Ayn's Multiple World

The Guys are Home

Good morning. This is me. It’s almost the afternoon on Sunday – actually about 11:30 am. We’ve been so happy all morning, because fishyman has been in and we’ve had such a good smooch time with him. Mostly it was like sitting in back of him massaging him while we both watched and talked about the fishy shows. He’s just soooo cool!

We were up last night when he called to say that he was about 20 minutes out. I got soooo excited. I couldn’t believe how happy I felt when he walked in the door. There’s just so much pleasure in being with him. We watched about 1 ½ fishy shows from the Classic in Shreveport. He showed me all the places he knew about and stories about having met or seen one person or another. I think the funniest story was of Iconelli cutting him off as he zoomed to his location. Rich recognized the boat, but didn’t know who it was until he got back and saw the show and matched boat to boat.

Iconelli – sorry on the spelling, but he’s pretty famous for being one of the most outlandish guys on the tour. You always have to stop and watch him when he’s on because he’s so pumped up.

There of course too was a little bit of the hanky-panky going on … so we’re not going to talk about that except to say that life is good. Pswhoo!
Moving on 

It was so rewarding to fall asleep with Rich in his bed last night. I can’t tell you how happy he makes me feel. I just feel blessed to be with him.

We teased him this morning, because it was like dragging an anchor trying to get information from him. I think it was too fresh in his mind to organize … he was giving one statement responses to questions I’d hope gained more information. I felt a little bad about that, but the teasing came after he was on the phone with Bob this morning and they were chatting up a storm.

You know the usual things happened like us swearing that he loved Bob more than us *Sigh* Poor Rich caught between a rock and a hard spot. He finally tracked it down in that Bob knows the right kinds of questions to get the best responses because he’s so attuned to what’s going on. I know that … and know too that we’re feigning hurt more than anything. I look forward to knowing more about what’s going on so that I can ask the good questions too.

Of course the first question was the one on are there any pretty girls you met. He went to the one I knew he would. There’s a Kim who made the cut this year and takes the record for being the first woman to place in the top 51 guys. WooHOO!!! For her! She’s doing terrible – in 47th place right now, but just for the honor of playing with the big guys it’s pretty exciting and there was a lot of news covering her. She seems to have a really upbeat attitude on the whole thing. She knows that it was just making it to the tournament that was the essential part. I feel bad though because I think the 4 men under her in the standings are going to get a ribbing for being beaten by a girl. But, such is the life of male-type people!

Hmm, we keep finding ourselves back and forth from MarineParents.com It’s like ok, we didn’t leave a note there! There are not a whole lot of people on line right now. Actually, it states on the bottom of the form that there are 99 users currently online and at it’s peak today there were 389 people using the system. The chances of getting someone with those kinds of numbers to be going to the threads you are taking a part of is slim. But, we keep hoping anyway. I think we’re looking most for something from Sandy, Kim, or JuDee. I miss those guys!

We’re just trying to get a grip on it really.

I talked to Maury the yesterday. He said that Thom made it home from Florida in record time. He got in at 2 am, which explains why he didn’t get to my phone call about 10 am. I should have known he was going to drive straight through *sigh*. I understand he was working off the high energy drinks. I’m not thinking that was totally safe, and I worry these guys think they are invincible. Maury said that Thom got pulled over 4 times for speeding … he was driving about 120 mph. Umm, yes he has a fast car … Mustang I think. Still think he was really pushing his luck and that kind of stuff scares me. I was relieved though to know he was in.

I called this morning to see if Thom’s plans were already set or if he’d like to come over for dinner, but he had things going on already. Right now Alexis is at work and Thom is over at his brother Joes. He wasn’t in a good position to talk, and I tried to respond as if I’m not hurt when he doesn’t call after getting in to set something up. He wasn’t making any out loud plans and we know this is regular Thom, just wish we’d have a higher priority.

I know that we aren’t totally off the list, because he’d called a couple times earlier in the week. Just that its hard to wait for so long and then not hear direct. Alexis, Maury and Joe have all had contact though and it seems through them at least I’m being kept in the loop. It’s hard to be a Mom.

We’ve been thinking about … I’m not sure if we said anything yesterday or not, but Thom and Alexis seem both willing to see some kind of therapist. For the small amount of time he’s in it’s hard to think a lot will happen, but my ideal situation would be if they came in with me to see Dr. Marvin. He already knows of their situation and might be able to help. I know he’s going to worry though about conflict of interest or in losing time that I might need. Just that it would really be good to have Thom in … it would help me a lot, and if it worked out, maybe we could arrange something with Alexis and Thom could see someone in Japan, or something or another. Just want them to get some help, especially if they seem to be looking for it.

It be better if they could get in by themselves, but then there would be definite advantage if they could get past the normal formalities of not knowing or trusting who you were talking to. I’m going to ask Dr. Marvin to really consider it even if it’s one time. I think because it’s my session we’d probably be in there with me, because it would be seen somewhat to my advantage to meeting with the family. Maybe if we just talked more about the act of deployment and then the marriage stuff would slip in as it could, but the bottom line would be how do we support each other with all this change in place.

What would be really cool is if we could get Joe and Maury in on a session to and do something for the entire family, but I would really settle on Thom coming in with Alexis. We’ll talk to Dr. Marvin first thing on Monday morning. I know he let Joe come in and there’s always been a standing agreement that I could bring anyone in … just have to see. I asked Maury about the woman that he and Lauren had seen and he said he wouldn’t recommend her to anyone. The other possibility that I would check is through the Marines. I would ask if there was any kind of specialist they would recommend. Maybe this spousal – deployment stuff comes up often as a hard bridge to cross. I don’t know though if Thom wants the military to understand that he’s having troubles with his marriage. It would be expected though … he’s only been married for half a year and they’ve only had a couple handfuls of time together.

I think that support is going to be very important for them. I just want to be here as a help. I hope I can figure out how to do that.

Ok, figure we’ll need to move on. It’s now almost 1 pm. Rich and I’ve been talking on and off and we’re already through helping him put away the first load of laundry. Bob had asked if we both wanted to come to a spaghetti dinner at his church, but Rich decided that he had too much to do. I think he’s going through his email now and he’s got some other business type things to be taking care of. He says he’s going out in a little bit to do some shopping. My only requirement is that he buy more toilet paper, and his requirement is that he finds something to make for dinner tonight. I think he’s thinking of making a roast.

Wow! We haven’t had him cooking for us for awhile, though it should be said that we ate on his account ham, spaghetti and chili he’d fixed before going … so I guess that counts as to his cooking? It wasn’t the same though because it had to go through a microwave first. Hmm, and then there was the Chinese too. We actually had then quite a nice arrangement of food. Our compromise was that we picked up the place well before he got home last night so everything was as neat and ordered and appreciated as he had left it. Good Ann!

I don’t like the way the day is sliding past us here. We were really being I guess a lazy bum with him this morning. He was still waking up 3 ½ hours into the day.

I don’t think I have anything specific to be doing with Rich. Our preference is to stay home and be with him rather than go out and I know he’s been out all week, so most likely he’s looking forward to being in. Maybe I’ll call my sister or mother later when Rich is at the grocery store. Another person to maybe get a hold of is Pat … it’s been awhile since talking to her. I would like to get in the habit of checking in with Alexis more often too, but I think now her free time is being taken up with Thom.

I asked Rich and he’s going to tell me in a few moments if there is some time that we could invite Thom and Alexis over for dinner. Most likely that day if not before we will be looking to taking off a day or two this week to be with him and her, or just him on his own. I’d like to have him over for dinner because that would be such a nice Mom thing to do. It would be nice to do it at least once a week until he’s ready to go. I can’t emphasize enough how nice it will be to spend some time with them.

Alexis was very nice in saying she looked forward to when we were around, because we were much more likely to include her in the conversation. I really like her.

I keep looking over at the signature I have for Thom at MarineParents.com. Here let me get you a picture.



This is it … its pretty reflective of Thom’s situation. It’s like a lot of parents, but then it’s a bit different. Sometimes people have information on the family too, but not as often as without. Some people have color and centering, but most people don’t and some people have it placed proportionately in as nice of order and then most don’t … the difference is that we’ve got all the above. There’s quite a few whose signature is so long, but it’s more unique than not. I’m pretty proud of it and what it says about Thom and our family. It was just updated.

Hmm, there are about 194 users online now with MP, but they are being slow to add the new entries … I don’t know if you remember, but they all have to be checked before they are posted. Eh … it’s a rule.

Ok, so it’s now 2:30 pm and we’re still floppying around. We were reading entries from the wife and girlfriends board to see what Alexis might be looking at … I think she’d gain the feeling that she’s not the only one to have emotions of her Marine being gone, but in general the audience seems younger than her. We’ll have to see how that goes. I had said something about looking at some together just as a point of conversation. We’ll see.

Hmm, I was just thinking of Thom and Alexis and seeing maybe Dr. Marvin. I was thinking if it could be set up in such a way as to initiate discussion on how to best do the support thing while Thom is away … and then as a side note letting Dr. Marvin talk in general about marriage without getting in too far with either so that it remained safe all around? I don’t know we’ll just have to see. I know Dr. Marvin is real good in setting down rules.

Rich is now shopping and we’ve been grazing in the kitchen. It was after lunch so to some extent that was ok, but we waited for a little longer and seemed then to have two smaller meals. Yeeks. When is enough?

Maury seemed to be doing better in that he found the piece of equipment he’d been missing. It was in his truck. That took a lot of pressure off of him. I don’t know how Joe’s doing except that he had Thom visiting him. That was a good thing.

I think Joe knew as much as anyone going into the visit. I don’t know how much would be discussed and I don’t know if Bob was in on that visit or Alex. Alex just bought a home with his wife so they are finding a million jillion things to do I am sure. I also don’t know if Cari will be a part of the visiting. I hope it all goes well.

It seemed that Thom was worrying somewhat whether he passed. I think he is past being overly concerned with it. I think he figured even if he didn’t pass they would send him to Japan. I think that’s what he’d asked for … just has to seem like a lot of pressure right now. I wish he could have gotten him regiment and squad names. Oh yeah we were going to let that go, right?

Well shoot … you’ve got to let me think through out loud with SOMEONE!!!

Hmm, there was one thing. Rich said that either Thursday or Friday might be good to have Thom and Alexis over. I think that Friday is more a date night out especially with other dates so it might not be a good night for Thom, but maybe Thursday would be ok, especially if they would be going with me to see Dr. Marvin. I’m not sure as you know how that will happen, but I’m beginning to see some hope. I will ask Thom when he calls – he said he would sometime, if there weren’t a day when everyone else was working that we might get a chance to get together over here. Just kinda a slow relaxing day.

Maybe we could be going over some things before he was going to be deployed. Maybe not … just want some time to be with him - the kind of time where he is willing to talk and converse - sometimes he gets so formal.

Hmm, we’ve been on and off talking to Rich again and he’s now almost done with dinner. The majority of the time we’ve been reading stuff about the military … we just found something on programs & resources for the Marine Corp 2008. We went into that quite a bit before we saved it. It’s pretty cool.

posted by Ann Marie @ 2/23/2009 05:53:00 AM Comments: 0