Subwife – SarahRuthSeeks

Some Kailua sights

September 22, 2021 No Comments

I had a day last week I was feeling pretty low, but I still try really hard to push myself to get some fresh air. So I decided to take my camera and walk around “downtown” Kailua before grabbing food at the Thursday market. I have to say that Hawaii does a great job of making things “pretty”, or visually appealing. You’ll find mosaics scattered every where.

Here’s a fun directional sign.

And here’s Whole Foods.

I appreciate the tropical feel of our little town.

I’ve had an emotional few days… there are a lot more politics involved in this Navy life than I could’ve ever imagined. A lot of not knowing who to trust, who’s got who’s back… it gets confusing and frustrating, honestly. We’re all supposed to be in this together. Everything is fine, no one is in trouble or under any harm, but even the smallest things can seemingly explode! I will add that it has made me vehemently opposed to staying in longer than Brian’s retirement. Usually, Brian’s here to talk me off these emotional ledges… but alas, here I am ready to jump!

Anyway, a particularly difficult communication issue is that I’ve heard three hundred different dates for Brian’s homecoming. They are anywhere from the beginning of one month to the beginning of the next… I really want to tell people to take me off the return homecoming date rumor mill train and just let me know when I need to show up to pick him up. It makes things really hard emotionally and rollercoastery…. will he be here for this event? He asked me to make reservations again somewhere… should I push those back?

I think being far from family and having no kids has thankfully put me away from being pestered about when he will come home (I mean my family never pesters anyway 😉 ) Which is good, because most often I’m not thinking about it… I’m just thinking about what I can do to make my day go faster and feel less lonely. But the answer, anyway, will almost always be “I don’t know”. And probably for the better, because as we know the Russians are always listening. “loose lips sink ships”.

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Bowfin Sub Museum

September 13, 2021 No Comments

I dropped off my friend at the airport at 3:45pm, and in the name of killing time and going on adventures I decided to go to the USS Bowfin submarine museum. It was AWESOME. It was recently re-done and re-opened in February, it looks like. I decided to make us members there… Brian doesn’t get in for free. You’ll find that military rates are weird… Anyway, I only had an hour, so I went into the submarine first.

It was HOT inside. Thankfully there were fans. Here are the infamous beds on top of the torpedo tubes.

Old school submerge check list and CPR instructions.

Here’s a dump of fun gauges and rooms. Can’t forget the old school mixer!

The great thing about Hawaii is that tourists with real cameras aren’t usually very far. I snagged one to take a picture of me to show the size of the holes. So small!

Coming back outside, from the bow you can see the USS Missouri and Arizona Memorial

The other side.

I was running out of time, so when I got to the actual museum part the exhibit guide told me to go right to the WWII stuff. It was amazing, and I learned a lot.

They used to have flags indicating how many targets they hit

They had a thing to look through that mimic’d a periscope. You were supposed to identify what ship you see. The mini models are there to show you the differences. There’s a running joke about submariners and how they can pick out what type of war ship is in front of them from a blurry profile through a periscope but can’t find the ketchup in the fridge. And if that isn’t true about Brian I don’t know what is. I guess he’s skilled where it counts.

Please, God, let there be no WWIII.

There was lots to see outside as well! I was running out of time, though.

I thought they did an AMAZING job on this display. The one problem was there was a display exhibit in front of it… so you can’t really get a good dead on picture.

I think this is the size of the biggest submarine hull in operation. As I was walking out I caught another tourist with a big camera and she took this. She thanked me and Brian for our service. I said honestly it feels like I serve sometimes. Also, people, help a girl out and tell me I’m not in the middle.

I emailed Brian to tell him it kinda felt like I was at work with him. He said he has it a little roomier and cooler, but similar 😉

Will have to go back to really absorb the museum part fully.

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BSC – OLD post

September 13, 2021 No Comments

**This is very delayed. I might’ve forgot to post it, I’m supposed to wait >24hrs after they leave port… and here we are probably 3 weeks after, ha. Whoops!

Brief stop for…. commodities? On Monday, Brian’s boat was in port for a quick re-stock before they leave for a long time. Of all days it happened, we were having a tropical storm side swipe Hawaii. Also, COVID cases are really high in Hawaii. However, the captain really pushed for us to be able to see them. So, with vaccination card in tow and mask on, we went to the docks and saw our sailors.

It felt like a whirlwind. We spent ~2hrs together. I was SOAKED and turned my heated seats on on the way home (yes, in Hawaii). There was no avoiding the rain with all the wind. We were surrounded by 50 of our closest friends *sarcasm*. But, I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to see my husband. I didn’t even get a selfie of us, but I took this of him as I was leaving. He’s carrying two bags of goodies and a bag of uniforms.

Hopefully that’ll help him get through the next few months. He didn’t ask for much because he didn’t want to stress me out, so I guessed. He got graham crackers, coke zero, Aloha Drinks (it’s a hawaiian juice, basically hawaiian punch but different flavors), more cards, other drink powder, mints, gum, chocolate, I feel like there was more but I am spacing. For the uniforms, I had to drop them off at the uniform shop to get those silver bars sewn on the collar. Thank God for the workers there who know their stuff, because I brought the pin version of the bars in and the two uniforms and said I need the patch version of these sewn on, and they knew what to look for and what to do. So they did that for me. Brian was borrowing another set of these from a friend, and didn’t ask me to go get more sewn for him because he didn’t want to bother me too much, but I just guessed he’d want more. I think he’s adjusting to having a wife to help him. I felt that he should return the other set, too. They’re called coveralls, or informally “poopie suits”. They’re the “we’re getting our hands dirty and no one is going to see us” uniforms, typically. Brian was going to change into their more formal green camo ones, but “I figured I was only seeing you”. Whatever that means!

Here’s another fun thing about the uniform. You can barely see it, but attached to his belt is a personal radiation detector. It’s supposed to monitor how much radiation he’s being exposed to. It’s called a TLD, thermal luminescent dosimeter. Here are some first hand accounts about it. And here’s a huge paper about a study done about their exposure rates. (It’s low).

Brian has only good things to report about the command climate. He says there can be some communication issues, but communication is really difficult in general anyway, particularly with all the craziness always going on. He has assured me it’s nothing unusual or crazy so far. He keeps telling me how much sleep he’s getting because it’s a big concern of mine, and he’s doing ok.

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Surprise!

August 27, 2021 No Comments

In July, was invited to a wedding in Newport, RI on Aug. 27th. At the time, it felt like we had just arrived in Hawaii, I wasn’t really eager to get on a plane again, and Brian wasn’t going to be coming with me.

Well, when the Navy threw a wrench into my plans and took Brian a year sooner than I thought for deployment, the thought occurred to me I could go to that wedding, kill some time, visit family, etc. etc. To add some extra excitement, I decided to keep it a surprise from my parents. So here’s the video of me greeting my dad:

If only everyone had Dad’s who loved them this much, what a world we would live in! Needless to say he was surprised. There’s no video of my mom seeing me, because dad was too eager for me to ask him to take one, and also because if you know my mom, the most excited she gets is “Oh, this is nice. By the way at work today the line for sandwiches was out the door…”. But she’s happy I’m here.

It was a tough decision, honestly. First, I am an anxious flyer, so it’s tough to fly alone. To mitigate this, as dramatic as it sounds, I just thought about how so many Afghani’s would give their life to be on any plane. I also sprung for first class. With all the sh** thrown at me the last few weeks, I justified it (more on this later). Next, work. Thankfully they approved my time no problem, even though I took a lot already this year. I can’t say enough good things about my employer. Then there were the logistics, again thankfully I had family here to help get me from the airport and my parents are ok with loaning me a car. I was also concerned about the optics of “Oh, she’s coming home for a wedding but didn’t come home for Grammy’s funeral?”. I figure people will get over it if that’s even a thought. (No one has said that to me, btw, these are just my thoughts) And finally, am I running from Hawaii because Brian’s not there? So what if I am for a little bit? I think that’s ok. I’m going back, and I’ve only been gone a couple days and am actually really excited to go back already (Hawaii’s easy to miss. The OPPRESSIVE heat here helps! Oh my goodness).

What really pushed me to go was when I went to the book club and all the military wives were around the table. I asked them all what they’d do in my situation, and it was a resounding GO. And I said but what about logistics? And they were all like “just ask!”. So it was actually a marine corps wife who’s husband is also deployed that drove me to the airport, and a sub spouse wife is grabbing me when I return. I trust a lot of military wives’ opinion, especially the ones who have been around the block.

I am missing a golf lesson and a COVID recovery clinic appointment. I am missing a couple events with the Officer spouse group. But all that will be waiting for me when I get back, and I will be ~12 days closer to having Brian home. I will have attended my friend’s wedding, and I was able to eat a dinner celebrating my uncle’s retirement, will be able to see a couple friends and some new houses of my aunt and cousin. I think I made the right choice.

It was an expensive choice, one that I would’ve never made five years ago. Thankfully, though, because of the decisions we’ve made, we have plenty of expendable income for it. Since we’re debt free (except the car, don’t get me started), maxing out retirement and saving more, and I don’t have to feed Brian for the next few months (that alone is $10k 😉 ) it was an easy decision. Brian is of the opinion we can’t afford to fly first class when we have kids…so why not while I can! I’ll take the Mai Tai’s all day. The flight was 9.5 hrs on the way here, and will be 11.5 on the way home. I a little bit regret not stopping in California on the way back for a bit, but I didn’t want to procrastinate on getting home, and it’s one more flight I have to muster the courage for.

Anyway, that’s the story. Blogging from MA today!

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BSP

August 22, 2021 No Comments

On Friday, Brian’s boat did another BSP (Brief stop for personnel). This is what they did to get Brian on the boat. This time, they took a lot of PCO (pre commissioned-captains), PXOs (pre commissioned-XOs), and the person who was the emergency role fill that Brian was replacing off the boat. They were on it for training-essentially Captain and XO school.

There really isn’t much different with these pictures than before… except that Brian is helping drive the boat this time! Thankfully he didn’t hit anything.

This time the turn around was much faster (must’ve been because Brian was helping ;-)), I had a long sleeve UPF shirt on, and sunscreen. So no lobster Sarah. Here’s a cool picture of it with another warship.

I’m really REALLY upset because I didn’t change out my lenses before leaving the house… so I didn’t have my wicked awesome zoom lens on.

While we were waiting we watched the jets do their thing and I was EVEN MORE UPSET I didn’t have my zoom lens (insert sobbing emoji).

No, I didn’t actually get to see Brian, they pulled in and out quickly, so this was an exercise in true dedication to supporting my husband. But it was fun nonetheless, and another distraction (kinda?)

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When life hands you lemons…

August 10, 2021 No Comments

You go for sunrise walks?

(This is post published, written end of last week)

It’s been a week to say the least. I feel like it can be really easy to look at the situation I’m in- living in Hawaii on military orders- and be really jealous. And to be honest, I probably would be too. But I was warned, and will not sugarcoat the fact, that military life is hard.

Brian found out that he is changing boat assignments due to a staffing issue. The good news is, the boat’s homeport is Hawaii and staying that way for the indefinite future and this is incredibly good for Brian’s career. The bad news is, he joins the boat on deployment sometime in the next month (I have to stay vague, because, you know, the Russians are listening).

There is a whole lot of backstory that I can’t share here, but essentially it’s a really good thing for Brian’s career and for a lot of other things. But it also means that I am without Brian, my husband and best friend, for the next 2-5mths (again, can’t give specifics). Before it was official, Brian’s bosses asked his opinion on it, and Brian said that he’d agree but would have to consult with me because we’re a team and I’d be the one that needs to be convinced. If any of you are single reading this, THAT is a quality in a husband you should have on your list. Brian’s bosses offered to meet with me and that meeting happened and, as much as him being gone will suck, I am a lot more ok with the move.

Brian’s bosses keep reminding me that deployment was going to have to happen at some point, and that’s fair. I am also truly in a best of the best situation where his bosses will even talk to me about this and ease my concerns. But if I told you your husband was going to be gone tomorrow for months vice a year from now for months, how would you feel? I, for one, feel wholly unprepared.

There’s a lot that was supposed to happen before he deploys; I get to meet the boat spouses, attend Family Readiness Group meetings, fill out a bunch of paperwork, he’d finish hanging pictures… As with the year that was “supposed to be” and all the “supposed to happens” of 2020, we’ll just stack these on top.

The biggest challenge for me for his deployment will be to try to find friends and more company. I keep dipping my toe into events with spouses at the Marine Corps Base, but I need to work on developing relationships. That and I need to figure out how to kill cockroaches (we’ve only had one so far! But that’s not a roommate I would hope to gain)

Send good thoughts and prayers my way. And if there was ever a time you wanted to visit Hawaii and not see Brian… this might be a good one!

Here’s a second picture from the same sunrise for good measure. Unsure if I’ll still wake up so early with Brian gone.