Merry December!

Hello!!

Oh man- I'm still full from Thanksgiving weekend. Italian buffet at the club on Wednesday, turkey on Thursday, chili on Friday, steak on Saturday and meatloaf on Sunday. The only one of my favorite meals missing that week was mom's spaghetti sauce, but I think I might have exploded at the mere mention of meatballs!

We had Thanksgiving dinner at the S.'s house this year. For a holiday with both of our families gathered, it went really well. (You'd think combining events with future in-laws would add stress, but with our families it actually reduces it!)

I made the stuffing and stuffed celery. I'm very proud of my culinary achievements. I successfully mixed Roquefort, butter and cream cheese in a bowl and then spread it on celery sticks. This is usually the closest I get to cooking. But this year I actually did something with a pan! And heat! (Whoa!) I made (and didn't mess up) Mom's stuffing!! And put it in the bird! (Amusing conversation was had while stuffing said bird when Teresa flipped it over and told me "there's another cavity under here.") Ick. (But dinner was DELICIOUS!)

Greg and I played quite a bit of ping pong that weekend. We were in Branford Thursday night, New Rochelle Friday night, and then back to Branford on Sunday. The reason for the jaunt back to New York was a meeting with the priest that's going to marry us. That went pretty well, except for the part about him not liking that we're planning to wait to have kids. (Um... we're kinda young, and Greg's kinda going to be away for months at a time... we'd kinda like him to, you know, BE THERE when our first child is born!) The first of three, by the way. (That's bound to provoke a post or two from the boy... that is if he reads my blog!! ;-)

The rest of the weekend was fun and relaxing and filled with backgammon and James Bond movies. (No, not the new one- the marathon that Spike TV runs just about every holiday.) We had breakfast with Kate and John who were visiting from Merry Olde. The boys talked about chemistry, the girls talked about knitting. It was fun, but kind of scary. There's that quote from Grey's Anatomy: "We're adults. When did that happen, and how do we make it stop?" Yeah. But it was nice to see Katie-kate. I miss her.

We had an evening out with the Branford gang and some Q.T. with Greg's brother and sister. Good times. J.J. and I got lost in her closet for a little bit while getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. We did our makeup and had all sorts of girl talk, which we don't get to do nearly often enough.

In other news, I'm moving home. Yup- it's official- I'm losing my independence. Actually, this is by my own choice. In addition to saving a load of money on rent before the wedding, living at home will (theoretically) give me the opportunity to merge and purge my stuff. And oh do I have stuff. Stuff happens when the same bedroom has been your home-base for over 20 years (gulp!) and there is 20 years worth of STUFF to either get packed neatly or risk having Mom toss it. (I know there was no way to know that the blue windbreaker from when I was two meant anything to me, but this is why nobody else should get to throw out my stuff! Hmph!)

I think that's about it for now. I'm a Christmas shopping machine these days. It's easy when work is painfully quiet. Too bad it never stays quiet for long.

Footballs and Potatoes and Submarines, Oh My!

Oh, what a weekend!

I took a train down to Annapolis on Friday evening. I somehow planned it so that I would be in Maryland when the storm was knocking out power in New York, and only caught a few hours of the storm down south. Nice.

It was raining pretty hard when Greg picked me up, so he met me downstairs in the New Carrollton station. I had hardly stepped off the escalator when he started laughing... I was still limping badly! (I'm finally better... pretty much... I still can't stand on my toes.)

We wound up taking a major detour home to avoid the traffic on Route 50. We hit Ledo Pizza & Pasta for dinner (mmm... peppers and onions!), then headed back to the apartment to crash.

We woke up Saturday morning and hit the Annapolis mall. We waited for about 15 minutes at Sears for someone to unlock the case of electric clippers, (I'm told that knowing how to cut men's hair is a requirement for Navy wives,) but finally left after no one was able to help up. (Yeah- Sears gets a big thumbs down on customer service. Why put something in a locked case and then not have someone around with the key!) I did, however, finally find a new pair of jeans.

Ok- quick rant: Jeans shopping. Why do they make it so hard?!
I just wanted to replace the pair of Gap jeans I bought about a year and a half ago. I had tried once before and got so frustrated that I left after five minutes. So here's what gets me so upset: First you have to find the style you want (ok- finally found "Long and Lean" on a table, mixed in with three other cuts.) Then you have to find your size (My old pair is an 8-long, though I could be a 6 or a 10 in another cut at the same store!) Then you need the color (and not just the color, but a solid color, please, none of this shiny, glittery denim or the faded stripe down the front nonsense that makes my thighs look 22" round, thank you!) And finally, make sure there are no weird features on this pair that weren't on the other 16 pairs you've already looked at (such as rouched pockets, button fly, no back pockets, no belt loops, tears, slits, frays or other kinds of "wear".) Ugh! So I took a few pairs into the dressing room. The 8-longs fit, the 8-regulars were tight. Same store, same style, same size. I just don't get it. Ugh!!!! ANYWAY!

So, after our mall extravaganza, Greg and I packed up his car with all sorts of coolered goodness and headed over to his Lt.'s house for a pre-football tailgate. We hung out for about an hour (yup- actually an hour!) before the other guys arrived- they had been stuck in parade traffic near the stadium. (The entire Brigade of Midshipmen marches from the Yard to the stadium before every USNA football game. That's about 4,000 people marching about a mile through the narrow streets of Annapolis, plus the thousands of spectators that line up around town to watch and throw candy and snacks to the Mids. It's fun to watch, but I'm told it's not as much fun to participate in.) In any case, the other Ensigns that Greg works with finally arrived with food and a keg, and we had a fun barbecue... even if it was in the drizzling rain.

The highlight of the tailgate, though, was when a pair of F-18 fighter jets zoomed over the house- literally a few hundred feet directly over us! They were on their way to do a flyover at the game: Lt.'s house is on the same line as the end zone, only a few blocks away!

We eventually made our way over to the stadium, a short walk which included a bunch of quasi-drunken Naval officers singing Happy Birthday to my sister Allie. (Happy 22nd, Pipsqueak!)

The game was fun- we arrived just in time for the end of the first half. One of Greg's buddies had some connection that got us into the VIP area, which was pretty sweet. I met the mayor of Annapolis, which was nice, but a little odd. How many people have you ever met who respond "thank you" when you say "nice to meet you"- a bit off, yes? In any case, we scored second row seats in the end zone for the second half- very cool. (Better seats than most of the other 33,000 people there!) Navy beat out East Carolina with a final score of 28 to 23. Go Navy! Beat Army!

With Greg at the game

After the football game, we were all pretty well shot. Greg and I headed back to his apartment to watch a movie, and he made good on his offer of a calf massage.

Oh! Regarding that massage! (If you don't know what I'm talking about, see the comments from my previous post.) After Greg promised to help me out with the ridiculous leg pain that HE CAUSED, he called me up and asked what I was making him for dinner. I explained that he must have read the post wrong: I promised to buy dinner for anyone offering a calf massage, not make dinner. Well, Greg can be stubborn, (I love you!), and he insisted that I make him dinner.

So, the next day (Sunday), Greg had to go sailing with the Navy team. I went to the store and purchased the makings for meatloaf, garlic roast potatoes and Grandma Padin's famous chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Unfortunately, my day of girly domesticity was cut short when Greg and his roommate John arrived home from practice several hours early. In any case, I made the cookies first, which took forever. Not only does Greg's apartment not have an electric mixer... oh, no... they don't even have a wooden spoon! I mixed a full batch of oatmeal cookies with a tablespoon!

The meatloaf and potatoes were easier, and they turned out pretty well. It turns out that the "big" onions that the recipe called for referred to baseball-sized onions, not orange-sized. I used less than the three onions it called for, and the resulting loaf was delicious, if a bit oniony. The potatoes, though, were sheer culinary magic. They were like garlicy candy- I'm going to have to start making those all the time!

By the way, Greg now takes any opportunity he can to quiz me on my Navy Wife training: "Navy officer ranks: go!" He slips this in while we're in the car, while we're grocery shopping, doing dishes... really no place is off limits. (By the way, I've got the officer ranks down cold. The enlisted ones, too. I'm thinking if I get entreprenuery I'm going to market flashcards for Navy fiances.)

On Monday, we went over to the Academy for a tour of the USS Annapolis; a Los Angeles class Fast Attack sub, which is very likely to be the type of boat Greg winds up on. The tour was certainly an education for me! There is next to no space inside a submarine: narrow passageways and absolutely minimal living space. The little 9-man room that Greg will probably be living in for his first few deployments makes my apartment seem palatial! Hell, even my cubicle is big in comparison!

There are switches and gauges and dials and levers everywhere on the boat. Obviously, anything that was classified (such as screens showing depth and speed capability) was covered up, but we still got to see some neat stuff. Get this- the enlisted guys sleep in the torpedo room. Yes, with the torpedoes. As in, if you roll over in the middle of the night, you can cuddle with a giant missile. Freaky. I don't know what I expected torpedoes to look like, but for some reason it surprised me that they're green.

I knew that Greg would have minimal personal storage space, but I'm glad I've seen what "minimal" means so that I don't send him things that are too big. The storage area for personal property under each rack (bed) is about the size of my desk blotter and around three inches deep. There is another little compartment the same size for clothes. Wow. I'm thinking now that when I send Greg care packages, they will include CDs. That way he can have letters and photos and music and whatever else, all in one place, and it won't take up any space. This is, of course, dependent on his getting a lap top, since he'll be sharing computers with other people on the ship and probably won't be able to do things like listen to music on them.

The USS Annapolis

After taking the launch back from the submarine tour, ("Lizzie- the enlisted guy with the crow and single chevron on his sleeve: what's his rank?"), we grabbed lunch in town, then headed back to the apartment for a nap. (Greg has learned that if he's going to get me up early for a Navy thing, it's probably a good idea to let me nap afterward- makes for a happy Lizzie.) It was Greg's turn to cook dinner, so we eventually headed back out to the grocery store for some inspiration. We wound up with a Campbells meal-in-a-box type of kit that yielded some delicious herb chicken, which we rounded out with some frozen corn and leftover potatoes. Yummy. (By the way- the enlisted guy was a Third Class Petty Officer.)

After dinner, Greg took me back to the New Carrollton station to catch a train back to New York. It was a really fun weekend full of lots of goofy "I'm just glad we're here together" moments. We both know we're running out of weekends like this before he heads down to Charleston, so we're making the most of our time together. Next up: Pre-Cana and The Fantasticks, followed by packing up his apartment in Annapolis. Lots of fun still to come.