Have you ever looked at someone or something and thought to yourself, that person/creature/object should have been born a (insert name or type of other person/creature/object here)???

Today, my friends, should have been born a Friday. Only, I'm not quite sure that would have been a good thing, because it would have been a total disgrace to all Fridays everywhere.

It rates very high, my friends, on the good old suck-o-meter.

And now as I sit here eating my leftover roll-up lasagna (perhaps the highlight of my day), I realize that with some crappy football game on TV and my husband sitting opposite me, eyes glued on his computer during the commercial breaks and still clad in about half of his uniform... This is a rather appropriate ending to this shit-fest. Football on TV, which I hate, for the first time this year since the Superbowl. Amaris in a bitter mood and in and out of her unexpected nap. Mark's green socks balled up in an undisclosed location, just waiting for me to later discover them, and nobody talking to anybody else or otherwise trying to fix everything that is so overwhelmingly fucked up.

Who the eff is Chris Myers, anyways and who gives a crap what he thinks.



The day started out with me being tired. Maybe tired isn't even the right word. Utterly exhausted might be a little better. Mark switched schedules today, again, and had to leave for work sometime in the 0500 hour. I couldn't drag myself out of bed long enough to send him on his way properly, so instead when his ride got here he kissed me and took off. And I flopped back into my sleeping position and returned to my heavy sleep. And then before I knew it, the alarm was going off, again. And I was hitting the snooze button, again. And again. And once more. And then Amaris got up and came and snuggled up next to me and I wanted so badly to just lie there with her and sleep the morning away, but at nearly 9AM, I knew I had to get up and get moving otherwise we'd miss our appointment at 10:15 to get overseas clearances.

So I got out of bed, put on clothes, did the bare minimum to my hair and face and then got Amaris dressed and we headed out the door, Cheerios in hand.

At the clinic, the girl rejected my Marine Corps form and made me fill out the Air Force form instead. Then they stowed me any my two-year-old away in an exam room for about an hour. At one point, a tech came in and threatened me with a Hep A booster I knew Amaris had already gotten. I handed her Amaris' yellow card, which she took away, and then she came back and said, "Oh, she already had it, so she's up to date till she's four." Which is funny, because that's exactly the same thing that her doctor told me two months ago at her last well-baby check up. I took back her yellow card.

Finally the doctor came in and shook my hand. Amaris was too interested in a Mickey Mouse book she'd recently discovered to bother with this large man. This was where I got the first MAJOR annoyance.

My appointment, all so important for our impending international move, consisted of this doctor asking me if I have any "ongoing health issues." I told him "No." Mentioned asthma that I really hadn't gotten any treatment for, particularly recently. Then he says, "What about your daughter?" I said, "No, she's been just fine, knock on wood."

He then says, "Well, you need to go to dental before I can release you. Go there and they'll just do an interview there too, and then come back here and I'll sign the form."

I waited an hour for THAT??? How about checking our medical records? How about giving me a fucking PHONE call if you only wanted me to agree that we're healthy??

I said, "What about vaccines? My husband said I would have to have some vaccinations done." He says, "Oh, we don't do that here. You'll have to go to public health for that."

Well great, what a wealth of information and help. I'll be sure to add you to my Christmas card list.

So I go to dental, and the girl there is just a bag of fun. She asks me if I'm active duty. No. She tells me I'll need an appointment. Fine. (Even though by looking around the entirely EMPTY lobby, I can tell that is a total waste of time and effort already). Oh, but our appointment system is down, so you'll have to call back later to try and schedule it. Well, fan-flipping-tastic. Oh, and by the way you'll need such-and-such form. Where can I get that? Your sponsor will have to get it for you. Gee, thanks.

Into the car we load and I drive around the base for a good 30+ minutes looking for the veterinary clinic so I can make an appointment for Boo. Finally I find it and the sign says (I kid you not) Hours: Tuesdays 1000-1200 For appointments please call (number) I'm annoyed, but I dial the number. It rings a couple of times and then goes to a voice mail, reiterating the hours, location, and services. If you have a pet emergency, please take your animal to a civilian veterinary facility, blah blah blah. And then it says that if you want an appointment you're to leave a message. Currently appointments are scheduling for August 20-22. I leave my information.

There was a lull in between that and when Mark called me to come pick him up from class this afternoon. "I got my orders!" He says into the phone. I hurry to the base and he loads into the car. As we are exiting through the gate, he proceeds to read me the travel itineraries. I knew the odds were good that they'd screw up our orders. I didn't realize to what extent. He mentioned that we'd prefer to fly out of LAX so that we could TMO the car at Camp Pendleton, but they told him that wasn't very likely or possible. So he told the admin guy that he wanted to fly out of SEATTLE no sooner than September 18. They are allowed a 10-day window to get our tickets near our requested date. This window SHOULD HAVE BEEN September 18-28. Instead, they booked our flight out of Seattle for September 16. We submitted our 30-day-notice to the landlady from hell stating that we'd want to turn over keys to her on (and pay rent through) September 15. And they booked us a flight from LAX to Seattle on September 15. Mark's final graduation date is September 12.

In short, we have less than 3 days to get the house ready and the keys turned over to the landlady (earlier than we promised, which means I'll feel resentful if we pay the full 15-days worth of rent), and get our happy asses to California.

On top of this, we called right away to try and get into the TLF on base in Okinawa - they have 9 pets-allowed rooms. Those 9 rooms are all booked through the entire month of September, except for the night of the 23rd. Mark had a hard time understanding the very Japanese accented girl who answered the phone at the reservations desk, so he had her on speaker phone and I had to discreetly translate a couple of things for him. This means we'd need to kennel Boo. And I don't want to do that, nor can I particularly afford to. She'd be locked in a cage all day every day till we had a place to keep her, and it'd cost us approximately $30 per night.

Furthermore, upon looking into it again, I see that Boo's vaccinations and such all need to be dated no less than 30 days prior to our departure, and no more than 365 days. If we can't get her an appointment at the base vet until August 20-22, that'd obviously make her paperwork less than 30 days prior to our departure. Which means she's not even eligible to travel. And if we want her to be eligible, we have to find a USDA certified civilian veterinary clinic and get her in there by Saturday. Yes, the day after tomorrow.

Mark is unwilling to help me sort this out. I feel alone and hopeless and so damned disappointed I can't even see straight. The thought of leaving Boo behind breaks my heart. I mean, seriously makes me feel ILL. If only they'd gotten us these orders SOONER, when they were SUPPOSED TO. Maybe then I'd have enough time. But at this point, I feel like the sand in my timer is all but gone and I am stuck in this horrible helpless place.

And I'm going to have to go back to the clinic and force them to use the Marine Corps forms that they turned away this morning. And I'll probably have to wait an hour at the medical office and another hour at the dental office, and then wait again at medical to have my clearance fully signed off on.

I'm beyond frustrated right now.