Anchors Away!

On the leaving of Nathan.

Well, let me just say that sending a son off to "A" school is about a gazillion times easier than sending him off to basic training!

Nathan left yesterday a.m. around 7:30 for his excellent adventure crossing the US with his good friend, Tom, in his almost-like-new truck. He was happy and looking forward to the week to come, as opposed to the Nathan who left last year, knowing he was in for the hardest 8 weeks of his life.

Nathan arrived home last Friday night, Don's birthday!, with Lucille and thirteen loads of laundry. Now, in his defense just let me say that he didn't ask me to do his wash. He was actually quite certain that some of the clothes were already clean. It's just that they were all bundled up together with his dirty clothes in the bed of his truck. It's amazing how people accumulate. Even though Nathan had brought home dribs and drabs of his accumulation from the base in Seattle, his little tricky truck was full of uniforms, civilian clothes, electronics paraphenalia, magazines, the list goes on.

In order to pack it up properly, into all these duffle bags that were also thrown into the mix, everything had to be sorted and laundered. Nathan, bless his heart, emptied his truck onto the driveway and then took Sean to cadets on Saturday morning. That was helpful. Then, because they were playing hockey at cadets, he stayed there for the next 5 hours. Not so helpful.

I should have just left everything "as is" until he came home. Except that I had my own agenda for the upcoming week, namely surgery Monday a.m. and then recovery from then until Nathan left for Virginia. So, I had the weekend to get Nathan to a place where he was packed and organized so he wouldn't need my assistance.

Hence, 13 loads of laundry. Mind you, I'm counting the one load of ODUs, his work uniform, that I had to wash 3 times as three loads. It only seems fair.

By the end of the day my table in the family room was stacked 2-feet high with Nathan's clothes and uniforms. When he got home we went through some of the stuff and found that it no longer fit. Since it was going to be bloody hot in Virginia we shot off to Old Navy with Nick and did a quick shopping trip, netting three new pairs of shorts and a few shirts that don't have Sharks on them. Amazing. I know.

Before Sunday night Nathan had 6 bags packed: a garment bag with his dress uniforms, a seabag with the rest of his uniforms, organized so that he'd only have to unpack the very top of it until he got a permanent A school room, a bag of things he'd want during A school, a bag of civililian clothes he's going to want at his next duty station, a backpack full of all things electronic, from his laptop to his DS, and a bag full of the clothes and toiletries that he'd use while he's on his road trip. We found things he thought he'd lost! We pared down the stuff that he wants to drag around with him...I really feel like he was in great shape when he left here (organizationally speaking). He thanked me profusely for my help, saying something to the effect of, "I couldn't have done that even if I had 13 weeks to prepare for it." So that was nice. But I'm pretty sure he won't need my help like that again.

So, his truck was making a funny noise. Not like funny "ha ha." Like, bad. Thankfully we have a mechanic who we trust absolutely. Someone who is so fair with his pricing that I'm not even sure he makes any money on us. But I digress. Don and Nathan took little tricky truck into see Mr. Quiring Monday morning and found out that he needed to replace the lifter and basically the engine all the way down to the cam shaft. Now, if you're not mechanically inclined, that basically means about $1600. That was the bad news. The good news was that the mechanic was able to do the work last week, even though he had to jump through some hoops ordering US parts, and it's now a very happy truck which should make it to Virginia without problems.

So, back to the story: Nathan left yesterday morning with Tom and they drove as far as Coeur d'Alene, ID yesterday. They were there before 2 so they definitely could have put a few more miles behind them, but they had reservations at a hotel there that was connected to a "family fun park" that had laser tag, go carts, a waterpark, an arcade, a climbing wall, just basically a playground for two guys, so they were able to run off some steam after being seated for a good part of the day. I called them this morning and they said that everything was going great so far, and that the park was awesome. Tonight they stop in Gillette, Wyoming.

Okay, I need to go do a few little things. I'll write more later. Maybe about my surgery. Maybe not.

Love,
Cathi