A Year Without Summer

It's apparently a one-step-forward and one-to-three-steps-back kind of a thing.  And I'm really sick of it.  My brain has been telling me I've "done too much," but my ego is screaming "What The F*** are you talking about!"

We had a great, if challenging, annual trip to San Diego to commune with Huck's maternal side of the family.  My symptoms were well managed by occasional Ativans and multiple naps per day, many of them on the beach.  And betwixt my moments of shut-eye, fun was had.  I enjoyed the amusement park and zoo, vicariously via voluminous recaps.

Coyote caught on on his second wave of soup!

And I visited with a friend from high school, which was amusing.  I hadn't seen Yuri in the twenty years, since we graduated, and I was a little nervous as I've changed so much and was sure to not meet any kind of expectation. But I was calmed by the memory that Yuri was one of the most reliably nice people in the entire state of South Carolina, and likely hadn't abandoned that trait entirely, if at all.  And also, in high school, she'd just come from Japan and her English was quiet, unsure, and infrequent. Our friendship had involved mostly a lot of smiling at each other and nodding our heads. In fact, I believe we shared more words during our lunch in San Diego than during our entire high school career. The funny thing is that she's lived in San Diego for 15 years.  I've been visiting for 12.  And her husband's office is only a block from where we stay at Mission Beach.  I'd noticed that many of her facebook photos involved very familiar buildings and the exact same lifeguard station we normally hang out around and a meet-up plan was hatched.  It was a great visit and the cool thing was that her English was perfectly eloquent and included the surprise of a Southern California accent.

20 years later

Then my parents came to visit, close on the heels of our late night, zombie return from California.  We tried for a mellow visit and accomplished that in isolated moments.  My mom had the idea to help me can, but I've decided this is a non-canning year.  It's exhausting when I'm in peak condition, but I can't even imagine the fiasco's that would ensue in my current state.

End of Summer Celebratory Snowmen cupcakes!

Then I let the kids talk me into going to watch Huck's band play at a festival downtown. It's supposed to be the largest free music festival in the U.S. and it has the worst, nastiest, makes-me-wanna-puke name ever.  Okay, grab a bucket and I'll tell you: "Pig Out in the Park." The name just oozes good times and classy grub, right? OR, possibly an unholy alliance of eating disorder and exhibitionism. Regardless of the fact that I got to chill in the VIP tent, it threw me over the top. It had been against my better judgment but when your son cries, "Are we ever going to get to do anything fun again?" you go. Then you have a total, crying, hissing melt down wherein your brain actually oozes out of your ears and nose and down a city drain (I believe). Then you go home and sleep for three days.

seedpod of Love-in-the-Mist in the mist

And then school started, while Huck's bipolar job decided to (unannounced) ramp up to 16 hour days for 14 days straight.  This left me doing it all, dawn to dusk, driving to town 4 times a day.  And napping for every possible minute in between. And that left me feeling super angry and sad about my lame-oh life and self.  Driving is still a challenge for me, with all the zooming and my eyes still not better, despite five months of work.  You might think, "Oh, if only she lived in town!  It would be so much easier."  And I am here to tell you that's a fantasy city (Spokane-size-city) people have.  The truth is that it takes 13 minutes to get from our house to Blue's school across town, or Coyote's homeschool school on this side of town because it's all freeway driving. And it takes 15 minutes to get from Blue's school to Coyote's and 20 minutes to get from one of my therapists to Blue's school.  Cross-town driving sucks way worse that out-to-in-town driving.  Anyway, I eventually was able to make a five page spread sheet to help me cope with every damn day being entirely different than any other day of the week.  There's no way I can remember every necessary pick-up, drop-off and extra thing to bring to school without an extensive, externalized memory thing, such as a clipboard with graphs and pre-made lists for each day.  And I guess that's one of those glass-half-full things, whereas I couldn't even make a spreadsheet only a few months ago.

unweeded grass in the mist amidst strawberries

And, if you caught that, why yes, I am homeschooling Coyote this year rather than playing Russian rulette with the roster of un-fire-able teachers at a standard school which was incapable of coaxing his hidden genius out of his crab-shell after three years. Although his second teacher last year did a much much better job with him than his first, it was during the break between teachers that we'd checked out The Enducation Coop and he loved it.  And he also got in to Blue's school based on IQ testing, rather that i-dotting/t-crossing testing and he will get to go there one day a week this year, and full time next.  This leaves me with two days for homeschooling, exactly as I did it with Blue, and he gets five years of school semi-security. I cried with relief when I found out.

One last sip of nectar before I go, don't mind if I do

But by Friday of last week, I was a total disaster on multiple levels.  Coyote awoke at 6:30, jumping and ready to homeschool. "Do we get to do science today? Do we do we dowe?  Or art?  How about I make stuff out of recyclables?!  OR maybe history?  When do I get to study WWII techonology? Whenwhenwhen? Is today cooking day?  I'm gonna make chocolate chip cookies.  Can you come clean the kitchen so I can make my cookies? Do we have all the ingredients? Are you gonna help me? Are you are you areyou?!" And I stumbled out of bed at 10:30: worst homeschool mom ever.

In the middle of all this mayhem and foolishness, Autumn started creaping in.  Flucking Fall.  Normally, it's my favorite time of year: crisp colors, apple cidering, laying down the garden to rest, my birthday, chili (I don't know why I associate that with fall, but I do love a good chili on a fall day), and there's this refreshing nip to the air which acts as a nice foil for the rich sweetness of nostalgia and meloncholy that always coat my soul during these days.  And I love it.  I love it, normally.  This year, I HATE IT.  My left foot keeps trying to slam on the season brakes.  Back it up, earth-darling.  Right your axis, for once.  This fall-crap is just BS. Take it back and apologize.  NOW.  And here's why I think I'm so full of loathing for this fall: I never got my summer.  Not really.  I just shifted naps from the house to the back porch.  I never got the full-on hard-living summer fun.  I never stumbled home from a sleepless camping trip, my back crimped from the hard ground and the rock beneath my sleeping bag.  I never floated the winding river, hot and sweaty on top, frozen in mountain run-off on the bottom.  I never went skinny dipping!  That's a first in 20 years.  I haven't had summer.  Normally, I love the turning-inward of fall, preparing for long dark days with good books and hot tea, finally, after all the balls-to-the-wall raucous fun of summer. But for me, it's been inward all year.  My gardening-lite year did produce rediculous amounts of food.  But in my real life, there's no fruits, no real labors, and no cashing in on the fruits of my labors.  There's just nothing.

Zinnia,darling, you make me want to write sappy poetry

To cope, I accidentally bought a GIANT bar of chocolate and some marshmallows on summer clearance and when I came home Blue jumped to the most obvious conclusion: we were having a s'mores party.  And so I said okay. It's been a long long time since we had anyone over.  So I invited a family for s'mores by the fire, for just a little while in the evening.  It made me feel human again and happy for the two hours they were here, which is two hours less of feeling like an utterly failed human. Even though the fire department came out and told us it was illegal still to have fires in our grassland plateau and even though that was embarrassing, what with our ignorance on display and all, and having to put out the fire just when the coals were perfect, it was interesting at least.  And it wasn't driving kids around town. And it wasn't napping. And so maybe another step forward is coming my way soon.  Just in time for winter.  Maybe this winter I can actually read a book. 

Becoming Un-Un-Dead

Things (meaning my brainy neurons) are getting better and better around here. I feel like I should be walking around in a visible cloud of smiley emoticons and exclamation marks.  Each week the gains thrill me.  I am about half way there with the vestibulo-ocular reflex stuff and am gaining on the stamina.  I still have a bit (as in months to a year) to go yet, and still need a large mid-day nap, but the momentum is gaining.  It's like a glorious snowballing effect.  The more gains I make, the more gains I can make off those gains, and so we are charging forward. I will try to ride a bicycle later today, when someone is home who can take me to the ER (later: success!  And now Blue is fully trained on stopping blood gushers and dealing with broken vertebrae, not that she had to use those skills, but I did prepare her for multiple possibilities)

Zombie Poppy

Several people a week are telling me how much better I look, from my complexion and coloring to the clarity in my once cloudy eyes.  Even people I see only once or twice a month are noticing. Apparently what I thought was mostly invisible to the naked eye (that would be failed and partial synapses in my head) was visible to all, especially in my eyes. These noticing people call my eyes clearer, sharper, sparkly, more focused. Boy, it seems like if you take the reverse of these, I must have looked like some sallow zombie with dead, foggy, dull, unfocused eyes wondering the planet: "Brains!  Brains!  BRAINS!!!" Was I really that scary? that gone? Someone said I look like I'm "there" again. And you know what?  I feel like I'm here.  Not all the way, but I've been mostly beamed back to Enterprise, so much so that my particles are actually taking on a Sarajoy-ish look, apparently. It's only been about nine months.  It's like I've been in gestation: Here I am, world! Spank my booty and clear my nose, I'm being born!

failed selfie from the Zombie days

And now I'm looking around the house and noticing that, yes, the house keeper has been out for about nine months.  The kids have kept the bathrooms up and Huck has vacuumed and swept and taken on the kitchen a few times, but the backlog of baseboards, cupboards, light switches, dresser tops, closets, nooks, crannies, desks, cubbies, et cetera, et cetera that need to be scrubbed and re-organized is overwhelming. I expect that it will take at least 6 months to revamp this place. Oh gosh, my brain is overheating just thinking about it. Maybe I'll work on just preventing the current level of disarray from getting any worse for a few months before I start strategizing my plans for victory in the Great Household Entropy War of 2013(-14?!).

They still thought they could win, silly kids!

And there are recent signs and symptoms that the kids are growing up.  In a first stab at re-organization, we cleaned out the craft hoosier and tossed out all of the playdough and plastic beads; we are now officially too old for such things.  And then I started to notice lots of things my kids are too old for now.  For example, no one even tries to get in to the bathroom while I'm using it for my nefarious purposes; and it's been a good six years since anyone tried to nurse on me while I am doing business in there. No one has wet my bed for a very long time.  I haven't picked up any cheerios or noodles off the floors or walls in years.  No one uses a stool to reach the sink, therefore there are no longer any stools to stub my toes on.  Am I supposed to be nostalgic for those days? I'm not feeling it.  Maybe it's just the zombie in me.


With age has also come new viewing pleasures.  Once we were a screen-free family, when the kids were still of toilet-top nursing age.  It was only a year ago that we ventured in to Wii territory.  And only a few years ago that video games (educational only!!) crossed the digital threshold of our home.  But now, with zombie-mom holding court, it's been the Summer of Screens.  It's disturbing for me to watch them watching; I'm squirming.  But I'm really not bringing anyone to a life-guard-free Millfoil Lake where I'm the only person responsible for these precious lives. So what are we doing? Coyote: Mine Craft, like legos online.  And Blue and I: Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

When Buffy came out, someone described it to me in breathless tones of over-excitement: a blond cheer-leader-type highschooler kills vampires in Southern California.  Sounded way too gimicky for me.  And then a few years ago I was listening to Ira Glass (of "This American Life" on NPR) chat with Peter Sagal from NPR's Wait,Wait, Don't Tell Me.  And Ira was saying that his wife liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  And... I remember I was driving and I was near the corner of White and Cedar and I nearly drove off the road because IRA IS NOT GAY! Holy Moley on Stick! My whole world exploded and turned upside down. Anyway, I then began to reconsider Buffy.  And there it is on Netflix.  And so we began the Summer of the Slayer.

just bee!

At first I was very very nervous as it's rated TV-14 and Blue is only 12.  But she is 12, which is not 7.  And then I was nervous because the show addresses all sorts of creepy issues like teachers hitting on students, relationship violence, first sexual experiences and yikes!  At first I would narrate through the show: that's inappropriate, that's not a good idea, oh my she doesn't seem to be thinking clearly.  But then I began to see that that's what the show does, it deals with those issues in an awesome, non-clunky, non-after-school-special way.  I don't have to point out that a teacher's sexual interest in a student is inappropriate because in this show that teacher is going to turn out to be a praying mantis monster, or that ill-advised first sexual encounter is going to have big consequences.  I've learned to trust the show, shut up and let it speak for itself.

I also appreciate that the main characters usually portray great integrity in their interactions, unless they're the one doing the learning in that episode.  Buffy doesn't go to the dance with Xander because she doesn't like him like that.  Willow doesn't go with Xander because she doesn't want to be a Buffy-substitute, even though she does like Xander.

Buffy Blue's last time in my antique debutant dress

But the best part is the kicking and stabbing.  When it gets too mushy, (and it does!) we yell at the screen "More Slaying! Less Smooching!!"  Blue's 12 year old smoochy-squeamishness is a perfect match for my mother-of-a-12-year-old smoochy-squeamishness, so we're in synch with our rants, an anti-cheer squad. I hope that what Blue gets from Buffy is a full entitlement to defend herself in any circumstance.  Yes, girls can kick. Yes, girls can fight back.  The most powerful person on the show is a blond teenage girl.  I want her to see that.  I want her to know she has rights and the power and entitlement to defend them.  If only men, if they turn in to monsters, had facial changes so you could tell when it was time to defend yourself.  Unfortunately, the part about self defense that catches so many women off guard is that two seconds before, that demon supposedly loved you more than any one else. It's not usually the dark parking lot ambush.  It's the vampire you've invited in before. It's hard to go from smoochy to slayer that fast, to recognize the moment play switches to war and respond accordingly.  But Buffy can do it and I hope Blue can too, if ever the need arises.

Solitaire is my Guru

This could be the most embarrassing thing I ever confess (emphasis: that I confess).  It perches atop Shame Mountain, a flashing beacon, an obvious blemish on the landscape.  Red-faced, I dismount the high-horse, to tell you that I, too, waste time. Not with video games, or kitten youtubes, or tanning beds, or shaving my legs. No, I waste time by... by ... playing solitaire, not computer solitaire, (although that played a role once upon a time) no, I need the cards flipping through my hands and shuffling out, arrayed across the table, awaiting their destiny.

"Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red"

It began when I was a child of 7 or 8.  I was wandering around at a Lummi Potlatch and I found this old lady sitting by herself at the end of a long table and playing a card game. Noticing my curiousity, she taught me to play, and I felt very special about it. On the way home, I excitedly described the clock-like game to my parents to which my father (having no idea that spiritual destiny had just struck) sharply commented that Solitaire was a waste of time, time was a precious gift, sacred, and solitaire whittled it away pointlessly.  Okay.  Fascination and curiosity meet Protestant Work Ethic, Protestant Work Ethic meet Fascination and Curiosity, I don't believe you've met before.

And from then on, it was my secret. I would sometimes play on the living room floor, hiding my games, doing "nothing" while I smeared the cards around when anyone came near.

Plath's little hell flames, Poppies in July

When I was 18 and 19, I lived in a small town on an island in Southeast Alaska, a ten hour ferry ride from Juneau. I worked graveyard at an old hotel which would eventually burn to the ground during my shift (due to a faulty boiler and a faulty boiler repair man), taking the whole block with it... and I would save a bunch of people (aw, shucks) and have fire nightmares for years. Prior to that, I had many adventures in the middle of the night at Scandia House, involving drunk guests passed out in the communal bathrooms, or confusedly pissing on the front desk thinking it was the communal bathroom, etc. etc. Between my duties of financial auditing and picking up guests from the ferry terminal, I would NOT sleep the night away like my predecessor (what? And miss all the drunk pissing fun?!). Instead, I would improve myself.  I got a list of classics, which I read taking notes.  I watched Mystery Theater 2000 and Comedy Central on cable (self-improvement galore!). And I played solitaire, the only thing I knew to do on the computer in 1994-5.  And that's how I learned to play that way, the computer way, straight across.

Solitaire has become my dirty secret.  Something like the-picking-of-the-nose, only to be done after looking around and assessing the likelihood of getting caught. Stolen moments, furtive glances, dark corners: this is me on Solitaire.  The pressure to look productive has kept my solitaire habit to a minimum, a few obsessed weeks a year.

Blue captured the F-word on my lips; damn bunny ate my tomato plant

So imagine my glee when my Speech Therapist thought it might be a decent compliment to the Bananagrams, Boggle, Sudoku (a similar obsession, but a smart one I'll readily admit to), and Word Search regime designed to get my brain scanning properly, finding words, and putting things together.  Oh yes, she said, SHE SAID, Solitaire would be a good idea, one game at a time, with breaks in between. It was like a pain killer addict getting a big, bottomless prescription for ... pain killers.  And I followed her advice, however hard it was to limit my activity to one game at a time, and not push beyond the blurring, the waves the rolling over my head when it's been too much.  I had to apply some self control, but I got to bring my addiction in to the light. I am entitled to play and it's no waste of time. It's not merely "permission" it's an edict, it's required. And I play it now at the dining room table, where the children can see me.  It's my good work.  It's part of my temp job called healing.

What is it about Solitaire?  Why the secret love affair?  Why the addiction?  The questions were finally asked.  And you know what I found? I actually like the answers, now that I can look them in the eye in the clear light of day.

Solitaire is an opportunity to watch my mind work, to get to know myself and understand how I approach the world. For instance: I've got a set number of times I like to shuffle so that I know it's enough to confuse the cards but it's not an endless process. I do this because if I win a few times in a row, I'll assume I'm cheating, although I am not a cheater in any part of my life. If I lose, I'll feel like such a good girl for shuffling so well!  Isn't that curious! That's what I mean by watching my mind at work.  So I shuffle my set number of times so that if I win I can remind myself that I didn't cheat.

Over the years, through trial and error, I've developed "best practices." I develop new theories and take risks and watch them pan out in about five minutes. I'll develop some theory that these types of cards are the most important to reveal in order to win, and then the next time I loose it will be because of a seemingly insignificant card, like a 6. And I'm always startled to watch myself not follow the proven successes, through impatience, or thinking my hunch is better, even though I know that in this game (with cards, no people), instincts count for very little.

I like that how a game starts cannot predict how it will end. It could look impossible and then slowly success emerges.  It could go fast at first and then suddenly peter out.  Our it could go fast, start to finish: WIN!  Or slow and slower and slower, loose. It reminds me of a saying Huck remembers from his Hare Krishna days: "Start sweet, end sour; start sour, end sweet; start sweet, end sweet; start sour, end sour." It's so life-like that way.


It requires some creative thinking in that not all wins are just straight forward and often, when it looks like I've lost, there's sometimes something creative I could do, shift things around for an opening.

There's a frantic, compulsive pace of play that brings careless mistakes and I've learned to recognize it and slow it down into a meditative pace that's much more likely to win. The desire to win this game motivates me to be more thoughtful, to move with more intention, and I've learned how to switch the mind to do that, in life as well as solitaire.

Windy and wonderful stop at Maryhill Museum

I like the curiosity/resolution cycle, much like that of a novel.  It's like getting turned on so you can orgasm.  Or getting hungry to you can eat something yummy. When I lay out the cards, I'm immediately curious as to what is beneath them and how the game unfolds.  I love to have my curiosity peak and resolved, and I believe it's a biological urge that's sent us humans around the world and pushed us forward. And here it is, present even in the humble solitaire game.

Solitaire is no mere passing of time. It turns out that for me Solitaire is a meditative practice, revealing myself to myself, and a low-risk action to understand how to work with myself better, to become more the person I want to be. 

And finally, it's more lifelike than many games because it's a game you play alone, like birth and death and all the feelings and decisions you'll make in between. It's you.  Your life.  Your decisions.  We're all playing this game by ourselves. Competition has it's uses, but it's just a tool. The reality is that we're all on our own trip, at our own pace, in our own heads. It's our game and no one else's.
 

Quintessential Sunflower photo op!

Dear Bad Drag Queen: Thank You for Your Service

Spokane's Pride Parade is the best parade we've got.  The St. Patty's Day Parade is cold and just one long long advertisement for cement businesses. The Lilac Parade/Torchlight/Armed Services (it's got an identity issue) isn't about lilacs or light, it's about military military military and it starts after bed time. This leaves the Pride Parade which has little to no audience up until the last block or two and so it's kind of more political march than parade.  I love it because unlike some larger metropolitan area Pride Parades, it's a family friendly and fully covered parade (except for the guy wearing only chaps and a sling last year... my kids still bring it up in a slightly trauma-processing way).  I obviously wasn't going to march/parade in it this year. But I felt that I could maybe observe from the unpopulated early parts of the route. So we set up our lonely lawn chairs and watched.

And they loved us. They showered us with candy and appreciation as nearly the ONLY observers they'd yet observed. They pointed and waved at us and called out "YOU ARE CUTE!!"  Drag Queens and human rainbows posed for my photos. Tralalalala! The closest I've come to fun for some time.  And I posted some photos to Facebook captioning some queens mugging for my camera, "Everyone should be able to wear whatever they want whenever they want." I felt good about everyone.

The next day, the kids and I went to our neighborhood grocery store. I was struggling to function that day and I figured I could pick up what we needed if I brought along my new cane.

Some time ago, I had been prescribed a cane.  I couldn't quite get my mind around it.  A CANE?!  I'm not falling over.  I'm not blind. I'm not crippled.  I'm just off kilter and easily woozy and getting better. But it's because I've recovered some that I need it.  It's now time for me to bring my eyes up off the floor and start seeing the world around me again. Instead of using poor mental substitutes for a crutch to find and keep my balance, I should be using an actual crutch to keep myself up and moving.  It's a cane, not crutches, not a walker, not a wheel chair; just a cane.

I knew at the Pride Parade, if I was going to be able to walk in to the Pride Festival to find my daughter who marched with our church in the parade, I was going to need all the help I could get, so I finally picked up a cane at the drug store and headed in to the rainbow mayhem.  It was a revelation.  Suddenly my head had space. I could see things. I could hear things without going nuts. I felt horribly self conscious, but my mind also felt liberated to do some thing other than try to keep myself vertical... which was walk in and walk right back out.  But still, that's progress!

Back at the grocery store, I was struggling again to find peace with the cane. I felt awkward and conspicuous. And then, in walked our local person of drag. I can't tell if he is sincerely but inexpertly trying to be a she or if he is trying to look like a he sort of being a she; it's not a real thorough transformation. Plus, women who are 6 ft tall usually eschew 8 inch heels, so it's an unrealistic get-up. It is none of my business, I'm simply unsure what pronoun s/he would want me to use here.

On this day, it looked like maybe s/he hadn't changed for a few days.  Her butt pads were lumpy and her boobs were wandering in ways that reminded me of my 6th grade Halloween costume where I was a bubble gum machine with assorted balloon shapes contained in a clear plastic bag around my torso.  Her blond wig was tattered. And his usual cobalt blue mini dress was, as usual, making him/her really noticeable. S/he always stands out, partly because I've never seen a woman go grocery shopping in anything close to that outfit. For me personally, however fascinating and interesting a well done drag queen can be, I find badly executed drag unsettling, as I did on this particular day.

Accidental mother-daughter opposite-matching, with props

Coyote's mouth was completely open in shock (as were pretty much everyone else's).  And his eyes were big as dinner plates.  And I felt it would do no good for me to pretend we weren't all seeing the hot mess we were seeing. I had to say something. But what?! These are the issues we face in provincial little Spokane. What to do? What do say? It didn't seem honest to ignore the spectacle, which normally isn't much of a spectacle, but today she was really amazing.  I had massive internal dissonance.  On the one hand, you know, isn't it okay to hope that some care might be put in to ones appearance?  On the other hand, what was it that I'd posted on Facebook? "Everyone should be able to wear whatever they want whenever they want."  All we legally ask is that privates are covered, and they were.  Um... so who was I really?

I got down at Coyote's level, in front of his eyes, and said, "Remember, Everyone gets to wear whatever they want whenever they want.  And it's impolite to stare." 

I stood up. And I leaned on my cane, suddenly able to handle the store, the noise, the people, the music, the numbers and letters everywhere, for as much time as I needed to pick up the few items on our list, all thanks to my cane. 

And I realized that if S/he can wear slovenly drag, I get to use a cane.  And it's nobody's business if I do.  I can use a cane whenever I need to, or not.  I can use my cane whenever I want to, NEED or not.  I can use my cane for as long as I want, whenever I want, or not. I can use my cane for the rest of my life, if I feel like it, just for kicks.  I don't need to be "bad off enough" to justify it to anyone, even myself.  I love my cane.  It makes space in my brain for other things. And gives me a sense of security as I expand my horizons and test myself against new situations.  And that's the society you and I both want to live in, one where people get to make choices for themselves for what's right for them, and it's none of our damn business.  My brain.  My cane.  My right.

People's reactions to my cane have been almost universally great, probably the bad drag queen can't say that. Not much gawking. Customer service is prompt. People make way for me in a crowd. I feel less need to explain the confused words that sometimes come out of my mouth.  Only once, rounding a corner at the store, was it awkward. This woman and I almost collided and instead of exchanging mumbled "excuse me's" she screamed, "AAAHHH! Oh MY GOD. I'M SO SORRY.  Oh please forgive me. OH MY GOD.  I can't believe myself!!! AUGHH!!!"   I half expected her to thank me for my service.  In such a military town, it's a common enough phrase to anyone in fatigues or with a crutch. But, as a friend recently suggested, perhaps that's what I'll say next time I see our neighborhood drag queen: "Thank you for your service,  and thank you for the sacrifices you have made for my sense of freedom."