Taking Care of Assets

"Where's Dad?"

"He went over to the ship to find out whether or not they'll be leaving today."

"I thought they were going to send a message by 7:00 am."

"Yes. Well. You know how that goes."

"If the ship goes, why does Dad have to be on it? The Seventh Fleet staff just uses the ship like an office building. Are they expecting Dad to man an oar or something?"

"One never knows, sweetie."

Pip tries to work up some enthusiam when asked to show you his new cell phone charm

The ship left Yokosuka in the middle of the afternoon. An hour or so later, the base commander asked all residents to remove or secure all outdoor items prior to the arrival of high winds.

"Pip! Can you help me move all the lawn furniture and potted plants?"

"Can we wait until we actually feel a breeze?"

"I like the way you think, kid."

Liberty Buddies in Osaka

In nearly twenty years as a Navy spouse, I never met the Ancient Mariner's ship in a foreign port until this past weekend when the USS Blue Ridge visited Osaka. (Actually I only managed to meet his ship in a domestic port once, and that's because my mom and dad were in town to herd me and the kids to the pier in Norfolk on time to watch the USS George Washington return from a six-month deployment.)

There is something about Osaka that makes me feel homesick.  But don't get me wrong:  I am not complaining.  Nostalgia and sentimentality are two of my favorite emotions.

We listened to Buddy Holly and the Temptations in my hometown coffee ship.

Look what I found at a thrift shop!

At first glance, I thought this sign was advertising "Amy Burgers". It turned out the joint was called Any Burger but by then I was missing my goddaughter and decided to share this sign with you in her honor.

One Way We Got to Where We Are, Wherever That Might Be

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. ~Attributed to James A. Garfield

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. ~Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia

My phone rang late yesterday afternoon.  A friend was calling around for volunteers to make and deliver finger food to the young Navy guys who've been working almost non-stop for the past 24 hours to book "voluntary evacuees" on airplanes.  I was the third person she called, but the first to answer the ringing telephone.  Whoever asked her to muster volunteer cooks -- and I'm pretty sure I know who instigated the errand of mercy -- had specifically asked that this request not be circulated via facebook.  What a shame.

I pondered that "Please do not post this on facebook" directive while frying up the lumpia I found tucked in the back of my freezer.  This was my first stab at making lumpia.  It took longer than I expected to achieve a golden brown color approximating the package illustration.  I had a lot of time to think.  If you're looking for a human interest post, maybe you should stop now and check back later today.

Authority changes hands fairly regularly in the Navy.  While it might not have been true yesterday and it may no longer be true tomorrow, right now the people who happen to hold positions of authority here seem fearful of what they refer to as "social media" and I know as "facebook".  These leaders have been quick to label facebook as "evil" and blamed facebook users for inciting widespread panic by sharing misinformation; they have been slow to see the potential benefits of using facebook to transmit accurate information.

What was the sticking point?  Did they simply have no "official information" to share?  Were they just unwilling to acknowledge the limits of their authority? 

In the absence of "official information", they circulated "worst-case scenarios" through the Ombudsmen.  An Ombudsman is a Navy spouse who volunteers to serve as the primary communication conduit between a Commanding Officer and the families of sailors who serve under that Commanding Officer.  This is not a paid position.  There are many ombudsmen here because there are many commands.  Each ship has its own Commanding Officer and there are also many shore commands, like the hospital, ship repair, legal services, and facilities.  Those are called tenant commands.  The base command, called CFAY, is the landlord and has its own ombudsman.

I have the utmost respect for Ombudsmen and am amazed that people, primarily women, actually volunteer for this mostly thankless job.  "Mostly" here is in deference to the dinner held in their honor every September and the fried chicken available in the back of the room during their obligatory 10-hour training session.  Like many current and former CO spouses, I am a graduate of Ombudsman Basic Training and I've provided some version of that fried chicken dinner for subsequent classes.

In the aftermath of the earthquake/tsunami, the base leaders have met with the Ombudsmen at least daily and often more frequently.  Imagine these women trying to find babysitters on short notice while their phones are ringing off the hook and their e-mail boxes are overflowing with questions from 23-year old semi-hysterical mothers of infants and toddlers.  Then they dash off to the meeting, ask a lot of "what-if" questions, get a lot of "perhaps this, perhaps that" non-answers but nothing in writing, and are sent home to write up a summary of the discussion and distribute it to the families within their command.

If there are twenty Ombudsmen, there are twenty slightly different summaries.  This stands to reason.  The summaries are e-mailed to the families.  Sally in apt. 1 receives the USS George Washington summary, Mary in apt. 2 gets the summary from the hospital ombudsman, and Jill in apt. 3 sees the summary from the submarine ombudsman.  Do you see where I'm going with this? 

In the absence of "official information", neighbors and friends share those slightly different summaries.  People start getting confused.  They want clarification and the quickest way they know how to get it is to log into facebook.  Quick is important because they have two or three children underfoot.  They have two or three children underfoot because the school principals understood those "perhaps this, perhaps that" non-answers as Gospel Truth and cancelled school.

At a hastily-convened "town hall" meeting last Monday, the base commander blamed the Ombudsmen for spreading misinformation.  I had already left the meeting at that point (to help paint the stage set for the now-postponed production of Steel Magnolias), but I understand he was taken to task by one of the more senior Ombudsmen.  Bravo for her.

This all might have been averted if only someone on the CFAY staff, someone who actually gets paid to communicate say, had been tasked with preparing a written summary of each meeting that could have been distributed as a unified message by all the Ombudsmen via e-mail and facebook.

I, for one, would have appreciated seeing a refreshingly honest introductory statement, along the lines of:  Please remain calm.  We are doing everything in our power to assure your safety and well-being.  Unfortunately, and contrary to popular opinion, no Naval officer assigned to Japan has been delegated the budgetary authority to pay for the departure and subsequent return of those of you who no longer wish to be in Japan.  Please do not be overly concerned that our own spouses have departed the base.  They do not know anything that you don't know.  We have simply asked them to leave in order that we can focus on your needs without the distraction of our own families.      

The person I thought was responsible for instigating the errand of mercy posted something interesting on facebook late last night. She thanked two ladies for delivering cookies to those hardworking young sailors. I guess she didn't know about the lumpia. I guess "Please do not post this on facebook" did not apply to herself.

I am darn certain those kids would have received more food had I elected to disregard her directive.

Excuse me while I figure out how you "un-friend" someone.

Observation of a Designated Driver

Preparing tortilla soup, a winter salad with homemade lemon poppyseed dressing, and cheesecakes (peppermint and white chocolate raspberry) for thirty Shonan ladies and transporting all that food and kitchen paraphernalia across base last Friday morning left me almost too pooped to participate in our semi-annual dinner outing with the Japanese Navy medical admirals in Yokohama that night. But we had expanded our guest list to include the new U.S. Naval Hospital Commanding Officer and his wife, a genuinely nice couple, so I took a ten-minute nap and ran a brush through my bob while the Ancient Mariner raced to the Navy Exchange in search of gift bags to be filled with odds and ends from our closets, cupboards, and liquor cabinet.

I'm glad I rallied. We spent a lovely evening with our old and new friends at a Chinese restaurant on the 28th floor of Yokohama's Sky Building and then squeezed into a train car crammed with Japanese party animals for the return trip to Yokosuka. The train was so crowded that people who might normally be characterized as falling down drunk could not possibly fall down. I think I was the only member of our party who noticed this . . .

And They Probably Refer to it as St. Foj

The Ancient Mariner steamed away from Yokosuka yesterday morning after spending most of his weekend chopping celery and slicing sausage. As the USS Blue Ridge slipped away from the pier, half the population of Japan heard the sailor's plaintive cry. "Save some gumbo for me!"

He is embarked on what the Navy refers to as Sea Trials and what we Navy spouses refer to as "Whoa, I foresee a lengthy deployment in the near future!"

Sea Trials are when the ship's crew drills, drills, and then drills some more. Athletes call it practice, actors call it rehearsal. Because the Navy cannot bear to use expressions easily understood by the general population, they have established a Special Task Force on Obfuscating Jargon with a staff of 938 which meets in Hawaii four times a year to coin new expressions for some of the world's oldest and most basic concepts. They got this idea from the computer industry.


Just kidding (at least about the size of the staff).

And That's The Way It Is

Matt is co-anchoring the KTV (Kinnick High TV) daily news broadcast on alternate days. He just happened to mention this the other day - "Didn't I tell you?" - and now I am searching under rocks and boxes for any vaguely plausible excuse to saunter into a classroom during a broadcast.
I'd been floating along on the assumption Matt is keeping a fairly low profile at school. The new principal who arrived last year after we left Japan surely would not connect Matt's name to Matt's face - and, more importantly, to my face -until after Christmas at the soonest. This translates in my personal language to a license to fire off pithy missives to the school administration on a fairly regular basis, imagining the principal scratching his head and wondering, "Who is this brilliant woman with all these incredibly constructive suggestions?"

This Walter Cronkite gig put the brakes on that little hobby. Apparently I am not as insensitive as you first suspected.

Frankly, though, I'm worried all this newfound self-restraint is going to give me an ulcer. You don't want that to happen so I'm going to blow off a little steam here by sharing my thoughts on Columbus Day. I had plenty of time to accumulate these thoughts and build up a head of steam while producing my 60 photo cards for the JAW conversation group, a little assignment I managed to complete in just under 39 hours. Mimi says this might be a new record. (This would be the same Mimi who has been banned from the base print shop for life after last year's card-making fiasco.)

Here goes.

Why is Columbus Day a Federal holiday still? Why do Department of Defense schools close on Columbus Day when many other school districts remain open? Our nation was crawling out from under a Great Depression when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared Columbus Day a Federal holiday back in 1934. Were Federal employees paid for not working on holidays in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s? Maybe a Federal holiday in 1934 was a euphemism for shutting down our national government for 24 hours in order to save the taxpayers a chunk of money, like the steel industry and automakers used to shut down factories for a week or two and call it Deer Season.

Let's tell Congress we can no longer afford Columbus Day. Why should Federal employees get eleven (11) paid holidays when the people paying for those holidays - the taxpayers those Federal employees are there to serve, let's not forget - might get as many as seven (7) paid holidays but more often get none and consider themselves fortunate to have a job? If Congress doesn't have the backbone to eliminate just one questionable holiday, I say we let them foot the bill out of their own personal pockets.

I feel the same about our military personnel not showing up for work on Columbus Day, especially when I consider all the soldiers, sailors, marines, and the couple of dozen pilots on hazardous duty in Afghanistan or Iraq or floating around on and under the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Those kids who are protecting our interests for days, weeks, and months on end are the ones who deserve a three-day weekend but they won't be getting one soon.

How many civilian doctors and dentists do you know who don't schedule patients on Columbus Day, or Presidents' Day, or Martin Luther King Day? That's when Dr. Baker used to schedule my kids' dental checkups (Dr. Baker also worked on rainy days but that's another issue for another day).

Native Americans despise Columbus Day, the Italian-Americans can get over "losing" a paid holiday they no more deserve than the Irish-, Polish-, Mexican-, and Nigerian-Americans, and the last I knew Catholics were no longer being singled out for persecution by the Ku Klux Klan, so let's get rid of Columbus Day. We don't need it and we can't afford it. I don't know about you, but I don't want my precious future grandchildren to have to spend half their lives paying interest on the money we'll have to borrow from China to pay Mike not to work tomorrow.

And that's the way it is.

(Before you leap for that comment button like a returning champion on Jeopardy, Mike, be assured we all know that you personally work 24/7, in sunshine/snow/hurricanes/typhoons, and personify service in its most glorious and noble connotations.)

The Price of Freedom

The USS Blue Ridge docked in Yokosuka shortly before noon yesterday. For the Seventh Fleet Staff, people like Mike, it was a normal working day so I didn't stroll over to the pier to watch the ship come in this time. For those of you who might wonder about such things, Mike's normal work week includes a briefing every Saturday morning but he and the other senior officers are allowed to skip the Sunday morning briefings.

By way of contrast, this sign shows the typical work week of a shore command here and back home.

The disparity in working hours might strike you as a bit unfair but the Navy is aware of this inequality and provides extra compensation for sailors assigned to sea duty. Mike's "sea pay" amounts to a whopping $100/month.

Just as I was skipping out the door to squander that bonus on mushroom-shaped cookies for you, Mike asked me for the checkbook. "I need to pay my monthly mess bill." "What's that?" "The Navy charges me $200/month for meals on the ship." Math wizard that I am, it took me less than a millisecond to calculate that this job is costing us $100/month. (One of us, of course, is delighted to be getting three square meals a day for the first time in years.)

If you happen to overhear someone questioning the price of freedom, you can tell them from me that it's $1,200/year.

Dawn's Early Light

I'm no longer setting the alarm for 4:30 am. School starts the day after tomorrow and Matt's practices have been switched to after noon, a time more in synch with my circadian rhythm, but already I'm a bit nostalgic for those quiet morning hours when I sat on my back patio listening to the base slowly wake up around me.

Every summer the Navy announces the First Class Petty Officers who have been selected for promotion to the rank of Chief Petty Officer, commonly referred to as 'Chiefs.' For the entire month of August and the first half of September the Chiefs-select undergo a rigorous training regimen and a nearly-as-rigorous fundraising frenzy. Here in Yokosuka the Navy's best and brightest run along the side of my house at 5:30 every morning as they approach Weather Hill. Fifteen minutes later they pass again on the descent (walking this time so I guess they're following "The Galloway Method.") I can hear them approaching when they're still two blocks away. There are about 25 of them, chanting in unison to that tune we all learned watching boot camp scenes in old movies. Weather Hill is the toughest obstacle they face and they seem to appreciate the spectator standing on the side of the road in her pajamas, humming "They'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain."

Captain Pigpen

The little kid Billy in the Family Circus comic strip has never met the shortest distance between two points. Most of us have surely spent a few seconds on the occasional Sunday morning tracing that circuitous dotted line with our eyes.

Sailors posted on the USS Blue Ridge last Friday, Mike's first day at his new job, have no doubt dubbed the new Fleet Surgeon "Billy" since he left a conspicuous black trail as he roamed around the ship looking for the exit at day's end. The black rubber soles of the combat boots he hasn't worn in ten years apparently rotted in storage.

He was hoping to avoid investing in a lot of new uniforms and equipment with just a few years to go before retirement but those combat boots must be replaced. The "Government Issue" pair carry a $111 price tag. We think they would retail for around $30 in the free market.

Sea Duty

Has it really been a decade since Mike last deployed? I'm going to have to brush up on those OPSEC regulations lest I inadvertently blurt something here that jeopardizes national security, lands me in the brig, and frees Matt to take off for Harajuku in a Luffy disguise. I'd surmise OPSEC is militaryspeak for Operational Security but that would defy the usual bureaucratic logic, wouldn't it?

If memory serves, I cannot mention that Mike will be floating away from Japan until after he's already floated away and I cannot mention where he's going until he's already there. By the time you know to feel appropriately concerned about Matt's plight with me as his sole source of parental guidance, we'll already have made a big dent in 10 years of Naruto reruns. And how in the world will you be able to snag Super Saver fares to meet Mike in any of those exotic ports if you cannot give American Airlines a specific destination until after your plane lifts off?

But I'm not complaining. Not a bit. The deployments over the next two years ought to be a breeze compared to the 1993 and 1997-98 versions. Living within three blocks of the high school means I won't have to endure that numbing routine of carting three kids back and forth to school and extracurricular activities for 3+ hours a day. And consider how the internet has transformed the speed in which sailors can communicate with their loved ones (as well as spouses of my ilk). Plus this time I will be literally surrounded by hundreds of women and men either in the same boat, so to speak, or with great empathy so I probably won't have to prostrate myself at the feet of grocery store clerks for my daily dose of quasi-adult conversation.

One thing I will miss - besides Mike of course - are those weekly telephone conversations with Mom, the ones where she'd interrupt my whining with an audible 'tsk' and then launch into a detailed report on the mating prospects and batting averages of my nieces and nephews, and never in that order. Instead, whenever I'm feeling a little blue I'm going to check my friend Diane's new blog, The Other Half (link at right), to see how she and the little angels are weathering Brian's first deployment. This will remind me to count my blessings.

Deployments aren't all that different from childbirth. Any painful memories are sure to fade before the balloons deflate and the flowers start wilting.