SOS - 4th of July weekend

Welcome to Soap Opera Sunday... I'm your host for the month of October. If you're new, the "rules" are here. Link up your story at the end of this post... the more the merrier!


This month's theme for Soap Opera Sunday is Long Distance Relationships.


Last week you found out about the beginnings of a relationship between Brad and I...

Brad's still in North Carolina with no answers as to when they might ship out to Iraq, or if they even will.

I'm in Seattle, having found a job at a chemical testing company. My roommate has arrived and we set up our place. I finally have furniture!

The fourth of July falls on a Friday this year and Brad decides he's coming out to visit me again. This time we'll be heading over the mountains so he can meet my parents...

The day before he arrives however my mom calls to let me know that my grandmother has fallen and broken her hip. She's in the ICU on the other side of the state. They won't be home to meet Brad.

Mom had just figured out a week or two earlier that we were actually dating. She came to visit me for a cousin's wedding and drug it out of me... maybe this is where I should tell you that I was always afraid to tell my parents about any new boys in my life. They once told me that I could date "over their dead bodies" and I think that scared (scarred?) me for life. So I was a bit hesitant to tell them...

Anyways, Brad flies in on the 4th and we (my roommate, her boyfriend, his brother, and I) pick him up and head to Gasworks Park to watch the show over Lake Union. We got there early to get a good seat and were "blessed" to watch the Ivar's Clam boat go by, as well as be mooned by a bunch of guys on a fancy yacht!

The show was fantastic, but it takes us over an hour just to get back to the freeway. And we're supposed to drive to my parent's house that evening. Brad is wiped since he got up early on east coast time to fly out. So I end up driving while he sleeps, stopping at the top of the pass to fill up my radiator since it was mostly dead (due to a blowout earlier in the summer).

My roommate and her boyfriend decided to come as well - so we'd have some chaperonage since my parents would be there, but they didn't come until the next day. No worries, it was well past the middle of the night when we got in anyway!

Saturday we went to play in the river. This is my hometown river, but of course I fall off a rock and manage to slice open the bottom of my foot on a piece of glass. One trip to the ER (in a bathing suit) later I have 5 or 6 stitches in the bottom of my foot.

Good thing I had a boyfriend to carry me around the rest of the weekend!

Oh, and he finally kissed me...

He said he didn't want to rush it, but I was pretty desperate for a kiss. A little needy in the love = touch department over here I think.

He said I was a good kisser and so we got in lots of practice...

Unfortunately he had to fly out on Monday morning and I was left to hobble myself in to work...

SOS - A Visit to Seattle

Sorry for not having Mr. Linky up with my post! He's there now.

Welcome to Soap Opera Sunday... I'm your host for the month of October. If you're new, the "rules" are here. Link up your story at the end of this post... the more the merrier!


This month's theme for Soap Opera Sunday is Long Distance Relationships.


Last week you found out about Brad, my friend what was about to be shipped off to Iraq shortly after the invasion...

Well, Brad and his unit sit in North Carolina for weeks waiting for their desert uniforms. In the meantime he's trying to finish up his semester course work long distance so he can at least get his diploma.

Finally it seems that they may not be shipped out any time soon and Brad starts to wonder if he can get out. His National Guard term was for 6 years and he was supposed to be done sometime that summer. Of course this was extended indefinitely due to the invasion.

The first of May rolls around and I graduate from college and move to Seattle. I have a roommate from college moving in, but not for a month. I have no job (I'm looking) and don't really know anyone in Seattle. I'm LONELY!

Brad is in North Carolina. He has some light duties and training during the day, but he's bored.

My parents set me up with a cell phone for graduation (mostly to keep tabs on me I'm sure!) and of course the first thing I do is call Brad. Only I didn't know that I didn't have a national plan! So after a week I figure out that I'm going to have a HUGE bill and be in trouble. But I call the company and actually manage to talk my way out of the charges by signing up for that national plan.

So, basically I start talking to Brad nightly. We talk for hours, about anything and nothing. He makes me laugh. When it's before 9pm my time he calls on my house phone. When his battery dies, we stop talking.

He decides that he's going to use his leave time and come visit me since he's never been to the west coast. So for Memorial Day weekend he flies out to see me. He has to stay in a hotel since I'm living alone, but that's okay since we're just friends, right. Right?

I take him up to Mt. Rainier where we have a snowball fight. I take him to the top of the Space Needle to see the view. I take him out to see the ocean. We sit on the jetty and he starts playing with my hair... and then my hands.

Pretty soon we're holding hands. And we do so for the entire 3 hour drive back to my place. I guess this is a relationship?

He flies out the next day...

Figuring Things Out

So here I am. Back to my feeling crappy self. I'm pissed at my son, pissed at my husband, pissed at myself. Pissed at the world basically.

I started to get this crazy thought that I'd been here before. Gee, I wonder why?

Then I wondered, hmm, does this have anything to do with say, that time of the month?

Check the calendar. and the dates on that last "crazy" post.

Ding, ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

No idea why, but at least I feel better (slightly) knowing that I have some proof or reason as to why I feel the way I do.

But normal PMS (or whatever this is since I'm not on my period at the moment) shouldn't make you feel like shutting down should it? Shouldn't make you lash out at anyone and everyone. Shouldn't make you want to crawl into a hole and sleep for a month (or just die?).

I had some crazy hormonal issues in grad school due to stress. Let's just say perma periods are not fun.

I guess my body reacts to things oddly. Wonder what kind of crazy drugs I can get for this...

In My Backyard

SOS - A wartime story

Welcome to Soap Opera Sunday... I'll be your host for the month of October. If you're new, the "rules" are here. Link up your story at the end of this post... the more the merrier!


This month's theme for Soap Opera Sunday is Long Distance Relationships.

I'm going to skip ahead in my Saga of Boys to one of my very last boyfriends...

When I was in college I spent two summers working in a national park with a ministry team. The second summer I was there I met a boy named Brad. At that time I had a boyfriend from college so we were just friends. We had a few things in common and we got along pretty well. He was goofy and made me laugh.

At the end of the summer I went back to college for my senior year. I ended my relationship with my boyfriend for personal reasons (but that will be another saga) and a few weeks later started communicating with Brad over the internet.

He was half the country away, going through his senior year, and DJing for his college radio station, which I could listen to on my computer. At one point he dedicated a song to me, his buddy from the summer.

Fast forward to the end of February (it's the year 2003). The US is getting ready to invade Iraq and Brad is in the National Guard reserves. His unit gets called up and he is getting ready to head out for some training in North Carolina (even farther away from me) before they are deployed.

I go to a production of A Piece of My Heart at school. It's a very powerful play about women in Vietnam in various roles (nurse, candy striper, and GSO performer girl being the ones that I remember). I come out of there just devastated.

It's almost 11pm my time and he's 2 hours later, but I call him anyway, just sobbing because I'm so afraid for him and what will happen. He calms me down and I eventually go to sleep, but I don't get over this feeling.

I believe this was the first time we talked on the phone and after that we start having weekly conversations.

Shortly thereafter Brad is shipped off to North Carolina where he's told their departure is imminent, as soon as they're issued their desert uniforms. Basically he's on pins and needles knowing they could be deployed with only a day or two's notice.

I remember that we had a little craft project we were doing one evening, weaving Easter baskets* for some local children. During the middle of the evening someone walked in and told us that we had just invaded Iraq. My heart dropped because I knew it was just a matter of time before he would be shipped over there. This is one of those moments I will remember forever...


*underwater basket weaving anyone? :)

SOS - The Story of Dan

For the intro to this story go here (or just scroll down).

After I inserted my foot in my mouth and pretty much let Dan know that I was interested in him I tried to back off.

Somewhere along the line I found out that his "nickname" was Mickey. I think he may have actually told me this himself. So being the cool junior high girl that I was I called him on Christmas Day. Only when I called I asked for Mickey. And then I said "Merry Christmas" and hung up.

He never asked if it was me so I have no idea if he ever figured it out...

Towards the end of that year I convinced one of my girlfriends to ask him out for me. She was sweet, and super intelligent, and was "one of the guys" so I figured she was a good one to ask him.

So when our class went to the library she went up to him and asked if he would go out with me. He said no, there's someone else I have in mind. When she asked who? he said "you".

That pretty much showed where his affections lay and after that I never tried to be anything remotely resembling romantic with him again. It seemed he was way out of my league anyway. He was a good basketball player and a decent football player. I think his spring sport was golf. But he hung out with the "cool" crowd of which I was decidedly not a part. (I was one of those "runners" if finishing dead last in ever cross country meet can be called "running"! But I did it for 4 years...)

We continued to be acquaintances through high school (not hard to do in a school where your class is less than 100), but I don't think we ever had any classes together.

I saw him a couple years later and he was attending a police academy, but the school had some issues so he never finished.

This year was my 10 year high school reunion and I was so hoping he would show up. He didn't, although a good friend of his told me he was supposed to be there.

I did a little internet searching (the unusual name makes it pretty easy) and found a few simple references to him so I know he's still in the state, actually following in his father's footsteps and has a good job that I'm sure he enjoys.

His friend told me he has a little boy although he didn't mention a wife/girl so I half wonder if he was ashamed to come to our reunion because of where he's at in life. Sad.

I guess you might say I've carried a torch for him all these years and I was hoping to get a chance to talk to him once more...

This post is part of Soap Opera Sunday hosted by The Extraordinary Ordinary.

SOS - The Saga of Boys

I have decided that it might be a worthwhile endeavor to chronicle my life in relation to boys. Thus begins a Soap Opera Saga that might go on indefinitely. I hope you'll join me...

When I was in the 7th grade we moved. From one small town to one slightly larger small town. We moved on Friday the 13th of November, 1992. An auspicious day to move I think, but it turned out to be a good thing in the long run.

Before this move I had no serious contact with boys. Oh, sure, there were only 2 of us in my age Sunday School class at church and the other one is a boy, but he was just a boy, and rarely even a friend.

But when we moved a whole new world of boys appeared. Boys I hadn't grown up with and known since the 2nd grade (when I switched from home school to public school). Boys who didn't live in quite as much of a backwards hick town as the one we came from!

Being the new girl part way through a school year in a small town during the middle school years... not so fun. Especially when at your old school big hair was ALL the rage and at your new school everyone has their hair pulled back flat in a clip. I bought some clips real fast!

There were a few people who were pretty cool to me as the new girl, one of them being a guy named Dan*. He was nice and I thought he was pretty cute - for a guy with color tinting glasses in the early 90's! He had also recently been dumped by a girl because he came back from hunting with dried deer blood under his fingernails. Oh the drama of middle school romance! (my dad was a hunter so it didn't bother me)

One night he called me up and asked if I wanted to come to the high school basketball game with him. I, being completely clueless, simply blurted out that I wasn't allowed to date yet. He, awkwardly, informed me that it was just a group of friends going. Blew it!

Of course my mother had overheard from the other room and wanted to know who I was talking to. Interrogation!

I have a feeling that this one instance colored the way he saw me for years to come...


*Most of the time I will simply use real names in stories of the past. You'll understand why later :) However this guy's name is so unique and uncommon that I have used a different name for him.

This post submitted for Soap Opera Sunday hosted by The Extraordinary Ordinary.