Lazy days

Here I sit on a lazy Saturday afternoon in my room with the A/C blasting. It is a hot 93 degrees outside and a thunderstorm is moving in from the southwest. I can hear the thunder rolling but it is still off in the distance a ways. Soon it will move over head and no doubt bring with it the usual torrential downpour. I am getting used to these thunderstorms and actually enjoy them. They put on quite a light show in the evenings and have a life of their own. Good thing I did my grocery shopping early because sometimes you never know if it will ever stop raining.
I am enjoying the last weekend of not having a room mate as the battalion will start to trickle back in from the field training next week. It has been a very nice gentle pace around here with school and not having to attend evening classes at the battalion headquarters three nights a week and even having both Saturday and Sundays off. As times is getting closer to shipping out I wonder what the days will be like in the next few weeks. I graduate from Cable Splicing School on Friday and will return to my battalion and my platoon. I do have one more two week school scheduled though so I won’t be stuck on watches all day and trying to fill my time productively. I am still very thankful for not having to go to the field training exercise. Due to the extreme heat and humidity there have been hundreds of heat casualties ranging from dehydration, heat exhaustion and even a couple close calls with heat stroke including one troop from the Portland unit. I was told that his core body temperature rose to 106 degrees and he had to be air lifted to the hospital. That is such a scary situation but I am glad he is okay. They sent him back here to Gulfport to recover on his own. We will all keep a close eye on him from here on out. There is nothing worse then losing a fellow ship mate but what is worse is losing them before we even hit the war zone!
Someone asked me the other day if I was scared of going to Afghanistan. I guess I never really put too much thought into it in the past but as the time draws more near I find myself thinking about it more often. I told myself that I was not going to think about it too much until I am actually over there. But how can you not think about it? I find myself thinking about it more often now, thinking about how I don’t know what to expect. I know things are heating up a bit over there and where I will be or where I was told I will be is kind of a hot spot right now. I won’t be out on the front lines breaking down doors and hunting terrorists but I will still be in a war zone, on a base that gets mortared and shot at at least every other day. So yea I guess in a sense I am scared. I am scared that I will be in the wrong place at the wrong time, injured to where I can t come home and enjoy the things I enjoy the most like hiking. Scared that I won’t come home at all and that when I said goodbye to my family and loved ones that would be the last time I saw their faces, scared that I may see something that I wish I hadn’t and scared to have to even think about being scared. All of these things are natural thoughts and emotions and even though I tell myself that I am going to be just fine, which I believe and know, I still have that fear deep in the back of my mind. Who wouldn’t? Until then I am just a little bit nervous but I will take advantage of the time I have here like yesterday, the entire class went out bowling and we all had a great time goofing off and just being who we are.
I have one more long four day weekend over the fourth of July and Jon has decided to come visit once more before I head out. I am so happy and grateful for that and I can not wait to spend another wonderful long weekend with him. Just one more thing to look forward to besides actually coming home for good.
Well now the rain is falling so that gives me an excuse to stay in. Maybe I will find a good movie on TV or just take a nap and enjoy the sounds of mother nature. Either way it’s all good.

Memorial Day to Remember

Once again I have neglected my blog; mainly a combination of being busy and being lazy. Yea I will admit it when I am being lazy but I have to take advantage of it when I can. In about a month and a half I will not have that luxury. Speaking of luxury I had the Memorial Day weekend off, four whole days off!! What a wonderful memorable Memorial Day weekend it was. I had a very special visitor who came all the way from the great Northwest to spend some quality time with his Seabee!

I met Jon at the Gulfport airport on the 27th of May and after a few long embraces and a bit of wonderment we took off in our rental car for a lovely mini vacation getaway to Ocean Springs Mississippi about 20 miles east of Gulfport MS. We checked into our B&B, settled in and took off on foot in search of some southern cuisine. We ended up at a nice little Italian restaurant, far from southern where we sat outside enjoying the south coast evening weather, the sound of tropical birds and the smells of the magnolia trees. The evening was nice, the weather was beautiful and the company was more amazing then I could have hoped for.

There was so much to catch up on, so much to explore and experience. I had declined a few trips to Ocean Springs because I wanted to explore it for the first time with Jon. We had four days, no concrete plans and we were ready to just take it slow, relax, enjoy being with each other again and pray that time could just stand still. Thankfully time didn’t zip by like we feared it would but still the time did go and sadly so did Jon. But before we bid our farewells and very sadly and reluctantly parted ways we created life lasting memories that I will carry with me and drift back to when times get tough and I get to feeling those “blue devils” as Jon would say, creeping in and attempting to settle down.

The day following Jon’s arrival we decided to drive to the coast line (6 blocks away) to explore the long white post Katrina rebuilt beaches. The day was clear and sunny, warm if not hot and the water of the Gulf was calm and brown. After a nice long stroll we drove further down the coast into Biloxi and dropped by the Hard Rock Casino for lunch at the Hard Rock Café. We enjoyed their famous pulled pork sandwich and donated $20 each to the slot machines. By that time the heat and humidity was taking its toll and making us quite tired so we called it a day and it was back to the B&B for a little rest and relaxation. That evening Jon got to experience his first southern thunderstorm. It put on quite a show, like a strobe light in a night club and a torrential down pour unlike those in the North West. The rain drops here are quite large and cover ground with lightning speed. The thunderstorms kept at bay during the day time and were predictable to the late afternoon and evening.

I can see this being a very long entry so I wont torture you all with the complete details but just tell you that we had the most wonderful time exploring the coast, paddle boating Seabee lake, scouring the bayou in search of gators which we did not see due to the local gators on a holiday weekend of their own. We sampled the southern fried catfish, soft shelled crabs, fried crawfish tails, and ended up with a belly ache or two. We spotted a variety of wild life including tropical birds, funky ugly spiders, snakes, BUGS, and Jon even committed his very first cock roach murder (sorry Jon). In his defense the cock roach was threatening my Tillamook beef jerky and made a run at Jon so he did what he had to do to defend him self and me!

Jon departed on the 1st of June, we said our tearful goodbyes and I watched him drive away with deep sorrow in my heart. Saying goodbye for the second time may have been harder then the first time but I would not have traded our time together for anything. It is now back to business as usual with school but the missing is much stronger. I miss my entire family and with out my loved ones behind me supporting me in this “adventure” it would not be as meaningful as it is now.

My fellow Seabees are packing and getting ready to head out tomorrow for the three week field training exercise that I have to great fortune of not having to attend due to the length of my school. While I am happy that I wont be camping out playing “Army” in the Mississippi heat and humidity, getting little sleep, no shower, and fighting the bugs and snakes and “enemy” attacks, a part of me will miss being out there side by side with my comrades. I will wish them luck and safety and drink one for them in my air conditioned room watching my favorite TV shows. I will get hell for this I know it but someone has to protect the home front for with out a cable splicer who would fix their a/c in Afghanistan??? Just something to think about.