Limits

I am trying to get in as much TV as I can, before the impending departure, because, as all Army wives know, TV is not our friend after Hubby leaves. Oh, the brain-candy type shows are fine, but I'm talking about the news, the violent shows, the news, the military channel, the news, the news, the news. I'm all about watching the House Wives of Wherever, or the Jersey Shore making my peeps looks like idiots, but the news is off limits when he is gone. However, another genre of TV has en captured my viewing pleasure. And it is like a train wreck...I just can't take my eyes off of it, even though it is scaring the crap out of me every time I watch it. This show will definitely be on my "do not watch while he is gone" list.

What show you ask? "Mystery Diagnosis"...you know, on Oprah's new network.  I swear, I sit there and take notes. "OK, if my left arm suddenly starts going numb..." or "If I suddenly grow three feet and my hands are six times bigger than they were three months ago..." I will now know what I am suffering from, and what doctors to call. What really freaks me out about watching this is the fact that I could be one of those people! They could do a whole segment on me!! 

I can just picture it. A skinny, modelly-type, young girl, waiting in the ER four times, only to be sent home with more narcotics than should be allowed. "I just knew something was wrong with me, but no one would listen," the skinny model playing me would weep to the camera (I would not allow myself to be interviewed on camera of course, being a not-so modelly type person). The skinny model (me) would tell of her struggle of trying to find the one doctor who would solve her mysterious pains.  She would tell of her multiple trips to the dentist, oral-surgeons, ENTs, and finally, (right before the commercial break) she reveals that at one point, a nurse actually accused her of making up stories. (The model playing me will let a single tear roll down her face -- cut to the Tide commercial).

Cut back to "Mystery Diagnosis" and the viewer has to hear the whole thing over again, like somehow we've forgotten what we just watched three minutes ago (but since in this episode we're talking about me, that is just fine). Finally, they introduce the person who diagnosed my mystery: Nurse someone. Interesting that I can't remember her name. But, I think this is a defense mechanism since I am totally still pissed at her for diagnosing me, then handing over more narcotics (which don't work for a nerve condition- duh!) Oh, I will totally make the skinny-model-me say that! 


So I will watch the show that is completely nerve-wracking (no pun intended), making the watcher think they have every disease under the sun, or to some extent thinking, "OK, if I ever have that I will know who to call." Scary stuff. I will watch it until Hubby leaves, and then, no more! I can't watch anything that will make me even more paranoid while he is gone.  I can't exactly go hypochondriac when I am the only adult in the house. That will have to wait until he gets back. I mean, I can't exactly call my mom every time I think I have some wacko disease or if I think one of my kids is suffering from some rare condition.

Oh, maybe I'll take a peek or two during the deployment. And if I need to vent...I'll just call Oprah. After starring on her network, she and I (as the skinny model) will be best of friends. That I am sure of.

Crush

Lately as I have been driving the kids around I have been doing that desperate thing that desperate Mom's do: put on a show in the dvd player. As I listen to the shows, I realize that I have NO idea what any of the characters look like or how the scenes are set up. I am in the front seat, driving. So hour upon hour (broken into twenty minutes here, fifteen minutes there - gas station, grocery store, waiting for school pick up, you get the idea) I listen to the same movies or shows over and over again, picturing what those voices coming from behind me look like. But more importantly, and yes strangely, I have developed a crush on some of them. Ok, one of them. And that made me start thinking.

In preparation of our impending separation, I have been looking back, remembering how it was, how it is going to be. With each of the deployments, I found myself having crushes on certain men, mostly famous, some not-so-famous, but none that were "real". During the first deployment, Conan O'Brien and I had a little something (though, he had no idea). During the second, it was the guy from "Reading Rainbow" (Don't judge. He was smart, educated my kids, AND kept them preoccupied for hours at a time). The third deployment, hmmm. It may have been one of those guys from those make-over shows. But, as we all know, that was DEFINITELY one-sided, since 99% of those guys are gay. Oh yes, the fourth deployment, was the magnificent Gerard Butler. Mostly from the movie "PS I Love You" (which many will dispute was a horrible movie -- how dare they speak of my deployment boyfriend that way!) Somewhere, deep inside, I think my crush may have been reciprocated on that one. Just the way he looked at me during the movie....moving on.

So. The question now is: who will it be this time? Who will join me on a daily basis and let me enjoy them via the television, movie, book or a radio?

I never know who is going to catch my eye, as I wait for a letter, phone call (ha!), or email (haha!) from my one true love (my hubby). But I have some early contenders (a woman does have to be prepared for these long, lonely deployments-- it says so in the Army handbook):

1. The guy from Cash Cab.
2. Mike from the show Pickers.
3. Ruff Ruffman. Ok, the voice of Ruff Ruffman. I'm not that weird. I KNOW he is a cartoon dog for God's sake.

Which brings me to the current crush brewing in my brain: The voice of "Kenny the Shark" whom I have had the pleasure of listening to for the last five grocery shop runs and school pick ups. Yes, I know in real life he is a cartoon shark. But as I am driving and following all traffic laws, the voice coming from behind me is a handsome, sarcastic Scottish dark haired man with a very keen sense of humor. (I never really got over my Gerard Butler crush, I admit it.) And come to think of it, I think Ruff Ruffman and Kenny the Shark are the same guy.

So listening from behind me, I am finding crushes. Looking ahead of me, my heart starts to feel the crush of the soon to be departure. I don't want to say good bye to the love of my life. I don't want to. But at least I will have my pretend boyfriends-- gay or cartoon -- to keep me company.

It's Time

It's been a year. I know. For a writer to not write much of anything, nary a word, is sacrilege. Perhaps I will be forgiven if I account for my departure of the writing world. So we go back.

The Monster did come back, but not nearly as voracious as I thought it would. I found a doctor, close by, whom I am not exactly thrilled with, but supplies me with the meds that keep the pain at bay. He still doesn't actually believe that I have TN, but - hey - you can't have everything. A doctor that actually believes you AND prescribes the right meds? Puhlease.



Fortunately for my writing (and perhaps for my readers), this year will prove to be prolific in giving me plenty to vent, rant and rave about. Yes, the Army has wrapped it's long spidery arms around my husband again, and he is off to pay his dues in the sun and sand. Sounds lovely doesn't it? Sun, sand? Oh, to be truly a vacation. Not war. Not danger. Not....what it is.



And this time around (is it the fourth, fifth? I can't even keep it straight anymore) the deployment will bring new challenges as the kids are older, wiser and won't be placated with "Daddy's at work" anymore. They will know. Well, the older two will know. Not only because they are older and go to school with other Army kids with Dads and Moms "over there" but because we have seen far too many military funeral processions pass by our school, our grocery store, our church. They know to stop what they are doing and just be quiet. They know that for every white stone we pass on our travels across Post, lies a soldier who "went to work" and never came back.



Oh, how to get through it AGAIN? How to say good bye, turn to my children with a plastered-on smile and say, "Ok guys, let's have some fun." It worked the first three (four?) times....not sure it will work this time.



And so I will write. The ups, the downs, the in's the outs. And along the way...perhaps I will find a way to get through it -- again. For the fourth (fifth?) time.