Ayn's Multiple World

First Series San Diego Trip

Hi Hi. This is me. It’s not a normal time for me to write so I don’t know how far I’m going to go. I wanted to capture a little of something toward having been gone this last half week. The generals are that Rich and I left on Wednesday, parked the car and caught a shuttle to O’Hare Airport. We made our way to the gate and after about an hour or so, we were able to board first. We discovered how tiny airplane seats are, but felt comfortable enough in having gotten the extra chair. A couple of remarkable things were that the clouds were beautiful – better than I’d remembered, but that meant that we didn’t get to see much of anything else during the trip. Rich is always the perfect gentleman and we felt extremely happy that we were doing this trip together. Hmm, other than we watched a movie, ate some apple sauce and used the washroom once – there was nothing remarkable about the trip. It was very nice though a little long at the end, because my legs were getting ancy.

After we arrived and got off the plane, someone had come out to help us with the chair. I was very glad for Rich’s sake although throughout, he did a lot of chair pushing and he never complained once. I tried to walk up the hills especially, because I felt so bad at the amount of work he was doing. I still don’t last long standing or walking, but effort was made to walk whenever possible. The escort helped us retrieve the bags and then got us to where the rental car shuttle was located. The ride wasn’t too long and we were able to pick up a nice red mini-van that didn’t give us any problems, except paying an expensive $35 for a half tank of gas. Yeeks! Having one of those would be terrible! On the way to the hotel, we stopped at a 7-11 and picked up some soup and chilli for dinner. It was nothing extravagant, but sure to be digested. I couldn’t say that about all the meals we attempted to eat.

The most amazing site we saw was the incredible number of palm trees in every shape, form and function. I can’t tell you why they became so important, but I found myself looking for their variations every time we got in the van to go somewhere.

The houses and other buildings had a different look about them too. There were lots of water and sand colors and the buildings were squares with various arches and additions. Nobody had too much property and things seem built on top of one another. There were also a lot of hills, which gave the scenery the look of an artist’s drawings. The temperature throughout was beautiful. It was sunny, but drier and it had a nice breeze. During the days we got burnt until Rich forced his way on me with the sun tan oil – which, then of course made us cry – but for the most part … it was a very pleasant experience to be in the warmth but not hot, and then later in the cool of the night.

We were up each day before Rich and we got showered and dressed before he woke up.

I wanted to be able to do things relaxed at my pace. The water wasn’t real strong so it took a few extra uncomfortable moments in the shower, but we became more efficient at giving ourselves quick showers. I was having problems without the chair to sit on in the shower. On the positive side – Rich didn’t have to move around the chair to get in his shower time. There was a little coffee pot that I started to get Rich up. I was eager to be out the door and it seemed to be taking him FOREVER!!! It really wasn’t … we were out the door about 7 am, but when you are over eager to be seeing your son on base … every moment is torment.

When I checked my email and phone messages – we found that Maury had called each time and after we got a hold of him, we discovered that he’d made it in in good time – about 10 pm, but his father, step-mother, step-brother, grandmother, and uncle had a bad time of it. They had delays in their initial plane and that caused them to miss their connection in Denver. Yeeks! They ended up sleeping on the floor and in chairs – and for a few not really sleeping at all. They did catch a plane not too much later the next day and were able to make it just in time to be at the Motivational (moto-run). It gave us the opportunity to have Maury join us for breakfast and then later we brought him on base with us. That was nice. After we got on base, we watched Alpha company finishing their practice. That was pretty cool. And we saw the raising of the flag. People started gathering, but more after we’d been through the museum. Maury wanted to buy something there and we walked through a few rooms. But, my patience was low. I wanted to be back outside where all the action was taking place in the courtyard.

Once there, we saw a table and I was correct in guessing that it was the lady who would later be doing our presentation for the Marineparents group. We chatted for a few moments. And, then a surprising thing happened … it seemed like one person after another was coming up to me with hugs and they introduced themselves as various members of our group. Maury and Rich helped us to pass out name tags and we gave out the laminated sheets. I think at that point we met about 7-8 families. We listened to a Marine officer talk to the group through a megaphone for a bit, and then at the appropriate time, we snuck out in the wheel chair group to stake our position for the 3.5 mile run. There was a lot of build-up and time spent practicing our yelling to the correct decibel! It was enjoyable and the anticipation of soon seeing Thom was great. Somewhere in there my ex’s party joined us and we stood together to watch the Marines come in. We already knew Thom’s position, so we were ready for him. When the Company came in and stopped, we were right on the other side of Thom. I figured he caught us in the process of turning around and then looking straight ahead. It must have been difficult not to sneak peaks at the families who were all cheering and applauding them.

Then they started the run that was done in formation and included upper officers in front. They were right in that when they came around toward the finish, none of them looked out of breath. It had been an easy run for them. All the crowd then stood on either side of the theatre entrance, and the guys were marched up the middle. We found the military used every opportunity for speech making. It made us feel right at home with all the other folks. We were able to go in the theatre ahead of time because of the chair and we got a good location right at the end of the first large group of chairs – in the aisle. They let one person - Rich stand with us. There were quite a few chairs. There was a video presentation which was nice and again more speech making. The Marines were doing their best to transition the two groups and in the process they gave the family good advice, but the general message was, we are intrusting our newest Marines to you – send them back in as good a shape as you received them. AHA! Good advice!

After this presentation, we were shuffled over to the bleachers where we listened to yet another set of speeches. Fortunately, they kept this one short. Everyone seemed to be biting at the bullet. We were waiting for the magic words, “you are dismissed.” Lots of crowd pleasing cheers with that. It took us and the ex’ family a while to find Thom. He must have shot past us. But, once we found him no one wanted to let him go. He talked to the group as one. Very early on it was established that he was going to use the time for story-telling. Each asked questions especially Thom’s step-brother who is also a Marine and so had a heads-up view on what was happening. The small group of us decided to eat dinner together and we took the longer walk rather than waiting for the shuttles. I had it the easiest of course, because Rich was doing the work. I kept checking on him and he kept repeating, no don’t worry I’m doing fine. I did find it kind of funny that no one – meaning neither of my two boys volunteered to help him push the chair. It kind of drew then Rich and I together as a pair much closer. When we got to the on-base restaurant, there was a long row of tables with people on either side picking up their dinner. It was standard chicken and mashed potatoes and so forth. I hadn’t been able to keep down breakfast though and again I wasn’t able to keep down lunch. It seems I have enough time to get to the washroom as pressure is building without too much commotion, but it was uncomfortable in that I knew Rich was worrying over me. I don’t know if it was because I ate too much, or the texture was not soft enough, or Rich thought also that I was eating too fast. I start off hungry, fill up fast, and then about 15 minutes later, lose it.

Other than that everything seemed perfectly fine. Thom’s appetite amazed us all.

He ate his plate, my plate, scraps from other plates, and then went up for one more load. He was an incredible eating machine for which he took some teasing off the cuff. For the most part Thom ate and talked at the same time. There seemed to be so much information on his mind and he was unloading it as quickly as the group could perceive it. It was extremely enjoyable. I did have one uncomfortable talk with the ex which amounted to a couple of sentences each way. Primarily, I had wanted to tell him he could have Thom for lunch and then we would pick him up three hours later when my ex went to the airport. These were plans for the following day and my ex made sure I knew that he didn’t make plans in advance – and that he lived each day by the moment. I was like ok. But still we’ll pick up Thom when you leave … I didn’t understand why such a simple communication was making him so defensive, but Rich explained later it was like I would then be “In control” of something. It was uncomfortable and reminded me of a previous time where everything seemed to be difficult and impossible to get through. I was made to feel bad for having made a plan – even if it was only the realization that Thom needed to be picked up. Anyway … we’ll move on here.

After dinner, we all walked back toward the regular part of the base and when we got to a certain point, Thom left to shop with his grandmother and Rich and I left to meet up with the Marineparents. We met Deborah the coordinator right away and families started to drift in and some back out again. They explained they couldn’t stay, but wanted to say hello. In the end, by the time the presentations were given there were about 40 people present. It was very, very nice to be meeting all the different families, but then it felt a little uncomfortable too, because the conversations were more forced. I remember thinking that JuDee had gone through all this work with the food where I was just greeting people. So, at one point or actually two points, I went over to sit with her and her husband just to chat.

Others joined. The meeting should have been held sooner, but the speakers got a late start, because we were all hoping for a bigger show-up. The presentation was only mediocre because in my opinion the lady and the drill sergeant she’d invited didn’t do a rousing good job. The lady fielded a few questions, which was a turn-off for at least Thom, and the sergeant instead of speaking similar to Thom today – just asked for questions. No one in the group really had questions – so it felt as if we weren’t appreciative of him enough. I of course thought of some questions and some of the young Marines spoke, but not too much from the parents and friends.

They sat back and waited to be entertained. So the meeting was relatively short and then it was a matter of saying good bye to people and closing down with the candy and such. Fortunately Debra volunteered to take it saying that she could give it to duty DIs. And, they would hand it out for rewards to the recruits. I felt real good about that part.

Maury and Thom left the meeting early and they got one of Thom’s duffle bags to put in our van. Then Maury picked us up then we drove him back to the base. I’m trying to think now what we did Thursday night. I’m thinking that I had a grilled cheese sandwich. Hmm, I remember that was the day we walked down the ocean and watched the surfers? Hmm, I think that was it. And, then the following day we went back and looked for the cruise ship, and then later than that after graduation, we found a cruise ship for dinner reservations, but now I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

It’s a couple days later than we’d started and we’re feeling pressured for time. We want to get something down of this period and already our memory of it is slipping.

But, I only have 15 minutes before I go to the shower. So … with all that said, what am I going to do next? One more thing here and that’s that Missy wants some attention. Hmm, finally she settled down on my arms. It’s terrible to get whopped by her over and over again as she’s trying to make herself comfortable. I think she’s down, but now locked in position; I won’t be able to drink the coffee I just got. Shoot – this is life at its confusion.

Hmm, maybe we better just frame in the paragraphs that should be coming up next – just to get the logistics.

Walking down by the piers – getting the cheese sandwich

Don’t remember what we did later, maybe we watched a movie? I don’t know … I don’t think so. I don’t remember laying on bed with TV on. I do remember that we were so tired each night that even “Playing around” seemed pretty much out of the question.

I am guessing that we wouldn’t have stayed up real long though, because we were sure that we wanted to get to base soon enough Friday morning for all that. Remember here when we come back we’ll want to mention getting to base, sitting in the stands, waiting, the ceremony, meeting Thom afterward pretty much just to get bags, and then looking down at the harbor … hmm, maybe this time and the last are getting confused. I do know that … hmm, I forgot something that happened before. We drove over to Coronado – the little island on the other side of the bridge. I remember a lot of looking at houses and other buildings and the vegetation … It all seemed pretty amazing.

At about 2 pm, we picked up Thom and Maury at Maury’s hotel, and then the boys went swimming, then we went to the mall to find Rich’s light jacket and the boys went off on their own, and then we made some calls and ended up going on the Cruise ship for dinner. There’s this real funny part about Thom getting all the free drinks … pretty much people started giving him drink tickets after dinner, and then the bar tender wouldn’t “take his money.” He got the drinks for free. It was only Thom’s third time drinking. The other times were at his 21st birthday and at last year’s New Years Eve party. But, I guess graduating Boot camp is a pretty big deal.

After we went back to the hotel and soon after everybody was sound asleep. The next morning I got up first, then the two boys, and then Rich last. I just remember that each morning we were up showered and dressed before Rich woke up. I know we went to breakfast and then we did something, but what? I know that we had to drop the boys off at the airport by about 2 pm. Shoot … now I really don’t remember what we were doing next with the boys. There would have been something. I know though that after the boys left, we went to Sea World and had a blast! The highlights were seeing all the animal shows. We stayed there until the place was about to close down. More on this later.

The next day we had breakfast and then we made a day of it at the zoo. I think we took later to be getting out and about. I remember having part of Rich’s Jambalaya for dinner and getting sick again, but nothing bad enough to spoil the day Saturday – oh I know after we went to the zoo, we went out to a nice restaurant by the San Diego Bay – it was out doors and overlooking the sidewalk and docks. We had crab cake. After that we went to the airport, sat there for a while … ahh and got a smoothie with Rich. Funny how I’m remembering the food more than anything. It was a good flight back – remember that we watched a movie both coming and going. And, that I slept somewhat and woke up and we were at home. It took a little bit of waiting to get to the car, which was parked at a Marriot hotel from which we shuttled in. Then home for real and then there is all the part about meeting Thom to work on bills and such and meeting Thom to give a presentation at St. Rose Center. There’s other stuff that fits in here too … and then the part yesterday where we FINALLY went back to work, and then up to now where we’re again … hopping into the shower. Hmm, maybe I better do that now. Rich was up late playing cards and we don’t want to wake him until after we’re ready. *Sigh* busy, busy … there should be more time to catch-up over the weekend. Rich is going fishing I think tomorrow morning if not tonight. He’ll be gone for the weekend. SOOO, with that we figure better scoot. We’ll try to post afterward. THANK YOU for being so patient with us. Smmooch!

posted by Ann Marie @ 6/12/2008 06:44:00 AM Comments: 1