lost some of the housekeeping time I’d allotted when I discovered the necessity of mounting an all-out assault on the moths that had infiltrated my pantry. Gross, gross, gross. On the plus side, having to get in there with bleach forced me to clear out some items that had been sitting around for a while, like the wedding favor candy from my cousin’s reception a year and a half ago. Whoops.

In non-disgusting food news, I have a loaf of bread about to go into the oven, whereupon it will fill my house with a mouthwatering aroma that will make it difficult for me to resist tearing into the honey-whole-wheat goodness the nanosecond it’s done baking. Strength! I’m gonna need some strength here, people, lest I burn the roof of my mouth on the staff of life.

(It’d be totally worth it, though.)

Supplies Party

4 Comments

In the days before Sampson* departed for this deployment, I was at a bit of a loss as to what I was supposed to do to get myself ready. Oh, we had already taken care of the concrete stuff: my military ID was renewed, the base stickers on my car were updated, we had our powers of attorney and all that good stuff. Sampson was busy at work right up until the day he left, so I had a lot of time on my hands at home with the departure date hanging over my head and not a lot of substance I could do to prepare myself.

One thing I did find to do was make a phone call to the United States Postal Service and request a military care package kit. I hate talking on the phone with strangers, so it took some mental wherewithal to get myself psyched up for waiting on hold until I reached a person, but I am very glad I did. The request was easy to make, and the kind lady with whom I spoke assured me the assortment of boxes and other shipping supplies would arrive in a couple weeks.

It felt good to do something — even a small something — to make me feel I was in control of at least one aspect of the upcoming deployment. I might not have known much, but darn it, I knew for sure how I was going to deal with putting packages together for my husband! Bonus, I got to look forward to the arrival of the kit on my doorstep, which got me looking past the looming goodbye.

Cat and carboard boxes

Vera is ready to assist, if by "assist" we mean "hinder in any way possible, up to and including getting cat hair stuck on every bit of tape."

It really is a comprehensive kit: assorted Priority Mail flat-rate boxes, address labels, customs forms, the little plastic sleeves for said customs forms, and even a little roll of Priority Mail tape to tie everything together. Everything arrived on my doorstep, neatly wrapped and at no cost to me. Of course, I will still need to pay postage to actually mail the packages, which is no doubt a big part of why the USPS is so happy to give us the kits gratis.

If you are a family member or friend of someone in the military, call up 1-800-610-8734 and ask for the Military Care Kit. All you have to do afterward is dream up wonderful things with which to fill those boxes before you mail them off to make your servicemember’s day.

_____

* Sampson: I finally bestowed upon my husband a bloggish alias, so I need not awkwardly refer to him as “my husband” every time I mention the guy.

MilSpouse Friday Fill-In #28

2 Comments

If you were a famous movie star, what types of movies would you star in?

I think it would be a blast to star in a big, loud, epic superhero movie.

What is a vacation you would like to take if money were no object?

Ever since reading Troubling a Star by Madeleine L’Engle when I was a child, I have wanted to see Antarctica. Since money is no object in this dream vacation, my trip to the planet’s deep freeze would be followed by a sojourn to some more temperate clime to thaw out.

Did you have pets growing up?

I sure did. My family had a dog that had been with them since the early days of their marriage, so my childhood is filled with memories of a good-natured, if not overly smart, mutt. After he went on to his great canine reward, my family adopted a cat, one we selected from the shelter because he was the only one who didn’t cringe in fear from my then-three-year-old brother. A few years later, my brother and I were desperate for a kitten. When my parents finally relented, off to the shelter we went. We came home with a darling black-and-white kitten whom the shelter thought to be nine weeks old. According to the vet, though, she was about four months old and just that tiny. She never got very big, but her personality was more than wacky enough to make up for it.

My husband never had pets growing up, having been born into a family with a severely allergic father and sister. The cats and I are very glad that he doesn’t share those allergies.

What do you do for exercise?

Not nearly enough, probably. I will confess my dorkiness and say that I do enjoy Wii Fit Plus. It may not count as serious exercise, but it gets my sedentary behind off the couch and moving and stretching. The little time piggy bank in the game does a happy little dance when I hit thirty minutes of actual activity, and I shudder to think what it says about me that I’m motivated by such things. I even sent away for a freebie tote bag from Nintendo.

I will be the most stylin’ gal at the commissary with this reusable bag, let me tell you.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received as a MilSpouse?

“Semper Gumbi.” Live it. Do it. (I frequently fail at this, but it’s still good advice.) 😉

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!

Happy Early Caturday

4 Comments

In the finest tradition of bloggers worldwide, in the absence of motivation to talk about anything else, I will fall back on babbling about my cats.

Kitty Train

All aboard the Kitty Train.

They’re pretty sweet — almost as sweet as the guy belonging to that mysterious back-of-the-head image behind them.  Valentine (up front) likes to sit behind us atop the couch, whereas Vera is more likely to cuddle next to me in the evenings.

Cat in a cabinet

The secret to an orderly home is making sure to store your cat on its proper shelf.

The furry dependents are quite helpful around the house, ensuring that all things are stored neatly in their designated locations.  I once opened an upper cabinet so I could unload the dishwasher and put the clean plates away.  In the time it took for me to reach into the dishwasher and grab a stack of plates, Miss Vera had tidily stored herself on the waiting shelf.  I wonder what would have happened if I had shut the door and gone about the rest of my day.

Of course, sometimes the cats and I have differing opinions as to where certain household items ought to be kept.  A couple weeks ago, my cell phone rang (thrilling, I know).  When I reached over to grab it from the table next to me, my hand met nothing but smooth glass.  I jumped off the couch and began casting about for my wayward phone, getting increasingly flustered all the while — my husband was away on det and I didn’t want to miss him trying to get in touch with me.  I knew it was in the room with me because I could hear it as clear as… well, a cell phone ringing in the same room, but I could not see it anywhere.  I looked on all surfaces I might have carelessly left my phone, cleared all the picture frames off the entertainment center to see if I had hidden it from myself, and still I saw no sign of the errant device.

The ringing cut off mid-note, and shortly thereafter I heard the jarring beep that told me I had a voicemail.  I hate missing calls, but it’s just insult to injury when the phone is right there and I just can’t find it.  Grumbling even more now, I continued my search.  Having established that the phone was not on any raised surface in the room, I focused my attention a little lower.

Sure enough, there was my phone, wedged all the way under the entertainment center, where kitty paws can reach but human hands cannot.  I had to get out the broom to bring it within reach of my grasping fingertips and find out who would now think I was blowing them off.  (It was my grandmother, who got a good laugh out of the story of the phone-thievin’ felines when I called her back.)

Relaxing Cat

Valentine reminds us to take a deep breath now and again.

No matter how aggravating the four-legged members of the family might get from time to time, though, I can always trust them to remind me how to really, truly, one-hundred-percent let everything else in the world go for a few minutes and simply r-e-l-a-x.

After all, if we have a comfy chair and a sunbeam to warm our bellies (which are, naturally, full from assiduous attention to Kitty Breakfast Time and Kitty Dinner Time, the two most important hours of the day), what more do we really need?