An Inconvenient Youth
Love my children. LOVE 'em. Wow. Amazing individuals. Beautiful miracles. And who needs to play guitar from time to time anyway?
I just don't think either of us thought sportin' dual offjoints would have so much impact on every microsecond of our lives. On a good day, the house is a disaster, maybe all the pets are fed, and Ainsley gets eight minutes of sleep. Conversation, relaxation, personal hygiene all suffer. There's just never a down time. Even when Ainsley and I went out for Valentine's Day, we were cramped at the restaurant bar, ensconced in noise and smoke, then hurried home afterwards to the surprise of the family babysitters--it's as if we're out of practice on how to be a couple.
Then there's nights like Friday, when Ryan's cold-then-stomach ailments went back into his face, with a bad nose cold and terrific coughing fits. Medicine every two hours, rocking him back and forth, draining his sinuses into handfuls of kleenexes, he finally fell asleep around 1:45am, when of course the dogs decided they wanted in on this Being Up action and had to go 'log out', if you will.
Vegged at home all day Saturday, canceling a dinner date with cul de sac neighbors, watching Remy the Rat in front of a big fire. Sunday was nice enough for the whole gang to walk in the morning, before leaving Grandad in charge of putting Ryan down so I could cram for my test. 1200 pages in 3 books, about a hundred 'sample' test questions to find answers for. But I passed with blue and white colors, a computerized response the next day: "Congratulations! You have received a score of : Satisfactory." You missed the following objectives:
None.
How is that not Exemplary? Outstanding? God-like?
The rest of the week has been meetings and promotion ceremony prep; at our branch meeting Tuesday I showed the video I made for my promotion to Captain (and subsequently showed for my Last Alert speech at Minot and also when I pinned on Major), a silly home movie that everyone laughed at, hopefully because they were supposed to, not because I looked so different when I was 25.
It's just a shame that the Air Force seems to be in the business of promoting dumbasses. Got a call this afternoon from a guy who scheduled the conference room after me -- last October I reserved it between 12 and 4 to allow for set-up and clean-up, with a start time of 2:30. So this left numbnut reserves the room for 4 ... and schedules his ceremony to start at ... 4.
"Oh. Well, Protocol didn't know what time yours was starting, so they figured, like, one. When were you planning on being out of there?"
"4."
"Ah. Geez. So you start at 2:30, so you could be done by, what, 3?"
"Yes, but we're doing the reception in there afterwards, and I don't want to have to kick people out just because someone else wants to set up for the next event right away. I planned this months ago, and when I called Facilities to find out what the plan was for the 4 o'clock reservation, I was told that they would start setting up at 4. So I don't know what to tell you."
"Well, uh ... man. My invitations have already gone out, too."
"Look, I'll see what I can do, but just keep your folks out of there until we're done. I'll try to get out by 3:45 at the latest."
"Hey, thanks, and Congrats on your promotion!"
"Ditto, assbag."
So I'm thinking my speech will be the slowest in recorded history.
I just don't think either of us thought sportin' dual offjoints would have so much impact on every microsecond of our lives. On a good day, the house is a disaster, maybe all the pets are fed, and Ainsley gets eight minutes of sleep. Conversation, relaxation, personal hygiene all suffer. There's just never a down time. Even when Ainsley and I went out for Valentine's Day, we were cramped at the restaurant bar, ensconced in noise and smoke, then hurried home afterwards to the surprise of the family babysitters--it's as if we're out of practice on how to be a couple.
Then there's nights like Friday, when Ryan's cold-then-stomach ailments went back into his face, with a bad nose cold and terrific coughing fits. Medicine every two hours, rocking him back and forth, draining his sinuses into handfuls of kleenexes, he finally fell asleep around 1:45am, when of course the dogs decided they wanted in on this Being Up action and had to go 'log out', if you will.
Vegged at home all day Saturday, canceling a dinner date with cul de sac neighbors, watching Remy the Rat in front of a big fire. Sunday was nice enough for the whole gang to walk in the morning, before leaving Grandad in charge of putting Ryan down so I could cram for my test. 1200 pages in 3 books, about a hundred 'sample' test questions to find answers for. But I passed with blue and white colors, a computerized response the next day: "Congratulations! You have received a score of : Satisfactory." You missed the following objectives:
None.
How is that not Exemplary? Outstanding? God-like?
The rest of the week has been meetings and promotion ceremony prep; at our branch meeting Tuesday I showed the video I made for my promotion to Captain (and subsequently showed for my Last Alert speech at Minot and also when I pinned on Major), a silly home movie that everyone laughed at, hopefully because they were supposed to, not because I looked so different when I was 25.
It's just a shame that the Air Force seems to be in the business of promoting dumbasses. Got a call this afternoon from a guy who scheduled the conference room after me -- last October I reserved it between 12 and 4 to allow for set-up and clean-up, with a start time of 2:30. So this left numbnut reserves the room for 4 ... and schedules his ceremony to start at ... 4.
"Oh. Well, Protocol didn't know what time yours was starting, so they figured, like, one. When were you planning on being out of there?"
"4."
"Ah. Geez. So you start at 2:30, so you could be done by, what, 3?"
"Yes, but we're doing the reception in there afterwards, and I don't want to have to kick people out just because someone else wants to set up for the next event right away. I planned this months ago, and when I called Facilities to find out what the plan was for the 4 o'clock reservation, I was told that they would start setting up at 4. So I don't know what to tell you."
"Well, uh ... man. My invitations have already gone out, too."
"Look, I'll see what I can do, but just keep your folks out of there until we're done. I'll try to get out by 3:45 at the latest."
"Hey, thanks, and Congrats on your promotion!"
"Ditto, assbag."
So I'm thinking my speech will be the slowest in recorded history.
posted by Dan at 9:42 PM
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