HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BABY

My husband and I just celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary yesterday - apart, as usual.

It's difficult today to even imagine that tall and skinny couple we were, although I have the photos to prove it... and Photoshop wasn't even invented back then.


Living in college married housing.

Driving across country with a Vega and a trailer with all of our household belongings in it.

Surviving on an enlisted military salary - being eligible for welfare at the same time you are in the Army now.

Flying to Europe pregnant and with a 16 month old toddler.

Living in British military quarters - nothing is designed for anyone over 5'3" - and holding all leadership positions in a brand-new English-speaking branch.

Moving  from Europe to Hawaii, and living there for six years - the last year completely separated geographically from each other.

Ten years in Maryland - another seven years apart 80% of the time, including the first Gulf War. Retirement from the military and right into the civilian government positions.

Move to Arizona for another job and Hope's health.

I wonder what will happen over the next 32 years... and I have to admit, I hope ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!

YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW

Pre-1984, the concept of living in Hawaii ranked right in there along with images of hiking the entire Appalachian Trail, riding a camel across the Sahara, or climbing Mt. Everest.

People did it, there were pictures in the National Geographic to prove it.

But it wasn’t something that I would ever go or do.

People did live in Hawaii - I knew there were military assignments there - but it was like waiting for a bus that ain’t never, ever gonna come to your stop.

Plus the Army had not proven to be extremely reliable for our family over the past six years.

Bill was scheduled to go to Ft. Ord, in Monterey, California - beautiful coastal landscape that runs below San Francisco - as soon as he completed the M.P. training in Alabama.

Instead, we went to Ft. Riley, Kansas.

Bill got orders for Okinawa, an island south of Japan.

Then suddenly we were going to Giessen... West Germany.

But then the office in Giessen was bombed.

So we ended up in Duesseldorf.

I figured if we requested Hawaii, we would end up in Arkansas - Alaska - or Guam.

I seriously refused to believe it. Until the plane landed in Honolulu in June 1984.

CRIME AND MAIL

My daughter has a mailbox. A real one.

Out on her curb. Has the little red flag and everything.

And I thought they were illegal now.

When I was in college (yes, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth), the apartment complexes had those skinny envelope boxes that opened with an annoyingly small key. I quickly found out that (in my complex, at least) my key would also open every third mailbox, but that's another story for another time.

In Germany, our mail came through the American Field Office - sometimes in three days - most often three months - one letter was actually over a year late. But it came into Germany in Heidelberg, routed through our embassy at Koln, where the British picked it up for us and dropped it off at the office where my husband worked.

So no mailboxes at all.

Since then, most places we've lived have a ''panel' of mailboxes, making it less trouble for the mail deliverer. Saving time and gas, I guess. And there are four largish boxes when they can lock up any boxes delivered, and then leave the key for that in your mailbox.

Where I live now, that makes sense. I mean, our roads are bad ("how bad are they, Hope?") they are bad enough that the local newspaper (well, local by 18 miles) refuses to deliver out here.

Our nest of mailboxes alone probably cover 10 square miles. Yes, not acres - heck, I live on 8, but MILES.

No one ever explained to me, growing up, that mailboxes were not your own. We left notes for other people, that's how you got Tupperware invitations out, birthday cards for someone local... then someone told me it's a federal CRIME to put ANYthing in a mailbox.

So either way I'm looking at some serious time in the federal pen, aren't I?

ARIZONA ROCKS

I am biased, I freely admit. Is there a word or phrase that encompasses state loyalty far beyond any normal parameters - perhaps area allegiance? Country commitment?

Let me explain.

Yes, I know, you were afraid I would say that. ;-)

I am proud of being a native Californian - I'm even prouder of being a Southern Californian who left Los Angeles county many many moons ago. And I'm a little egotistical, perhaps, about being a Hawaiian by adoption. I will happily claim ties to Michigan as both my parents were Michiganders (I just love that word).

However, I will only tersely admit that I lived in Maryland, and if pushed, will acknowledge that I spent 9.5 years beyond what I would want in the area. I never admit that I spent two years in Utah (although I do freely talk about going to BYU - maybe since 'Happy Valley' is located in a alternate reality...). Germany becomes 'Europe' (it sounds so much grander.... and I did regularly drive to the Netherlands, and twice drove into Belgium... by accident).

But Arizona? Oh, yes, I am an Arizonian. I must admit right now that I do stress that I do NOT live in the desert, I live in 'high chaparral' at 5,000 feet elevation, Arizona is not just all Phoenix, I live three miles from the Mexican border and far enough in the boondocks that we don't have cable television.

SO - I have two things to brag about - Barack Obama (Hawaii) and Janet Napolitano (Arizona). In case you haven't been watching the news, that is the President-elect, and newly selected Secretary of Homeland Security in Obama's cabinet.

YAHOO!!! My states ROCK!

GUTEN PUTENSCHNITZEL

A friend's blog asked about Thanksgiving memories, and while I assume she is asking about happy Thanksgiving memories, I began writing about unusual Thanksgiving memories, and then realized I had a perfectly good topic for my own blog.

Sorry, Annette - you just lost a comment but I gained a blog entry.

Thanksgiving of 1981, we were living in Dusseldorf, West Germany (in 1981 there was still a wall in dividing Berlin), I had given birth to our second child the month before (at a British military hospital, which someday will be an extremely long blog entry in its own right) in Munchengladbach (my daughter has to deal with the spelling and how to pronounce that city name for her entire life, don't you feel sorry for her?).

And, as one of few American families in Dusseldorf, and the only active LDS family (although we did have a wonderful family of RLDS that attended regularly), we had become sort of the alternate mission-home to a large amount of full-time American LDS missionaries working in Duesseldorf.

I'd like to think they flocked to our gracious home because of the naturally spiritual and uplifting atmosphere which occured there.

But in reality, it was because 1) we were already LDS , and 2) didn't have to be convinced about not drinking beer (although after drinking German public water, sometimes beer did sound good) and 3) did always have non-alcoholic beverages...

and 4)

(and here is where the drum roll comes in)... We had access to....

AMERICAN FOOD. At least after a two-hour ride to another country where there was the nearest American military commissary.

And wild and exotic things like....

KRAFT MACARONI AND CHEESE

HERSHEY / NESTLE CHOCOLATE CHIPS (German and Swiss Chocolate are entirely different organism from our sweet stuff)

MILK that needs to be refrigerated and does not sit in a carton on your shelf for two months before you use it.

RICE KRISPY TREATS - I can't really remember whether the type of cereal or the marshmallows was impossible to get in West Germany, but man, did the missionaries love 'em.

And since we had an apartment full of Americans almost every night (and afternoon and even sometimes in the morning), it was somehow assumed that we would do the entire Thanksgiving dinner deal.

Okay, right.

HOWEVER - do you know that it is possible to get LIVE turkeys in German, but not possible to get a dead one that's been de-feathered and gutted and all that.

There are no pumpkins or cans of pumpkin stuff that you can make pies from. There are a lot of squashes and things like squashes that you can cook for hours and hours and then smash and mash and add all the seasonings and THEN put it all together in a pie.

Stuffing? Are you kidding? Stove-Top was patented in 1975, but the Germans hadn't caught on to it by 1981. So... stale bread, a lot of herbs, bake that stuff, then stick it in the turkey... once you've de-feathered and gutted the bird.....

'Nuff said. It wasn't easy, it's wasn't very pretty, but it got DONE.

Now, if memory serves correctly, we invited our Scottish neighbor Maggie because she was interested in American customs and wanted to see how we celebrated Thanksgiving. And it didn't hurt the missionaries' time sheets any that she wasn't a member of the church (tick off 'time fellow shipping investigator' for five hours on November 24, 1981).

We ate, and ate, and ate, as only eight American boys aged 19-22 , a nursing mother, a two-year old, an adult who reached 30 just as he was introduced to German cooking on an expense account and a healthy Scotswoman.

And it all was happy and fun... until one of the dear, polite Mormon elders leaned back in his chair, slapped his stomach in contentment, and said, "Man! Am I stuffed!"

"WHAT?!?" cried Maggie.

"I just said that I'm full," replied the surprised elder.

Maggie turned to me and demanded, "Are you going to allow talk like that in your home?!?"

Lesson No. 1 - Different languages, especially languages that are called the SAME, such as English, have different definitions to the exact same word.

"Stuffed" in American English means... well, stuffed.

"Stuffed" in Great Britain English, which is an entirely different language, means "F*****" multiplied by a factor of 10 and somehow involves your mother and the legitimacy of your birth and wearing of army boots.

And "Full" is just as bad, if not worse.

There. That's my most memorable Thanksgiving.

So... how stuffed was your own Thanksgiving?