Tuesday Random 5: Of Deployments and Disaster

Hoo boy, Fellow Adventurers. It has been a week. A long week. The first week of The International Man of Intrigue’s deployment has been a bit of a shitshow. Who’d expect anything else? Let’s get to it, shall we?

1. Laura Ingalls Wilder got double casts on her legs the day before The International Man of Intrigue flew out. She’s a habitual toe-walker (with no root cause), and her Achilles tendon was getting worryingly tight. She’s done well with the double casts, and got her second set today. We were granted a temporary handicap tag for parking, which has been a help, on the rare times there is actually a handicap spot open. In Hawaii, that’s few and far between. The process to get the tag involved me driving, alone, to the DMV. I realized that I’m a mom with entirely too little time to myself when I rejoiced and came back raving about how nice it was to go to the DMV alone.

2. Less than 48 hours after The International Man of Intrigue left, Arthur Dent and Amelia Earhart rode their scooters down the hill to get the mail. A few minutes later, my phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize. I answered, and it was a mother on the line. Arthur Dent crashed and burned and I needed to come down. I jogged down the hill to find him covered in blood. His hands were red. His shirt had rivulets of blood running down the Star Wars saying on the front. It was decidedly not good. After getting a debrief from the mom nursing him, I realized I’d need someone to drive us the block home. Neighbors were called, cuts were cleaned. In the end, he had an enormous goose egg on his forehead, despite having a helmet on, and a small cut on his chin. It was deep enough to produce lots of blood. He also had a major abrasion on his side, and smaller ones on his shoulder and knees. In short, the kid was a hot mess. I glued his chin with skin glue, held it together with a butterfly bandage, and stuck a regular band aid on top of all that to keep it clean. He slept with me so I could watch for symptoms of concussion. Five days later, he’s in pretty good shape, but it remains to be seen if he’ll be sporting a Harrison Ford scar on his chin. If so, I may have to change his name from Arthur Dent to Indiana Jones.

3. This last week, I’ve worked hard to strike a balance between “I need to stay informed,” and “I can’t take any more of this” regarding current events. I think I’m doing pretty well, but some days I really do have to tune out. 

4. Speaking of tuning out, I’m having a hard time finding something to watch in the evening. My awesome friend works on the show “Bloodline,” so I’ve been working through that, but I can only do an episode a night, since it’s kind of dark. Last night I watched an episode of “Santa Clarita Diet” on Netflix, and actually laughed out loud. It’s a bit gory, but definitely worth watching.

5. Through Arthur Dent’s crash, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s casts, and all the other nonsense in just the first week of deployment, I have been ridiculously blessed. That’s not a word I throw around lightly. I’m not of the “hashtag blessed” crowd. All this week, I’ve had so much support from near and far. My “squad” here delivered a big basket of goodies on the first morning, and rallied to help me with Arthur Dent’s accident. Cards and treats and gift cards have crowded my mailbox and little messages of encouragement have popped up in my inbox, text messages, and on Facebook. Shout out to you all. It means more than you know.