Aloha

 I feel very betrayed by all of the television and movies.  I did not have a lei put around my neck the second I stepped off the airplane.  Very disappointing.  The flights were unremarkable.  I paid for an upgrade and ended up in first class from Tulsa to Denver and Economy Plus from Denver to Kahului and had an entire row to myself.  I was a little anxious about an 8 hour plane ride but it went fine.  I hope to change my return flight times and hopefully catch another upgrade.

Working 6-6:30 keeps me from doing anything.  They do let us leave about 4:30 on Sundays.  I went to the beach and walked around.  It is dark when I leave my condo and dark when I leave work.  The condo is really nice.  I love having a washer and dryer.  I was able to put my clothes in the wash immediately after coming in from the beach.  For some reason I ended up with a 2 bedroom condo so if anyone wants a free room in HI I have the space.  

Dennis said Truman is doing good.  He makes a big show of telling my family not to stress me out while I am gone and succeeded in pissing me off while I was at lunch today.  Go figure.

I am obsessed with the chickens here!!  I looked it up and according to google the hurricanes caused chicken coops to collapse and there are no predicators here so they continue to thrive.  

Several people have gotten tattoos while they are here and I told them I was going to get a chicken.  We will see if that happens.

I will get a day off.  For now I plan on taking 16 or 17 December because humpback whale season starts the 15th.  I also want to snorkel around the reefs.  Not sure if that second part is going to happen, I didn't realize how cold the water was until I planned on going wading on Sunday and just ended up with my feet in the water.  Someone said the water was 72 degrees but I didn't look it up.  It is in the mid to high 80's though so going in the heat of the day might make it more tolerable.  

OK, gotta get back to work.  

Truman

I am so stressed out that I am afraid I am going to make myself sick.

The most important one, Truman.  He is doing ok.  I had a strange dream that I had taken him to work with me.  We had to climb a staircase to get to the office and as we reached the top he fell through a gap in the hand rail and hit pavement.  There was more office stuff to the dream but the part about Tman was so vivid.  I had planned on WFH that day and thought some about going at lunch to get a pedicure but something just felt off so I sent her a text about 8:30 and told her that it wasn't going to work out.   My mom called shortly after to see if I could take her to the doctor at 10:45.  I told her that I honestly couldn't, I had too much going on at work and couldn't take off this time.  Of course my sister's are completely worthless.  While I was on the phone with her Truman kind of jumped up and started seizing.  He has never had a seizure before and I was 100% sure he was dying.  I started to scream his name and just dropped the phone.  She tried to call me back but I never heard the phone.  I kind of moved him off his dog bed because I thought I was going to have to do cpr.  I finally remembered my mom but she had hung up, probably calling 911, lol.  I grabbed my pj pants and called Dennis.  T was still seizing.  I told him that I was sure he was gone and I needed him to come home.  About that time my little man defecated and in my experience that means they are dead.  I guess I told Dennis he was gone.  He was foaming at the mouth and just thinking about it makes me cry.  Anyway he finally stopped and I told Dennis to meet me at the vet.  I wrapped him in a towel and left in my pj pants and ugg slippers.  My friend Brook is on my speed dial list so I called her and after saying oh fuck 700 times I was finally able to tell her what was going on and asked her to call my office and let AP know what was going on.  I was shaking too bad to find her in my contacts.  When we got to the vet I ran in and said I need help, he had a massive seizure.  They rushed him to the back.  Dennis got there before the vet brought him back in.  When they brought him back in he was doing the typical post trauma behavior until I sat on the ground and put him in my lap and he laid down and went to sleep.  They gave him a strong sedative and prescribed him medication that has to be given every 8 hours, like set your alarm and give him meds, not just 3 times a day.  The bad news is that the most common cause of seizure at his age is a brain tumor.  They said they could do a ct scan but the treatment would be the same.

I got to bring him home, which I really thought I wouldn't be doing.  He was knocked out due to the overall exhaustion and the sedative.  I put him in my lap and I worked in my recliner.  He slept there most of the day.  About 4 I put him on the ground to let Bai out and he followed him outside.  He was a bit wobbly but he did his business and came back in and got in his bed.  I swear I am having ptsd flashbacks.  I really want to cancel my deployment but that train has pretty much left the track.  I would just take him but since I am working 6 am to 6 pm that is not optimal either.  Dennis isn't working and he will be fine with him but it isn't the same.  Plus I wouldn't be able to give him meds every 8 hours.  He ate is dinner last night and took his meds both last night and this morning.  

Added stress...

My mom is needing help getting to doctor's appointments.  My sisters are worthless as shit and won't help.  Dennis stepped up and is taking her to get an injection in her back next week.  That will interfere with T-man getting his meds on time.  I feel like we are early enough in the treatment to play with the times a little.  The vet said if he doesn't get them every 8 hours he may have break through seizures. Thankfully my cousin will be here 13 December and can help with that while she is here.  

Dennis is at his limit for his family.  I have been there for years but he had to get there on his own.  His sister sent him a message out of the blue that she found out their mom had told him that no one had checked on her after the father's day storm that destroyed the fences at both of our houses and my roof. She said that she had tried to come by and check and had called and she pulled her phone records to prove it.  I told him she is feeling guilty and just let it go.  Dennis pretty much ignored my house because I was able to get things started at my house to get his mom's started.  None of his family came over or offered to help, they expected Dennis to do it all.  The two of us put up her temp fence and his brother who had just happened to be in town helped him with doing some of the tree stuff that I couldn't help with.  One of is sisters had the nerve to send him a message telling him that it isn't fair for his brother to be expected to help do stuff at their mom's house when he is in town.  Fuck that.  It isn't fair that they just leave it all to Dennis!  As a matter of fact one of the grandkids had borrowed FIL's chainsaw and didn't return it so Dennis just bought a new one for there.  I am over it.  He has no plans to go over there at all during the holiday.  We go out with my family and he normally skips it because he doesn't want to have to pay $40 for dinner when he is going to eat again.  I get it.  This year he is going with.  

OK, I feel a little better getting that out.  I feel like I am being pulled a thousand different directions.  

Tonight me and HMF moved our Beetlejuice tickets to tonight (which was oddly in the dream I mentioned above).  I am not nearly as excited for it as I was but maybe that will change once I get there.  I am no longer going to wear my fun goth dress, I am wearing jeans and a sweater.  

Food yesterday wasn't good in the too stressed to eat respect.  I didn't eat until  I went to get Truman's medication ($300) I went and got a juicy burger and when I started eating it all the hunger came back.  I almost inhaled it.  When I weighed this morning I was 89 pounds.  I swear I am eating, I am.  When I get back from Hawaii I will start the investigation in to what the hell is going on.  Maybe a change of scenery will help me?  I have no idea why my body is so fucked up right now.  

Plans so far

 Well, the tickets are booked and the hotel reserved.  Funding has been transferred but it still doesn't feel real.  This time next week I will be at the airport!!

Friday November 24 I will fly to Denver leaving at 9 to Denver.  I have almost a 2 hour layover and leave for Kahului Maui at noonish, landing at 4:10

The hotel they have set up for us is a condo in Kihei.  It is one bedroom so I won't be sharing and has a full kitchen and washer and dryer.  I have never had a set up like this for longer deployments so it will be nice.  The washer and dryer alone has me over the moon excited as laundry is a pita when you work 12 hour days 7 days a week.

My return flight starts on Saturday December 23rd at 3ish, 5 hour flight to LAX, 2 hour layover, 4 hour flight to Chicago landing at 6 am, 2 hour layover and back in Tulsa at 10:30 am on Christmas Eve.  I think it's safe to say Christmas Eve is shot for me.  I am going to take the next three weeks off, with the exception of a few hours to do my travel voucher.  I am not keen on having a $13,000 hotel bill just setting out there.

All of that being said, I am a nervous wreck.  I have never been this far away from my family and never during the holiday.  Losing my dad so close to Christmas just kind of took what little fun left in the holiday.  I know Dennis will have a hard time this year too since his dad passed on Jan 3.  I am a little bit glad to be away.  My cousin will be in Tulsa on December 13th so my mom won't be alone for long.  

I really hope we have some downtime because there are lots of things I want to see while I am there.  Mostly Pearl Harbor and some of the reefs.  I bought 2 bathing suits on amazon yesterday in the hopes that I will get a chance to use them.  

So much to do.  I have my hair appointment cancelled and I will go have my extensions moved up Wednesday of next week.  I have to cancel my allergy doctor and Dennis's cardiologist.  I hope we can get him in before the end of the year.  I don't think he was too upset about having to move his appointment out though.  He did get a message last night from a friend whose wife works in a cardio surgery and she said that his doctor is really good and I think that might have help ease his fears a little.  

I was able to transfer my Beetlejuice tickets to Thursday so I will get to see it before I leave!!

Aloha for now....

Maui

On the advise of my Supervisor I sent and email to the Hawaii RFO to see if I was still on the list to deploy 26 December.  Turns out I was not, they didn't know I had volunteered so they put someone else in, but thanks for volunteering.  That paired with all the retirement talk on here and I was just really over this working for a living scam.  I told Brook but I was really too disappointed to tell anyone else.  The next day I get an email sitting in my inbox when I sign in saying the person that was supposed to leave the day after Thanksgiving had to bow out and asked if I would be interested in going 24 November and back on Christmas Eve?  So, I'm waiting for the funding code to come my way so I can start making my travel arrangements.  That should dose the jealousy flame for a little while at least.  Obviously my mom isn't thrilled with the idea but she can get over it.  She was very concerned about my cousin coming into town.  I will be here for more of her stay his way than I would have been if I left in December.  Anyway, I hope we get a little down time so I can explore a little.  I would love to see Pearl Harbor and maybe I can get the Obama's to invite me over for a pre-holiday party.  I am sure they would love to have me.

It will be a strange holiday season for sure.  

The parade of people starts Monday.  BIL and niece will be here that evening.  Dennis is acting like a child trying to get as much stuff done around their mom's house as possible.  He is being a massive tool about the whole thing, doing it all so that when his brother gets here he can be all 'look at what I have done, what do you do when you are here' kind of bullshit.  He told me he may need my help putting up some portable shed, I was like um, why don't you wait and ask your engineer brother.  You would think I had asked him to slaughter baby daddy and prepare him like a turkey for dinner.  He is also holding fast to not going to Thanksgiving with them.  Me leaving will strengthen his case a little.  That reminds me, I have to call the restaurant we have reservations at and see if I need to prepay.  

I need to get in touch with my friend's daughter and see how Henry is doing.  They said depending on the x-ray he could have gone home yesterday.  She just got back from Korea so I haven't been able to get in touch with her.  I added that to the list.

I had hoped to get my roof replaced before Christmas but the obviously isn't happening.  I have gotten quotes from $7-13k.  I really wish I knew more about roofing to know I'm not getting hosed.  I know for sure I am not going with the lowest, something seems off.  He sent an estimate based on google earth then came over and measured it and verbally told me the quote.  I told him that I would appreciate it if he could email it to me so I have it for my records.  The quote pretty much said replace roof, discard trash...$7,000.  This compared to the guy before him telling me the type and depth of plywood they would use, the vents, etc.  I am not a fan of homeownership at the moment.  Renting is underrated sometimes.  

Lowkey birthday

Went into the week fully intent on starting weight training.  I took Connie's advice and reached out to the trainer about doing 30 minute workouts twice a week.  We had it set up for Monday and I was dressed and backing out of the driveway when I got an advocacy call.  So I had to pivot.  I hated to tell the trainer I had to cancel, especially 20 minutes before I was supposed to be there but such is life.  I worked with a different advocate and SANE this time but it went well.  I did all the paperwork, gave out the info and got signatures and stuff.  The plan is to turn me out to do calls on my own after one more case.  It went as well as I could have hoped.  This case was a juvenile so it was a little different than what I am used to.  Never underestimate how naïve teen girls are.  I just wanted to shake her and ask her what she was thinking.  That took about 3 hours and we got her on her way.  

Tuesday I went into the office and the day dragged on forever.  All my work friends were out so I had to actually concentrate on work.  I have training slides I needed to get done and some reports I had to finish up so it was busy but without the teams messages it was boring.  I had planned on working Wednesday, which was my birthday, but Dennis got a call about the results from his chemical stress test and they want to do a heart cath to see if they need to put stents in.  He asked me to go with him to talk to the doctor because he is terrified so I just took all day off.  I think they convinced him to have the procedure done.  They originally set up the procedure for next week but he freaked the fuck out and pushed it until December 1.  Personally, I would want to get it over with.  

Wednesday night we had tickets to the Moth Story Hour.  For non NPR weirdos it's a story slam where people get up and tell true stories without a script or notes.  There were 5 story tellers and they were all really good, the first and last were particularly good.  The first was a native guy who moved out to the country and fosters dogs.  He has fostered over 300.  The last was a Vietnam vet who accidentally ran across his army uniform shirt in the Smithsonian.  The venue was a few doors down from the pizza place Olive was picked up from so we decided to get to the show a little early and stop in and eat.  I didn't think anyone would remember her but Dennis asked the waitress how long she had been there and she hadn't been there that long.  He told her why he was asking and she said 'hold on, I know someone who will remember her'.  A few minutes later another waitress came by and remembered her!!  She said she was a little nippy but for sure not feral like the others that come around.  She would come around for pets but would get a little bitey when she had enough.  We told her that missy was no longer the least bit nippy and we showed her a bunch of pictures of her sleeping on my chest and of the tattoo of her on my leg.  It really made my day.  She was so happy to see her happy and loved.  Sweet baby Olive must have been VERY pregnant because she mentioned that a couple of times.  We told her that the kittens didn't materialize and she didn't ask any questions.  So despite the appointment with the doctor, my birthday was good and low key like I like it.  

Thursday was full of errands.  I went to Sephora and Ulta to get my birthday freebies and Ross to see if I could find some fluffy pj pants which I did find a few of.  In my shopping adventure I also found a few things to pick up for Christmas gifts.  I don't do a lot of Christmas shopping anymore but I do send stuff to Brooke and exchange gifts with my sisters and Heather.  I had planned on buying Heather's plane ticket home but I was shocked her mom bought it for her, she will be here 13 December!!  I am looking forward to seeing her.  She is already talking about this years photo shoot 😩  We are talking about renting an igloo at the Christmas chute in the town my mom lives.  If they had a catering option we would have booked it, but it is kind of a pita to try and figure out dining options.     https://route66christmaschute.com/  

Thursday I did some laundry and spent some time with my babies.  That evening I had an appointment to get my annual eyebrow touch-up.  That takes a few hours but the girl that does it is pretty sweet and we talked for the first hour.  She is amazed at my pain tolerance as I nearly fell asleep at one point towards the end and she didn't put anything on to numb them.  I think she has talked me into doing my lips too instead of doing filler and crap.  I thought it might scratch the tattoo itch but it just made it worse.  I have so many ideas.

Friday, I made a few calls to get some more estimates on the roof replacement.  I have gotten 2 back, one is almost twice the other one.  I don't know enough about roofs to know exactly why.  I need to find someone knowledgeable to look them over and tell me.  I know the second includes gutters where the first one didn't but that does not justify that much of a difference.  I feel like getting a few more estimates might help fill in the gaps.  Sometime I just want to burn it down and start fresh. 

Saturday I got a slow start, we had extra cuddles in bed with Olive, Bailey, and Truman.  It makes it really hard to get started.  I had talked to a friend of mine earlier in the week and found out her dad, who was a gate attendant when I was a baby park ranger, fell and broke his back and was in a rehab center.  She was leaving for Korea for a week so I told her I would go and check on him.  The center is in the city I went to college in and I was sort of looking forward to driving around.  My mom was going with me and I wanted to show her how much it had changed in the 20 + 😱  years since I graduated.  We stopped for lunch at an Amish place I used to eat at all the time when I was a ranger and hadn't been in years.  The food was just as good as I remembered it.  It is a buffet, which is kind of a waste for me.  I had the best fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, chicken and noodles, and so much pie (peanut butter and blackberry cobbler).  I shouldn't have gone because now I am obsessed and want to go back when they have chicken fried steak.  I am making myself hungry.  

While we were eating lunch I got a text asking if I could take advocacy calls starting at 4:30.  I said that I could as I should be back by then, the center is only an hour and a half away from Tulsa.  I was glad to see Henry was as ornery as ever.  He is 92 and starting to show some signs of his age.  His short term memory is not good and he told me the same story several times.  Other than the back brace though he looked really good.  Pat, his wife is the same age and she has declined a lot more.  I consider Pat and Henry to be extended family, they are pretty special to me and they were both really surprised to see me since they didn't know their daughter had told me he had gotten hurt.  

As we were getting ready to leave I got a text that there was an SA call with a 4 year old.  It was a little after 2 so I wasn't really expecting to get called out.  I told them that I was a little over an hour away but would head that way.  I ended up having my mom drop me off at the hospital and Dennis picked me up later.  I was pretty nervous but to be honest, it wasn't as bad as I had feared.  We kept her entertained while the SANE did the exam.  She went along like it was a normal doctor appointment.  Obviously the situation was beyond fucked up.  I really wanted a huge margarita but I had calls until 10:30 so I just sat and watched tv and tried to calm my mind.  We didn't get another call, thankfully.  They are going to start scheduling me solo.  

Yesterday we went to my mom's to pick up my car from her house.  I meandered back to my house via Target and Petsmart to restock a few things.  I was starving but I nothing really sounded good.  There are a ton of options around but I just didn't feel like going in or eating in my car.  I ended up just fixing a grilled cheese at home.

I have no idea what this week hold for me.  I don't think there is much going on at work.  Things will calm down as things start to slow down as people start to take their use or lose.  I need to send an email to the EFO to see if the Hawaii thing is still a go because that will impact my leave schedule since I would be leaving the day after Christmas and for now I am scheduled off the last few weeks of December.  I don't want to lose any time.