An incident in which I completely embarrass myself and shock the hell out of a Mississippi state trooper

Last weekend I mentioned that Corey came home on emergency leave. On Sunday, I had to drive him back to Camp Shelby. It is 2.5 hours and is almost completely two interstates: I-12 East and I-59 North. It's country and boring, but oddly, there are five Targets between my house and Camp Shelby.

I spent the entire car ride to Camp Shelby willing myself not to be sad. I prepared the night before by loading an audiobook by a funny Southern writer I like (Celia Rivenbark) in the iPod to distract me on the way home. Apparently it's important for you not to have meltdowns on your soldier. It makes them feel guilty and distracts them from more important things, like training to stay alive. So I dropped him off with a big smile and a big kiss and started on down the road. From the time I pulled away, I was choked up. (I mean, there's just so much going on, or about to go on here at home that I am going to be alone to manage, and that is so sad and depressing.) But, I wasn't crying.

I was, however, completely zoned out. Speed limit was 70. I'm doing 79-ish. Cruise control. Audiobook. Deep breathing. I noticed about 30 minutes out of Shelby that I was in a construction zone, and the speed limit was 60. I checked my speedometer, which declared I was going 80. Damn. I look up in my mirror and see the familiar flashing lights of a police car behind me, and I think "SHIT! How long has he been back there?!" So, I pull over.

Here begins the part that will make this particular officer think twice before pulling over a vehicle with a Blue Star sticker.

I still don't have the plates on my new car, and I looked behind me to see that the temporary paper plate has become partially untape and is not visible at all. I get all the papers that came from the sale of the car out of the glove box to start going through them to determine what I should hand the man when he comes for my registration. And he appears, and says "Good afternoon ma'am. Do you know why I pulled you over?"

And I begin to cry.

I wish I was one of those Demi-Moore-in-Ghost criers, but I am not. Even when I'm crying a little bit, I have The Scrunchy Face. So when I threw my head back and started wailing and sobbing at this old fat trooper, it doesn't look like this:

It looks like this.

And between the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaailing sobs, I was trying to make words. To me I was telling him that I had just dropped my husband off at Camp Shelby and he was deploying to Iraq and I was trying not to cry and not paying attention. I delivered "aboo dobada caca sheeshee......"

I should mention that since he was standing on the driver's side of my car, between my car and the ones whirring by on I-59, he was standing very close to my car. So I exploded with this sobbing, unexpected meltdown IN THIS MAN'S FACE.

After what was surely two minutes if not five, he asked me for my driver's license which I provided. He walked behind the car and I blew my nose and wiped my face (different tissues) and prepared for his return with my bigass ticket. Instead he came back to the car and said "Ma'am, I stopped you for going 80 in a 60 and I was behind you for more than two miles before you pulled over."

I exploded in tears and wails and babyspeak AGAIN. And he patted me on my arm and told me he saw my Blue Star sticker. I managed to eek out that I had just dropped my deploying husband off at Camp Shelby, and I think I got it out that time, because he nodded and said he figured. He told me to slow down and pay attention, to hang in there and tell my husband thanks for his service.

However, what I saved with the cost of a big speeding ticket, I lost in dignity on the side of the damn road in Poplarville, Mississippi.

All she wants to do is decorate

One of my favorite things to do is change my apartment. Corey can leave on a Sunday to pick up lunch for the boys and when he comes home, I have switched the tables in the bedroom around. (There are three that move around regularly.) Currently, I really hate the furniture arrangement in the living room, but the size and shape of the room really limits what I can do with furniture that is not really apartment-sized. At 11 PM on Friday night, Murphy and I were sliding everything around the living room in pursuit of a vision, only to determine that the room wasn’t long enough, and we would have to return all the furniture to its original arrangement.

(This means that I also lie in bed at night and envision my things in my house. Some people might think that not knowing what the house you will end up buying will look like limits your vision, but I picture my things in different rooms in different ways in different houses, and I will have a better idea of what I’m looking for in a house when Corey comes home and it’s time to buy one.)

I do not want to change the house too much. Corey comes home on pass at the beginning of March, and I do not want either of us to feel like he doesn’t live here. Unfortunately, one of the things I do in boredom or sadness is decorate. I bought a slipcover for a wingback chair. I moved my lamps around. I changed all the pictures in all the frames. So for this year, I have to figure out how to continue to express myself in my favorite ways while keeping Corey’s home intact.

I do have one home improvement project on the horizon, but I will not be starting on it until after Tiger Day is over and the Mayor’s race is decided, so no sooner than March 6. I inherited a sideboard from my Aunt Soupie that I am absolutely in love with. I know it’s a piece of furniture I’m going to have for my entire life. The color and pulls are not really me. Take a look:

So I am thinking of painting it and replacing the pulls. Someone very chic and genius once told me that designers say every room should have something black in it. Pottery Barn and Ballard Designs both have beautiful black sideboards, so I am thinking about transforming mine into something like this:

My favorite design blogger, Eddie Ross (www.eddieross.com) has modernized a number of old pieces with a good paint job, so I’m going to be inspired by him.

Activity Update: The FRG is actually a monumental undertaking. So many of the soldiers in Corey’s battalion have been realigned to other companies, so my list of soldiers in my company for deployment in no way resembles what the company is going to look like when the soldiers come home and return to their regular training calendar. Corey’s regular company is HHC, but during the deployment, he’s a squad leader in Bravo Company. HHC lost a lot of soldiers to other units, but we gained a good number of soldiers for our unit, which, to add another level of confusion, is called BDOC during deployment. The first major orders of business are to get with the old FRG leader to hand off her materials, raise money to pay for steak dinners for the soldiers during the Superbowl, create a list of spouses and family members for the deployment and reach out to them, and lastly, beef up our FRG fund.

No updates on Corey. They are still preparing for their practice convoys. Today I mailed him some Twizzlers, Happy Colas, Pomegranate Fruit Bars, Kettle Corn and a card.

Passing the Time and Corey's Address at Camp Shelby

We are in the middle of Deployment Week Four. We did get to cheat a little bit when Corey got to come home on emergency leave last weekend. The boys’ mother is in poor health, and conversations were necessary and decisions needed to be made. But she is home in good care and great spirits, with a strength to keep going I am not sure I would be able to summon.

My mom turned 60 (sorry Mama, now it’s out there!) on January 14, and Aunt Jean came in from Cali to celebrate with a big family dinner at Red River Grill in Marksville. For the birthday Mom’s sisters and brothers-in law, nieces and nephews-in-law, and great nieces and great nephews-in-law came to celebrate her birthday with her. We looked at old pictures and took some great new ones, especially pictures of the girl cousins, which I don’t think we’ve done in a very long time. I’ll post pictures this evening. I love when Aunt Jean makes her bi-annual pilgrimage to Louisiana. She’s so exuberant and witty and she is the matriarch of the Wilson family, after all.

Next weekend is my weekend with the boys. We may go to hang out with the Great Ones in Jena, or, depending on the weather, we may make a day trip to Global Wildlife. My reduced time with them is so sad. I cannot bear to go upstairs and walk past their empty, clean room.

I’ve been keeping busy getting our family financials in order. Deployment actually means a happy little surplus of money, so I’ve been getting us set up to save the extra money wisely so we can go house shopping when Corey comes home. The Office of the Lt. Governor is doing a music concert for the 3,500 soldiers in the Brigade and 4,000 family members at Camp Shelby in March, and I’m leading the team for that event, which keeps me incredibly busy at work and happily engaged with the National Guard. I’ve also volunteered to lead the Family Readiness Group for Corey’s company. I think he’s a little shocked, because I typically do not volunteer for extra work, and I’m not so much of a participator in group activities, but I felt I was called to my Army Wife duties. I also, to the delight of my father, joined my appropriate church. In Baton Rouge, which has more than one Catholic church, where you go depends on where you live. I am now a member of St. George Catholic Church.

My friend Cami launched her food blog yesterday. http://partyonmypalate.wordpress.com/. She’s one of those talented and annoying people who can see something in a store and make it for 30% of the cost. She does her own remodeling in her house. Next up, I believe, is her master bathroom. So I’m sure yesterday’s pepper steak recipe is going to be delicious.

Corey report: They’ve been out on the shooting ranges for most days. The last two days have been gunnery training, where they shoot blanks and then live fire from the armored vehicles they will be driving in Iraq. Corey is the squad leader, so he does not shoot. He is the lead vehicle in his convoy, and he has a driver and a gunner (whose name is appropriately Corey.) Pretty soon they will be doing a practice convoy to New Orleans and another practice convoy to Tennessee. Then I think they’ll be nearly done with their training. He comes home on pass on 1 March and goes back to Camp Shelby on 4 March, and he may be in the first or second round of companies leaving out of Mississippi on March 6. I’ll post more information on that when he confirms it. In the meantime, his address at Camp Shelby is:

SSG Corey D. Allbritton

CSC 13, B Co 256th BSTA

Bldg 2490 25th Street

Camp Shelby, MS 39407

Thanks for the prayers and encouragement. We love them all!

P.S. I Love You

That's the title of a song written by Johnny Mercer and Gordon Jenkins, and I was surprised to learn it was written in 1934, because I always thought it was a WWII song. It's one of those songs that's been recorded by everybody and their mother, but I listen to the version that Bette Midler sings to the troops during WWII in the movie For the Boys. If you like Bette even a little bit (and don't tell me if you love her less than bunches or I'll be upset), watch the movie. She's a small-time radio performer who gets a USO gig traveling with a Bob Hope-type character and she devotes her entire life to performing for the troops.

Today concludes my first, albeit incomplete, week of being the wife of a deployed soldier. He's actually been in Lafayette all week and today is the first day this week I didn't lay eyes on him. He arrived at Camp Shelby, MS for two months of training today. I can't even say with any authority or experience how much this sucks, because I know that it hasn't really started sucking yet. I've done my fair share of crying this week, out of anticipation for how sad and lonely the year 2010 is going to be, and how, despite everyone reassuring me that the year will fly by, it probably won't. But I do thank God that I love someone enough to be so heartbroken by their absence, and I think the grief and fear right now is a good sign that Corey and I have a life filled with love ahead of us.

I've been thinking about the pop culture romanticism of war-time relationships, which is why I started this post talking about Bette Midler and For the Boys. I don't think any period of war is romanticized in movies, television and music more than WWII. Way, way back in the day when people wrote actually handwritten letters to each other and women were really in love with red lipstick. Charlene Stillfield ("Designing Women") used to dream in WWII storylines when her husband Bill was deployed during the Gulf War. I think "Beverly Hills, 90210" managed to work a WWII romance into their David and Donna story arc. Pearl Harbor is fresh in my mind, only because Encore! has been running it every few days.

If romance exists in a situation where a wife spends 400 days without her husband while he's deployed to a war-torn country, I'm ready for it. I'm skeptical that it exists, but here's hoping. I hope there is something romantic about being terrified of being alone, of being widowed and of not being able to put your family back together when he comes home. I imagine myself in print dresses with pin-curled hair, red lipstick and red fingernails, small handbags that match my shoes and maybe a little hat, writing letters on pink stationery sealed with kisses and spritzed with perfume. And of course, my letters will sound like Johnny Mercer and Gordon Jenkins wrote them.

If you absolutely do not have the time or the inclination to get the movie, and no you can't borrow mine, you can watch her sing the damn song:


Or read the lyrics:

Dear, I thought I'd drop a line,
the weather's cool,
the folks are fine,I
'm in bed each night at nine,
P. S. I love you.
Yesterday we had some rain,
but all in all, I can't complain,
Was it dusty on the train?
P. S. I love you.
Write to the Browns just as soon as you're able,
They came around to call,
I burned a hole in the dining room table,
And let me see,
I guess that's all.
Nothing else for me to say,
and so I'll close but by the way,
Everybody's thinking of you,
P. S. I love you.
I do my best to obey all your wishes,
I put a sign up "Think"
But I gotta buy us a new set of dishes, o
r wash the ones that are piled in the sink.
Nothing else to tell you dear,
except each day seems like a year,
Every night I'm dreaming of you,
P. S. I love you.