I got an e-mail from YodaMan with a delightful attachment.
"I'm not going drinking," he says in the e-mail. "I'm getting old." Apparently that's an explanation.
Attached to the e-mail is the MWR packet for Stuff You Can Do While You're Visiting This Port!! Mind you, I get this e-mail when I'm fighting a cold, the kids have colds and are fighting sleep, my house has exploded around me and FlyLady has atomized from the shock wave, and the one thing I need more than anything else is to be able to hand kids and house responsibilities to someone else and go work on my thesis.
So here, in abbreviated form, is a summary of the listing of MWR fun for your reading pleasure (times listed are for the whole day's events, not just the main event):
Water Activities: Jetski (9 hours - $27), Parasailing (9 hours - $33), Banana Boat (9 hours - $27), Dolphin Watching Adventure (2 hours - $37), Chartered Catamarans with optional scuba, sunset tour, snorkeling, tubing, etc. (~3 hours - $281 for 6 adults), Dinner Cruise (2 hours - $41), Semi-submersible tour with snorkeling ($26), Diving (4-5 hours - $45).
Land Activities: River Boat Cruise (2 hours - $26), Massage, Aromatherapy, Facials, Skin Cleanses, Spa Ocean Wraps, etc. (all extremely reasonable prices for luxury spa treatments)
And I felt guilty for getting a massage to relieve the pressure in my back when I busted it during the Pukefest Series. I didn't realize the sailors had these kinds of options available to them. I'm sure this only happens when there's an MWR where they're pulling in, but still.
I'm in a weird state on this one. I have one side of my brain saying, "Gee, my options are drunken debauchery with disgusting snakes in my sake, massage, and snorkeling. Hmmmmmm. Eeenie meenie." Then the other side of my brain is saying, "What, it gets better? Their time off is spent how??!!"
I know I get to sit in the Starbucks drive-through with heater/air conditioning, but I do still work 24/7 on the Mom thing. They don't get much time off, but when they do, it turns out that time off rocks the freaking casbah. I don't have the freedom to go spend a day in the water with no cares and no immediate responsibility aside from safety for only $40. If I go anywhere, I need a sitter I can trust (and those tend to cost around $13/hr), and I still might get calls of "OMG! What do I do???" during my "time off." So I think it balances out in the end.
I guess I'm just bitter because he's touring the world, trying new stuff, gathering cool stories and memories, and I'm sitting here in a mess that would make FlyLady poo her purple undies and trying to get up the energy to give a shit.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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8 comments:
oh can i just cut and paste your post and put it on my blog?? its as if those words have come out of my mouth. (except the port stuff... flyboy doesnt do boats)
the mom stuff really is 24/7 esp. when they are sick. i feel like there is no seperation of day and night just hour blocks of times. someones always up and needs something. i hope it gets a little better in your house. and soon!
good luck with your thesis!
I know how you feel! I'd get drunken calls from some fun, foreign port and it'd be the DH, all excited to tell me about what he did that day. And as happy as I was that he was having a good time and that I was getting to speak to him, I still wanted to choke him through the phone sometimes. Especially because I was dealing with some hugely bad things on my end while this was going on.
Now he rides subs, so he pretty much has to wait til he gets home to do that stuff.
Trying - feel free to copy/paste. :) This here is universal among us.
Ann - poor guy. At least he gets lobster and steak meals, right? LOL Sunshine is so overrated. Good food *totally* makes up for it. /not
Wish us wives could all get together someplace sunny and warm with snorkeling and catamaran tours and well, you know.... also some ice cream and possibly adult beverages and leave the kids elsewhere and get our own MWR fun on!
A girl can wish, right?
--P.S. We should have a tropical getaway military spouse bash where we live out these fantasies... Hmmm...
Val - when I win the lottery, I'm starting a retreat for milspouses. It'll be non-profit, so if there's cost, it'll be minimal to cover expenses beyond what would make the retreat sustainable. And the trip includes airfare for parents or other responsible parties to watch kids for that week.
No phones at the retreat except in the office, to be used for emergencies only.
Lots of adult bevs, lots of entertainment opportunities, lots of relaxing.
Oh, and I'll live there year round. My "vacay" will be to visit my kids. ;) Kidding. No really. I am.
In the meantime, I started a bloggy version. ;) Cheesy, probably, but I thought it could be fun.
This reminds me of the time my husband called to tell me he'd just seen The Full Monty on Broadway in London while in port. I was home with a 1 and 3 year old. Grrr.
When he got home from another deployment when I was prego with #3, he'd seen every DVD ever made and played more PS2 then every 14 year old in the neighborhood put together.
That's why they say that WE have the hardest job in the Navy!
OMG Jenyenc! I would KILL my dh if he called to tell me that. Oi.
But tell me about it with the videos. What the hell do they do all day on those ships, anyway? Stand watch, eat, work, work out, and watch movies apparently. In October, when my dh was home from their first deployment, I kept trying to get movies we could watch together after the kids went to bed, but he'd already seen every one of them. Multiple times. In chunks. So he had no desire to watch them again. :sigh:
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