Happy Fall!!

Well it looks like winter has arrived on Whidbey Island...and with winter comes the panic of people who arent used to the snow.

Something that really surprised me when I moved out here is that even though we're pretty far north, it really doesnt snow much in the Puget Sound area. Rain? Yes. But snow? Not so much. I had the joy of watching people freak out 2 winters ago when we had several feet of snow dumped on us, and it looks like it may be the same thing this winter.

It should be noted that this area lacks the ability to remove snow from the roads. There are no snow plows on the island and using salt is illegal in the state (something about affecting the salmon in the water, though I heard yesterday that they were using salt in Seattle so maybe this is something that has changed.)

Yesterday it snowed about 2 inches and you would have thought that the world came to an end. There were accidents everywhere. Everything starting shutting down. People who were on base were stranded there for a while because it was taking over an hour for everyone to leave through the only open gate. I can understand some of the panic. Without removing snow from the roads, the snow quickly becomes packed ice, so it makes sense that people would panic while driving.I think the best part about all of this is that in the middle of the snow panic, there was also an earthquake! Mr.V and I didnt feel it and I have to admit that Im a little disappointed. Earthquakes terrify me, but this was a small one, so I think I would have been ok feeling it. We were outside taking pictures when it happened, which is why I think we didnt feel it. Once we came back inside, Mr.V immediately got a text from his friend asking if we felt the earthquake, followed by several Facebook status updates about it. Meanwhile Mr. V and I were saying "what earthquake?" It seems that the general consensus is that it felt like a quick jolt. One guy said "It made my head sort of snap forward" while others described it as "It felt like something huge slammed into my house" Based on the fact that most people seemed to notice movement from inside their house, Mr. V and I assume we would have felt it had we been inside our house at the time. It figures that during the 5 minutes we spent outside we'd miss the 2nd exciting thing of the day. We actually doubted that the earthquake even happened but here's the map from the USGS earthquake site. I circled the quake in red. As you can see, the epicenter was right off the coast of the island, right in line with Oak Harbor. So apparently it really did happen and we just managed to miss it.And this is what the rest of fall is apparently going to look like. We've been experiencing below freezing temperatures for the past 2 days and it looks like that will continue for the rest of the week, so I doubt the snow is going anywhere any time soon. (And before anyone asks - my cats are indoor only cats that we occasionally let outside supervised. We weren't torturing them by putting them in the snow. We left the door open and the ones that wandered outside on their own seemed to really enjoy being in the snow.)

MilSpouse Friday Fill-In #22

1. If you had to be shipwrecked on a deserted island, but all your human needs – such as food and water – were taken care of, what two items would you want to have with you?

I'd want a computer with internet access. As sad as it is, I think I'd lose my mind if I couldn't be connected to the outside world. I'd also want a TV for the same reason.

2. If you were a salad, what kind of dressing would you have?

Raspberry Vingerette. It has the whole sweet and sour thing going on (more sweetness than sour though), which I think could accurately describe my own personality.

3. If you had to live on a ranch, what kind of animals would you raise/own?

I love animals so I'd probably have a little bit of everything. Horses, cows, sheep, pigs, alpacas, rabbits, a few dogs and of course some barn cats. I couldn't live on a ranch that had animals that were used for food though. I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but I couldn't handle the thought of killing my own animals for food. So a ranch for me would pretty much be like my own petting zoo.

4. If your life was was portrayed as a movie, who would you choose to play you and your significant other?

Hmm this is a hard one. I honestly have no idea who I'd want to play me. But since I get to choose who Mr. V would be, I'd say Matthew Fox from Lost. I'd choose him for purely shallow reasons - he's hot. This is actually a pretty tough question!

5. What was the last thing you put a stamp on (envelope, duh, but what was in the envelope)?

My gas bill. And I was annoyed because I can't pay the gas bill online without being charged an additional fee. I haven't figured out the logic behind that yet. Boy I'm just full of exciting answers today aren't I?

MilSpouse Friday Fill-In #21

I'm actually filling this out on a Thursday night so that I can actually post it on a Friday morning, instead of Friday afternoon or another day other than Friday.

So go to Wife of a Sailor for this week's Friday Fill-In:

1. Were you named after anyone?

No one that's real. My mom is actually very opposed to naming people after someone else. She thinks everyone should have their own name because everyone is their own person. So I'm not named after anyone in my family (although I do have a cousin who is named after me - her first name is my middle name - my mom was furious about that). I am, however, named after a soap opera character. Seriously. My mom isn't a TV person, and she's really not a soap opera person, but she started watching All My Children in college and she watched it for years and years afterward. Her dorm only had one TV and it was in a common room so that's what was always on the TV. She really liked the character named Brooke (the character and the name), so when she had me, she named me Brooke.

2. What color, if any, are your toenails usually painted?

Usually some shade of pink if I actually take the time to paint them.

3. How do you flush a public toilet? Hands? Feet? Something else?

Always with my foot. Public restrooms really creep me out, so if I don't have to touch something, I won't.

4. When you were a little kid, which TV character did you have a crush on?

My first TV crush was Michael J. Fox on Family Ties (though I can't remember the name of his character right now - Alex I think?). I can't even remember how old I was when the show was on, but I loved the show and I loved him. I was also pretty obsessed with the Back to the Future movies (I still have them completely memorized), so Michael J. Fox was the one for me!

5. Let’s say you had to lose one of your five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell). Which one would you choose? Why?

Without a doubt I'd chose to lose my hearing. I can't even imagine not being able to see anything. I can't even begin to imagine how I would get around and function.

It would just be weird to not be able to feel anything that I touched.

I've lost my sense of taste and smell several times already (3 sinus surgeries and the recovery process will do that to you) and it freaked me out each time. I can't even explain why, but eating something without being able to taste it at all, was just creepy to me. My sense of smell was also gone during the recovery process because my nose was packed to the point of not letting any air at all into it so I don't know if its the fact that I can't smell anything or the fact that I panic when I can't breath that makes me cringe at the idea of losing my sense of smell.

My mom is a sign language interpreter and while I don't know sign language really well, I've always been able to pick it up quickly when I needed to. My sister-in-law is also deaf, and while I don't see her that often, its really the best way to communicate with her. So as much as I wouldn't want to lose my hearing, I think I'd be able to adapt to hearing loss much better than losing any other sense.

MilSpouse Friday Fill-In #20

Check out Wife of a Sailor for the 20th week of the Friday Fill-In:

1. A different twist on last week’s question. This week, the first question is: what’s the nicest thing a MILSPOUSE has ever done for you?

During Mr. V's deployment last year EVERYTHING went wrong. And I mean everything. Search back through my blog posts and you'll find endless lists of everything that broke or went wrong while he was gone. About 2 weeks before he came back, one of my cats got sick....REALLY sick. Moses was the cat that replaced my 8 month old kitten that I lost to leukemia a few years ago, so he's pretty special to me. He had crystals and a blockage which is bad, but most cats can be unblocked pretty easily. Not Moses though. He went from having basic crystals and a blockage to needing emergency surgery for bladder stones, only to find out when they opened him up that he had a torn urethra, which would ultimately lead to death if it didn't heal. The vet had him in surgery when she called me to ask if I just wanted him euthanized right then and there, while he was already under anesthesia. Because Moses is so special to me, and because so much other stuff had gone wrong, I completely lost it and broke down. The vet had given him a less than 1% chance of survival. I said no to euthanizing because while I didn't want him to suffer, I needed a few moments to even process what was going on. I tried to track down Mr. V in Iraq - unsuccessfully. I didn't want to agree to anything until I talked to him, and while we had managed to talk almost every day, of course this was the one day I couldn't get in touch with him. I also wanted a chance to see Moses and say goodbye to him before they put him to sleep. So I called one of my friends crying, and without even hesitating, she packed up her 8 month old and met me at the vet to be with me while Moses was put down. That may seem like such a minor thing to some people, but I didn't want to be alone at that moment, and she didn't even hesitate or think about what she was doing. She just came out to be with me. I honestly don't know if a non-military friend would have done that for me. I like to think that they would have, but at the same time I don't think they would have understood how hard it would be to go through something like that while your husband was deployed. I'm very attached to my animals and since this news came on so sudden and quick, it was just horrible to deal with alone. I'll be grateful forever to her for dropping everything she was doing to come to the vet to be with me.

And on a happy note, by the time we got to the vet, I realized I made the right decision in saying "no" to immediate euthanasia. By the time we got there the vet had done some research and called a specialist for advice and Moses' chances of survival had been increased to 20%. Now almost exactly a year later (and after several weeks hospitalized and several months of medicine) he's still here with me alive and well :-).

2. How often do you drive faster than the speed limit?

Umm every single day. And I have a nice track record of speeding tickets to prove it. I try to never go more than about 8 miles over the limit, but my pile of tickets prove that I don't always manage to do that. I should really make a point of slowing down.

3. Did you have a nickname in school? If so, what was it?

I never had a nickname in school, but I did work at a camp where we were required to have nicknames (based on a tradition of it being too formal to call your counselors "Mrs. or Miss" but too informal to call them by their first names) and my nickname was Vega. In college my roommate started calling me Brooklet and thats the nickname that has really stuck around. Several people still call me Brooklet.

4. If your life was a book, what would the title be and how would it end?

I'll have to steal my blog title for this and call it "Life and Times of a Displaced Jersey Girl" because that really is my life. As for an ending, since I'm still hopefully very far away from the end of my life I'm going to leave that one unanswered for now.

5. Look back (in your planner if you have one) to September 14th… what did you do that day?

Absolutely nothing. But I took a cat to a feline cardiologist on the 13th and took a soap making class on the 15th. However, the 14th appears to have been a pretty relaxing, "do nothing" day.