365 & Jay's First Day Back to Work

When Jay first left.

A few hours later, she was still waiting for him to get home.

Jay's first day back to work was a royal stinking bitch. I'm not going to apologize for my language either...because it really was. He woke up at the same time I did, and not knowing when first formation was, he just waited and showed up at regular work hours.  As is the norm for the army, there were last minute "plans" being made, and since Jay was standing around waiting for orders, they tapped him on the soldier and sent him out into the world in a milvan, to drive a General around for several days.  Mind you, we just got here, so he has no damn clue where anything is...so a CPT drove side saddle.  Why that CPT didn't just do the driving, I don't know. I guess just because that's how it works.  Jay didn't get lunch until after 3, and spent his entire day running around post like a fool.  I won't bore you with further details, but lets just say that there was no actual plan...and I had no clue what was going on until he was able to come home for a brief twenty minutes to tell me he wasn't going to be home until after midnight. He was supposed to be done today by noon, and be home for lunch but he never showed.  Even better, his kindle battery must have died, because he's not responding to my yahoo messages. Yay!  I have no idea if he's had lunch, or when/ if he's going to be home for dinner. I can't STAND this kind of bull.  You'd think that they would have already had a plan of action, back when the General was first told he had to be here....but NOOOO  they just grab someone at random and stick them in the driver seat, whether they are qualified or not.  I hope to hell Jay drove those guys around as well as he drives his own car, because then NO ONE will ever ask him to do it again.  Jay learned how to drive in Korea, enough said. 

Meanwhile, I had about a week's worth of cleaning to catch up on. Rue thanksgiving vacation.  Ugh.  So, anyway...I mopped, swept, vacuumed, dusted, washed, rearrnged, and laundered.  I barely had time to take a shower after getting sweaty,and  forgot to eat lunch, so I was trying to scarf down some soup before having to drive through the hills to pick Laurel up when I realized I forgot to comb my still damp hair.  I had to finger comb my hair in the car while I waiting outside the school.
Then of course, there was a ridiculous miscommunication with Miah's teacher....or should I say NO communication.  This chick doesn't bother sending info home, she just expects Miah to be able to listen and relay the information to me in a timely manner.  That, however, as you know, is NOT how things happen in the real world.  This woman clearly is a single, childless person who has no clue what it's like to be married to the army, and deal with the thirty minutes of after school chaos every day that renders my children deaf and mute.  Everything comes out sounding like an order...and after 13 years I've had enough of idiotic orders.  Miah came home and ordered me..."I have to stay after school on this day, for this long."  No, she didn't know why, with whom, or where.  I ended up calling the school after twenty minutes of trying to interrogate the kid.  I yelled at the teacher...and I don't regret it.  She said that she was going to "get around to writing a note"  for something that is supposed to happen in two days.  I don't know what planet she's from, but that is NOT how we DO things!  It turns out that she wants some of the students to stay after school to use the internet to play math games.  Seriously?  WTF?  It's like she assumes that we are all PVTs and don't have enough money to own computers or pay for internet.  Either that or we care so little for our children's educations that we won't make sure they do was is requested of them?  I let her have it.  Like I'm going to let Miah say after school with only a Miah-written note on a planner.  Whatever.
Done with the rant....on to the pictures.  When Jay left after the formentioned twenty minutes, Harley stared at the door for a long while.  When I asked her what was wrong she jumped onto the couch and stared out the window. Poor dog. After two plus months with Jay home, she was used to him being around, and he left twice today.  Will she ever get over it?  Will I?

The only good thing about Jay not coming home is that the girls and I get to treat ourselves.  We used to sit at home and mope, waiting for Jay to come home, not eating dinner, not watching tv, not going anywhere because we didn't want to do anything without Daddy.  But, after 13 years, we've learned.  Laurel, Miah and I went to Wal-Mart and got frozen food of our choosing.  I got PF Changs Stir fry and egg rolls, and the girls got pot pie and panini.  On the way to the checkout we spotted the $5 movie bin, and I found "All Dogs Go to Heaven" 1&2 on the same DVD.  Miah doesn't remember seeing it when she was little, and Laurel said I was raising her badly because she missed out.  Laurel also freaked out when we realized that Miah had never had Ovaltine so we had to get some of that too.  Laurel is upset that Miah seems to have missed out on a lot of things that were her "favorites ever" so she's making it her  mission to "educate Miah".  We had a really good end to a crappy day, thankfully.  I might have exploded otherwise.