Knot the Best of Days But Knot the Worst Either

The Ancient Mariner left Japan this morning aboard the USS Blue Ridge while you were tuning in the Super Bowl. This is our first long deployment since Matt left for college, meaning the first time in "our" Navy career I've been left to my own devices. Uh, oh.

Don't worry, though. Three puzzle magazine subscriptions and an adventure computer game or two will keep me out of the bars four nights a week. The other three nights I'll be at rehearsals for the Yokosuka International Players' production of Steel Magnolias. Incredibly, I landed a part other than Ouizer (Shirley MacLaine). I'm Clairee, the role Olympia Dukakis played in the movie. My "Foxy Red" wigs - think Lucille Ball - arrived last week. Line memorization is the next order of business. The director seems less than amused by my ad libs although a couple were corkers. (I used the word 'corkers' for the benefit of my Japanese readers who like to see new words.)

Another thing I'll be doing is smocking, thanks to Hisayo-san who graciously showed us how to make purses like the ones we saw at the Yokosuka Quilt Exhibit last fall.

She took us to Kamakura to buy fabric last month. Artistic, Weather, Beanpole (she’s new), Kaji-san, and Otsuka-san are using moiré fabric but I opted for denim because, assuming I ever complete this project, the purse will wind up under the Christmas tree of someone who prefers denim to moiré. That narrows down the prospective recipient list to my sister, most of my sisters-in-law, my daughter, my sons’ girlfriends, my stepdaughters, my nieces, and my college roommate. They all know better than to hold their breath.

She assigned us homework: drawing a grid on the reverse side of our fabric. This required coming to grips with the length of a centimeter. Don’t tell Sr.Josephus, but Math Wizard here found herself three columns short on her first pass.

Last Friday we went to Shinagawa-san's house and learned how to connect the diagonal lines. There's a great deal of thread knotting and cutting involved. I'd probably be working my way down the first column still if Artistic hadn't taught me how to tie a knot the Japanese way. It's so easy that I think I might finish this project. Or at least the smocking part.

Kota Kinabalu

Cousin Rob's murder took the wind out of our sails this week. While I work on organizing my thoughts and pictures, you might want to learn about Kota Kinabalu, the port where the USS Blue Ridge docked yesterday.

Meanwhile, In Pusan

Mike spent his birthday in Pusan, a seaport on the SE coast of South Korea (see map, above). The birthday boy is pictured below with South Korea's Navy Surgeon General who earned a gold star in my book by whisking Mike off the USS Blue Ridge for lunch which I'm sure was memorable since the Koreans favor metal chopsticks that are slipperier and, I believe, longer than the ones we have semi-mastered in Japan.

Don't worry about memorizing this map. It won't be going away any time soon.

Emergencies Only Happen During Deployments

We spent the past few days gearing up for another semi-long deployment. Matt practiced asking "What's for dinner?" in a desperate tone of voice, Mike calculated our taxes, and the Queen of Multi-tasking read three books between alphabetizing the spices and folding thirteen loads of laundry.

This time around Mike will miss Matt's entire track season and his first appearance on stage since his 1999 turn as an orange peel. None of us are complaining. We know we have it easier than most Navy families, especially the ones with small children. Just this morning, as we were saying goodbye to each other, Mike and I noted that the mind-numbing routine and loneliness that plagued earlier deployments are no longer issues for me. Between Dr. T, Reiko, the Knitwits and Oakleaf knitters, Shonan Ladies, Oakleaf Explorers, and the Japanese and American Wives group, I am awash in opportunities to engage in adult conversation these days.

Before the USS Blue Ridge had left the pier this morning, I was already on a train bound for the Kirin Brewery in Yokohama. I heard shouts of "Kathy! Kathy!" as I raced up the escalator and executed a rather elegant scissor-kick leap into the nearest car just as the door was closing. My nonchalant glance around the car came up empty in the familiar face department. That would be because the rest of my party was standing on the platform gaping at me as the train gathered speed. Whoops!

Not to worry. I hopped off at the next station where I hooked up with Yuko, we jumped on the next train together, and everyone else was waiting for us on the platform in Yokohama. By eleven we had completed the brewery tour and were ensconced in the tasting room. "Hey, hey, hey," said Mimi. "I can't mix beer with the medicine I'm taking. Do you want mine?" "Gosh, maybe I should force myself to drink your 12-ounce Kirin and that little shot glass of Zero Kirin in addition to my ration so you won't cause some sort of terrible international incident." I did my diplomatic duty while Mimi tried in vain to figure out who was trying to reach her on her cell phone.

Someone with four brothers got a lot of Christmas shopping done in the Kirin Brewery gift shop before posing with some of her friends. (Mimi is not in this picture because she was still trying to solve The Cell Phone Mystery.)

Back in Yokosuka - after a detour to Aoki Bakery where I left my best umbrella and Stone Cold Sober Mimi left her Kirin Brewery gift shop purchases - I had already changed into my jeans when the telephone rang. "It's Mimi. Remember that call I got at the brewery? It was the school. Matt had an accident, they couldn't find you, and were calling me as your emergency contact person." "Uh-oh."

I checked my messages and, sure enough, the school nurse had left her number. Her line was busy so I headed to the school where I found Matt stretched out in the nurse's office. He had fallen backwards down a short flight of cement steps and scraped his back and arm. He got up and, according to his friends, might have hit his head when he fell a second time and blacked out for about ten seconds. His teacher/track coach sent him to the nurse's office where he vomited a couple of times during the course of the afternoon. The nurse said I could take him home but as I was pulling into the carport Matt decided he ought to see a doctor about his headache.

So off we went to the emergency department where he assured a nurse and corpsman that he was not a victim of domestic violence (whew!). The doctor asked me to check Matt's shot record and I made a note of that on the only paper I could find in my purse, the Kirin Brewery pamphlet, which I'm sure made a swell impression. A CT scan showed that Matt did not have a concussion so we were sent home with three pages of instructions. I gave him a couple of Tylenol and I'm pretty sure he's feeling much better because he just wandered into my room and asked in a rather annoying and quite desperate tone of voice, "What's for dinner?"

Not All Fairs Have Roller Coasters, More's the Pity

The Seventh Fleet pre-deployment fair was this afternoon. I haven't had so much fun working a room since College Night at the high school last fall.

Come to think of it, they were remarkably similar events: an auditorium lined with a dozen or so tables stacked with enough flyers and pamphlets to decimate a rain forest, two or three people desperate for any form of human interaction sitting behind each table, and three or four "customers" wandering around the open space in the center of the room.

Forty faces lit up in unison when I entered that room. I am not exaggerating. Were I slightly less mature, in fact, I might have been tempted to scoot back out the door and repeat my entrance just to savor that little frisson of pleasure those welcoming smiles evoked. Well, okay, I was tempted but I flicked that little cartoon devil off my left shoulder and set out around the perimeter.

He hasn't left yet and already I'm counting the days until the next deployment so I can make another circuit of that room. But next time I'm going to comb my hair first and try to make it all the way to the exit without volunteering for half the worthwhile organizations in Japan.

Ancient Mariner in Vietnam

The USS Blue Ridge is docked at Da Nang. Between the history, the scenery, the prices, the Hanoi vodka, and the lemongrass ice cream, this final port visit is the highlight of the deployment for Mike. Yesterday he rode his bike to China Beach where so many US soldiers went for R & R forty years ago. A lady even invited him back to her house! (He says he politely declined.)

Between mowing the lawn and taking the SAT, Matt's weekend was less relaxing than his father's. He even managed to connect the TV in anticipation of "rebonding" with Dear Old Dad over video games. Mom hopes they both realize there's a seriously long Honey Do list to be accomplished before they hunker down with those controllers and choose NFL teams.

Registering to take the SAT when you live overseas is about as complicated and time-consuming as the test itself. We're glad it's behind us.

The Wheels on the Bike Go Round and Round

The Ancient Mariner is spinning his wheels in Nouvelle Caledonie today. When offered a medical update from an American Navy doctor, the French military brass declined. Tres boring, n'est-ce pas? Crying "Ooh-la-la," AM kicked up his heels, filed the PowerPoint, painted his thighs with black spandex, and went exploring on his bike.

Captain James Cook spotted this island in 1774. "Blimey! This place reminds me of my father's native Scotland." He named it New Caledonia which is a fancy way of saying New Scotland.

About a hundred years later, in late 1853, Napoleon III noticed England was putting together quite an impressive empire, with colonies in Australia and New Zealand, so the French decided to take possession of New Caledonia. The native Melanesians - not to be confused with Polynesians since I've mastered the distinction in the past week and now you can, too - would very much like to govern themselves, thank you very much, and in 1998 the French promised the islanders could hold a referendum on independence at any time after 2014. Some Melanesians believe the French are hoping to influence the outcome of the referendum by giving themselves 16 years to relocate half the population of France to the South Pacific.

The French call the island Caledonie while Melanesian nationalists favor Kanaky. Whatever you call it, it looks like a tropical paradise to me. And there you have it. Now I will devote another five hours to trying to start the lawn mower. But, of course, I'm not complaining.

Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On

Thank God none of you guessed the correct date and time the USS Blue Ridge left Yokosuka - yesterday at 2:45 pm - because I suspect we've all noticed the polling gadget I used has a major drawback. How was I supposed to determine a winner when the votes were anonymous?

As many of you know, I have now experienced my first earthquake. Yesterday morning I slept through one, just like I apparently snoozed through half a dozen plate rattlers between 2006 and 2008, but I definitely felt the earth move Sunday evening. We were at a sushi-go-round restaurant with the outgoing 7th Fleet Surgeon (Kathleen Sr's husband for those of you keen on details). The waitress was calculating our bill and I was aiming eye chastisements at the member of our party who had not bothered to stack his dozen or so plates in color order when suddenly the counter started shaking. Weird. A split second later vibrations shot from the soles of my feet to my brain and the concept of earthquake crossed my mind.

The tremors lasted for about 15 seconds but it was a long 15 seconds, the slow-motion, life-flashing-before-your-eyes, totally helpless kind of 15 seconds Michigan drivers experience when the car skids on a patch of ice and floats sideways toward a large stationary object, usually a tree, telephone pole, or Winnebago.

Speaking of driving, so far today I have backed the car into the carport in one (semi)fluid motion three consecutive times. Before too long I'll be able to take this show on the road. Oh, wait, no I won't. Because none of the dozen or so Navy spouses who make a pretty good living running back and forth to the License and Title Office in Yokohama are answering their phones this week and my temporary permit expires tomorrow.

P.S. If you come to see us, make sure I take you to a Mr. Donut so you can try a pon.

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.