Life in Military Housing, Part I

When we were in the military and had to live on base, we resided in housing built half a century ago.

Have you ever watched any of the one hundred and eighteen different types of remodeling shows on that home and garden cable channel? Of all those one hundred and eighteen shows, eighty-six have the root word “design” in the title, the remaining thirty-two “decorate.” Whether it’s design or decorate, I loved to watch them all, and dream of the day when I could have a home of my own to do all the things the people on those programs seemed to have so much fun doing.

The camera would follow a house-hunting husband and wife into a cute 1940’s cottage, a cozy 1930’s bungalow, or even a charming 1920’s craftsman house boasting one of them new-fangled Kelvinators, and the enchanted wife would sigh blissfully and say, “I love the rest of the house, especially the hardwood floors . . .”

“I like the detached garage,” the husband chimes in. “It’s the perfect place for me to work on my boat.” Where they currently live, he has no place to work on his boat, which he keeps parked in his friend’s backyard. His friend’s wife would like to see the boat removed and replaced with a koi pond and pergola, but that’s for another program on the same channel.

“But the kitchen really needs updating,” the wife says.

As much as we delight in quaint décor and believe in preserving the past, we women do appreciate having updated kitchens.

By program’s end, they’ve gutted and removed everything that doesn’t date back to next week, and the house that was built during the Coolidge Administration now has a kitchen bearing an uncanny resemblance to the bridge on the Starship Enterprise—the NCC-1701-D model, for those of you Trekkies who tend to be particular about these things.

And somehow, they always manage to do it all for just under two thousand dollars.

You can’t do any of that in military housing. After you move out, and before the next family moves in, the military might put in a new toilet seat . . . for over two thousand dollars.

The house we occupied on base still retained much of its New Deal era charm, though over time, the square footage had been reduced significantly with each new coat of paint applied to the interior walls whenever the house changed hands—usually every two to three years, and always in an off-blah white. Residents were forbidden to be creative and use colored paint or wallpaper. Consistency and uniformity in all areas of our lives, even on our walls—these were the things that kept our happy little Air Force flying.

We were allowed to make minor little improvements—like installing a vanity around a sink that otherwise had nothing beneath it but ugly pipes—but only with the commander’s approval (someone in authority would have to come in and inspect it after it was installed), and only using materials from what was known in the Air Force as the “self-help store.” This was like a hardware store on the base, where everything was free, but you had to be a resident of military housing to patronize it. In keeping with the aforementioned uniformity in all things, you couldn’t choose between Early American or French Provincial or whatever era you were going for. There was only one style available, best described as “Eleanor Roosevelt Colonial.”

Military housing residents could not buy remodeling materials from a hardware or home improvement store off base, because (1) the government would not reimburse you for your purchase, and (2) whatever item you bought there—like replacement tiles for the kitchen or bathroom—would very likely not be a design authorized by the government, and you would be ordered to remove it and reimburse the government for any damage incurred, as well as the cost for replacing it properly.

But who would want to pick out tiles like those used in military housing? All floors still had the original, albeit formerly white tiles flecked with streaks of gray for that cheap faux marble look—though after so many decades, it was hard to distinguish the flecks and streaks from the rest of the tile. This same cold, dull tile was laid all through the house—living room, kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom. We bought lots of area rugs.

Furthermore, what self-respecting off-base establishment of the twenty-first century would stock that hideous design? They probably discontinued selling it after World War II. Yet somewhere, some defense contractor continues manufacturing them exclusively for the military.

Ideally these floors were supposed to be waxed and buffed at least once a week. Ideally. Theoretically. And only if you got down on your hands and knees with a pile of old rags and buffed the floors manually.

It’s one thing having to do that with fifty other people during boot camp—which I did, and it was called a “G.I. Party”—but quite another when you have two active children and a lot of other, more important things to do with your life. Then it’s no party at all.

“For God’s sake, Karen,” you say, “this is the twenty-first century already. Haven’t you ever heard of ‘buffers’?”

Buffers? Oh, those things! Huge electric monsters that spin along the floor and, unless you weigh at least two hundred pounds and bench press twelve thousand, will spin you along with them till your spinal cord is severed. Yes, I’ve heard of them. But hearing of ain’t seeing, and it definitely ain’t having—at least not on a military installation.

Next entry: The Quest for a Floor Buffer

The Laptop is fixed--and all is Write with the World

The repair shop called last Thursday with the news that the replacement screen had come in for my laptop. So we brought them the laptop, and in an unusual burst of optimism, I thought they could replace it right there on the spot.

But no, the clerk said, “It should be ready this evening or sometime tomorrow.”

That’s what I get for trying to see the glass as half full. I keep telling all you perky and peppy, cheery and chirpy Pollyannas there’s something to be said for pessimism. It saves you so much disappointment.

It wasn’t ready by that evening. Nor was it ready the next day, and I started going through severe withdrawal. I couldn’t write. Everything I had was on the laptop. And while it was backed up on zip drive, what could I do with Mr. Zippy? Mr. Lucky’s desktop no longer had a word processing program, because several months ago, the desktop crashed and everything on it was lost. Even my website. Oh, it’s still there, if you click on the link. But Mr. Lucky says he’ll have to rebuild it from scratch before I can post any updates to it. He never backed it up and has no record of the exact colors, etc.

AARRGH!!!

Miraculously, I could still do e-mail and surf the Internet on the desktop. At least now I had a guilt-free good excuse to goof off at all my favorite goof-off sites.

On Saturday afternoon I came home from TARA, freshly motivated to do some serious writing. But the computer repair shop still hadn’t called, and they were closed on Sundays. I was started to get frazzled. I felt as if I were missing a vital body part.

Monday was my birthday, and Mr. Lucky took me to lunch at my favorite restaurant, The Olive Garden. We didn’t tell them it was my birthday, because I didn’t want the entire staff coming out and crowding around our booth to bang pots and sing songs or anything else that would call attention to me and the new ring around my trunk.

Afterward, Mr. Lucky suggested swinging by the computer repair shop to see if my laptop was ready, since it seemed they were never going to call. Sure enough, it was all set. Whereas the old screen was no-glare, the new one is shiny. I was worried I’d see my reflection in it every time I opened it, but my fears were unfounded. Once it boots up, it looks no different than the no-glare.

And I started writing again. And writing. Writing!

Getting it back was the best part of my birthday. Well, maybe next to The Olive Garden’s Black Tie Mousse Cake.

Guess Whose Birthday?

You Are a Philosopher

You're incredibly introverted and introspective. You live inside your head. You spend a lot of alone time meditating and thinking. People see you as withdrawn, and at times they are right. You are caring and deep, but it may be difficult for you to show this side of yourself. Your strength: Your original approach to thinking Your weakness: You tend to shy away from others Your power color: Pale blue Your power symbol: Wavy line Your power month: July

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

My Laptop Screen Burns Out

I am a neurotic fiend about closing my laptop if I think I’m going to be away from it for more than 15-20 minutes. Part of the reason for this is to make it less attractive to the marauding Baby Bear, who on at least one occasion flipped Mr. Lucky’s open laptop to the floor.

My laptop is three years old and one of my prized possessions, so I treat it as I would a piece of fine crystal or delicate porcelain. It’s never even been out of the house except when I took it to a TARA writers’ retreat in Sarasota last year. I usually work at a desk, but occasionally I’ll unplug the laptop from the AC adapter and sit in an armchair with it.

That’s exactly what I did on Thursday when I made my last blog entry, and the screen started flashing and flickering in a very annoying manner. It stopped when I set it back on the desk and plugged it back in. Mr. Lucky surmised it might be the battery. Yet he replaced it only three months ago.

At 5:30 pm, I left the laptop and locked my office (again, to keep out Baby Bear who’s always ransacking Mr. Lucky’s). I cooked dinner, we ate the dinner, watched the news and a couple of Seinfeld reruns followed by Survivor (some of those people would never last in the military); then at 9 pm I returned to my office.

To my dismay, I’d left my laptop wide open for over three hours—something I never did—and the screen was black.

I tapped buttons, closed the lid and opened it again; I even rebooted it—but no picture lit up the screen. Not even the computer geekery of Mr. Lucky could bring it back to life. The screen was kaput.

Of course, I was convinced this happened because I left it open all that time—never mind Mr. Lucky leaves his own laptop agape 24/7. He declared it was going to happen no matter what, and it was probably just as well that it fizzled out when it did. Had it done so when I was in the middle of writing something, I might have lost the work, since I couldn’t see anything to save it.

Which brings us to the inevitable awkward moment all writers have at one time or another: “You do have everything backed up, don’t you?” he asked, in a tone of voice that clearly indicated he already knew the answer was, “Of course not, because I’m a lazy procrastinating idiot who never learns.”

Only the current WIP wasn't backed up, but all was not lost if it was, in fact—well, lost. I’ve only written four chapters and a “sucknopsis” as Anne-Marie so aptly puts it; my critique partner has seen three of them as well as the sucknopsis, and her corrected copies were still in my e-mail folder (I never clean out my e-mail folder, either). At worst I’d have to rewrite Chapter 4 off the top of my head.

I’ve had to rewrite whole chapters off the top of my head before. It’s no fun, though it still beats cleaning soap scum off the shower tiles.

The next day, Mr. Lucky took it to a computer repair place where he’s done business before, and they determined it needed new bulbs, yet it would be cheaper just to replace the whole screen.

Until the new screen arrives, he’s hooked up his desktop monitor to my laptop. Watching him do this nearly freaked me out. He opened my laptop flat—I’ve never opened my laptop flat before—and I almost screamed as if he were King Solomon about to rip my baby in half. (I know what my problem is—I don’t have enough chocolate in my diet.)

“It’s designed to do that,” he assured me.

Yes, but why? I can only think of one reason to open your laptop flat, and that’s so you can hook it up to a desktop monitor because your laptop screen burned out after you carelessly left it open for more than three hours. Mr. Lucky: "FOR THE LAST TIME--" (in his dreams) "--THAT'S NOT WHY IT BURNED OUT!"

Either way, those computer geeks think of everything, don't they?

Since the problem was only the screen, no work was lost. But having been chastened by this event (which is not to say I've finally learned the importance of always backing up work), I promptly added the WIP to the zip drive.

Mr. Lucky's final piece of sage advice? "Don't try moving all of this to your armchair."

He thinks of everything, too--except securing his own keep against the incursions of a certain Bear.

Baby Bear's Gone Wild

The autistic Baby Bear is prone to head banging. Unfortunately, he's so good at it that over time he's managed to put holes through the drywall in his bedroom, which Mr. Lucky patched as seen below:

As you can see, Baby Bear has a system. He bangs till he makes one hole, then he steps to one side and starts work on another, till he's banged out a nice row of holes.

More recently, he's taken to lying on his bed and kicking his feet against the wall, leaving these lower holes:

Clearly, drywall and Baby Bears do not mix. We've searched the usual home improvement places in hopes of replacing his walls with wood panels, reminiscent of the paneling that was so fashionable in the '60's and '70's. But we can't find it anywhere, anymore than we can find shag carpeting, orange polyurethane chairs, or kitchen appliances in our choice of Avocado, Harvest Gold, or Coppertone.

Yet the local oldies station still plays disco on Saturday nights.

In the meantime, we're settling for this:

Eventually, I'd like to see the boards painted, perhaps in different colors. They're thicker than the paneling I remember from my childhood, so with luck they'll be more impervious to Bear's hard head and big feet. And even if we'd found the more attractive (and undoubtedly more expensive) paneling, I would still be concerned that eventually he'd break through it and then we'd have a major splinter problem.

If this doesn't work, our next stop is a brick wall and a cask of Mr. Poe's best Amontillado--for me, of course!

Welcome to My Blog, I'm Married

Mr. Lucky came in from walking the dogs and said we had a New Neighbor, a chatty woman moving into a house down the street. He didn’t even have to inquire, “Is there a Mr. New Neighbor?” She eagerly volunteered the fact that she was divorced, and he was bewildered by her alacrity in doing so.

I had a ready explanation for that. “She’s letting you know she’s available. Remember what happened the last time some woman told you she was available? It was only twenty-one years, three kids, and two mortgages ago.” He, for his part, never got around to telling Ms. New Neighbor he was already leg-shackled; he’s not one to offer his CV to every stranger he meets.

I explained how she must have assumed he’s a lonely bachelor with no one for love and companionship except two beagles. He never wears his wedding ring because he keeps losing it, so there’s no telltale tan line on his finger. The ring is safe in my jewelry box, and lest any of you scandalmongers out there think he keeps losing it because of some subconscious desire to be a bachelor again, remind me to blog someday about Mr. Lucky’s penchant for losing (or “misplacing” as he likes to sugarcoat it) anything of value. He doesn’t even own a watch for this very reason, but I digress. Ms. New Neighbor will learn the ghastly truth soon enough.

But I confess I’m just as perplexed, and even alarmed by women—like my own mother—who volunteer such personal information to strangers.

My parents divorced when I was sixteen. About a week after the divorce was final, the water heater sprang a leak, and my mother called a repairman who’d never been to the house before. This stranger had barely reached the bottom of the basement stairs when Mother—a notorious extrovert—told him she was recently divorced.

Now what in the name of Marvin Mitchelson did that have to do with the leaky water heater? I couldn’t have been more shocked than if she’d turned to me and my siblings and said, “Kids, say hello to your new stepdaddy!” (Which, thank heavens, never happened.) Even more baffling, over the previous year our parents’ divorce was The Big Secret: We weren’t allowed to say a peep about it to anyone, not even the grandparents—who I remain convinced to this day were the last people on the planet to know. And now here she was singing the whole opera to some strange man in our basement!

During that same time period, I’d just received my driver’s license and was very interested in buying a car. Scanning the classified ads, I noticed many of those placed by women included the word divorce. They had to sell the cars because they were going through a divorce. I didn’t understand—and still don’t—why any woman would include that information, unless she was also on the prowl for a new guy. Ads were sold by the word, so mentioning a divorce had to cost extra money. Maybe trumpeting her new availability while hawking the used car saved money on buying a separate ad under the personals. Still, there must be a better, safer way to meet a new Prince Charming.

Call me paranoid (it won’t be the first time), but there are lots of wackos out there, and for all Ms. New Neighbor or even my mother knew, Mr. Lucky and the water heater repairman could have been Exhibits A and B.

To his credit, Mr. Lucky didn’t come away from this encounter with the smug feeling he’s “still got it.” He said she was about my age, but he thinks I look younger and better.

Sounds like someone wants cake and ice cream for dessert!

I Got My Chocolate, So What More Do I Want?

Every year, around the first of February, Mr. Lucky points out that Valentine’s Day is coming up. “What do you want?” he always asks.

And my response is always, “A big heart-shaped box of chocolate—that I can have all to myself!”

I have to add those last seven words, or he’ll break into the box before I do and devour two-thirds of the contents before leaving the rest for me. Usually he’ll buy an extra box for himself.

Then last Thursday, Mr. Lucky and I got into a terrible, screaming argument, so awful that we didn’t speak to each other for nearly a week. Depending on whose side you’re on, the fight was either about my total lack of patience or his failure to show up at the time I specified.

Suffice it to say I’m a stickler for punctuality, while outside of work he basks in his very own time zone. This has been a never ending source of conflict during twenty-one years of marriage, more than the sex, money, or dirty socks touted by the women’s magazines. I doubt we will ever find common ground on this issue. It wasn’t the first skirmish in this volatile territory, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

But the timing of this particular fight—only two days before Valentine’s Day—left me with the cold, sickening realization that I’d probably just screwed myself out of any goodies the following Saturday.

O me of little faith! After he left for work early Saturday morning, I got out of bed and went into the kitchen to find a heart-shaped box of chocolates sitting on the counter. It was very plain, with no lace or bows or plastic roses. At least it wasn’t the one I’d seen at Walgreens earlier in the week, that boasted a sepia picture of a scowling old grouch with the snarling inscription, “Here are your chocolates—what more do you want?”

Mr. Lucky left no note with the chocolates. No mushy card. No teddy bear. No flowers. No balloons. No jewelry. No faux Faberge eggs. No fishing tackle, golf clubs, or the Bowflex Ultimate X-Treme Deluxe Digital Family Gym for Home, Office, or Still in Its Original Box Under the Bed. (“Fine, Karen. If you don’t want them, then I can always find a use for them.”) And—thank heavens—no weird lingerie for me to string and lace and hook around my body. It’s not that I have anything against sexy lingerie. I just happen to know other, more dignified ways to make him fall to the floor laughing.

One of my TARA sisters, upon hearing the gorier details of this sordid tale, said I should have told him where to put the chocolates.

Good advice and very tempting, but in the end (ahem) I couldn’t do it. For one thing, if I didn’t eat them—HE would have! And he wouldn’t have felt the least bit guilty about it, either. Why, he would have considered himself the victor then and there. For all I know, he was even hoping I would reject the chocolates, just so he could have them all to himself.

And for another thing, I can’t possibly turn my back on chocolate. Not on any principle or for any cause. Besides, I’d earned them. So I ate them.

The important thing is we’re speaking again—oh, and that I still got the chocolate.

What My Candy Heart Says

Your Candy Heart Says "Hug Me"

A total sweetheart, you always have a lot of love to give out. Your heart is open to where ever love takes you! Your ideal Valentine's Day date: a surprise romantic evening that you've planned out Your flirting style: lots of listening and talking What turns you off: fighting and conflict Why you're hot: you're fearless about falling in love

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

When Dogs Attack Window Blinds

When Mr. Lucky and I came home from shopping yesterday, this was what we saw in our front window:
This was obviously the work of our beagles, who attack the blinds in this way only when a stranger comes to the door.

We don't know how many times the stranger rang the bell, but it wasn't the postman, as no packages were left behind, nor did we find any notices in the mailbox.

It wasn't one of those people who hang advertisements on the doorknob, because nothing hung there, nor did anything hang from the neighbors' doorknobs.

Most likely it was one of those pesky salespeople who thought the better of leaving his or her card for fear I'd track them down and make them pay for new blinds. Especially since I probably won't be kindly disposed toward buying their vacuum cleaner with 64 attachments, all of which will end up at the bottom of Baby Bear's toybox.

It may even have been that red-headed woman from some carpet cleaning company who shows up every few months, asking which room of our house gets the most traffic. I keep telling her "the whole house" but she insists I pick a room and she'll clean it for free--after which I should be so amazed by the results that I simply can't let her leave the premises until I sign a contract agreeing to let her do the rest of the house for as much as we're paying on the mortgage.

I took both these photos. The first one is crooked because--well, sheesh! YOU try finding a picture in that LCD screen when the sun is glaring directly behind you! Mr. Lucky might have done better with it, since he's a photographer by profession, but alas, he tends to take after the cobbler with the barefoot children.

By the same token, I didn't think the interior shot was much better. He told me afterward that I should have used a flash (I thought I did); still, the artistic side of him said he liked this shot because of what he called the play of light (call me an Impressionist photographer) spilling through the blinds:


Mind you, we used to keep these blinds raised above the six bottom panes for the sole purpose of allowing the dogs to bark at passers-by and callers without destroying them (the blinds, not the callers). But recently the cord broke and we could no longer raise them.

The dogs left these in such a tangled mess of destruction that Mr. Lucky took scissors and cut off the bottom half of the blinds.

"But now I can't lower the blinds when it gets dark out," I told him. "And I won't be able to sit in my reading chair in the evenings, unless you don't mind people looking through the window at my legs."

"Put on those fishnet stockings I gave you for your birthday, and wear a lampshade," he suggested.

In his dreams and my nightmares. My plan is to replace the sheer curtains--which are more decorative than functional--with more opaque ones.

The same goes for those fishnet stockings.

I Don't Mind the Snow, Except . . .

Georgiana usually liked the snow.

She liked how the snowflakes fluttered like bits of lace torn from the gowns of angels amid an odd hush, as if the snow were a thick white blanket muffling the world’s noises.

She liked the way the snow shone through the windows at midday, lighting up the room brighter than any chandelier. And she especially liked it when the sun came out and set the snow all aglitter, sparkling like a frosty fairyland of diamonds.

The above is an excerpt from one of my unpublished Regency historicals. Like Georgiana, those are things I like about the snow. And I like it as long as I don’t have to be in a car, whether as driver or passenger. I also like it as long as the power doesn’t go out. That’s where my heroine and I part company. Georgiana didn’t have electricity, but she still liked the snow—usually.

When I turn on the news in the evening and see what the snow is doing to other parts of the country, I’m glad to live in Florida. I’m glad I don’t have to bundle up Baby Bear like Mrs. Parker did to Randy in A Christmas Story, then worry that he’s going to take everything off once he’s outside. And I’m glad I don’t have to nag Mr. Lucky to shovel the front walk or get the snow tires put on before the first flurries fly.

I have a hang-up about the latter. I grew up in Washington State, where my father owned a service station in my hometown—this was back in the days before they morphed into self-service pumps and convenience stores. At the first flutter of a snowflake, everyone in town would mob my father’s business, wanting their snow tires put on that very day.

I learned from that. After I grew up and was on my own, I never wanted to be caught in the snow without the snow tires on and the engine winterized. When I was in the Air Force stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, WA, I took my Chevy in to be winterized the first weekend of November, even though there was still no sign of snow, because I wanted to avoid the rush. Indeed, the manager told me that on the first snowfall the previous winter, they were so swamped with customers wanting their snow tires mounted that same day, that the employees didn’t even realize there were local news cameras present, making a story out of the chaos. They didn't know till they went home that night and saw themselves on TV.

I was reminiscing about this the other day when Mr. Lucky looked at me funny and said, “Snow tires?”

Except for the three years he spent in Germany while in the Air Force, my husband has never lived anywhere above 40 degrees latitude north. Apparently he knows about chains, but not snow tires. And that’s not all: I learned the first winter of our marriage (in Germany) that he knew next to nothing about scraping ice off a windshield.

I've made up a lot of stuff about Georgiana, but I swear to you, I am not making this up about Mr. Lucky.

He didn’t scrape--he chipped, one flake of frost at a time. Maybe he thought the scraper would scratch the windshield. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and had never been so annoyed with him before. “For crying out loud, it’s not an ice chipper,” I told him. “It’s an ice scraper. GIMME THAT!” I could scrape the ice off every window of the car in less than three minutes; he was going to take three hours just for the driver’s side of the windshield. But he wouldn’t let me have the scraper. He insisted on doing it in his own way, and ordered me to sit in the car and wait. And sit. And wait. And seethe. And—I popped out of the car again and tackled him. “Give that to me and let me do it!”

Honestly. The way he was doing it, why even bother? Why didn’t we just wait for spring to come and melt everything away? I finally managed to wrest the ice scraper away from him, and I showed him the Northern way of doing it. (I may also have told him this was another reason the South lost, because you can't scrape an icy windshield with cotton and a lot of arrogance--just ask Rhett Butler.)

Mr. Lucky's explanation today for not wanting to let me have the scraper? “It’s a man thing.”

And like my heroine, there’s one last thing I don’t like about the snow:

But Georgiana didn’t like it when it kept people from venturing out of doors. Especially when three days went by before Anthony came calling again. The snow that had fallen upon his first visit had turned into lumpy, grayish-brown slush that reminded her of a bad batch of mashed turnips.

I don’t miss the slush, either.