And The Winn(t)er Is...

To where are we posted this year? I'll give you three hints....

Can I Touch Your Baby? No, Not Her. The Cute One.

I am in possession of an unreasoning prejudice. Actually, I don't know of many prejudices that are, in fact, based on reason, come to think of it, but all the same here it is: I think parents who ask permission for their children to touch my dogs and who then insist that it "not be the black one" are pox ridden sociopaths who will poison my family if they follow me home. 

It's not that I don't have a deep understanding of the fear a big black dog can generate, on a societal level. On the contrary, I know that sometimes the appearance of any dark beast may cause the ape inside us to scream and wave it's broken branch from the treetops as warning to the tribe at the waterhole to grab the younglings and make for the hills. It is this instinct that has kept us alive long enough, as a species, to invent calculator watches and Manolo Blahniks and the ISS. But, and I cannot stress this enough, none of those creatures is currently asleep on their back in my living room, with their privates fashionably on display.

I used to feel pity for these poor souls who feared and avoided my beautiful Jesse because of her black fur. Obviously something tragic must have happened to them, for them to refuse the heaven that is scratching Jesse's ample rump while it is pressed lovingly against your shin. Used to, that is, until with increasing frequency, that fear is taught to their little ones who take one look at Jesse's beautiful face and scream until their mothers scoop them up, glower at me and stomp away muttering "don't worry, the mean, black dog won't hurt you."

I am just going to start refusing to allow children to touch Meeker, who couldn't care less in any case, until they pat Jesse first. 

Either that or I get to scream in their child's face until someone takes the bad, pink toddler away.

Give me all your pats and no one gets hurt.

Empty Nooks and Crannies

As John Merrick famously declared, I am not an animal.

But sometimes I feel as though I live like one, especially when it comes time to clean my house. I certainly do not mean to suggest that there are piles of old bones and tumbled heaps of sticks and rocks in the darker corners. Well, at least not in all of them. But there is a certain limit to my weekly routine that only becomes apparent when a serious seeing to is being given. Which brings us rather neatly to....

The Levels Of Clean

1. It's Saturday and Nothing Seems To Be Snarling or Moving On It's Own - Generally, this is the state in which we live; the secret to which our closest friends are privy; the ugly truth for which my mother will deny any genetic responsibility. Laundry is not of urgent concern and no one is particularly picky about having to reuse their coffee cup. The dish hider is our favourite appliance.

2. Friends Are Coming and Will Need To Eat Off Of / Sit On Something - As long as no one opens closets, uses the cat's bathroom, opens closed doors or checks behind the sofa, we will all get along fine. 

3. It's (Food Holiday)! - At first glance this is similar to Level 2, but both bathrooms are clean and there is a general effort made to keep the house in this condition for the duration of the season, on the off chance that someone pops by unexpectedly, in need of a fancy bowl or the Murder Room.

4. Sweet Thundering Crap On A Cracker, My Mother / Mother-in-Law is Coming - Not only are the closets inspection ready, but actual dusting has been attempted and all traces of the Mystery Beast have been removed from under sofas and behind the fridge. Ellen could look and does look anywhere. Lovingly and with great attention to detail.

5. Buy My House - If my Mother and Mother-in-Law visited on the same day, with the Queen of England and the Dalai Lama, my house would not be cleaner. No one lives like this. Kill me now.


Dedicated to the manufacturers of Lysol Brand Disinfectant Wipes, Swiffer Wet Jet, and Lemon Pledge.

I Am A Delicate Desert Flower, Dammit!

Once upon a time a total stranger asked me how I was doing, in a voice of sincere concern, and so I told him truthfully that I was feeling a teensy bit overwhelmed to be standing on a stranger's patio sipping iced tea mere moments after spending a small fortune on a house in a province where the trees were too tall. 

Mr Helpful Stranger then proceeded to educate me. In a ringing voice he explained that Sar Tech wives are as strong as oaks, resourceful, independent and reliable, never a peep out of them, just a great bunch of gals who get the job done without fear or hesitation. He helpfully explained that my current situation was not in any way unique, that he understood precisely every thought I was having about it and that I needed to get over it pretty quickly, because everyone else had. 

In this case, everyone else was my new peer group, which happened to be a backyard filled with Sar Techs and their spouses. As I mentally counted off the 10,000 anxieties of the day swirling around in my brain, I glanced around at all of those faces and every one of them, it seemed to me, was nodding agreement and looking at me with undisguised pity. 

So it was just me, then. With the giant ball of worry in my belly about leaving my family, new homes, mortgages, finding employment, fitting in, finding a decent hair stylist and generally just trying to survive in a new province while Husband was away on seemingly endless taskings. Because they had all "gotten over it."

Okay.

Let's examine that statement. I don't have a problem with any of the adjectives in particular. I am delighted to consider myself creatively resourceful. Ask my mother and she will tell you I was independent in the damn womb. I work with children with special needs, I think reliable comes with the territory. Nope, as lists of attributes go this is nearly complete apart from eloquent, artistic, delightful and really tall. Check, check, check and check.

It was... the tone. 

The tone was firm. It made it clear to all and sundry that, no, I couldn't possibly be worried or stressed, because that is simply not how things were done. Best buck up, stiffen my lip and answer properly next time, wouldn't do to let the team down, no sir. 

As ambassadors to new communities go, this guy really needed to revisit his job description. Effectively, probably without thinking about it, he ensured that I would actively avoid the members of this new community of mine, that I would hide from them in the super market or "accidentally" not find out about events until too late to attend. I couldn't let them find out that I was absolutely not "getting over it." Better to be pasted a snob than a basket case and be subjected to more of those pitying looks.

It took me about a year to realize that I didn't have to "get over" anything. That it was perfectly normal to be worried when your safety blanket slips off and gets left behind in another province.  There is nothing wrong with admitting that you are overwhelmed, that you feel worried or scared when the pager goes off and your heartbeat races out of the door, leaving you with laundry and bills and mountains of snow and helpful strangers with too much advice and not enough compassion. 

All of these icky feelings are coming around again, as things do when military postings are bandied about and no one knows what is going on. If I may offer some advice of my own, to those of us who know military families: be kind. Don't assume you know what is going on, each situation is absolutely unique, despite similar circumstance. Offer to go for a walk or to grab coffee and talk about anything else, unless they broach the subject. Above all, be normal, because normal is the one thing that is rapidly vanishing as all the stressors mount up. 

I am a strong military wife because I carry on in spite of these things, honestly and openly freaking out while I walk the dog, or spend hours getting the house show room perfect, or play the radio all night to fill up the empty corners. I do not need to be an oak tree. When the wind is too great for the oak to bear, the oak will snap.

And we don't want that, now do we?