A Muddle of Two Days

or "How I Escaped From Crazy Land".

Thursday morning was exciting... I even went to breakfast. We had three hours of school and an hour of "field day" in the classroom. When they finally let us out of the building, I went to lunch before returning to muster at noon. Since it was my duty day, I volunteered to join a working party that was needed at the Bldg. 3 Legal Investigations office for "moving stuff". Lasted less than an hour, and then it was back to the building for another muster. Stayed inside the whole day... Packed for the trip and took an hour's nap. After that, had pizza delivered, and then took a lay-awake-nap, singing myself hymns and praying. Soon it was the muster at 2000 (8pm) for sweepers. I mopped the female passageway... it was loud with people's music blaring and excited voices as people cleaned their rooms, packing up stuff to go home with. Another hour later it was the expiration of liberty muster... my fifth for the day. That was fast, as usual, and our LPO said some nice things as he's leaving for a new duty station. I talked on the phone for the remainder of the day, until getting into my blues at 2330 for my job as Messenger of the Watch from midnight to 0200. The guy who was supposed to relieve me at 0145 payed me off $10 to take his 45 minutes until the watch was secured for the holiday stand-down beginning at reveille at 0230. He caught me on the quarterdeck just before our pizza came and I was on my way to buy a bag of Sun chips from the vending machines (because it was taking so long).

Watch went by rather smoothly. Had conversations with the Petty Officer of the Watch and with the 1st Deck Sentry... before the Chief came in and yelled at him to stand back in the p-way where he was supposed to. :(

They played a song about going home over the 1MC for reveille, and then we got our leave chits signed. Hung out in the lounge, lay down and tried to block out the Adam Sandler movie someone had put on. It worked until I heard Rupert Holmes singing the Pina Colada Song... lol!
That got over, and then they stuck in Avatar. We got almost to half-way through when we decided to go catch a bus to the airport (0730). Left at 0800, and arrived at 0845 a second later. :) I did a lot of napping this morning, causing me to be very disorientated most of the time.

It was odd to be back at the airport where it all began. But it was nice to see it in the day-time. The USO was very friendly... had lots of free snacks and drinks, but it was also pretty crowded. They only had 6 recliners (and they were taken) and a couple dozen comfy chairs in front of a big screen TV with football on (and they were all taken too). So I sat out in the hall for a while, and then came back to grab a seat at a table that had been vacated. About 1030, the CO and CMC from the Training Center came in to talk with Sailors and make sure they were being treated right. So I had a quick conversation with Captain Olinger! She's very nice! When she found out I had such a late flight, she had somebody find out about getting an earlier standby one for me. A little while later I had a free back massage! Gee, they think of all the important things here! Soon after that I took my bags to the next terminal and checked in (checking both my sea bag and backpack for free) and made my way to the gate and relaxed. I was worried, because the flight was full, but I ended up getting on! This was a full FIVE hours earlier than my scheduled one at 9pm. Thank God!

It wasn't the most comfortable flight, but I really didn't care! I nodded to sleep off and on, catching a few hours of semi-rest. :) Getting back to Seattle was so wonderful! My bags were there just fine, and Mom and Dad arrived just a couple minutes after I walked outside into the much warmer winter night air. I wasn't giddy with happiness as I imagined, when getting off the plane... some of that was because I was so tired, but some because being in the military drains much of a person's giddiness away from them. I was all smiles though, hugging my parents there and petting my puppy when we got home. That was really nice!

After a home-made meatloaf and baked potato dinner (with pie afterwords), I took the dog on our old route in the cold night air. It was only partly cloudy, so I could see the moon and Jupiter very well. Back home I dried the dishes as mom washed and then we sang a few songs together by the light of the Christmas tree. Ahhhhhhhhh! And then I soon realized how hard my mattresses have been in the Navy. :)

Jp