With Air Force Guy coming and going on a very frequent basis, it has become accepted fact in our family that my brain is the repository for all things... well, all things. Need to know how old the roof is? 2 years. Family blood types? Four B negatives and an O negative. Need a kennel? A mechanic (I found a great one, by the way, who doesn't overcharge or cheat us!)? Who is our doctor? Husband has a headache - what could have triggered it? Oh, and by the way, the minivan is about ten miles overdue for an oil change. AND DON'T PUT THAT IN THE DRYER!
Unfortunately, keeping all this information on ready access alert in my head (I do write everything down as well) means that most days I engage in quite a lot of stream of consciousness thought.
For instance:
This morning I woke up and went in the bathroom to take a shower. When I was brushing my teeth, I noticed that the trash was overflowing and took that out right away after I had rinsed and spit. On my way downstairs, I realized that the dogs needed to go out and managed to combine a trash run with putting the dogs out. While the dogs were outside I noticed that several of my plants needed extra water. I went in the kitchen to get the watering container and noticed that no one had done the dishes, I started the dishes when the dogs started barking, so I went to let the dogs in. Oops, I forgot they were out there.
Where was I? Oh yes! The dishes! But wait! I still haven't taken a shower! Or watered my plants! And I've only been up for about 45 minutes! The rest of the day follows something along the same lines, though.
I also do this when I'm in conversation with people, and it's one of the reasons I feel most comfortable talking with other military spouses. It's nice to find people who can follow my absolutely insane twists of logic without looking utterly perplexed and needing to take notes.
Yesterday AFG and I took our kids to get root beer floats and then to a local farm where they could watch and pet the animals. AFG ended up having to place our order in Spanish, and when we were seated I told him, "If you need IR flags for this deployment, you better tell me now so I can order them without the extra overnight delivery charge!"
"Yes, I will need more IR flags," AFG informed me. "But what on EARTH made you think of that right now?"
"Well, you had to order in Spanish, which reminded me how difficult it has been for your mother to pick up English after moving here from Russia. That reminded me that a lot of military spouses have the same language issues, which reminded me that my friend R. was married to a woman from Korea who had some trouble but picked up the language eventually.
Remember that R. had NCO mafia connections for everything (and they were much better than your scrounge club, which disbanded when you got home from deployment) and he was the one that found the IR flags you needed for your last deployment? Which reminded me, we're up on the deadline for getting those things mailed out in time this time, so I needed to ask you if you were issued enough this time around or if I needed to order more."
Honestly, it's like my life is, "If You Give a Moose a Muffin"!
