Back to Washington

Our PCS adventures en-route to Alaska took us to Washington. 

I have such fond memories of Washington. I always thought I would like to be stationed at Fort Lewis again some day. But I think I am just nostalgic for the people. Because the place is bullshit. Not the whole place, of course. Parts of the state are beautiful and Seattle is really cool and the music scene is totally rad. 

But the traffic. I-5 might be Hell on Earth, Fuck the 5. I don't have the patience for that anymore and Fort Lewis is right in the middle of it. A 45 minute drive to go less than 10 miles makes me want to peel my face off. 

One day near Fort Lewis brought it to my attention that I never want to be stationed there again. No matter how great my memories are. 

And so the PCS journey continues. Onward to Fort Wainwright, Alaska I go!

I'm Back

Alright, so there was a leave of absence from my blog. I didn't think anyone read it. And I was personally losing interest since I have been back in school. But I visited friends and family this summer and everyone was like, "WTF." So, due to overwhelming requests to continue sharing my adventures, here I am. 

I'm between homes right now. That's the nice way of saying homeless. I wouldn't go so far as to refer to myself as a free range human because I am still employed. But I definitely do not have a home. James and I packed the frenchies into my car and we put Fort Campbell in our rear view and Fort Wainwright in the GPS. 

So here we are, en-route to Alaska for a 3 year adventure in the last frontier. 

Batman

I have a new pet. Well, he's not really a pet, I guess. But he's a critter and he lives in my yard so I am taking ownership.

 

I have a bat! A little brown bat. He's taken up residency in the sycamore tree in the backyard. I noticed him for the first time yesterday. I was standing around under the tree waiting for Picasso to do his business. I looked up into the tree and there was a brown blob hanging from one of the branches. It looked like a kiwi. The fruit. I'm pretty confident sycamore trees don't produce kiwis, so the next logical explanation was that it was a little bat.

 

 

He wasn't doing anything but hanging upside down. It was dusk, so I was encouraging him to go fly around and eat bugs. He just kept sleeping. So I have a lazy bat. That's fitting. James poked him with a stick and he irrupted into frenzied flight. That didn't scare him off, though, because he's back in the sycamore tree again today. Hanging upside down, being lazy.

 

I'm going to call him Batman. I hope he sticks around because he's really cute.

2 Years

 

James and I had our 2 year wedding anniversary today. Although we haven't spent much of those 2 years physically together, or much of the 4 years we have been together total for that matter, it's been a good time. I love you, James.

Bug BBQ

I woke up early on this fine Independence Day and walked the dogs, weeded a garden and laid some mulch. I stopped to admire my yard work and saw one of the bushes next to my shed looked... a bit thirsty, for lack of a better word. So I went to investigate and see why the bush was so threadbare.

I got real close to the bush and put my face right into this:

 

That's right folks, those are disgusting worm things in cocoons. ALL OVER THE BUSH. There had to be 300 of these awful things hanging off the bush. They were swinging around in their cocoons and poking their gross little heads out. I was horrified.

I didn't know what they were so I googled it to find out. Turns out, they are called Evergreen Bagworms. They lay eggs in cocoon things made out of the organic material of whatever bush they're on. So they are super camouflaged. Then in late June (or the 4th of July) they hatch and these gross worm things stick their heads out of the cocoon and start eating the bush. These jerks almost ate my entire tree. There are so many of them!

My thoughts immediately went to eliminating them. The internet kept suggesting organic ways to get rid of them-- let birds eat them, pick them off with your fingers, get rid of them in May before they hatch.... what happens if it's past May!?!? I wanted these things to die, so screw the organic way.

 

I went to Walmart with murder in mind and bought plant safe insecticide. No where on the label did it specifically say it would kill Bagworms, but it was the best available. I came home and doused the tree. Those little guys immediately sucked back into their bags like little turtles. Although their food source was now covered in poison, I wasn't satisfied that I killed the worms. I gave it time to see if it would produce some results as the insecticide set it.

A few hours later I went back to the bush. Those sons of bitches didn't seem to mind being covered in poison one bit. I exhausted all my bug killing techniques with poison, so I had to call on James to help me. I needed him to bring the big guns.

He inspected the bush, decided that the bush was a lost cause and that we should burn the bugs. I hated the bugs so I agreed.

 

So James made a torch and BBQ'd the bugs. They fell off the bush in a cascade of burned up cocoons. I bet they immediately regretted taking up residency and eating that bush. Once they were all charred, James chopped down the bush and burned it in the firepit. We're not taking any chances that these worms could live and destroy anything else in our yard. Once I'm satisfied they've been eradicated, I will plant a replacement bush in the old one's place.

So much for admiring my yard.

Happy 4th of July. 

Catching Up

I've been redeployed back to Fort Campbell and my home for a little over a month now. Transition back into the normal grind has been a little tough for me, so blogging about being blah seemed blah. I'm feeling less blah now so here goes a little blog post to wrap up the last month.

 

 

 

We are proud to announce a new member of the family. Gertrude the Impaler. We call her Gertie or Gert for short. She's the cutest thing in the world. She's so sweet... when she's not biting. We got her so Picasso would have a companion. After a few rocky days of getting territory (food bowls mostly) settled, the two frenchies are best friends. Currently we are in the middle of potty training her, and she is probably retarded and unable to learn because this is a venture not going well.

 

 

James started terminal leave from the Army. First matter to be taken care of was growing a beard. His beard is still in its infancy, but it's already starting to look good. He's happy to be getting out of the Army and start a new career. I'll hold it down in the Army for the family. 

 

 

For Thanksgiving, James and I took the dogs with us to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, to see our friends Ashley and David. It was great to see them. You don't find friends like them often. I wish we were all stationed closer together again (we all met at Fort Lewis, Washington). Maybe someday we will be able to work that out. The dogs were amazingly well behaved on the 11.5 hour drive both ways. They were less well behaved at their house, but Picasso won their daughter Jayla's heart, so I can't complain.

 

I am on my last day of 23 days of block leave. 23 days is too long to be away from work. Even though I've been going to the gym and have been doing hot yoga, I still managed to put on weight while on leave. I swear, if I could be paid for gaining weight quickly, I'd be a rich woman. So I have a little bit of work ahead of me to get into shape for ALC (Advanced Leaders Course) in January.

 

That brings us up to speed I believe.

 

I'm gad to be home.

Old City & The Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Day 2 of my Israel tour yielded a few adventures. Today we toured Jerusalem and went into the Old City. It's a section of the city that is walled in completely full of merchants and The Church of the Holy Sepulcher-- where Jesus was crucified and his body was prepared for burial.

 

 

I'm not a religious person, but seeing this church was really impressive. Being in a place of religious pilgrimage was profound, even for me. I saw some really hard core Christians manically cleaning the stone slab Jesus was prepared for burial on, then pressing their faces on the stone. One man had a picture of Jesus laid out on the slab, which he gazed at while he laid on the stone for over a half an hour. I took a picture of him because it was so striking to me how dedicated he was.

 

We also saw the Wailing Wall, or the Western Wall. This is another pilgrimage site for Jewish people. People come to the wall to pray, and to stuff written prayers on paper between the stones. The wall is partitioned off into two sections-- one side for men to pray, the other for women.

 

 

 

Old City has a huge market inside of it where we were allowed to go shop and haggle with the local merchants. I learned two important lessons while in the Old City: Israeli men like blond hair and tattoos and will lower their prices simply based on that and to never, ever, ever under any circumstances step all the way into a shop unless you want to be sexually assaulted.  I was touched way too much and had too many inquiries about my marital status.

 

So, James, Sammy the creepy merchant told me to tell you that you are a lucky man.

 

The shopping was interesting though. Old City is just alley after alley of little hole in the wall (almost literally) shops peddling all kinds of things from pig hearts to leather purses to olive wood crosses. I bought a few things and ate some absolutely delicious lamb shawarma.

 

Everything is pretty expensive in Israel. One American dollar is worth about three and a half shekles. So paying 10 shekles for a can of soda is crazy expensive, but that is the standard. Today I ate well, learned things, bought stuff and spent a lot of money. A typical vacation day.

SSG DeGraf

Yesterday was Tuesday, which means it was Pizza Night in the MFO, which means it was beer night for the Americans. Every Tuesday we are allowed to have 3 beers. It might not sound like much, but we are taking baby steps to being treated like grown adults. If we can handle our beer on Pizza Night, maybe we can handle our beer on OTHER nights!

So I was out enjoying beer last night. We are only allowed to drink between the hours of 1800 and 2100. So after 2100, I didn't have any reason to be at the bar anymore. Time to go home! I walked back to my hooch, and back to wifi Internet. My phone picked up a message from James almost immediately:

 

HOLY SHIT! I am on the by name list of Soldiers being promoted to Staff Sergeant on April 1st!!

I have been stalking the HRC website for years the last week of every month waiting for promotion points to post. This is the one month I wasn't obsessively refreshing the page and it's the one month I actually made points. Beer distracted me!! I couldn't be happier that I found out the good news from my husband, though, since he won't be able to be at the promotion ceremony.

I can't believe I got picked up for Staff Sergeant before attending ALC (Advanced Leaders Course). For Medics, it's SO rare for that to happen. But I'll gladly take it, and on April 1st I'll get promoted to a rank I didn't think I'd see in 2014.

 

 

After I read the text from James, I ran down the hallway of my barracks to tell my battle buddy, Tracy. I gave her a near crazed hug and a few minutes later a whole group of NCOs were at my door hooting and hollering about my promotion.

So by having beer and pizza just before I found out, I suppose I was celebrating without even knowing it.

Cheers to FINALLY being SSG DeGraf! (That sounds so SEXY!)

Facebook Best Friends

I took a stupid Facebook quiz. I don't usually mess around with those because they ask for access to your personal information and photos and who knows what the heck they're going to use them for. But a few of my friends did this "Who is your best friend on Facebook" quiz and the lure of the unknown sucked me in.

Who!? Who could it be?

When I refer to this thing as a "quiz", I'm using the term extremely loose. Since the only thing I did was click the link, agree to have my privacy invaded, and then (almost) sign up for a Zoosk account. Zoosk is online dating-- but shitty. It's online booty call dating. I stopped agreeing to things when this page came up. But anyway, in the meantime, Facebook looked into their crystal ball... and revealed to me who my Facebook best friend is.

It was James!

 

How lucky am I that a social media platform could decipher through my personal info (which they pilfered) and photographs (also pilfered) that James and I are together A LOT and might be, in fact, best friends?

Amazing.

Cancer?

Today I decided I have cancer of the neck. I told my best friend, Rosie, and she immediately freaked out, like a best friend is likely to do. I tried to take a picture of it, to prove my cancerous bump was indeed what I believed it to be: cancer.

 

It didn't photograph well. In fact, it didn't photograph at all.

 

 

I have a small bump on the back of my neck, which, unfortunately, refused to photograph. I don't have any way to prove to the internet masses that it actually exists. Other than taking my word as a medical professional...

 

Luckily, I live with another medical professional, and James' diagnosis was an ingrown hair.

 

Pffft. I'm remaining firm in my self diagnosis of cancer.

Older And With Less Body Parts

Today is Halloween. Happy Halloween! And, also, today is James' birthday. Happy 24th Birthday, James!

 

He is celebrating his birthday with one less body part this year. James had emergency surgery 3 days ago to have his appendix removed.

 

It all started on Sunday. He could barely get out of bed because it stomach hurt so bad. I thought he was just hung over from going out the night before for his birthday/Halloween. So I paid little attention to him until the evening, when I finally started investigating. I gave him Tylenol and Tums and he immediately leapt out of bed and vomited. What a great medic I am, right!? He stayed in bed all day.

 

On Monday morning while we were getting ready for work, he told me his pain was just as bad, but it had shifted to just his right side. Upon being seen at sick call, James was redirected to the Emergency Room to be evaluated for a burst or rupturing appendix. He was put on a morphine drip and awaited a slot in the surgical suite.

 

His surgery went well. No complications at all. His appendix had not burst yet. He was able to have one of his junior medics sit in on the surgery to watch as a learning experience. James never passes up the opportunity to train a Soldier, even at his own expense! He's a good NCO.

 

The surgeon managed to hide his incision in his tattoo on his belly:

 

 

James was discharged the same day and I took him home. He was able to walk out on his own. He said that he felt a million times better even though he had just been cut open. I guess that little, useless primitive organ was causing a lot of terrible pain if that was the case.

 

He's on convalescent leave for the next two weeks. So he's spending his birthday recovering with Picasso at home. He says he's still sore, and he's slow moving around the house, but he's getting better every day. Thank goodness he's ok. And thank goodness we have free healthcare!

 

Happy Birthday, James! I love you with or without an appendix.

Silverfish

It's beginning to get cold in Clarksville, Tennessee. We've had frost adversaries all week which has lead to the tragic death of my giant geraniums I managed to keep alive all summer. That, in itself, is something to celebrate. I kept a plant alive all summer in Tennessee!!! Woot! There is a first time for everything!

 

So, in recognition of cold weather setting in, Nature from OUTSIDE has decided its time to move INTO the house. I know what you're thinking; you have mice again, Jackie, it's normal for you. No. I wish it was mice. Instead I have an overwhelming invasion of silverfish. The name silverfish doesn't sound like it could possibly be a scary thing. It sounds aquatic and rich.

 

Not. At. All.

 

This is what has been invading my home:

 

 

OF COURSE, that is not a picture I took. That picture is compliments of Google Images. Any time I see a silverfish in my home I am too busy running away from one or killing one in a frenzy to take time to photograph it.

 

I had a particularly horrific incident with a very resilient silverfish a few days ago.

 

So, I am pretty ghetto, and instead of having a laundry basket that I throw my dirty laundry into, I use the floor of my closet. I am well aware that I am housing dirty laundry on the floor where I keep clean laundry on hangers. However, I have yet to be told that I smell terrible while wearing seemingly clean clothes. Don't hate.

 

I went to do laundry, finally. As usual, I laid a used towel on the floor and pawed a bunch of dirty laundry out of my closet onto it. I was doing a load that was heavy in the military clothes department. I like to wash my Army clothes and my regular/delicate clothes separately. All the Velcro on my uniforms tends to destroy my underwear.

 

So anyways, I had a big load of Army laundry clutched to my chest in a towel that I was taking to the washing machine from the bedroom to the kitchen (where my laundry machines are located). I held the laundry as tightly as I could so I wouldn't drop anything. As I was stuffing the laundry into the machine, one of these horrible silverfish came scurrying out of my laundry.

 

Now, do you recall my verbiage? I had just been clutching this laundry to my chest. A silverfish had been hitching a ride. Essentially, I had been hugging this silverfish. I HUGGED A SILVERFISH!

 

This silverfish emerged frantically from a fold in the clothing, waving all it's legs and antennas at me. It stopped along the fly of a pair of my pants. It froze. I froze. And then I think my heart froze. I couldn't muster up the courage to catch the silverfish. You've seen what they look like! I wasn't trying to put hands on that! Instead, I poured detergent over it and slammed the lid down.

 

"You will die in suds", I decided aloud.

 

When it came time to change the laundry over to the dryer, I was cautious, but certain 45 minutes in soapy water killed the culprit. I carefully placed all my laundry into the dry and shut the door. I set the timer for an hour. I figured the silverfish had a fragile body that had disintegrated in the water and soap.

 

Boy was I wrong. As soon as I stepped away from the laundry machines, I saw that silverfish hanging out right in front of them. It wasn't nearly as agile as it had been. No, he was definitely stunned; yet still alive. IT HAD LIVED THROUGH THE WASHING MACHINE. I immediately flipped out and called for James to do the slaying. He took care of it and I immediately made him take the garbage bag (which was the silverfish's final resting place) out to the garbage can.

 

I loathe outside critters coming in to visit for the winter. YUCK!

 

Dirty Thirty

Well, I'm 30 years old today.

 

 

I had to work in the Emergency Room all day. And yesterday I had to complete a 20k road march in under 3 hours to qualify to go to EFMB in November. Needless to say, I felt like I should have been a patient in the ER, not an employee. My body is crippled. So my big awesome birthday plans are to eat a ridiculous amount of Mexican food, watch ghost stories on TV and drink Whipped Vodka and orange soda all night while wearing orange sweatpants on the couch with Picasso and James. I am an exciting lady.

 

Happy 30th Birthday to me.

Shooting

James and I went shooting at the Montgomery County Shooting Complex a few days ago. James goes all the time but this was my first time. He's invited me to go a bunch of times, but his friends were always going to be in tow so I never tagged along. This time is was just the two of us.

James recently built to AR15s and needed help zeroing the EOTECH sights.

We decided to shoot hand guns first since I've never fired one of his Glocks before. To tell you the truth, I wasn't very comfortable not having a safety on the weapon. But I fired it pretty accurately considering. I shot a thousand times better than the 2 army dudes beside us at the range. One of them called me a killer, jokingly. When I brought my paper target up from down range I put him to shame and proved to him it's not just cute to call me a killer.

Turns out, I'm a killer on the AR15 as well. Firing the AR15 was basically the same as firing an M4. Except I've never used an EOTECH site. That site was so easy to zero and so accurate! I wish I had one on my M16 in the arms room! This is my zero progression:

 

Me walking in the zero.

 

I really enjoyed myself out on the range. I always say nothing makes me happier in the Army than firing weapons. And this was so much more relaxed and faster than any range I've fired at or been a safety on for the Army. I hope James and I go again soon.

Oktoberfest 2013

James and I went to Oktoberfest with a few friends on Friday night. This year it was held at the Clarksville Speedway which is just up the road from our house. We rode with some friends to the Speedway and intended to walk back so we could enjoy ourselves the way you're supposed to at Oktoberfest. I even wore my PT belt around my waist so I wouldn't get ran over on the way home. But, luckily, one of the girls we were with was 19 (is that really that lucky though?) so we had a sober ride home and didn't have to walk.

 

Oktoberfest in Clarksville, Tennessee is probably the lamest Oktoberfest in the world. Especially since there are so many Soldiers in the area who've been stationed in Germany and know what a real Oktoberfest is like. We went to get out of the house, drink big plastic steins of beer and to eat delicious bratwursts.

 

Yummy! Brats on hamburger buns!

James brought his own BIGGER plastic mug from home.

 

It was an unseasonably warm Oktoberfest this year. We probably would have stayed longer if it hadn't been so warm in the tents. I'm sure we'll go again next year if I'm already home from Egypt; those brats were super yummy and I'm not the kind of girl who turns down cold beer served in plastic.

 

 

 

Lattice

I think every married woman has a Honey-Do list. I may not have been married long, but that Honey-Do list has certainly been in existence since James and I moved in together. At the top of the list for the past 2 and a half years has been to enclose our back deck with lattice.
 

 

James got to check it off the list this weekend. It looks great, all I have to do is stain it (which is a job for NEXT weekend) to match the rest of the deck. Something so small has made me so happy. Home improvements are my favorite.

Muse In Nashville

Last night James and I saw Muse in Nashville.

 

 

We hadn't been to a concert since we left Fort Lewis in 2011. What the heck is wrong with us? I love live shows.

 

Our tickets were strange though. When James bought them, they were only offered as "paperless". When we entered the Bridgestone Arena, there was a woman with a little credit card scanner. She took the credit card you purchased the tickets with and if it was a match, your tickets printed out of her little handheld scanner. Naturally, James and I were wary of this "paperless" idea because it's way too easy to not really have something when you don't have anything tangible. But it worked out, so I'm ok with this ticketing process now.

 

Muse was awesome. I love it when you see a band who sounds like the record when you hear them live. When they don't, it makes you wonder how the heck they got a music deal in the first place. Must isn't one of those bands-- they sounded amazing. The played a few of my favorite tunes. And they sounded absolutely silly talking with their British accents in Nashville-- the home of country music.

 

We had a ton of fun! Well, at least I did. I think James was mostly along for the ride.

 

Wedding

James and I tied the knot in Las Vegas on August 10th. There are a million funny or sweet stories to tell, but I think the story that needs to be shared is a story of a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction.

 

**Let me preface this tale by saying I had just been bragging to some friends that this has been a completely stress free wedding for me. Karma is a bitch.

 

So I was getting ready in my parent's hotel room. As my mom was zipping up the back of my gorgeous wedding dress, the zipper broke. And when I say broke, I mean, the dress was completely zipped up the back but the zipper teeth weren't biting each other any longer. This dress was not meant to be backless, and there were only 30 minutes until the ceremony was supposed to start.

 

I burst into tears. Of course I burst into tears. Who wouldn't? My day was just ruined. I put on a ridiculous green dress (it had pockets-- you can't get married in a dress with freaking pockets) and wanted to back out of the ceremony.

 

James saved the day and called every resource he could think of to save the dress. He finally found a tailor downstairs in the casino mall who would look at the dress. I ran to the tailor with 2 friends in tow. The seamstress replaced the entire zipper in just about 15 minutes. I was zipped back into the dress-- and thank you sweet baby Jesus the zipper teeth stayed biting each other. I ran barefoot back through the casino and arrived at the chapel 10 minutes late.

 

Out of breath, but in a beautiful dress (without pockets), I married the man I love... who also saved the day. XOXO

 

 

 

 

Night Time Downtown Providence

James and I stayed in a nice hotel in downtown Providence while we were visiting. We explored our surroundings and found a pretty sweet microbrewery right around the corner. The atmosphere was decent and the beers were tasty. The bar tender was super cool, and thought we were basically amazing since we both are in the Army. He thought we were so amazing, in fact, that our tab at the end of the night was $30. Now, I can tell you, our tab should have been triple that because James and I like to party.

 

We had a really good time hanging out. (So good, that we went twice.) But when it starts to be closing time, something triggers your drunk belly to demand food. So James and I went on a food quest. I think we found the holy grail of drunk food.

The poster on the side that bragged Man VS Food had visited this mobile burger joint just screamed, "Eat here!!!" I did have a Murder Burger, as suggested by the poster. But I opted out on the egg. Eggs don't belong on burgers. We brought our bag of burgers up to our hotel room and proceeded to devour the most delicious burgers I think I have ever had. Or at least, the most delicious burgers Drunk Jackie has ever had.

First Day In Rhode Island

 

Today was my first full day in Providence. James was an excellent tour guide and showed me a bunch of sights and places he grew up.

All the homes are old and unique. Including the house James grew up in. I didn't take pictures of random homes because I thought that might make me a creeper. But believe me, most of the homes are 100+ years old and very ornate and brightly painted. And the hydrangeas in all the yards were absolutely beautiful. I said so every time we passed them, you can ask James. I probably sounded like a broken record.

We went to the Rogers Williams Park Zoo today. It was a small zoo, but it had a few of those penny smashing machines (James knows I love those) so he wanted to make sure I had a few from Providence. Plus I love animals. The elephants were eating with their gross trunks, the camels were chewing their cud, the giraffes were drooling and the bald eagles were hanging out being Americans. What more can you ask from a zoo?

 

 

I love zoos. I make a point of going to the zoo in any city that has one. After the zoo we went across the park to the Natural History Museum. There were some good exhibits dealing with space and Rhode Island history. I found this guy upstairs:

RAWR!

 

We had an incredible dinner at a Greek restaurant to wrap up the night. While eating we had some prime people watching opportunities. We saw this guy multiple times doing many things while extremely high. Most of the time he was sitting in this living room chair on the street, actively smoking pot and handing out fliers.  We also watched a pedestrian come within inches of being smashed by a speeding pickup truck.

 

This did not take away from the delicious meal one bit. I want to eat the chicken I had there every night for the rest of my life. True story. Great day sight seeing in Providence.