Like Firefly Light

When I gave birth to Jules, in the same 24 hours I was ready for her to go to college.

Sending her and her younger brother to sleep-away camp for the first time — in a pocket of rural Tennessee thick with trees, mud and bugs — it felt too soon.

It also felt I was given a new lease on life.

We're at 20 years of marriage today and for more than a decade rarely get a night, let alone several days, alone. If we do it might be spent watching World Cup matches.

As the thick heat of summer sets in here, there are three trips to the neighborhood pool in one day. Cole concocts otherworldly, underwater battles and surface skirmishes with the strength of a synchronized swimmer. His colorful, 3D-printed reptiles and aquatic dinosaurs (swimming marine reptiles he calls them more accurately) are dashed through the water with powerful, crashing sound effects. He's clad in goggles and fins, rolling and diving with the grace of an otter. When forgotten momentarily, the creatures float brightly. Then are lined up in rows that reflect categories or to create a tense, lying-in-wait riverbank scene.

Jules snaps a pic for us while
Cole does his trademark move.

It had cooled off a little. A heat wave was hitting Europe. As we prepared for our latest and longest lake trip, Cary says, "I'm so glad we aren't in France right now, going to Paris like we thought we would."

I scream at him, laughing. Our summer wedding day was as heated as our life discussions. A trip to Paris, Tennessee it is. I love the irony so much it's worth it for the laughs, like the pure martyrdom of being married to a stand-up comedian.

I want a record player. We got a 3D printer. There's not a lot of space in our townhome so Johnny Cash on vinyl will likely wait.

Cole inspects each of the pool filters upon arrival every time. Beetles. Wasps. Frogs. Cockroaches. Spiders. He’ll rescue frogs that are alive, rinsing them off with the pool hose since we learned chlorine will kill them if exposed for too long.

We read together most every night and if I'm holding the book, he'll sometimes run his finger over the dimple he's discovered on my wrist. The one created by the angle of holding something, the dip between your tendons. He asks what it is, tries to recreate it in his own wrist but is still too pumped up with collagen. He sets his thumb in mine when I tease it's a spot that will always perfectly fit your kid's thumb so you know you belong to each other. Neither kid believes me of course but my youngest likes the overly sweet joke.

He's turning brown as caramel again.

Jules is growing. More in mind than height, and I worry the latter will affect how people view the former. She's tiny and observant, determined and funny. Makes dramatic silly faces and does a spot-on goblin voice. Up for travel. Needs privacy at unexpected moments. Wants every subject or activity to be solely arts and crafts. Silent as a mime then talks a blue streak before bed or when she's excited. An old soul we have to remember to safeguard still.

I dread the moment when my hand won't really span the width of their backs anymore. When our holding hands doesn't make me feel invincible, because I've got them and they're invincible with me.

The other day Cary and I looked up where we had our first date in the fall of our year abroad, on Google Maps. It's there. The Indian restaurant we walked to from the Newbold campus, him taking the outside on the sidewalk to "protect" me. Food so spicy I drank a pitcher of water. He mentioned wanting to be a pilot in the military one day. I was agreeable, more focused on the waiter kindly interrupting to provide me with more water.

The best parts have always been the wanderlust, together, adding to the crew when possible. Plants nursed back to life after transport, a beloved dog we'll always remember. Cole planking and Jules creating. Life takes bravery and the companions and careers you pick or pick you lend both spicy sparks and cool you down when the temperature gets too high.

Our time huddled together happy or busy or tumultuous is fading, like the wake of our old boat with the big engine as we leave a cove we swam, snacked, yelled and talked in for a long time. Dispersing into memory. Queue the Interstellar music on the mobile speaker.

We dropped them off for camp in the rain and picked them up in the rain. We had date nights while they got mosquito bites.

Cole didn't get homesick. Jules glared when we picked her up, taking her away from new friends. Cole grinned big and was a little quiet, his voice soft and demeanor calm after a week of socializing and movement. He drank OJ every morning after downing the camp's mandatory glass of water. Jules got the "tough cookie" award after falling off her bunk bed and barely crying. She defended Cole from a rough kid. They taught us the songs and games they learned. They went barefoot into the mud pit at the end of a hike. Jules gave herself a mud updo. Cole didn't have soap in the shower all week but confidently said he used water.

The stories trickled out. Cicadas their own soundtrack.

Cary rescued baby ducks out of the pool while Cole was gone and took pictures. Cole was shocked he missed it. We had noticed the fireflies are back visiting, their flickering lights as magical and hard to focus on as ever, like time, and we were eager to show the kids.

They already knew.

Florida Boy

Sticking with my new theme of one blog post per calendar year, I'll resume where I left off in the nick of time.

When Cary got back from deployment we proceeded to live in harmony for 90 days, followed by 90 days of stress as we navigated the squadron closing. We assessed another move that hopefully this, this, THIS time would ring true. So we scrambled once again to continue giving our jobs our all and our kids ridiculous opportunities.

We went life-hunting, seeing who would take us and returning to Pensacola plus a fixer-upper. I moved to another wonderful workplace, while Cary is thrilled to teach flight. We were lucky enough to get another sunny, beach-riddled setting; this one cheaper yet richer in wildlife and natural disasters which can destroy you. Plus renovation. Which can and will also destroy you.

When Cary got off the plane after six months away in Asia, I had pretended to be falling apart with a guacamole face mask, sweats, the kids haphazard with giant snacks in tow, my rolling suitcase apparently packed.

"What happened to you?" he said with a laugh as the three of us rushed him.

The square complete, as my friend would say.

We all got a feather in our hats which no one can take away.

Not long after, I had to miss a great work event because Cary was doing something called ground turns. On the ground. An aircraft just driving around. The moral of the story is you can't do this life without a wicked sense of humor. Laughing out loud at yourself. Music played louder. Dancing or singing in front of the kids. Forcing self care. These things are like shots of water in a stretch of Sahara like a deployment or a move. Plus the little moments written down for me to absorb months later are like more shots. *whispers: shots, shots, shots*

Jules thinks glimmering pale mint toothpaste is the most beautiful color in the world.

Cole could win an Oscar for how he method-acts animals.

I learned the word bailiwick in my 40th year.

Hearing Cary talk about teaching aviation students. (Also asking ourselves, were we ever that fresh-faced?)

Meeting a military spouse in my shoes years ago and seeing her killing it at her career planning.

Finding stickers on my hair dryer and Kindle.

Not removing them.

The stranger kindnesses.

The inside jokes.

Missing people. Then talking to them on the phone and feeling like it's still the same.

Cracking up with siblings.

When your parents make you feel important.

Text messages and emails from previous colleagues with compliments and GIFs.

GIFs.

More and more of Jules' baby teeth are getting pushed out, her softness continuing to turn sharp while Cole still feels rounded at every edge; though his hair is now cropped short and I don't even know who he is anymore. *wink*

We show the kids, while chuckling, how to run in a zig-zag if an alligator comes at them. How to avoid snakes. How to deal with bad insect bites. (Our Google history must've been extra-funny after we arrived.) They grow tougher as they go through it. As Jules struggles to catch her breath with newfound asthma and hives, and Cole struggles to behave how people want. We argue about hurricane preparedness and the expense of everything.

I recall Jules being achingly bad at ballet and blissfully unaware, now determined and excelling at karate.

Cary and I talk about Cole seeming like either a Navy SEAL, a PETA warrior, or a beach bum who pontificates about dinosaurs.

We get forgotten and make new impressions, which takes more effort than we think. I try to take up less space then more, then less. Talk more. Talk less. The right name doesn't matter, if it's Amy or Alt. What Cary flies doesn't matter. The world doesn't revolve around us nor do we it.

Right is a small box invented by people who are afraid. I barely understood Everything Everywhere All at Once but I loved that.

And when you reach a point in life where your stomach lurches at the sound of children's voices in the night, but then realize it was just your stomach – you've arrived. At older age. Not always wiser but something. Achier? More seasoned? Less able to handle seasoning?

I lay in bed – now wide awake – and think about the leftover fish I ate.

We've all technically become Florida people but especially Cole, who sticks his belly on an ant hill on a dare, has learned air quotes, and fights back against anything that bites him.

He talks confidently to strangers at church.

While I was nervous about a presentation at work a while back, it still seemed to go OK. But the best part was when I sat down and things ended, the woman in front of me turned around and said, "Your hair is amazing." I guess I'll take it.

The kids are alright and so are we.

Your Name Here.

Jules writes her name with a big, solid period at the end. So sure of herself it seems. I've noticed other kids do this sometimes as they learn to write and learn punctuation. I like the idea of thinking of ourselves with a firm, confident period at the end of who we are.

Potty training a boy, at least my boy, makes me doubt putting a period at the end of my name.

Anyone else experience that rush of adrenaline, ripping your kid out of a swing or off the couch, or out of the bath, at the hint they're pooping while attempting to potty-train? Then trip getting to the portable potty you brought to the park? Then find you're too late and now that you've pulled their pants down, it's worse than you ever imagined?

You really learn what good friends are when your kid poops their pants at your friends' house and you came unprepared.

Cole taught us over the last year he cannot be trusted to stop having fun to hit the bathroom.

We taught Jules about crying wolf. Spoiler alert: A wolf will petrify any kid into avoiding that. We may have forgotten briefly it eats the sheep and had it eat the boy, our voices slowing down to a quiet trail as we realized what we were doing, her eyes wide in the dark before bedtime, us curled around her on top of the covers. Oops.

There are many immature ways I still feel young but I'm nonetheless getting older (and wiser at an eighth of the rate). Old move: I got a pap smear for my birthday last fall. Immature move: I think I might start doing that yearly because I got a few extra "happy birthday's," giving my birth date to check in and so on.

Let's see, I watched Enola and The Queen's Gambit and fell in love with women all over again.

Oh – I got a new, full-time job! It's been great. Rewarding. Uses my skillset. Makes me feel like a grown-up. It also takes about 30 minutes to explain so I'll spare you.

In other literal news, I got the cover of Crown City Magazine again. In honesty, the key is the photo someone more professional took. Also got a Coronavirus at Christmastime feature for the Coronado Times. You can read more about my island Times life here if you're really, really bored – so these are basically some of my favorite people ever and I wish we could have writer get-togethers which they did before COVID and I arrived.

The writing and income life is good for once. If only I could make time to finish that pesky 30-something coming-of-age novel instead of blogging therapeutically.

I still like how I saw this on Twitter and thought, yep.

Anyone else have an Apple Watch and not know what to do with it? If you have one and do know what to do with it, please tell me. I'm tempted to donate it to someone who needs it. I still love you for getting it for my birthday, Cary, don't get me wrong.

Yet it feels like the giant blue pleather planner I bought when I was 12 and pretty much just enjoyed rewriting my homework assignments in my best (still really bad) handwriting and seeing a five dollar bill in the clear plastic pouch inside.

I proceeded to leave it in every store – racing back in a panic – when I put it down to check out an item.

Cary was gone for some training for a couple weeks recently. The C.B. Strike series on HBO MAX and frozen burritos got me though. Also my amazing mom-in-law. Grandparents may not replace your spouse. They may spoil your kids or not know where everything goes, or not know how to communicate every drop-off, pick-up and chore or errand like your more intuitive spouse after nearly 15 years of marriage. But they sure damn do make it easier when you have to change one less diaper, discipline one less time, deal with one less load of dishes or laundry, make one less even simple meal; and they provide that much more love.

Plus I didn't have to clean the microwave that was laughing at and taunting me. I wanted to shed a tear.

Because when your kids are getting in their car seats, talking incessantly or fighting, and you close the car door on their high, penetrating voices. And you pause. Walk as slowly as possible around to your own car door. It's one break. Adding a grandparent is a whole other one.

Then we drive home, Jules asking me about our our poor dead dog, girls marrying girls, me dying, God, heaven, giving birth (seriously all one in day)... And I’m like, I want them to ask and learn and find their way but also I’m just so tired and can’t even explain these things when tip-top. I mess up these conversations so much. Like I don’t have the answers, kid. Just be a nice person. But like tough when you have to be. Ugghh, good luck.

For some wins – what I live for – we watched Earwig and the Witch (also on HBO), the whole weird thing in peace, both kids rapt, me with coffee I made it all the way through without heating up. And we watched Frozen 2 for the millionth time (still so good) one night while they licked clean bowls of popcorn, also peaceful and laughing together in the near darkness because Jules makes it that way for a "special night" and we were close to her birthday – and I realized how much Cole is absorbing these days, talking about the "ice boat" and the "dark sea." And it's all worth it all over again and again.

Us toward the beginning of the pandemic,
getting ice cream and eating it in the traffic median. 😳

Butters Made Everything Better

Butters and Jules when we were in Fallon, Nevada.

We laid our pup of 12 years, age 14, to rest last month.

A night or two later I'm hearing this panting. No other way to describe it. The second night we're laying there in bed and Cary says, You hear that? Me: Yes! Cary: She's haunting us. Me: Yes!

After the third night, turns out the other way to describe it is the house across the street doing a sanding project after-hours.

I miss Butters. Of course. Everyone misses a beloved pet who passes. She was always around for me when no one else could be, grumbling quietly as I warmed my feet on her belly. Her only flaws were she could clear a room and she shed – but when you lower your bar for cleanliness, wear a weirdly repellant flight suit or pajamas to work from home, it doesn't matter much and is worth the trade-off.

Cary liked to show me the vacuum cleaner canister, pointing out all his girls' hair filling it up twice in one cleaning. We three were more than worth it we all agreed.

Loved ones kindly took care of our dog when we needed.

We'll probably never own another dog until maybe our kids are out of the house and we need a ridiculous distraction to fawn over.

We killed our first plant – a cactus – but somehow thought we could manage a dog. She did lose a leg. But we gave kids a shot and it's gone OK so far. Cole has almost died multiple times now though. We profusely thank the stranger, acquaintance or friend who reaches out. Sometimes it's Jules who saves the day, my heart and limbs skittering as if I'm living the chapter Gage gets mowed down in Pet Sematary.

The thing about missing something or someone for me is its nostalgia, wanting what's gone. Even if you have Christmas every year or some vacation to look forward to on the regular, no tradition, period of time or new adventure will ever be the same as it was – as it is, as it's happening right now.

When Kobe Bryant died, I thought of a game I went to with Cary and his friends. The two of us stood for a photo in front of where we exited the Staples Center after a ridiculously fun night. Cary was wearing a hideous mustard yellow shirt with Kobe's face screen-printed on it in purple.

I was hugging Cary sideways for the photo. He pushed my arm away so I wouldn't block his precious player's picture. His friend Larry, who was watching as another friend took the photo, said something like, wow, and smiled and laughed contagiously; he made me crack up too.

I remember this every now and then. That night and funny moment that struck me. All of us young, in school to some extent, some in relationships, just going to a game to watch people who are really good at something. Rooting for something. Laughter and excitement. Now it'll always be a little different watching basketball.

We lost people we actually know and love this year too, and I feel old and sad, realizing life does indeed change in a slow, painful blink. As they say, having kids make the days long and the years short. It's nostalgia with a whole new layer or two, laced with tragedy and crisis. Life comes at us hard and fast and we never know absolutely at all what to expect, more of the same or more change, but both equally hard and necessary.

I feel somewhat awkward and worthless scrounging up freelance work as the papers tighten and marketers raise their bars real high at the influx of candidates. I wonder if I'll be attending a virtual kindergarten alongside Jules next year, juggling Cole between stories about the island or a Carson City press release or my next chapter (*questioning eyebrow raise at myself*). But the bouts of confidence, paychecks and random peaceful hour makes keeping on writing in some form worth every penny and bead of sweat.

I went to help a local author with her website and social media. She lives on a boat and it was cozy but not too cozy and smells like the still sea. I felt we spent the time correcting a Squarespace accounting error but looking back, it was nice to just chat about her life. There's more to existing for me I think than a salary or glittering career, perfect home or people in it. It's a chance to giggle and learn lessons that stick.

Yet don't tell me that when Cary's schedule changes and I have to cut work or play short and watch the kids, or go without a food run or tackled project.

We have plants here the previous tenants made great, and now a goal these days is just to keep them alive. OK, I failed on a couple already but Jules helped me replace them. Like actually helped. She doesn't suck at things so much anymore. And we talked about Butters, which felt good. Jules inserts our pup into her stories and memories. She still sleeps with her stuffed version whose name is also Butters. (We once weighed trimming off the front right leg and sewing it up so it would be a true clone.)

We all talk about those who've passed often; it feels right and keeps them alive to us. It's usually a lesson they taught us or a hilarious story. Which makes me think that's what matters. This year and next is going to have some pretty big learning curves and funny stories to look back on.

I still remember babysitting a friend's little guy when Cary was in flight school. Butters stared at me from the couch: You have no idea what you're doing, do you? I still don't and so I miss her watching over us and always will.

She was there cleaning up the food that dropped (and sometimes didn't), or teaching us how to deal with poop and pee and post-beach dog. She was there having Cary and I talk about our days on humid night walks in Florida. She was there walking Jules to sleep with me along the neighborhood river in Japan. She was there as I cried myself to sleep as Jules was crying herself to sleep. She was there cuddled up close while I pumped milk for Cole. She was there when the daylight in our houses turned dark from a tropical storm or typhoon, both of us listening to the rain and the wind, looking outside as the eyes passed over.

She was there when no one else could be and she didn't lift a paw or say a thing.

The Bath That Made Us All Dirtier

A lot has changed since I had two kids we somehow named after minerals but spelled differently.

As Jules would say adoringly, in that "tiny town" I had many jobs – more jobs than usual for a military spouse.

I was a reporter before leaving that beloved paper (which taught me a lot) to take advantage of paid maternity leave and a marketing environment. I was laid off because that's how start-ups can go at first. So then I got a new gig out of Carson City that allowed me to work remotely mostly – and kindly continued to do so when our family was being stationed indefinitely in San Diego.

It's nice when the 9-5 is a grind – or when a kid gets sick or Cary has to go be a hero.

Yet then I see people in the flesh, and I throw myself into a rabid conversation of relatable laughing points and stories, AP style discussions or plans for lunch. I also start rambling about all the shows and movies I've watched or stuff read when work is slow or Cary is gone. Sometimes I feel bad for the listener.

I'm sad to change hometowns again. Wherever you learn a lot it feels like home.

I learned I'm bad at being a ballet mom. I would show up in not enough time to get her hair up tight, sweating and having forgotten again to glue her decorative laces so they wouldn't come undone three times during class. She would get kicked out anyway for doing things like playing with the giant stuffed animals they were supposed to be leaping over gracefully.

I learned, in living color, your second child is different from the first. Cole falls asleep on the ground, demands to be read to, leaps off stairs and furniture with his sister, became surprisingly coordinated at a riding scooter early on – and he will sit in Jules' battery-powered truck inside the closed garage, long after the battery dies. He'll study wheels for minutes on end.

I learned I'm still struggling with writing for enjoyment versus writing for pay, or working with a family to take care of when the other caregiver can't be there. More money for my family or that rewarding feeling that oftentimes comes without much compensation or with more snuggles, laughs and memories. Sometimes you do get a bit of everything. But not all at once usually. It may be a never-ending tightrope walk, carefully weighing the stage of life and adjusting your quality of life.

I learned home is where my family is. This one I chose, the one I share a roof with – whether a hotel room, a camper or a home we rent, own or live in on a military base.

I learned when one kid poops in the bath and you have another, both get a lot dirtier. We all do.

I learned being happy is to be grateful. And that I have no good reason not to be.* (Thank you, Downton Abbey.) I've also learned that me letting Cary accept his new position makes me essentially the biggest badass I know. Or the biggest dumbass.

And San Diego? It's like the book Hatchet, only instead of returning to grocery stores I'm faced with an abundance of Targets, ramen shops and dry bars.

*Most of the time.

Battleborn

via

When you're on the road for six months practically, it feels like every thing becomes a bad penny.

Your suitcase handles. Your task list and wifi. Your womb.

Jules took three years to make. This one three months without trying. Then it went away. How are so many parents out there going through that? Blech.

When Roger Federer won a Wimbledon, his 2004 finals opponent Andy Roddick was being interviewed and said:

"I threw the kitchen sink at him, but he went to the bathroom and got his tub."

That's how this year has felt, like Zeus went and got his clawfoot bathtub to throw at us. Yet driving into Fallon and onto Hawk Drive, with our house keys actually in hand, felt like everything was falling into place. We have another property investment and an insatiable desire to explore anything, like the Italian-Mexican restaurant and backroads on a wish list dune buggy with any loved ones daring to visit. We like our jobs if not love them. We have each other and at least one sweet, spunky, squishy, little family member.

Why is it so hard to keep perspective?

Every now and then I think, at least we don't have brain cancer. At least I have all my limbs. Five seconds later, I'm banging on my sticking keyboard, then later clamoring around in the bathroom as I refill the toilet paper roll, then later driving down the road worrying about my identity being hacked and someone stealing our tiny-ass nest egg.

Nevada's official slogan and The Killers' latest album  via

After loudly switching out the toilet paper last time, I made yet another call about scheduling paint and carpet for the new place. I was really excited to pick out this foundational stuff since we usually just shrug and sign a rental agreement in whatever city or country we land in. But when your husband tells you the house you're considering just needs paint, carpet and some zero-scaping, don't listen to him.

These three, seemingly straightforward things take a lot longer and more money than you'd think. You are not an HGTV show host. Unless you've got a slice of their talent-and-budget pie – which pairs well with sides of cooking* and gardening – buy a turnkey house.

I'm only talking to myself here, aren't I? All my friends and family seem to be remarkably motivated and trendy.

The silver lining on our Silver State home is the end is in sight. That's what Cary keeps telling me to keep me from clawing his and my eyes out when escrow lasts another month...when we have five more hours to drive...when the weeds have grown so high you need a special mower and 10 men to make your yard resemble a nice field...when we have to make extra trips to base and medical and daycare and Walmart and Safeway...when there's only fast food to eat...when there's no internet or toolboxes...when we put Julesies to sleep in the hotel bathroom again, in the travel crib I can't help but think is giving her scoliosis after being in it since birth...when the baby is removed after a trimester of nausea and other unpleasantness...when I eat tomato soup in bed and spill it all over myself, the computer and the white comforter. #burnshurt #poormaids

But then there's the hotel pool within baby monitor distance, with its Crayola desert sunsets visible over the highway signs and blackening treetops – where we could sip drinks in the new quiet and laugh more loudly.

Just that made the last hotel stretch worth it.

As I laid awake our first night in the house, on crinkly gym mats pushed together, I should've been thanking God I have my thumbs still. Instead, I couldn't help but think about moving again. I'm so deeply looking forward to having my own lair back. Laying on a normal couch with plenty of pillows and blankets. Creating our ideal cups of coffee in our souvenir mugs. Gaining back our routine of bigger weekend breakfasts and maybe kiddie pool time. Walking Butters, talking and admiring homes that have better curb appeal. Good job on those lighting features! Watching the train with the round cars slowly roll by just beyond our back fence.

However we're going to drive away again in nearly four years.

You're killing me, Smalls (she said to herself).

That's a long ways off, and for now, I'm home. It's time to heal and hit the beat and make our place like John Stone's on The Night Of.

John Turturro from HBO's The Night Of  via

*I found out why I hate cooking! It's boring. (Especially without a drink in my Japan friends' kitchens, while watching them cook and them making me laugh and feel better about everything including the sinks and tubs.) Julia Louis-Dryfus agrees.

To Right Now

'Up in the Air' says a lot best. (via)

Shailene Woodley is known for living out of a suitcase. I loved this idea once. Carefree and limitless, more in the moment than blinded by the constant search for belongings to store in a huge space that meant hours of cleaning and unused food. The goal was to have next to nothing as we traveled the globe flying and writing.

Sometimes that makes me gag.

Maybe we'll get antsy again but right now, all I want is to have a bunch of room and stuff so I have everything I could possibly need to keep my kid happy and house cozy, give my dog the ability to stretch out. I want a big fat driveway and big fat food. Central air and people who look like me so I don't stick out.

I missed you, American comfort food. (via)

Paraphrasing, Woodley told Ellen and InStyle magazine that not having a house, a closet full of clothes, an apocalyptic stash of toiletries, means she feels more free to experience life to its fullest. She got caught in a downpour in London and asked to use someone's clothes dryer to dry her one shirt – an experience she wouldn't have had otherwise. I get the point, but really?

Who was I kidding... A year after being stationed overseas, our rental's cupboards were stuffed to the gills. Add another human being and gone were the days of meeting my husband at a port with just a light duffle.

Returning to the States, I was of course greeted by a corner of the world that didn't hit pause just because I left. A loved one lost, couplings broken. Family and friends had moved away or moved in. Construction shifted things. Issues had surfaced. People were making more money, had more kids, less pets, big yards. Was my hometown still my hometown? Was I already missing the people who knew what it was like to be all alone in another corner?

But the warmth of those ones who immediately love your kid – because they love you in that way time and effort lends – spread through my veins like the cure for cancer.

After a week in Washington we set out for a week in northern Nevada, to check in with our jobs and find a place to live. We rolled into Fallon during an early, gusty hour of the morning, after a night of driving in snow and me realizing that vertigo really does exist. Getting used to the dryness, I kept feeling a sore throat. And Cary pointed out how the water is so soft, showers feel slimy.

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"Well how can we go about make it harder?"

He laughs.

"No but really."

We decided to go into Reno. We needed to figure out our cell phone situation and wanted to explore our nearby big little city surrounded by SURPRISE, I FORGOT! snowy mountains. That 60-mile jaunt resulted in seven hours in an Apple Store. At one point, Jules was face down on the Apple Watch display.

We flew to Florida for a month-long course Cary was taking. Well we tried. We got snowed in heading out. Bright side: a night at the Peppermill with a flash deal that got us a weirdly luxurious suite with columns and a jacuzzi, and access to a pool with a four-story waterfall we didn't frolic in since we all just wanted to lie down.

And of course Florida was all warm air, white beach, bayou bars and friendly faces once we got there. Coming back, there were significant delays due to storms again. At least Jules got to play on a giant plastic structure playground for an extra four hours. Just to make sure we all got sick.

There are no homes for rent in Fallon. Don't ask me why. So military families are being forced to either live in small base housing or buy. So we invested [insert petrified emoji] again in a place off "the loneliest road in America." The acre is ours so that's nice. But the house is mint green.

No second car yet. We don't have any energy left after voting and packing and unpacking and packing and unpacking and updating our giant password document. Plus, I'd rather spend that time catching up on AMC's The Night Manager and HBO NOW. Plus-plus, the rental car we have (thanks, Navy) in addition to our truck we drove south is really showing me I've been highly underestimating full-size sedans and need to reevaluate.

At least San Diego has happened. For nearly three months. Another beachfront base hotel and breakfast every day. A weird, tall water fountain toy for kids. A playground. Burritos every night. It's just a matter of time till I start feeling guilty or the family suite feels small.

We're here 'cause Cary's learning the MH-60 S(ierra). He was on the MH-60 R(omeo) before. All this means is there are less gadgets and computers, more room for riders and supplies. His humane work schedule will hopefully continue once he returns to his search-and-rescue team in Fallon, where he'll be the Longhorns' safety officer (thanks, Florida) and fly around mountainsides, rescuing hikers and ejected jet pilots.

I feel windblown and drained after that sea tour. I can't imagine how Cary feels. Where did this hard worker come from? In college, I could barely get him to do his part of our sociology project on time. Now all I want to do is somehow get the job designing Google's word art of the day. In my mind, that person is basically owner of the most impression-making art in the world and gets to doodle on random days throughout the year.

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On the brink of this shore tour, I already miss Japan's clean, safe, tidy, techy, small life. I miss my old job, the guy that dyed my hair weird colors, our house, our tall teeny-weeny minivan. Sushi will never be the same. I have no deployment trump card anymore. Relationships back home are more complicated in a way different from overseas wives clubs and the solitary, mundane days of just Jules, Butters and I. But there's no geographical solution to your problems, said Tony Soprano.

I can feel my neck getting sunburnt again as I sit in my office, the Fashion Valley food court that isn't far from Jules' daycare, working remotely to barely pay that bill. None of the stores are open but Starbucks and Apple. Soon there will be shallow conversations and crying babies, outfits to admire when I look up. I will struggle to eat my bag of trail mix instead of buying a meal, to stay phone-interviewing and typing instead of seeing a movie or roaming Forever 21. I pull my hood up. It's too chilly in the shade.

Cary says I need routine more than Jules. Maybe that's because I can't count on anything in this life we created for ourselves. I'll take control where I can get it. But I was always like this, as well as lazy and apt to write things down.

This is a life, I have to keep pinching myself, that's a dream come true – even if it's not anyone else's. I checked some big typical boxes getting married young, taking in a yellow lab, having a kid and engaging in social media. But ta da, now we get to shake things up again as helicopter pilot and newspaper reporter – one whose on staff with a real desk and real live coworkers, as well as a self-proclaimed writer-in-residence in my own house that looks like a stick of spearmint gum lying lonely in a field. Such a strange American dream.

"To right now," he toasts on our first night in Fallon, in the basement of a nice Mexican restaurant on the refurbished downtown's Main Street. Jules munches on her chip and watches us. Feet pass by the windows overhead, and the sun is dipping, turning the warm desert day into its cold night. He's right. So aggravating.