Dear Darla Diaries

we've moved : they gone and done it!

After much consternation and thinking and constipation and headache and nerves and this visceral pull to DO IT ... I've moved the blog. I can now be found at Crazy Randomly Beautiful. I am still me ... just no longer under my 'blognommer'. It's me as me. Gin. So the crazy stories are still the same and the Husband is still the husband and we are still a milcouple in Germany with the Mother-in-Law and cat in tow ... I just think it is a better fit. The archives moved with me. So please come visit! Click Here, click above or click the pretty photo below!

melancholy-much

Baby sister summed up the measure of my feelings the last week or so in a recent email to me and Twin.

Alright, my lovelies! Supposedly according to Twin we can have a 3-way video chat on Google+. Your assignment: set yourself up a Google+ account (it's easy, just go to the top right side of your screen in Gmail and there's a + button), and then tell us when a good time is to talk in the next week. I miss my sisters, dammit, and I'd like to actually talk to both of you at once for a change. Make. It. Happen.
PS - I'm free Tuesday morning (until about 1:30p, then I have to go to class; that's 8:30p D-time and 11:30a Twin time), and Weds after about 2p (noon for Twin, 9p for D). Thursday I'm open after about 1p. I'm available in the morning on Saturday.

Love you's guys!!!!
- Magoo


No seriously, stop dicking around reading your email and get yourself set the crap up on Google+!!!!

She cracks me up because (a) I am on Google+ and (b) normally I'm the one who gets to boss Twin around.

The husband had to see the glorious evidence of my state of mind Saturday night. After a delicous, exhilerating and somewhat exhausting game of scramble I started crying. (Please make a note, I rarely cry. I'm like the angsty teen that when her heart is being ripped out of her chest she wants to bawl but her tears have abandoned her and she is left with the stoic aloof face. Be assured I am generally a mess on the inside.) He was little baffled like wha-? How did we go from That! to that!! Well I'm a girl and our brains are erratic and noodly and I don't possess the 'Thinking of Nothing' box to hide in!

It's just a culmination of many things. I asked him to reassure me that somehow, sometime the whole adopt/broken ovaries/barren womb thing would sort itself into a parenting situation. Husband's opinion always trumps the misguided but kindhearted platitudes that often meet my deaf ears. It's not intentional they are just beyond over cliched at times.

I told him that Magoo and I were more than a little jealous and homesick because we are both 1/2 way around the world from our kin. And although we are blessed with cool and loving 'local' friends and inlaws - they aren't our kin. They don't understand us from the skinned knees, puberty, heartbroken stages of our youth to present. Nights of signing and whispering in the dark so our parents wouldn't catch us. Softball in the yard. Having hours upon hours of lawn mowing competitions. First husbands, deaths of family, births of the youth.

Another friend is PCSing. It seemed like I lost a part of my soul when I had to leave the closest friend I had met in my adult life at the last base, and the military in turn has taken her family to Oki. Now the 2nd closest friend I have met is moving to the states tomorrow while we will still be in the Germany for the next 2years. I want to clone myself and mail my bits to Oki, Maryland, Illinois, Oregon and leave a golden bit for Husband's pocket ... but alas it's not his fault the government doesn't share well with others.

So the funk I am in. I'm sure it will die down soon. In the mean time I will use Twin's face as a goal that eventually I too can lose 40+ pounds and look skinny cute like 11+ years ago when we were married. If not my dart arm will be so ripped that the hubby will be jealous.

sick again, imtolditsjustaviralthingy

Monday. 03 Oct

Off to work as normal. The dwarfs and I. It's a German holiday so I am left without a coworker and my own devices. I meet-an-greet, do my shopping and end up home as the sun goes down. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Feels like a Monday.

 

Tues. 04 Oct

I have to bypass my excitement and anticipation of our weekly women's bible study group in lieu of hanging near my phone. (We're doing a very interesting study of the respect = love = respect dichotomy between husbands and wives.) I'm on the prowl for my event team that has flown in from the states for a party at the hospital I work at. I get the privilege of spending 8 hours on my normal day off driving them around the area shaking hands, introductions, tourist destinations, hotels and base passes with a flurry. (I call them mine because they were so cool. Ironically I was merely a tool in their master plan. They paid for it all. Brought it all and did it all. Mostly.)

Always available for morale boosting and nap support.

Wed. 05 Oct

The big party day. I woke up with a slight nudge in my throat and fully attributed it to my lack of sleep. When I'm a little backlogged my body can get very fouled but nothing a 12 hour nap doesn't cover. The event went off beautifully. Mark and I provided muscle, nudges, phone calls and delivery services for the day. The wounded warriors felt appreciated and the party throwers got their under-the-radar happy glow they were trying to provide. It was a marvelous success.

Warning flag. After the falderal I was getting remarkedly peaked by the minute. I had to sadly bow out of the evenings festivities so I could regain some energy in the form of my couch. At one point my sick brain was so clogged I forgot that the MIL was busily cooking lasagnas for the weekly Wednesday night couples study I attend. I thought it was just a cold.

05:45p. I handed the baked italian fare to my friend to deliver in my absence. I stumble onto the couch and wake up near 10p. The sore throat, throbbing head, fever, severe fatigue, piercing ear pain and vertigo feel like they are crushing me. I stumble to my room, up the endless stairs and crash until morning.

The MIL brightened my sick-couch view a bit.

Thursday night through Saturday morning pass in a blur. Sleep, drink, cough, lubricate, sleep, stumble downstairs, move to couch, doze through multiple seasons of NCIS, attempt a few bites of food, sleep some more, text the husband, nap, move to bed, sleep, grumble at the unrelenting head pressure and lack of useful drugs and repeat. I told him I would visit the ER after the 72 hour mark. No one likes a sick-faker. I'm a big kid. It's probably just a flu. Or a cold. Or the stupid HepA viral scare again. I hope to God not that.

Saturday afternoon, 08 Oct was a big day. I was able to sit upright on the couch without wanting to hurl. The headache had lessened a little and I was visiting the ER. My trusty Go.o.gle was thinking I was clogged up with Strep and possible Ear Infections. My vote was that the sinus drainage was causing near pain but not necessarily infection. I hate being right.

After roping a friend into driving me (I hadn't been able to stand without collapsing for nearly a week, I was most certainly not attempting driving) we headed out. 90 minutes in the waiting room because whatever I had didn't rank on the priority scale. I know how ER's work. It was the same hospital I spent 4-12 hours a working day at.

When finally ushered back to the lovely Maj Doc I wasn't that suprised. It was Viral they said. Not sure exactly how or why but their prescription sounded faintly familiar: Rest and Hydrate. (The doctor almost gave me a sick note for Monday until I assured her it was a federal holiday and was already slated off. She also agreed that we work in a very sick environment and it was ok to blame my work on The Bug.)

Go team. Husband, Twin, Buckwheat, parentals, MIL and local family friends were all of course pleased to hear I hadn't contracted something Dangerous and am on the mend. Husband actually said 'Of course it's a Viras!' being as how that seems to be my record in the last 2 years with medical professionals. (I get this one more time before he returns in 8 weeks and I will stay in that place until they give me a legit diagnosis or a super antibiotic that can return to me my former fairly impregnable immune system!)

Sunday I am pleased to report gave me 12 straight hours with only a minor headache and the rest of the earlier symptons. By 4p the brain crushing pain was back but I felt somewhat accomplished.

And I'm talking again. In the words of the MIL and Twin and Husband: You must be feeling better. I'm able to threaten my cat so I'm sure that's a good sign.

 

oh phone. please stop breaking my heart

Dear Sams.ung Gal.xy.

It has been brought to my attention that your service, as of late, has been sorely lacking.

First, today you put my BFF on hold mid-chat to call another friend, without my request. I realized at the 'Unhold' 'Three-way calling?' ' 'Call Disconnect!' that we had issues. As soon as I got that straightened out, but a mere five minutes later, you decided to put her on hold AGAIN and contact the base hair salon.

Second, your internet service is shite. I put my iPh.ne 3GS simcard in you in the hopes that your internet service would somewhat make due for the next 11 weeks while waiting for my contract renewal and obtaining a working fresh iPh.ne 4. You are a dim comparison to the glory of instant FB access and my beautiful TxtFree aps. Instagram is a faint memory and the fact that you hold 3 digital photos, sans a memory card, instead of the 16g 'harddrive' I'm used too could make me want to cry. Twitter? Typepad? Bing? YouTube? You may have a Widget but they aren't actually functional at any operating rate.

Need I remind you of the abuse heaped on the iPh.ne? Sure it may have started with the accidental screen shattering at the Keno but the subsequent drops, kicks and smacks will be a dim memory of childsplay to the discipline you will be receiving. Ever hear of a swirly? I will flush you so fast you will end up in a 3rd world country and be split up for food credit parts. A family could live off your glory for years.

If the previous issues don't take the cake your fat fingering digital screen is a joke. I didn't think to doublecheck and realize you don't have a hard keyboard. I look at the T9 crosseyed and 'Hey Friend!' comes out 'Dump Truck Love.' Let alone the A-Z keyboard that randomly inserts "!(&#%%..." and "Send!" Come on like I would really just send the words 'So', 'To' and 'Though' instead of a full message?

Oh phone. If you could have one redeeming factor it would be that your speaker actually works fairly well and you don't shut off sporadically and your mic works. Those are very legit but still sad factors.

I'm going to blog and twitter via my computer now. I'm afraid if I tried to Twitter 'Another crazy day in the funny farm' it would turn out 'Momma loves chocolate cake.' Why Sams.ung? Why?!?!

Once again bitch-slapped by technology,
Darla

This child is crying because he understands the need for instant digital gratification everywhere! The dream of unsecured wi-fi clouds and affordably replaceable iPhone parts is a reality in places like Neverland!

not your parents language

Do you know what makes a snarky day even better? Covering it in chocolate snarky syrup with a snarky cherry and some snarky caramel. Why? Because every thing tastes better smothered in caramel. Where did ya'll grow up? Mars? Yes I said caramel ... and I pronounce it care-a-mell ... because I can.

 
There has been a lot of passive aggressive posturing, snarkiness, whining and lets just face it, bitchiness around these parts. Sometimes I can't help but wish that the husband was back to buffer me from his mother. Than I remember that it's best he's gone for the next 3 months so he doesn't have to pick sides.

I know. I know. I know that's it's her nicotine-withdrawn diet-starved anxiety-pushing-depression-off-a-cliff mood swings talking and not her normal ambivilant hobbitness but OMYFREAKINGOLLUM. (I'm not sure why this post is so LOTR themed so moving on.) When I hear her merrily HAPPILY prattling on Skype (through the door and up the stairwell) to her gaming BFF in Australia or her son-in-law in Oregon or the few other people she talks to outside her selfexiledprison room I see green. I feed her and take her shopping and buy her WHATEVER.SHE.WANTS and go to work and deliberately stay out of her hair and yet she's not passively aggressively shrugging or sniping at Them only ME. I'm finally the fishwife. (Oh husband you have no idea the amount of guilt crowding the last nerves of my brain every time I think of the experience of you dealing with me on fertility hormones.) It seriously is driving me bonkers. They see her as Mother Teresa and I'm the fool.

I know. I know. I know I have numerous awesome local friends here who would rescue me. They have couches and televisions and WoW capabilities and spare rooms. But I want my house! I want my room! I want to be able to tuck her away into a box and mail her to Timbuktoo so I can have a few moments of peace in my Sanctuary! I want to be able to focus on diets, exercise, God, my friends. Instead all I see is HER. I'M Meeeeeltinngggg. Please laugh with me. It's like having my own personal hormone riddled teenage girl - EXCEPT I'VE NEVER BEEN A MOTHER. Damn you Ovaries!

I've decided on a plan of action. A Survival Mode if you will. I am fully conquering my 3rd floor. I'm ceding ground. I'm temporarily relocating my computer and a bucket of my daily yarn project to my room. I'm not telling her I'm just sneaking it in and stoving myself into the bunker by the light of the moon. The livingroom can remain Switzerland. We will share movies and the antics of The Closer, Criminal Minds and NCIS. When we pout we both can hole up in our caves. Neither can take possession of the nuetral ground.* Wish me luck and the right combination of warpaint and tranquilizers to keep her oblivious.

While I'm hiding like a morose and roundly beaten pet I'd like to thank @MamaPop, @JiveTurkey (also here!), Kristine@WaitInTheVan, @Amalah, @MoxieBird and TWIN, your peachy attitudes and cherubic behavior has been helping me cling to the sanity of my padded walls.

P.S. I must admit that I bought her a pack of cigarettes today. It was like my own little flag-of-truce. She wouldn't let me call the doctor to ask for a reprieve from thinking it sane for her to attempt (emphasis on attempting with a piss-poor attitude) to cut her chain-smoking habit and a harsh diet at the same time. So I took matters into my own hands. You either smoke or you eat. You won't be doing both on nights like tonight. Once I've gone to ground, and restocked your fridge with diet material, I'll hide the cigs again.

 

p.p.s. YES I'm sure eventually it will get better but today I beat ny head into my desk in a firm and rhythmatic tone. wump. wump. wump.

*I'm fully reclaiming Switzerland when the Boy returns. He plays CoD and my attention withdrawn ADHD will require constant reaffirmation of contact, touch and commentary. In the flesh babe.

starting to sound like a sitcom

The MILs doctor is trying to kill us all. And if not us all, he is specifically gunning for me. First he tried tinkering with her pain meds, only to give that a temporary rest due to it's effect on her temperament. Next he thought it brilliant to badger her into stopping smoking. What's better motivation than the doctor threatening to cut off the essential pain management meds? Of course that has Fail and Oh So Screwed written all over it in pink sharpie. Last, but I'm sure not in anyway the least, let's put her on a diet.

Yes it is magic and rainbows in my house at the moment. To think all all this magic happened within the three months her son has been deployed. His chipper little texts are like 'it's all right you can substitute A for B.' How well do you know your mother?

MIL, god bless her soul, is very set in her ways. As we are all prone to do. The doctor is trying to improve her quality of life, hopefully dragging it out a few more years and make her healthier as well. He's not fully thinking through the fact that within the last 10 years the surgeries have gotten messier and messier. She's at the acceptance stage of it all. She could live 10, 20 or 30 more years but it's how she lives them that matters. She knows that stopping smoking would improve her breathing greatly and perhaps changing the manner of her pain meds to a less addictive drug could also help her. She's not dumb. They just all have stress factors that tip her anxiety and depression platforms that she's unable or wont to take drugs for because of previous experiences with medications, for anxiety and depression. Anxiety meds leading to severe paranoia and her depression meds pinging her into outer space.

The diet is also a bit of a joke. She has flags that could eventually lead to heart disease and diabetes. Could. Eventually. Lead. Her current blood sugars were slightly elevated. This is all coming from her elevated triglycerides. So he's asking her to remove the two small cans of Mtn Dew a day from her diet because of the sugar intake. He's also asking her to adjust her meals. Mind you by asking her to stop smoking she's been replacing it with small hard candies and the patch. Also, also, also. Oh my gosh he has me speaking illerately now. She is very set in her meal plan. For a woman in her mid 50s she has a regulate meal plan of an 80 year old. She usually rotates through two different daily meal/snack schedules any given 6 month period. Those are the flavors she wants and between the end stage Crohns, COPD, dental issues and ashthma there isn't a long list to choose from.

So you ruffle up her very raw and unnicotined nerves and her anxiety peaks.Thus causing her to want to hand over fist candy or inhale a full pack or chug Mtn Dew and eat cake. Back to the original problem. Increasing her sugar and returning to the smoking.

Oh doc. When we told you we can only do one change at a time we meant it. Your 6 month goal of it all is cute. One per year is far more realistic. Back down a hair. The Air Force will not fire you for maintaining her sanity versus choking it out like a monkey on a banana. I also may love you longer if I am alive, healthy and MILS mental stability improves prior to Husband returning home from the desert.

oh cold of my cold

I've spent the last 8 days doing the unspeakable: fighting a head cold. It's unspeakable because who wants a disease like that in the summer when, for once, it didn't seem to be attacking everyone around me? Woke up last Tuesday to feel like congestion was trying to claw it's way through my facial pores. The throbbing in my head was on the offensive in time with my blinking eyes and death felt immeninent. I had assumed it to be just another 48 hour bug.

Why do I get the weird diseases?

After the third straight day, flat on my bak on the couch, the cold had just shifted. Headache to sore throat to coughing to nasal congestion. It was awesome. I attempted to work on day four feeling partially better ... only to have that hope diminish after four hours of wasted energy.

It's been nearly a week. I still have throbbing sinus face and a cough but am 75% better. I see the doctor for the dreaded umpteenth pap of the month and hope he'll give me meds to topple it without setting me back into HepA land. Even the MIL is a little dubious. Partly through day three of last week she had an eagle eye on me and the thought of speed dialing a friend to take me to the ER if she didn't see improvement. Luckily for me she did ... somewhat. It's odd to me that I only have energy for part of the day. After six hours of shift today my coworker deposited me back at my car to rest since it was super hot and we had a light load to go with my progressively throbbing sinuses and hacking cough.

Joy.

I am not dying. I really am feeling better. It's just been a slow process. And I'm starting to get aggravated with weird diseases.

On the plus side my husband has been just as thorough as stalking me as his mother. I was even grounded to the couch after our weekly Skype date with orders to rest, relax and top off the drugs. Yes sir, I did.

P.S. Thank you Heather and Jess for the soup-cold-kit and visit. Thank you Brig for the drugs and company. Thank you Faith for the ecalyptus bath salts and visit. Thank you Ramona for the company. Thank you Gary and Fil for taking the MIL to the grocery store for a food run. Thank you Mark for being light on me with the work load. Thank you Suse, Twin, Rue and the Parentals for keeping an ear on me. Thank you Babe for loving me and always being concerned.

it's not just any cold

Somehow I contracted the damn cold. Low-grade Fever, Congestion, Headache, and Bodyache are present and accounted for. Luckily for me it's not a ManCold!

 

P.S. ... I kept the knee ... like you had any doubts. The bruise is very pretty and definitely worth sharing.

 

wordy much?

I have a huge case of writers cramp and it hurts like a pigeon giving birth to a huffalump. I just crafted this long and meaningful post about discovering that Hi I Can Haz Introvert Tendencies! only to delete it because being overwritten, long, dry and boring were only the start of what should have been a witty snarkish piece.

Blogging is such a feast-or-famine kind of hobby for me. I can either continually be tripping over blog fodder throughout the day or it becomes a rabid balance of meaningless-overdone-cute-crazyass-kitten pieces and ooh-look-my-job-is-awesome! sauce. Although both bits are inherently true I have far more pieces that make up my day-to-day life. I like my randomness. I like that writing urge that can blindside like a traffic accident with that full body possession to Must Write Now!

Lately I've been twisting or rather untwisting my soul through baby steps of  reawakened spiritual ferocity and not sure how, when or what to talk about. It has been taking up a lot of the recently vacant holes that I don't know where to begin. It is so consuming and not  in a crazy raise-my-freak-flag kind of way, but a distracting look-out-for-that-car-and-another-hyphenated-sentence kind of way. It's the kind of peace that gentles the rough edges, hate and unnecessary anger and refreshes the love.

Sadly that spiritual attitude has been getting tossed around with daily clever obnoxious hijinks from a very energetic 9 week-old kitten, a busy as hell schedule and the crazy pangs that mark the first 30 days of the 240 deployment of my hubby. Yes, somehow I bet it is psychotically busy in hell. It's like whiplash coated with the liquid medicine of coconut Ciroc vodka and crisp chilled pineapple juice. Tastes great sliding down than WHAM your body reminds you, in a blurry fashion, that Damn Woman Feed Me First Next Time!

Now you know. This isn't another post as to why another author hasn't been blogging but rather why another author couldn't blog properly!

P.S. For all your people who just don't believe I could be an introvert, I may not be FULLY but LOOK HERE … you will see that Jonathan Rauch is writing about me! I totally have those tendencies! I love people - just in measured doses.

P.P.S. The MIL is starting to think I may need a nightly ration on those Jar-colada's. Whatever! Iz just a little juice with my gin!

how the new fodder medium came about

Whilst I was getting soap into my eyes and tripping over the shampoo bottle rolling around the shower floor I had an epiphany: I should tw.tter. Yes, I do have frequent epiphanies in random locations. Tw.tter?! you say.

I know that I have jumped on  my mountain and furiously waved my OhHellNoIWontTitterTweetTwit,  Idon'thavetime, Itseemscomplicated and Everyoneisdoingit flags in the past. Recently I had quite the fascinating conversation between my friend DrewCDavid and his lovely wife whom I jokingly refer to as TheMenoScholar. She said you HAVE to do it! You have the randomest funniest things to say. I defended myself calling those things MYLIFE and they being the perfect BLOGFODDER. Which at the time made perfectly good sense.

I am currently pinging like my ten-old-nephew in reading class without his ADHD ::squirrell:: MEDS. The hubby is deployed and for some reason and with him the small part of my sanity that helps ground me into zen. So the nights seems to be getting later and later, close to 2a on too many mornings, and the wakeup just seems to be earlier and earlier when the 630a alarm starts chirping. I need a new distraction.

As I previuosly mentioned, half blinded by soap and trying to not slice my legs while removing stubble, it struck me like a flourescent bulb: T-W-I-T-T-E-R. Do it like you think! The random passing comments that flit through my brain like lightning bugs on a balmy June night. Should I wear socks to bed? Will those bookshelves make the living room more brighter or ominous? Will the new kitty like to lick tape, chew through cake or will he prefer my couch arms? Did Mah remember to take her meds this morning? Does the boy actually read the FB messages I send him? Tacos or cereal for dinner? Should tasering be illegal?

Thus the @randomlygrl was born. Will it last as long as this blog as progressed? It's hard to say. But at the moment it will vie with ANGRY *&%#$^& BiRds!!! to keep me from getting on every last nicotine withrdrawn nerve my roomie/Mother-in-Law may have left and a few more she's got in hiding.