35 fun things to do while driving

1. Have a friend ride in the back seat. Gagged.
2. Roll down your windows and blast talk radio. Headbang.
3. Wear snorkel gear and hang fish around from the ceiling.
4. Two words: Chicken suit.
5. Write the words “Help me” on your back window in red paint. The more it looks like blood, the better.
6. Pay the toll for the car behind you. Watch in rearview mirror as toll collector tries to explain to next driver.
7. Laugh. Laugh a lot. A whooooole lot.
8. Stop at the green lights.
9. Go at the red ones.
10. Occasionally wave a stuffed animal/troll doll/Barbie out your window or sunroof. Feel free to make it dance.
11. Eat food that requires silverware.
12. Put your arms down the legs of an extra pair of trousers, put sneakers on your hands, and lean the seat back as you drive.
13. At stop lights, eye the person in the next car suspiciously. With a look of fear, suddenly lock your doors.
14. Honk frequently without motivation.
15. Wave at people often. If they wave back, offer an offended and angry look as if they gave you an obscene gesture.
16. At stop lights, ask people if they have any Grey Poupon.
17. Let pedestrians know who’s boss.
18. Look behind you frequently, with a very paranoid look.
19. Restart your car at every stop light.
20. Hang numerous car-fresheners in the rear-view mirror. Talk to them, stroking them lovingly.
21. Lob burning things in the windows of smokers who throw their butts out the window.
22. Keep at least five cats in the car.
23. Squeegee your windshield at every stop.
24. If an fire truck comes up behind you, pull over, get on the roof of your car, and do a cheer for them as they pass!
25. Compliment other drivers on their skill and finesse.
26. Have conversations, looking periodically at the passenger seat, when driving alone.
27. Stop and collect roadkill.
28. Stop and pray for roadkill.
29. Stop and cook roadkill. (If in Tennessee.)
30. Throw Spam. Tape signs on windows protesting email abuse.
31. Get in the fast lane and gradually… slow… down… to…a stop. Then get out and watch the cars.
32. Vary your vehicle’s speed inversely with the speed limit.
33. Drive off an exit ramp, ask for directions to the town you’re in. When they tell you you’re there, look confused, glance at your map, laugh, and exclaim, “Oh! Wrong state!”
34. Sing without having the radio on.
35. At stop lights, run out of your car, place pylons around you, then gather them back up as the light changes and drive off…

http://www.boardofwisdom.com/Default.asp?topic=1005&listname=Things%20To%20Do

Back to Owasso Oklahoma

After Rota, and dumping piece of shit husband, I returned to my hometown in need of old friends, and family. I throw myself into preparing for the future of my new life, and find a job working with Cancer patients. I truly think that this was what made me stop feeling sorry for myself and feeling guilty and taught me to reach for my goals and work hard to achieve them. I learned so much from so many wonder patients and staff member there. I have very fond memories of that job. It was the center that gave me the courage to reach out to the unknown and leap blindly….. I jumped into fulfilling my dream of college.

And now, I can go on with all of my new adventures…….

Rota

So I have this all out-of-order, so bare with me while I catch everyone up…..

Exiting out of Camp Lejeune, I have 1 cheating husband (I found this out a few week into being overseas), 1 child, 1 dog, and 1 hell of a mess….

Welcome to Rota Spain, the first thing my new command does is sends us to these classes in order to not only teach you about the commands, they want to tell you all about the wonderful country of Spain and all it has to offer. This class also teaches you of how many people there hate American’s and succeeded in scaring the hell out of me with all my knowledge of their local terrorists. Yikes. Take me back to the States….

So now I am in a foreign country, with my son, still meeting people not having friends yet, and find out that my husband is a total douche and has been cheating on me for a while with a hooch from Lejeune, and the one person that we knew in Rota, is my husbands best friend and has known all about his multiple affairs the whole time. WTF? So friend and I get in massive fight because of his bad advice to husband, and lets mix in the fact that friends girlfriend is my new boss. That makes for a very poor relationship with not only husband, but also my new Boss. Let me tell you, Boss and my relationship the whole time I worked for her was professional to the highest degree, if you walked into our office you would never know we could not personally stand each other.

Sooooo, in all this mucky fun, and me trying to kick husband to the curb, I discovered that I was pregnant. Yay, because in my life if it wasn’t a hot mess, I might be bored. For our son, our baby and each other we start counseling and find a way to work it out. For now.

In January, we welcome our beautiful daughter, and were in a good place as a family. Until months later when a “frenemy” begins taking a huge interest in husband, and eventually leaves Rota and her husband (who is also our friend) and ends up in our next duty station with my spouse.

I sent them both to the rear marching with divorce papers served right to what was supposed to be our new door…..

Welcome to the Fleet

So hooray for finishing corps school, and a bigger hooray for getting out of Chicago aka frozen hell. I thought this until the day that I saw Camp Lejeune, North Caroline. By the time I am leaving Chicago I have managed not only to graduate school, but apparently marry a perfect stranger~sadly all this was done sober. I think maybe if I had been drinking I would at least have a better excuse.

So my new spouse and I roll onto a cross country trip from Chicago to Denver, Denver to Tulsa, and hop in my car in Tulsa and drive all the way to Camp Lejeune, roughly 24 hours. I am sure it might have taken less time had we not rotated driving, and I had not taken an extended trip in the wrong direction, and into the wrong state. Bye Georgia, sorry to have toured your highway.

Here is exactly what I saw in North Carolina as were were about 30 minutes outside of Jacksonville (where Lejeune is connected to): strip clubs in mobile homes everywhere! There were even strip clubs made of mobile homes with their stripper pole located outside! No joke. Then 10 minutes outside on trusty highway 17, we start our decent into not only the strip clubs, but now tattoo parlors and random massage parlors. 5 minutes outside, same stuff, more locations, and throw in some porn video stores.

And then in Jacksonville, I pretty much can let you guess. Fill it up with all the same things, plus a gazillion drunk Marines, and Corpsman everywhere….

Home Sweet Home    x4 1/2 years. Oye Vey.

Corps School, Post 5

Across the street from RTC, you will find NTC, Naval Training Center, original huh? That is where you find several schools that teach us how to do our Navy jobs. Mine was the best one you could pick, Corpsman. We are the mighty mighty medical force. I loved loved loved being a corpsman. You learn everything there from CPR, to how to do an emergency tracheotomy if someone needs one, and there is no doctor around. In the real world, I am sure that it could land you in jail, but not in the military. We learn to become a trauma responder, a interim doctor, a life saver.  I was the girl who stayed in to study always wanting to be the best corpsman that I could be, totally missing out on the experience of Chicago. I did go out on a few weekends. But Chicago = cold, and so Valinda + freezing cold = no freaking way I am leaving my warm barracks room.

Bootcamp be done! Post 4

Somehow I made it through boot camp, but due to all my PTSD I don’t want to rehash everything moment by moment, but lets just hop to the end and say that I graduated! And did I mention it was also with a sinus infection, plantar facitis, and a broken foot that I refused to go to the doctor for? Yeah. Injuries in boot camp mean being held back there until you get fixed. Kinda like shopping, you break it, you buy it or fix it. Sooo, there was no way in hell that I was making that trek to medical even if I could barely walk. I actully broke my foot just a few nights before during battle stations, kicking this girl who kept falling down in front of me. In my defense it was an accident, but I didn’t feel that bad because she stayed in her bed the whole time in boot camp with Mono, but still got to run battlestations and graduate with us. (Us being the people who got the shit beat out of them the whole time this chick was sleeping in her bed, granted she had mono, but I was praying she would pass it to me if that’s all it entailed).

You should have seen my dear Mothers face when she saw me at graduation. She was so mad at the Navy for not taking care of her baby, she told me to go upstairs in my Barracks and pack my stuff because she was taking me home. Thanks Mom, that would only get me thrown in jail now. It took alot of promising to see a doctor when I went to my tech school, and convincing her that I would not fall asleep in a bathtub ever again. Oops! Guess they don’t understand sleep happens everywhere when you only get about 4 hours or less a night.

Watch Standing Woes on Day 1, post 3

Here is my advice people, and please think of me as a mentor with this, NEVER never never make any type of jokes around people who don’t know you when you are in boot camp. In the military, you do something called standing watch/aka post, and there is always someone who makes this almighty list. This is the person who tells everyone what time that they will be standing watch, and they single handily determine how much sleep you will or won’t be getting in this new boot camp adventure.  This being said, Great Mistakes, I mean Great Lakes, is the home of this horrid little things that resemble lady bugs but bite the hell out of you. Now, when something bites your arm you tend to smack it right? Well, do not ever do this in front of a Buddhist with NO SENSE OF HUMOR. This girl turns to me, and says “Don’t do that, that lady bug could be my relative who was reincarnated as this bug and you are killing it for now reason.” Then I, being me replied “How do you know that this is your Aunt, and maybe she wanted to commit suicide and picked me to assist her?” Wouldn’t you believe that this was the girl that they picked to be the watchbill coordinator? Yep, and she surely liked me so much that I got the midnight to 2 am watch every other night. Our normal bedtime was from 10pm until a whooping 4am. Meaning that I barely fell asleep and got woken up, and then I stood watch for 2 very long hours walking around a room with 90 other sleeping woman and alot of soft, warm, open racks (beds) and made sure no one left the room or entered it. Then I get back in my top rack, barely fell asleep again, and without a drop of REM in me, got woken up for my day of ass whipping! It is no wonder that they call that watch balls to two. Because that is the best way to even make it sound interesting. On the positive, it is amazing where you can fall asleep if you never get any, walking, sitting, standing, even talking in mid-sentence. With all that fun, I can’t wait to tell everyone about the showers….

Bootcamp vs The Girlie Girl post 2

Off the bus at RTC (Recruit Training Command), there are people yelling at us all over! Now, I used to do Martial Arts, so at the time this isn’t really bothering me. I am just enjoying getting passed new clothes and supplies for my new bag!  It was actully a seabag but even if it wasn’t a Dooney or Coach it was a bag, and I am sure Mary Kate could have totally made it fashionable if she had one too. Then we are put in lines, 2 by 2 like we were marching on Noah’s ark, and walked around to God know’s where. I am pretty sure to this day we were just making big ol circles, but it’s not like there was anything else to do at 2 am unless you wanted to sleep. Thats for wusses anyways.

How I became the Sailor Girl, post 1

So, ten years ago, I decided to run away from all my troubles and stresses in my life. Lucky for me it was legal since I was 19 years old and nobody could stop me. I visited my local recruiter, listen to everything he had to promise me, foreign shores, adventure, money, excitement, and was so fine I just barely could see the dotted line.. Then a week later, I had a one way ticket to a place called Naval Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, IL. How nice, they even met me at the airport, all in chipper moods. Apparently, their Momma’s never taught them that it is not nice to yell at strangers when you first meet them.