I think Will brought home some sort of Taliban goat farmer desert disease. For a week now the two younger kids and I have had blinding headaches which occasionally produce unexpected vomiting. There's nothing more fun than surprise vomit!
But mostly it's just a headache that never goes away.
So I haven't written lately. Obviously.
Tomorrow (or possibly Thursday) I'll start posting some of the guest posts.
Thanks to everyone who has submitted something. And it's not too late to send one in! I'll be posting them off and on over the next two weeks.
(But honestly, Will's been on leave for less than a day now and we're already bickering. So, I may be here more than I planned just to get a break. We'll see.)
Well, when the soldiers get home, they immediately begin seven consecutive partial work days where they go in to hear all the same stuff. While one purpose is to get the information out there and have a chance to get some necessary paperwork and medical screenings done, its bigger purpose to ease the transition home. Going to work for a few hours a day for a week is far less jarring than being gone for a year to suddenly being home 24/7.
And as I've discovered this week, I need it just as much as he does. Maybe more. I might be the one who attempts to murder him.
I've been doing my own thing on my own schedule for the past year. If I wanted to see what my friends are up to on Facebook, I did. If I wanted to blog, I did. If I decided to shampoo the carpet some random morning, I could. But now he's home. Just hanging out. ALL THE TIME. Most of me wants to spend every second with him and soak up his being home-ness. But part of me wants to read blogs and Facebook for awhile without feeling guilty for neglecting him.
These hours he's at work give me time to myself. And I need it.
Also, now that the first heady days of reunion are over, the same things about him that annoyed me before he left are still annoying. (And I'm sure the same is true for him.) And living in a crap hole (literally!) for a year can lead to some bad habits. After his first dinner home, he swiped a big pile of crumbs from the table to the floor. Deliberately. Like our dining room was suddenly Medieval Times.
There may have been some yelling about common courtesy and what are you thinking, you barbarian??? I'll never tell.
He came home about 20 minutes ago. In that time he's interrupted me to show me a box (just a box...just because it was folded oddly), a cord, a stuffed dragon (really?), to tell me stories about riding the bus this morning at work, and to ask if we were out of chips.
I may have told him to PLEASE FOR THE LOVE ALL THINGS HOLY GIVE ME 15 MINUTES OF PEACE SO I CAN WRITE.
Ahem.
So the moral of the story?
They say the week of reintegration is for the soldier. I am discovering that it's more for me.
Now that I don't have to edit for the terrorists, I can tell you that Will got home on Sunday night.
You've all seen heart warming videos and pictures of homecomings, I'm sure. I've sobbed over seen them many times myself. And a lot of it was heartwarming and wonderful and tear inducing. But let me tell you, it is not all hugs and cheers. Really, by the time we were able to get in our van and drive home, I felt like it would have been better if they had just sent everyone home in cab and forgone the ceremony all together.
The first time he deployed, he was by himself--not deploying with a whole brigade like this time. When he got home, we drove to the airport and picked him up at the curb. I would take that any day over the ordeal Sunday night.
Before I get into all the sordid details of that night, let me give you the heart warming part. (The still shots are stolen from the brigade's Facebook page. Every electronic device I brought was mysteriously sapped of all power and died hours before the plane landed. The video was taken by Ben. My apologies.)
(The things in their hands are yellow roses.)
Now, the parts that sucked.
His flight was scheduled to land at 5:30 PM. We were told we had to be there by 3:30 for various reasons. So, we packed a couple of back packs with dinner and books and crayons and other stuff to keep three kids entertained for a couple of hours and off we went.
We arrived at the hangar and they had the heaters blowing full blast. That would have been great if it hadn't been 70 degrees outside with 90% humidity.
But, Will was coming home! It was totally worth sweating in a crowded room with several hundred other sweaty people for a couple of hours.
Fast forward two long hours. The kids are done. I'm done. Everyone in the whole hangar is done. And sweaty.
But, Will was coming home! It was totally worth being crammed onto uncomfortable bleachers for hours with cranky, tired kids and adults with zero common courtesy and other people's children who needed a roundhouse kick to the head.
And lo! We heard a plane land! We were a bit confused because they were supposed to send us out so we could see it land. But whatever. The plane had landed!
Except it didn't. Someone got on the microphone to tell us it was a different plane. And oh, by the way, the plane we were waiting for was delayed an hour in Indianapolis.
Finally they announced that they could see the plane approaching and we were all sent outside to watch it land and see the soldiers file off. And as we all stood there watching, the skies opened up and drenched us all in a torrential downpour.
We filed back in, wet and cold, but happy that it was all finally over.
The soldiers marched in, a General said a few words, and then they were released to be with their families for a few minutes.
I have no picture or video of this because Ben was in charge of filming. What I have is a five minute video of the floor.
After 15 minutes or so, they sent the soldiers off to turn in weapons and other assorted things and bused the families back to where our cars were and where the soldiers would be sent to pick up their baggage.
We knew it would take some time, but we did not expect it to take an hour and a half. Except that it did.
And after all that waiting, the soldiers finally arrived at the second location, only to discover that more than 100 bags were missing. Including Will's.
So, we waited another 45 minutes for him to fill out the necessary paperwork to get his bags back. Someday. If they ever found them.
Six hours after our arrival, we finally headed home. We were all exhausted. The kids were sent to bed. We went to bed.
And we all had a lovely, peaceful night's rest.
Except we didn't.
We were woken in the middle of the night by tornado sirens. So, the five of us crammed into our tiny half bath to wait out the storm. Will compared it to being in a bunker during rocket attacks.
To quote Ben, "Why are we cursed?"
So there you have it. Our heart warming, exhausting, frustrating, sweaty, tornado filled homecoming tale.
So, I was going to write about how I think there's a serial killer dressed as Santa hiding in my house, but I have a blinding migraine (maybe the killer is poisoning me!), so that will have to wait until tomorrow.
If he doesn't dismember me by then, that is.
But I did want to get this plea for your guest posts out there today.
My husband should finally be home sometime this weekend. Next week he has to go into work every single day (including the weekend), so I'll still be writing to keep myself occupied. But the following week he begins two weeks of leave. I don't plan to be on here very much during those two weeks. So, my dear internets, I need you. I need your guest posts.
They can be about anything you like. And you there--yeah, you! The one thinking you can't write very well--yes you CAN. You can write just fine.
And hey, the last time I had someone guest post, it was featured on BlogHer.
So, send them in! (brandidouglass@gmail.com)
Now I'm going to go lie in a dark room before my eyeballs explode.
If either is passed, the US government will have the power to--without trial or legal recourse--block any website it feels infringes in any way on a copyright. And we're not just talking about one individual site--we're talking the host as well.
For example, the title of my last post was "Crow: The other white meat." Anyone who has seen TV in the past 20 years knows that that was a play on the slogan for pork ("Pork: The other white meat"). If the people on the Pork Council [I dare you to say Pork Council out loud without giggling] decided that my title was somehow harmful to them or taking away their income, they could file a complaint.
The government would then have the power to not only block this blog, but ALL OF BLOGSPOT. All because my title is sorta kinda like the pork slogan.
And legally there is little that could be done if that happened.
Here's a video by some of your favorite internet people about what the bills mean and how they could--and WILL-- affect you.
And HERE'S a post from my internet boyfriend, Wil Wheaton, about it. I like his take on it because he is one of the people this bill is meant to protect.
Oh, and check out The Oatmeal, too. Just for the giggles.
This isn't some internet panic over something not likely to happen. These are real bills with millions of dollars in backing from the movie and music industries. They will be voted on in six days.
The internet is where I live. It's where my friends live. I will pretty much cease to exist if blogs and Facebook go away.
