New Year Resolutions Are For The Birds

Steam tendrils from my oversized mug of reheated coffee are beckoning to me while a fresh pot brews in the kitchen.  The dishes in the sink are waiting to be taken over to the Other House for washing, as is the pile of dirty laundry in the bedroom.  My to-do list, which never seems to grow shorter, is glaring at me from the coffee table as if to say, "Hey, Underachiever!  Hellooooo, I'm waiting. Still.  You gonna do something productive today or not?!?"  The grey sky and dripping trees outside the window match my mood perfectly.

I'm not grumpy or out-of-sorts or anything.  I think it's my groggy brain, still struggling to recover from the fiendish 'work hangover' that comes with adjusting back to sleeping at night again after it's spent the past week telling my body that it's normal to sleep during the day and work all night long.  I mean, I was up for 30 hours straight until last night, 17 of which were spent at good ol' NPTU.  (Thank-you Lord, for no more graveyard shifts for at least the next two months.)

So New Years, huh?

I can't believe it's this time again already.  It's so surreal.  I remember being ten years old in 1991 and thinking that the very distant year of 2010 sounded like some scary Space Age sci-fi business, and being fairly certain that people would have flying cars and robot butlers by then, just like the Jetsons.  What's even more surreal is to look at myself through those ten year-old's eyes now and see a self-reliant adult who doesn't have a flying car or a robot butler named Rosie, but who is about to march into the year 2010 nonetheless.

For probably the first time in my life, I'm restraining myself this year from making ridiculous New Year resolutions that I have no intention of keeping.  I always make a list of my best intentions and my new "life rules", and then two weeks after the new year starts I'm already berating myself for breaking most of them.  It's my overachiever mentality mixed with my procrastinator reality.

The whole concept of New Year resolutions is silly and self-deceptive.  If you can't steel yourself to do something on any other regular day of the year, what makes you think that New Year's Eve is going to be any different?  If I take that line of reasoning, then that means as soon as I resolve to change something about my life in the upcoming year and I fail to follow through on it, I'm screwed until the next year rolls around.

Life isn't as cut-and-dried as a New Year resolution, no matter how much we'd like it to be.  I would love to make New Year resolutions again this year... as a matter of fact, I have a mental list just raring to go and waiting to be written down and set in stone somewhere.  "I will quit smoking.  I will eat better.  I will lose that pesky 5 pounds that I always seem to be carrying around on my inner thighs.  I will read more books.  I will have a more positive attitude.  I will be a nicer person.  I will go to church more regularly..." and on and on and on.  Some of these things may happen, some may not.  With my track record, they're much more likely to happen if I don't make them into a New Year resolution (!).  But they absolutely will not happen either way unless I want a change badly enough to, well, to change.  Until then, they're just words on a piece of paper; and we all know that actions speak louder than words.

So I'm not making any new rules or resolutions this year.  I'm just going to keep doing what I have been doing.  Chipping away at changing the things I don't like about myself or my life ~ without making strict rules about how it's going to happen or not happen ~ and not worrying about what day or month my calendar is flipped open to.

I don't know about you, but for me, a desire for change and different perspective on life gets me a lot farther than rules and resolutions.

Happy New Year! ♦

Tired Of Playing...

...The waiting game.

 

I have been waiting and wondering where I'll be stationed next for the last three months, ever since I graduated in October and most of my buddies left in a moving truck with orders in hand. I want some orders!

I've been checking BUPERS online every day (more than once a day, I'll admit) to see if they've arrived yet.  All this not knowing is killing me.  I am the kind of person who needs to know at least a little bit what in tarnation is going on with my life, and the fact that the Navy considers that privileged information is driving me insane.  It's like they're taunting me. 

In reality I have no clue who writes orders, but I imagine a group of people lounging in an office suite somewhere in a posh 32-story skyscraper and playing some sadistic version of Fantasy Football with the careers of junior enlisted sailors.  "Hey, good morning.  How was your weekend?  Hey, you want to make a trade?  I'll give you Barnes for the Abraham Lincoln in WA if you give me Thompson."  "Oh, yeah?  Why?  Where do want to send him?"  "Don't worry about it, it's a yes or no question.  You wanna trade?"  "I dunno, I'll think about it.  I'll let you know tomorrow."  "Well, better make up your mind quick; if you don't let me know by tomorrow the deal's off the table and he's going to the GW."  This is how it plays out in my mind, anyways.  Sick bastards.

So I suppose all I can do is pray that I'm a good pick in the draft. ♦

I Wish I Could Slap You In The Face(book)

In a fit of exasperation and annoyance about a year and a half ago, I decided to delete my MySpace and Facebook accounts and start this blog instead.  (See very first post ever.)

I have a guilty admission. 

A few months ago, I reactivated my Facebook account and got sucked back into the world of Status Updates, Friend Requests, Quizzes, and the endless, mindless, pointless Applications. Come to think of it, that might explain the lack of blogging over the last few months.

I had my reasons. I'll admit that the nosy, gossipy streak in me loves Facebook. But the biggest draw for me is that it's a very easy way to keep in touch with distant people and re-connect with old friends. We all know countless people who ~ although they're our friends on various levels ~ we wouldn't call a couple times a week to say "Hi!" yet we still want to be included in their life or include them in ours. Facebook is perfect in that sense.

However, that's about the only thing I have to say in defense of Facebook.  I use it almost exclusively to see how out-of-state friends and family are doing, to let them know how I'm doing, and to post pictures for them to see the various life changes going on with us.  Beyond that, I start to get extremely irritated with it.  It's not even the apps and 'extras' that irritate me so much as the ridiculous way people act and post on FB.

If you don't know what I'm talking about (but I think you do), here you go:

• 
  
  The-FBer-Who-Is-Obsessed-With-Farmville-Or-Other-Equally-Irritating-App.  All of their updates are nothing more than requests for more sheep, frantic pleas for just one more brown cow, or ecstasies about how they got all their crops harvested on time.  I've got one word for you, Farm-Freaks: jackasses.  Farm away to your heart's content, if you must, but don't involve me.  If this might be you, you really need to go back and read your last 20 updates and realize how pathetic it is that so much of your real life is spent building a fake farm online.
  
• 
  
  The-FBer-Who-Makes-Veiled-Threats-And-Whines-About-Things-They-Can-Change.  You know who they are.  A majority of his/her updates are something along the lines of "I'm soooo tired of back-stabbers!  If you're reading this, and you know who you are, quit talking shit about me behind my back!  Did you think I wouldn't find out?" or "Why is it that everytime I decide to to trust someone, they go and break my heart?  So sick of selfish people and fake friends!  What is wrong with some people?"  Um, no... what's wrong with you?  Why don't you log off Facebook, march over to their house, and have out with it.  Bitching about a problem on Facebook is probably not going to solve it, but attempting to fix it in real life just might do the trick.  Secondly, if it's really that bad, stop being friends with them.  In real life, I mean; and deleting them from your FB would probably help, too.  Thirdly, maybe you should consider the possibility that either you need to start looking for different qualities in friends or maybe it's not them... maybe it's you?  Stop whining and cut the "Oh, woe is me! I have the worst (relatives, friends, house, job, you name it)!!" shit out.  Self-pity is a party of one, and it's a very unattractive quality to behold.
  
• 
  
  The-FBer-Who-Stalks-Everyone-And-Posts-A-Minimum-Of-12-Times-Per-Day.  This person seriously needs help.  Or maybe just needs to be stranded on a desert island for a few years so they can slowly and painfully come to the realization that life exists outside of their Facebook account.  They live to post as many comments on as many people's status updates as they possibly can.  In between updating their own, of course.  He/she is that person who will call you five seconds after you post your update and say, "Hey, I figured you were around since I just saw you post something on Facebook.  I was wondering if...?"  If this is you, put the computer down and step away slowly, and just hang tight until the suicide talker-down dude arrives.... it's going to be okay.  Life goes on after Facebook.
  
• 
  
  The-FBer-Whose-Every-Post-Is-About-The-Adorable-Antics-Of-Little-Susie.  These culprits are usually women.  Don't get me wrong, your kids are cute and I don't mind hearing about them sometimes, but all the time?  No thanks.  I'm sure your child is special to you, and once (or 'if', more appropriately) I'm a mom someday, I'm sure I'll act the same way about mine.  However, while we're all excited that little Johnny took his first step today, we could give a shit less that you had to change his diaper 3 times this morning, or that little Billy shoved play-doh up his nose, or ate Elmer's glue, or walked around the house without pants, or asked you where babies come from, or threw a temper tantrum, or.... well, did all the same things that every kid does evry day.  Talking about your kids some of the time?  Fine, great even!  Talking about them all the time?  Monotonous, presumptuous, stuffy, and annoying.  If this might be you even just a little bit, remember that you are still a person in your own right, and it's okay to post about other things like the weather, the traffic, the crazy neighbor, or *gasp* maybe even yourself once in a blue moon?  Turn off Zombie-Mommy mode once in a while and remember that you have a personality, too.
  
• 
  
  The-FBer-Who-Apparently-Does-Nothing-But-Party-And-Chase-Tail.  Your drunken, misspelled, rambling posts from your phone while out at the bar are not funny and cute, they're downright obnoxious.  You must be having a lot of fun at said bar, since you're posting on Facebook while you're there?  And nobody cares that you went to the strip club last night ~ for the third time this week ~ and blew six hundred bucks on private lapdances in the VIP Room.  Your "crazy" posts don't make you sound like a rockstar, they make you sound pathetic and lonely.  Here's the number to your local AA meeting.  And if you're really that hard up that you can't get tail for free, maybe you should've spent the six hundred bucks on a sure thing instead.  Just a suggestion.
  
• 
  
  The-FBer-Who-Tries-Way-Too-Hard-To-Be-Witty-All-The-Time.  This guy/gal must be exhausted from constantly contriving and constructing such cleverly-worded updates.  But they always end up sounding more strained and constipated than anything else.  If you have to think for more than two minutes about what to post and erase more than five words at a time while composing your post, trust me: you don't have anything important to say.  And dude... it's okay to post regular normal shit sometimes too, you know.
  

These are just a few of my (un)favorite Facebookers; I'm sure you have your own pet peeves.  What I'm getting at is this: too much of any one particular thing is a bad thing.  Moderation is key in everything we do.  Don't whine all the time.  Don't talk about your kids all the time.  Don't tell us all about how you're drunk all the time.  Don't tell us every time you have to pee or your cat yaks up a hairball.  Please do us all a favor and censor yourself at least a little bit once in a while; please be responsible and think before you Facebook.  It makes the world a much nicer place for everyone.

That's what's on my mind. ♦

A Pipe Dream? ~ Part Deux

The kitchen fiasco continues.

Apparently the kitchen floor really does need to be jack-hammered up in order to fix the broken pipe.  Because of the New Year's holiday coming up, the earliest that they can start the work is next Monday. Lovely.

So in the meantime, my lot in life for the next two weeks will be trips back and forth to the Other House around the corner toting laundry baskets of dirty and/or clean things on my hip.  While I'm trying to pack up my house at the same time, too.  Lov-e-ly.

Ah well... could be much worse.  And the irony of it all?  They're replacing the tiling while they're at it.  When they're done, I will be the proud owner of a nice new hardwood-esque vinyl floor instead of the gross 1960's crap that's in there now.  For about a week and a half, that is.

And I'm off to work, I have a metric shit-ton of studying to do to prepare for Final Comp on Wednesday morning.  There's something so wrong about working in the middle of the night to begin with, but having to take a four-hour exam after working all night long?  Cruel and unusual.

Deuces.

Quotables

I know I say some retarded and occasionally brainless things, but this beats anything I've heard in a while.  And I've said it before but I'll say it again: you would be amazed at the shit that comes out of some people's mouths when you're at work in the wee dark hours of the morning.  Overheard from an officer student in my training event to the instructor facilitating said training event:

"Oh, so wait... Ops has three levels?  So what are they, like... Upper Level, Lower Level.... and Middle Level?"

Wowza.  I can't help but laugh in my sleeve at the officer students at work sometimes, because ~ while some of them are not total ass clowns professional, polite and completely deserving of the respect due to officers ~ a lot of them are 22 year-old kids who just graduated college and are under the delusional impression that because they have a piece of paper that says they're edumacated, they must have vastly superior intellect and logic skills compared to us enlisted slobs.

Not to mention the fact that the officer who made this statement has been down on the boat in Ops dozens of times.

So what have we learned from this?  Common sense is not included in the price of a college education; and respect is earned, not demanded. 

A Pipe Dream?

How ironic that I just re-vamped this blog and titled it "Everything But The Kitchen Sink" and now my first post is about the kitchen sink.

But first off before I begin my ridiculous rant... Merry Christmas!

Ken, Laurie and Brooke came down and spent the past few days with us and a good time was had by all. They left yesterday morning ~ Sean included ~ to spend the Christmas weekend in Florida at Grandma's place, and I stayed home since I'm working mids this weekend. They're all driving back up tomorrow afternoon, staying here for one more night, and then the fam is flying back home Monday afternoon.

But that's not the real point.

I woke up from a restful "night" of sleep around 2:30 this afternoon, made a pot of coffee, and threw a load of laundry in the washer. The house looked good, since I picked up the holiday mess (and just the general mess that comes with houseguests) after everyone left yesterday morning; but I figured today would be a good day to finish up the laundry.

After starting the washer and picking up a few odds and ends, I plopped down on the couch to enjoy my cup of coffee and the gorgeous Saturday afternoon. The house was spotless, the washing machine was humming contentedly in the background, and the sunshine was streaming in peacefully through the living room window. I settled into the comfiness of the couch pillows, opened my laptop, and prepared to catch up on some much-needed blogging.

And then I heard it. The sound of the washing machine emptying after the rinse cycle, mixed with another sound that triggered an alarm in my subconcious mind before I was even fully aware of what I was hearing: the splish-splashing of water on the kitchen floor. I jumped off the couch and rushed into the kitchen to find water streaming out from underneath the washer and surging across the tiling. Little pieces of fluffy dryer lint floated and swirled atop the rapidly-spreading puddle like autumn leaves in a river.

I stood there shocked for a second and then ran to get some towels to clean up the mess, groaning inwardly and spitting out a few choice words to the cat. I threw a towel down and went to go wring it out in the kitchen sink, and that's when I discovered something worse than just a flooded floor; both sinks were full to the brim with dirty laundry water.

Uh-ohhhhhhh.

Thank the Lord for a 24-hour emergency maintenance service. I called and explained what was happening, and a maintenance guy named Mark showed up 30 minutes later to take a look at it. Maintenance Mark is a mild-mannered, scruffy-looking guy with a "good ol' boy" Southern drawl in his late 40's or early 50's who has been here once or twice before to fix different things around the house. He said, "Howdy Ma'am, Merry Christmas; what we got going' on heah?" and then crawled underneath the sink and started banging around and moving things. He then proceeded to get out the plumbing snake and started going to town on the pipe underneath the sink. A while later I heard him get on his cell and start talking to someone about my washing machine fiasco. After about 30 minutes of clanking and drilling noises coming from the direction of the kitchen, Maintenance Mark came out into the living room.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Maintenance Mark: "Ah, weeeeell ma'am... I had ta call anothah guy to come out heah an' take a look at this heah pipe. The snake is stuck in the pipe, an' it won't go all the way in but I can't git the doggone thing ta come out eithah, it's good an' stuck."

Me: "Oh, okay. Um, so what exactly seems to be the trouble, do you think it's just something clogging up the main pipe?"

MM: "Weeeelll, it's hard ta say, ya' know, when I snaked it out the firs' time it came out with dirt on tha end of it, an' that's not good atall, that might mean that there's a problem with the main pipin' in the ground back behind the kitchen wall... but that's why I called Mike, he's gunna come out an' take a look at an' if that's the problem, weeeeell... we won't go borrowin' trouble 'til we need ta."

Me: "Okay, well I sure hope that's not the case. I feel bad for ruining your holiday weekend, I hate to make someone else come out to look at it as well."

MM: "Ahhh, pshaw, it's no trouble, reaaaally. Hopefully this won't take too much longah and we can leave ya to yer afternoon."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

His buddy Maintenence Mike showed up a bit after that and they conferred together in the kitchen while I sat on the porch smoking and talking to Em on the phone. After talking to her for about 20 minutes I got off the phone and went into the kitchen.

Me: (cheerily) "So what's the verdict?"

The Ms: "Weeeeell, it's not good, matter a fact it's 'zactly what I thought it was, that there pipe collapsed in the ground somewheres back behind this wall and it's gonna be a devil to fix it."

Me: (hesitating for a second and looking at both of them questioningly) "Okay... so... what are we talking here, how bad is this going to be to fix?"

The answer to that question turned out to be the last thing I wanted to hear.

The main piping that all the water in the kitchen runs through somehow managed to either break or collapse in-ground, and therefore is not even close to being easily fixable. Fixing this is going to involve taking out the the entire counter/cupboard assembly that runs the length of that kitchen wall, and also taking up the floor underneath the washer/dryer area with a jackhammer. WTF. And as if that's not enough, the effing floor apparently has some sort of asbestos material deep underneath it from when this house was first built in the 1950's. Asbestos in the floor means qualified asbestos workers to come take up the flooring, and probably means sealing off the kitchen while the floor is coming up. In other words, this is going to be a lot worse than just a loose washer connection.

Great. Awesome. The freaking pipe couldn't have waited just a few more weeks to break?? My new orders should be posted any day now, and I'm graduating from ELT School on January 29th. Regardless of where we'll be stationed next, that day will officially be our last day here in South Carolina. We've never had any major maintenance issues in the two years we've lived here, and now thirty-two days before we're leaving for good... now this.

This is some "Bah, HUMBUG!" news if I've ever heard it.

So we have two choices. First, the housing office will "loan" us one of the empty units around us to move our washer & dishes into and we can cook and do laundry somewhere else for the next few weeks. I'm not crazy about that option, personally... especially the whole moving the washer & dishes part. Or secondly, they offered us a fully furnished 3-bedroom unit on the street around the corner that they keep for exactly these sort of occurences. It already has a washer/dryer, coffee pot, dishes, beds with bedding, living room furniture, basically all the bare necessities that one needs to live.  Better, obviously, but still... less than ideal.

Either way, this is the last thing I need right now. I'm so thrown off by all of this, I don't even really know what to think or how this is going to work for the next couple weeks.

I am doing my best right now to remind myself that ~ like everything else in life ~ this happened for a reason. Who knows?  Maybe somehow something good will come of this. ♦