February | 2014 | thejuliemeister

February 25, 2014
by thejuliemeister 3 Comments

Your tongue is not toilet paper- and other conversations with my dog

This is Gus:

When I first met Gus I thought he was the most obnoxious beast I’d ever had the misfortune of encountering. My husband got Gus as a puppy several years prior to our meeting and hadn’t had the heart to discipline him much. When Cameron first brought Gus home he let the puppy sleep in bed with him curled up on his chest until one night Cameron awoke to Gus happily taking a dump there.

After that Gus was crate trained, but that was pretty much the extent of his training. By the time I was in the picture Gus was sleeping in the bed again, although he had thankfully learned to poop elsewhere. I actually had to fight Gus for space on the bed at first.

My general dislike for the mongrel wasn’t changing towards admiration. Especially since he tended to try to dart out the front door and run away as often as possible, causing me or my husband to chase after him. He was still intact then and constantly on the prowl for bitches. Trying to corral his energy to walks proved disastrous. Gus nearly pulled me down the street. He also constantly jumped up on me and peed with reckless disregard for furniture and feet alike. I assumed that Gus was just something I would have to deal with because my husband (then boyfriend) loved him.

Then one day I got a frantic call from Cameron at work. We were just dating, but I had already moved in. He was out of town on a training mission. Our roommate had taken Gus for a walk that morning. Gus had broken free of his collar and ran straight into the path of a minivan.

Cameron was gone, and I had to do something. I was 25 and broke, but I didn’t hesitate to put down a $500 deposit so that the vet could get to work. It was tense waiting to hear if he would be alright.

He almost lost a leg. It still bears the scars and he limps in the cold. Thankfully, the rest of him was undamaged, and today only the scars give proof that he was ever injured.

Before I took him home that day I bought him a new dog bed and special treats. It cost me another $100, but I wanted him to be comfortable. I couldn’t let him up on the people bed where he usually slept, because if he tried to jump down he’d hurt himself even worse. I got the largest, plushest bed I could find and set it up in the bedroom.

Lying in his new dog bed on the floor next to me, he kept crying in pain, even though I’d given him all of the pain medicine I could. I got down next to him with a pillow and the comforter and cooed at him while gently stroking his fur to try to calm him down. It was the hardest night of my life.

That night Gus became my dog too. He went from an unimaginable annoyance to my baby. There are more pictures of him on my phone now than anything else. I have many conversations with him, although his English skills are lacking. It’s ok though; I’ve become a master of interpretation. A whimper after I’ve stopped scratching his back might translate to: “why did you stop petting me? Don’t you love me so much that you want to be petting me and playing with me ALL THE TIME?” And I do love him. I love this dog so much that I’ll pick up his poop with a plastic bag and let him lick my face even though I know he also loves to lick his butthole.

Gus became even more important to me when we did our first PCS to New England as a family. I went from working full-time to unemployed. I volunteered and started hobbies, but found that Gus was my constant companion. Cameron had to leave for various trips, including an 8-week stint in VA while I mostly stayed in the North East. Gus made me feel safe, even though he is afraid of almost everything including rain, stairs, small dogs, kitchen gadgets, vacuum cleaners, the ukulele and baths. His presence was enough to make me feel less lonesome during days at home or when my husband had to leave for extended periods.

Now I know that when Cameron goes on deployment, Gus will be there to dutifully notify me with a howl whenever a leaf passes before a streetlamp at 3 in the morning. He’s done it before, and while a bit startling, it’s also a comfort I never knew I’d need. If I lived near family or had a husband whose job didn’t require him to leave for months at a time, it might be different. But as it stands this goofy pup is the glue that keeps it all working, and I love him for it.

February 21, 2014
by thejuliemeister 6 Comments

OMG Dramz!

Recently a post came across my facebook newsfeed from a spouse whose post had been DELETED (gasp!) from the officer spouse page. The nerve. Apparently she had raised a question regarding military healthcare that was somewhat lacking in tact. This was seen as an affront to the medical corps and taken down.

What’s funny to me is that I’ve had countless conversations with spouses and active duty members regarding healthcare, and many are dubious of the quality of care provided at military facilities. I myself have had scheduling issues, impersonal doctors, and at least one corpsman who seemed to be checking out more than my pulse. It’s not a novel issue but instead something I’ve heard dozens of times. That is why the option exists for family members to choose providers off base and accept a copay.

The problem with this post seems to be twofold. It lacked tact, and it was in a public forum. It’s kind of like how it’s ok for you to make fun of your own little brother in private, but as soon as someone else does it in public, then Heavens to Betsy they had better say their prayers.

And thus a melodrama unfolded in the 40+ comments made.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the military healthcare debate. Deciding on a provider is a personal choice and to each their own. What I find fascinating is the intense drama that frequently arises on spouse pages.

It’s such a problem that one local page eloquently states at the header: “This is a place to meet new ppl and make new friends. So mind your manners, keep your drama on your own page and remember the golden rule! were all adults here so lets keep it positive and hopefully have some fun!”

You heard it ppl. Keep your drama on your own page.

This header aside, I’ve seen more catfights break out between spouses on facebook than I can count. It seems nearly impossible to make a post that says more than “hello” without hurting someone’s feelings. But why?

My husband tells me that when he first joined the military he felt an immense sense of belonging. He was part of something. With that feeling of belonging he felt acceptance. The military indeed strives to foster a sense of belonging that I think extends to military families. What my husband didn’t initially realize was this sense of acceptance didn’t necessarily extend to his personal beliefs and views on decorum. It is indeed one military, but its members come from different backgrounds with varying political, religious and cultural views.

We have to remember that while military members and their spouses all identify in the same general group, we’re culturally diverse. There is no singular correct form of address or even tact, and it’s easy to get hurt feelings. I am from California. Much to my mother’s Southern chagrin, I am not overly ladylike. I burp uncontrollably and have a colorful vocabulary. While I in no way find this behavior offensive, I can understand that others might. This is one small example and countless more exist. Likewise one spouse might think it totally acceptable to outright dis military healthcare, while another might see it as an affront.

My prescription for this malady of misunderstanding is this: take a chill pill. Seriously, relax. Usually people aren’t actively trying to be terrible, and if by some chance they are, it’s no use arguing with them.

The amount of drama on facebook can honestly be really off-putting. Especially as a relatively new spouse, I was actually a little afraid of other spouses when I joined my first spouse related facebook group. The in fighting is unnecessary and unwarranted. So let’s all try the benefit of the doubt going forward.

February 18, 2014
by thejuliemeister 6 Comments

Winter

After Zeus overthrew his Titan father, Cronos, he decided to be a good guy and share ruling the world with his two bros, Poseidon and Hades. Zeus got the sky, Poseidon got the sea and Hades got the shaft, being forced to rule over dead people in the underworld.

Unfortunately being the lord of the dead wasn’t doing much to get Hades laid. He needed a bride, but couldn’t convince any of those hot Olympian goddesses to get down (way down) with him. So he decided to kidnap and rape his niece, Persephone, and make her his child bride, because both incest and child rape were totally cool as long as you were a god.

Persephone’s mom, Demeter, was heartbroken. She didn’t want her flower-child daughter to live below ground with her creepy brother. So Demeter did the only logical thing, and exercised her power over the harvest to keep crops from growing. At first this wasn’t so bad for the other gods, but eventually people on earth started dying and then they couldn’t offer up sacrifices. Now that was too far. Zeus begged Demeter to turn on the harvest, but she refused unless she got her daughter back. Very Sally Field of her. Zeus went down below and forced Hades to give Persephone back.

It should have ended right there. Unfortunately, Persephone got hungry while she was held captive. She ate three whole pomegranate seeds to satiate her. What a glutton. Eating the food of the dead meant that she would always be forced to return to Hades for three months out of each year, one month per seed. And each year when Persephone leaves her mother mourns her, and the crops fail and the world gets stuck in winter.

So that was the start of winter: pedophilia and pomegranates.

Growing up primarily in Northern California, the concept of winter seemed about as real as the story above. Winter meant more rain, greener grass and temperatures in the mid 60’s. It was the wet season, but never much worse than that. “Winter” never really set in as something to be reckoned with.

Then I married a military man and moved to New England at the end of one November. I had no idea that almost everything can freeze before then. Nor did I actually know that winds really can (and will) chill you to the bone. I had always used the Twain witticism that the coldest winter he’d ever spent was a summer in San Francisco to show my prowess in colder climates. I tell you, sir, I’ve spent many summer days in San Francisco, and a winter in New England is vastly worse.

Winter is tough. I’d always seen snow filled vistas and thought they looked idyllic. As a small child I spent a few winters in Michigan, but only ever remembered outdoor ice-skating and snowmen. The cold temperatures never registered in my memory. All I retained were the fun bits. Maybe the less fun bits would have stuck if I’d needed to perform winter chores like shoveling the driveway, but that’s not usually the type of thing required of a 6-year-old.

I muddled through my adult life generally believing that winter was some kind of magic for those who actually got snow. It just meant sledding, skating and snowmen. Living in the North East has taught me different. As an adult, winter sucks. It means layering up and doing chores. If I never shovel another driveway of snow I may be able to die happy. Most of the time the snow isn’t even good for snowmen and little kids usually hog all of the good sledding hills, depriving me of all the fun stuff I thought might temper the gloom.

Due to some cosmic (or detailing) injustice, my husband and I were sentenced to not one, but two whole winters before our next PCS. By mid-February both winters I thought that Hell (or Hades) really had frozen over, and taken root in the ice and snow covered oblivion we lived in.

To be fair, I learned a lot too. My first February a storm took out the power for 30 hours and we didn’t have heat. It got down to 40 degrees in the house. I actually brought in my spin bike to do a few minutes on it every half hour to stay warm. I also lacked almost any foods that could be made outside of a microwave and felt I might starve. After that I learned preparedness. I learned to start keeping non-perishable foods and water bottles in the house. I also kept my next post race “blanket” that is designed to keep heat in after my next race. I realized that even though other territories are generally warmer, it’s usually good to keep survival items on hand. An earthquake could have hit me in CA and I would have been screwed. Now I’m optimistically cautious: I hope for the best, but prepare for the worst in any new environment. I still despise the snow and cold weather. That will likely never change, but at least the lesson it taught me was a good one.