CONTRIBUTED BY MEREDITH NOVARIO
Behold Day 1.
And Day 2.
And also Day 3.
Yoshikei delivered a meal for the first time this evening. Clockwise starting at twelve o’clock sits eggplant tomato gratin, an omelet, an un-sweet & chilled salad featuring lettuce with two cherry tomatoes and lastly a sweet & warm salad featuring squash, raisins, apricot bits and soy beans.
Magically delicious.
Not sure that the picture shows you how yummy it was because it doesn’t show you how our meal greeted us at the front door this afternoon and insisted I rest my wary feet while scooting itself onto three plates. ‘Twas love at first sight. Yoshikei and Meredith sitting in a tree…
Yet there is a tablespoon of guilt in the mix here. Like I should be able to swing it all without Joe and if I were driven I could swing more. But having this dinner all gussied up and ready to chomp gave me time to play with the boys instead of just referee their choke holds and couch acrobatics while I threw a barely healthy meal together. And would you believe that between dinner and bedtime I didn’t once want to cry or wonder how I’d make it through another deployment?
It’s hard to quantify that kind of yumminess.
As for our PCS, I’m living in the land of make believe. I talk about it as if I know something for sure just because Joe’s monitor said that he could “certainly” get us to Arlington. Based on that unofficial exchange, I have orchestrated a very smooth, albeit imaginary, PCS and a life, also imaginary, for myself in Arlington.
Knock some sense into me, please. Wag your finger, roll your eyes and prove me wrong.
This is the PCS I have concocted for us. Our orders will somehow appear while Joe is deployed. Perhaps in our mailbox. The letter will say:
You are ordered to go to Arlington, Virginia presently. Giddyup.
With these orders in hand I will make phone calls. No idea who I’m making phone calls to but there will be many, many phone calls. The result of all these phone calls will be permission to pack-out of our house and plane tickets for me, Eli, Henry & Rick Maltsby P.I. We’ll do important things to prepare for the trip. Again, no idea what those important things would be. Eventually, we’ll board a plane and sleep peacefully until our plane lands at Dulles. The only trace of us on Okinawa will be the cars we leave behind. Upon returning from deployment, Joe will live in bachelor quarters where he will feverishly play video games, tidy up loose ends at work, ditch the cars and endlessly long for his family. Meanwhile, the boys and I will reunite with all of our family and find a perfect place quickly and seamlessly off of militarybyowner.com.
Talk to me. Point me to resources. Tell me your experiences. I need a good dose of reality pronto.
___________
All the posts in Meredith’s “Me & My Big PCS” series: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX
For posterity’s sake we have left this universally euphoric, terrified, confused, “what am I doing?!” series on Okinawa Hai. However, we have closed comments for future readers. If there is relevant information for all readers to benefit from, we have taken elements from this series and created new posts, which we’ve linked to from the original text. Thank you for joining us on this ride.