The Battle of the Critters

The day dawned like any other. Reveille was at 0700. Uniform of the day had been sorted out the night before. The troops were mustered onto the yellow transport. Little did we realize the enemy was within our midst.

After the troops left on daily maneuvers, I began to sort things out at headquarters. Early morning is always a busy time for commanding officers. Suddenly the telephone rang. It was the corpsman at the front line with news of the invasion. The battle was on.

Hopping into my command vehicle (when will they give me a driver?), I made my way to to rescue my 2 soldiers from the front. Upon discussion with the corpsman, we agreed the best way to proceed was an all-out biological attack. I gathered my 2 soldiers and headed back to HQ to begin the onslaught.

Upon my return to HQ, I radioed the secretary of defense, Capt. Grandma, and dispatched her to the supply depot to obtain the necessary ammunition to defeat this insidious enemy. In the meantime, my troops and I began to prepare the battlefield, sweeping the rooms for hidden enemy, stripping the rooms of hiding places, and gathering the equipment necessary for hand-to-head combat.

Twists & Turns

Once I was a vibrant young person, living life to the fullest, and while life posed problems occasionally, I always had the strength & perseverance to meet those problems head on. I traveled the world, indulged my dream of performing music, designed & sewed clothing, and truly enjoyed life. Now I'm 45, in the middle of nowhere, with no prospects of a creative livelihood ever again. Every day I have to face the fact that I'm probably going to be who I am right now for the rest of my life.

When Laura Ingalls Wilder was approached about writing her final book in the "Little House" series, "The First Four Years," she couldn't bring herself to do it. The memories of that time were too painful for her to remember and write about. She had to suffer through the loss of a child, loss of a farm, illness, crop failure, and many other tragedies during that time.

In no way have I suffered that much and yet I can understand how she felt. I'm struggling to keep up with home, family, finances, and the upcoming holidays through a haze of illness and pain. Keeping a brave face on for my boys becomes a harder task with each passing day. Husband is getting more and more frustrated with me as time goes on. I wake up each morning wondering if today is the day I will finally crack.

The point of all this is that I'm not blogging very much. Putting it down in words makes it all too black and white--I'm just holding on until I find a way out at this point. And no one really likes to read about other people's misery. So if you haven't seen an update from me in a while, you know why. Things will be better soon, I'm sure. I have to believe that or I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. When I have happier things to write about I'll be back.

Thanks for listening!

Lydia

Amazing how you can have so many ideas floating in your head and once you sit down they all scatter away.

I suppose though, as Wednesday is Veterans' Day, I should say a word about some fallen shipmates of mine. They were actually "airdales" and flew the P3C Orion. There were 26 guys who flew out on 2 aircraft for a training mission. No one knows what happened. It was almost 19 years ago and I don't remember the exact particulars, except how they pertained to me.

I was in London when the phone rang at 2 in the morning. My former roommate from the squadron, Katy, was calling to let me know they were all gone. Gone in a flash. Gone without warning. One had left his girlfriend in the hospital, expecting to return in time for the birth of their twins the next day.

I was sitting alone in the dark, phone in hand, listening to name after name. Her fiance, Warren, had been among those killed. One of my dearest friends, "Spuds," was gone. Several guys I had dated were gone. All were dear, dear friends of mine. All too young. All too soon.

Veterans' Day rolls around and even now, with men and women facing death every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think people consider it a holiday for old men. There are veterans of every age, from 18 and up, who need to be remembered. And I think families should be remembered too. They sacrifice as well.

I'm not very eloquent, especially on this subject, as it is hard for me to write about, but please remember all the veterans and their families this Wednesday. The job they do is hard and thankless at times and should be honored, on Veterans' Day, and every other day of the year.

Holding Onto Yesterday

I have a collection of old magazines. Not People magazine from the Tom & Nicole days. Old magazines. American Needlewoman from 1914. Family Circle from 1956. Good Housekeeping from 1968. Even a few movie magazines with Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. I dragged these from their trunk on a wet, rainy, Saturday recently and sat down by the fire for a good read. I've read them all a dozen times, but once or twice a year I find it comforting to look through them again.

This mystifies the husband. He is the type that prefers his news on the internet or CNN and only picks up a book if he is facing a long flight. Recently on a flight from Detroit to San Francisco, he finished the novel he was reading on our honeymoon (we've been married almost 13 years). So inevitably he will shake his head and ask, "Why do you keep those things?"

Why do I keep them? I don't consider why. Perhaps I like to remember my childhood. Could be I like to think of all the women that have taken enjoyment and advice from just such pages throughout the past century. Maybe I just like to envision a world where men wear hats. I just know that the pictures and words comfort me somehow.

I have books that do the same. I may have read them a hundred times over, but I can slip into them like a pair of ratty flannel pajamas and there I am safe from what can be a scary and worry-filled world.

The magazines are back in their trunk now. At the end of January, when ice covers everything and we've been under a foot of snow for what seems like forever, I'll dig them out again and sit in front of a fire with a cup of hot tea and the world will slip away again for me. For now it's enough to know they are there.

Testing testing 1-2-3

As I have never blogged before, this is merely a test run for things to come. Don't really know what to "blog" or even who would care, but Twitter won't let me in this morning and the 8 y/o woke me up at an unG-dly hour, so thought I'd play around with this.
Spent a night filled with strange Impressionist-like dreams, quite fuzzy and unreal. Lots of cottonwood fluff floating on the air, and lots of me floating on air. Rather delightful, really.
So, first blog ever. Will promise better in the future. Here's a toast to another creative outlet to deal with life's frustrations.