K had to go into work on Wednesday, but it was just supposed to be a short day. Unfortunately, his short day lasted until 6 p.m., thanks to some awesome last-minute issues by people not doing their jobs or pulling stupid stunts to attempt to get out of deploying.
We went out that night for dinner, and then I made my cheesecake, since K had requested it for Thanksgiving. We got up pretty early Thursday morning to pick up a turkey and ham K had ordered, and we delivered it to our friends' house. Everyone was locked down into a 150-mile radius of the base, so we all met up for Thanksgiving at three guys' house. The wife and two girlfriends of the three guys decided 4 p.m. would be the perfect time for dinner for everyone. I decided they were crazy (Seriously, Thanksgiving dinner should take place between 1 and 1:30. You snack all morning while it cooks, you finally eat lunch, and then four or five hours later, you warm up leftovers for dinner because you can't quit thinking about the food still.).
We watched Ghost Hunters, which is evidently a big show in that house, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (the Pride was on it!!!). The guys played Guitar Hero on the Wii, and we played DDR for a while on the Playstation. Once we finally ate, the dinner was good.
I had worried that the day might be a little emotional, since I'd be spending it with people I've grown pretty close to over the last two and a half years, and I would also be saying bye to them
soon after. Other than a few teary-eyed moments that I think no one even caught, I was fine. We girls all managed to escape into a room by ourselves and talk about the deployment and all kinds of other fun girl stuff. It was nice. We all exchanged email addresses and phone numbers to make sure we can stay in touch while our guys are gone. We'll also be able to be a support system for each other over the next 15 months.
I thought that the days following Thanksgiving would give K and me a chance to relax just the two of us. Friday was the closest we came to that.
K had some meetings or something early that morning, but he went back to bed when he got home, so we were able to sleep in a bit. He packed up more of his things from his room -- the clothes and things he'd needed over the past couple weeks since the movers came -- and I tried to busy myself downstairs and pretty much stay out of the way, since I didn't have the slightest clue what he needed to put where.
Late that afternoon, we cleaned up and made the hour drive to the closest town offering us a nice restaurant and something to do. We ate at our favorite, Johnny Carino's, and then we we headed to the mall to pick out some cute Christmas cards and kill time before picking up K's roommate from the airport.
Once again, K had a meeting Saturday morning. My phone woke me up just before 8 a.m. His brother and dad had driven straight through the night to get to Louisiana. They were at the front door. I wound up talking to them for the next few hours until K got home. He had a lot of packing to do for the deployment, and since his dad & brother had been awake for 26 hours straight, they needed to catch up on some sleep. They headed to a hotel (K had no furniture, remember?), and K worked on his packing list all afternoon. That night, we all went to dinner together and watched some football (I was actually the only one really watching it, believe it or not).
Sunday, we went to breakfast with his dad and brother before they left Louisiana in K's SUV. He was sad to see it go. Possibly more sad than he was to see his family leave.
After that, it was back to the packing for him. That afternoon, we made the hour drive to the big town again with K's roommate and his fiance for dinner and a movie. We saw Fred Clause, which was all right. If I was 10, maybe I'd have loved it.
K's roommate left on Monday, so he and his fiance stayed in a hotel Sunday night since they'd packed up all his things (including his air mattress). Believe it or not, K had a meeting again on Monday. Soldier drama, unfinished business and last-minute tasks kept him busy most of the morning. I ran a couple errands on post early in the morning before heading back to his place to attempt to help him pack. It was difficult packing up someone else's things. What was even more difficult was determining which of someone else's things should be thrown out. It felt like I hadn't done much when I decided there was no more I could do on my own. Thank goodness, K called me right then.
Since his truck was on its way to PA, I was his ride. I left to pick him up, and we immediately headed back to his place to finish packing. We got almost all of it done just in time for a maintenance walk-through at 2. My poor little two-door Honda Accord was absolutely packed to the brim. There was barely enough room for K. In fact, he didn't have enough room to put both feet on the floor. He had to squeeze his right leg against the door and cross his left leg over his right knee. Piper had to lie on my lap as I drove, since folders and who knows what else was occupying K's lap.
There were actually things K had intended for me to take home with me, but there was just no room. As a result, his apartment workers will have several rolls of Charmin and a nice set of pots and pans, and his neighbor's girlfriend has a pretty much brand new set of Corningware, since K had K barely used it. There was also a ton of beer in the refrigerator that K had tried to pawn off on several of the guys. The thing was, though, they were all deploying. They all had the same problem.
K and I stayed in a hotel that night. We had to take my mattress, which K had been sleeping on (he brought his nicer mattress here for me to enjoy and take care of while he's gone), to the Thanksgiving guys' house to store during the deployment. Somewhere in the process of all that, after we'd gotten back to K's empty (with the exception of the pots & pans, beer and toilet paper) apartment, he realized he had lost both his and his roommates' set of keys to the apartment and their mailbox. This meant we had to backtrack a lot of steps and call the Thanksgiving guys to see if the keys had been dropped there by accident.
No luck.
We headed back to the hotel, hoping maybe K had left them there and we'd forgotten he had just used my key to get in the door. No such luck.
It's frustrating to know you held something in your hands not even two hours before, yet find no sign of it where you could've sworn you left it. It's even more frustrating to thoroughly search every place you know they could be in a desperate attempt to find the missing item. You spend the rest of your time mentally retracing your steps, trying to piece together how something could have vanished into thin air.
This is exactly what K did the rest of the night. We had gotten back to the hotel sometime after 10, and we both managed to doze off. I woke up to see K lying longways at the foot of the bed, still in the uniform he'd been in since 7:00 that morning. I woke him up to get him to get ready for bed. He was so exhausted, he just took off his uniform and crashed.
With all the craziness of the week leading up to the deployment, it was sad to see that our last night wouldn't be any more calm. What I had hoped would be a relaxing night for the two of us had turned into an attempt to complete the still-long list of errands and then find the set of keys that had seemingly become invisible.
We did get to enjoy some pizza and sparkling wine that night. It was a really nice hour or so. Call me spoiled, but I had hoped for some relaxing that didn't involve chewing and watching Everybody Loves Raymond reruns.
I guess the only saving grace from a hectic final week like that is that it didn't give me much time to think about the fact that it actually was our last week.
1 comment:
So sorry you had a hectic last few days with K, you always want them to go like planned but they never do! I look forwarding to reading more of your blog, I just found you through GFf.
www.mrsssg.wordpress.com
Post a Comment