September 11, 2001

On September 11, 2001, I was a year out of college and living at home with my parents in Kentucky. I was working full time at Nine West at Kenwood Mall in Ohio. That day I was up early because it was my day to work inventory at the store. I was getting ready for work when my mom came up stairs to tell me that a plane hit one of the World Trade Towers. As I was walking downstairs, I was thinking that it had to have been a small plane, or maybe a sightseeing plane that lost control.

I think we were watching tv when the second plane hit and it wasn't a small plane.

I don’t remember how I was feeling at that time. I ended up going to work and listening to 700 WLW on the 20 minute drive up to Kenwood Mall. I took an old set of Sony radio headphones with me to work so I could listen while I was working on inventory. Everything at the mall at that time was business as usual.

The store opened at 10 AM and I believe we got word shortly thereafter that the mall was going to close at 11 AM for the rest of the day so people could go be with their families. My co-worker Amy and I started closing down the store. We still had the doors open but the lights were off and of course a customer came in and started perusing. I think Amy must have asked her if she needed help with something and told her that we, and the rest of the mall, were getting ready to close. She said she needed shoes for an event that she was attending that night and why on Earth was the mall getting ready to close?

“Our country is under attack, ma’am.” 

After I left the mall, I went to my then boyfriend’s house. I wanted to watch coverage ad nauseam because I didn't know what else to do. I think he took a nap. He may have just not cared or was working 3rd shift at the time. I can’t remember. I do remember looking out his window thinking what a beautiful day it was that day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was the perfect Fall day.

The days that followed, none of us knew what to do. I attended a peace and prayer rally on Fountain Square with my friend Susan. Susan and I were in our prime and we went out almost every night to the clubs to dance and have fun. After September 11th, we didn't go out for weeks. We thought it would be too disrespectful. No one tells you when it’s ok to start having fun again or when you should stop mourning.

As someone who was fresh out of college and still looking for a career or a “grown-up” job, the events of September 11th also made me want to do something meaningful and make a difference. A little over a month later, I was hired as a temp at a mental health agency. I ended up being hired on full time and that job started my career. Even though the job was extremely stressful with shitty pay, it was rewarding and I was making a difference.

Guam Greyhound Park

J and I went on a walk a few nights ago and discovered an abandoned greyhound race track not too far from our house. It was around dusk when we came upon the track and it was super creepy. It looked almost apocalyptic.

I was able to find a bit of history online about the track. It was closed in 2008 after being in operation for 32 years. When the track shut down, the greyhounds were given away to the public on a first come, first serve basis. No home checks were done and no adoption records were kept. After a few months, people started to notice greyhounds being abused or neglected around the island. People were trying to use them as guard dogs. Some people from the States that were on Guam got involved and some of the greyhounds were rescued and sent to California for adoption.

I went back today to take some pictures of the abandoned track.

another day, another weird dream

Last night I dreamt that my mom was hosting a party at her house for my uncle and some of his friends. The only reason I know that the party was for my uncle was because, after I did what I'm about to tell you that I did, I was worried that he was going to be mad at me.

So, I walk into my mom's house and everyone is in the kitchen/family room. This blonde lady, who I do not know in real life, is sitting on the fireplace. My mom asks her if she wants a pizza. Why this lady was getting her own special pizza, I do not know. The lady responds, "Yes, get me a pizza," and then continues a conversation with someone else in the room.

I am cleaning up plates and things around the room. I'm also cleaning dirt from a few peach trees that were growing the corner of the kitchen. The trees had clearly outgrown their containers and dirt was everywhere. While I'm cleaning, I overhear this blonde lady tell my mom she wants a pizza. I immediately stop what I'm doing, look at the blonde lady and say, "In this house we say please!"

The whole room got silent. And I went back to cleaning up dirt.

i heart 13 hour flights

I'm writing this post from the Narita, Japan airport as I wait to board my flight to Guam. Today has been a day of traveling. My day started at 4am Eastern Time. I spent most of my morning at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport as my flight that was supposed to leave at 7:05am was pushed to noon. Luckily, I was able to get on a 9:45am flight to Atlanta where I spent time in their fancy international terminal. Next came the 13 hour flight from Atlanta to Narita.

When I made this trip 10 days ago, I lucked out and the seat next to me ended up being empty... except for the weird guy two seats down from me throwing his legs all over the place and farting. Today was a different story. I had a lady next me that smelled like cold cream and halitosis and she kept getting all up in my space. I hate people sometimes.

So here I sit praying that my flight doesn't get cancelled because a tropical storm is going to hit Guam about 6 hours after my flight arrives. My husband says it is already getting windy and rainy. There isn't enough Dramamine in the world.

picking up our own balls and lies about apples

Last weekend the husband and I decided that we were going to do a bunch of adventurous things - driving range, snorkeling, hiking. The only thing we managed to fit in was the driving range. The weather did not cooperate for the rest of the weekend's activities. Hopefully, we will try snorkeling this weekend. It should be interesting since I've never been snorkeling before and I have a SLIGHT fear of underwater wildlife.

Anyway, so we decided to go to the driving range on base. The husband needed a golf glove and apparently I needed one too since he wouldn't let me wear my gardening gloves. Hahaha! So we stopped at the NEX on base first to buy some supplies. After we left the NEX, we headed to the driving range. There was not a soul in sight. We parked and walked over to the golf hut to get some balls. There was a sign on the hut that said buckets of balls were available for purchase at the fitness center. Augh. We got back in the car and headed to the fitness center. After we had an unnecessarily long conversation with the guy working the desk at the fitness center about what size bucket of balls we wanted, we found out the fitness center had no balls left. I was super annoyed at this point. SO, we left the fitness center and went back to the driving range. After checking to see whether there were keys in the ball truck, we decided we had come to far to turn around and go home, so we both picked up a basket and went out on the range and picked up our own damn balls.

We ended up having a great time as I normally do with my husband. He cracks me up. At one point, he lost the grip on his club during his back swing and sent that bastard flying into the top of a palm tree behind us. Oh my gosh, I was cracking up!!

Speaking of cracking up, we went to the grocery last night to get some apples (that's not the funny part). Ever since J and I have been grocery shopping together, I thought he told me he preferred Gala apples so we've both been buying that kind for months now. Well, last night we're standing in front of the multiple choices of apples and J asks me what kind I want. I said to just get Gala because I know that's the kind he wants. I said that I was more partial to Red Delicious but that I know he likes Gala so that was fine. He said that he liked Red Delicious and that he'd been buying Gala this whole time because he thought I liked Gala. SMH. We were laughing so hard at each other and talking about how our whole marriage has been a lie. Sometimes I wish there were cameras following us around just to witness our hilarity. I love my bear.

wait... what?

So as some of you may know, I've been working a fancy admin job for about 2 months now. Since it's an office job, I do tend to get dressed up for work. I had a few work appropriate outfits with me in Guam but I had to have my mom mail me the rest of my work wardrobe because, let's be honest, there was no more room in my suitcase when I moved here. I also didn't see the point of bringing work clothes with me as getting a job here is like a shot in the dark.

Anywho, so my mom mailed me my work clothes (thank you, mother) and, after being shipped over here on a slow boat to Shanghai, basically everything needed to be washed. Most of the garments were accepted by my washer & dryer but a few had to be dry cleaned.

The dry cleaning pile sat around for a good couple of weeks until one day I decided to get my act together and take my clothes to the cleaners. Unfortunately, I had not seen any dry cleaners in my neighborhood so I googled "dry cleaner guam." So simple, right? Wrong. Totally wrong. Every damn result was for places that sell industrial dry cleaning equipment. It's like everything on this island is a well kept secret.

My husband mentioned to me awhile ago that there might be a dry cleaner on the Navy base. Neither of us had any idea where it was or if it even existed so I started searching the internets for some sign of a dry cleaner on base. Once again I came up with nothing. I finally text my friend to see if she had ever seen any signs of this cryptid dry cleaner. It was a miracle! There is a dry cleaner on base and it's located in the........ furniture store?!!?! WHAT?!

Not believing my friend for a second, I picked up my dry cleaning pile, drove straight to base, and went in the furniture store. Mind you, I left my pile of clothes in the car because, not believing my friend, I wasn't about to walk into the furniture store like an idiot with a pile of clothes. Lo and behold there was a dry cleaner inside the furniture store! I walked over to the room and went in to make sure it was open before I went out to get my clothes. Just as everything is in Guam, there were a bajillion signs all over the place with random instructions and warnings and "we have the right to refuse service to anyone" crap. Every business and government office pretty much looks like this from Harry Potter:

There was no one at the desk when I walked in but there was a sign that said "Ring Bell for Service" but, alas, there was no bell. Just as I was giving up and walking out, a girl came in to help me. She probably thought I was furniture shopping since I didn't come in to the store with a pile of clothes. Sheesh.

my life is a series of merriments

Today I had to drop off something for work at a business, or area of town for that matter, that I had never been to before. The thing about Guam is that pleasantries like Mapquest don't exist and you really can't Google an address. You MIGHT be able to pull up an exact address on Google Maps and get a satellite view but never a street view of anything. Street names change randomly here, some streets have multiple names, house/business numbers go up and down without explanation if you can even find a number in the first place. You really just have to drive to the area of town and hope for the best.

I finally found the building I was looking for today after making myself carsick from trying to drive and read and look and turn around and drive and read and look some more. I pulled into the parking lot of what looked to be a two story office building. There were two doors, one on each end of the building. I chose the door that I parked nearest to. I knew the office that I was looking for was on the second floor so I headed for the stairs.

I got to the second floor and there was a door in front of me that led to an office (not the one I was looking for) or I had the option to go right and walk around the back of the building. So I headed to the right. I arrived at another set of doors that were locked. To my left were stairs going back down to the parking lot. I headed down those stairs. Unfortunately, there was a gate and it was locked (from the outside apparently because that makes sense). Son of a bitch. This same set of stairs continued down another flight so I went down another flight and ended up.... in the underground parking garage. At this point, I was pretty sure I was about to be murdered. I scurried over to another flight of stairs to my right. I took those stairs up to ground level and then continued up to the second floor. And whattya know?! There was the office I was looking for!

Whomever designed that building is an asshole.

dreams

I'm going to start posting about some of my dreams. Not my aspirations but my actual crazy ass dreams. So last night I dreamt that J had five children. (In real life he has no children.) I was having a conversation with one of them, a blonde haired, blue eyed boy with glasses, who was telling me that he didn't like J's last girlfriend and that he was happy that I was the one J chose. The weird thing about all this was that his kids were never all in the same room together so I didn't know who was who. I was worried because J was getting ready to go on a trip and I was going to be responsible for the kids but I didn't know who any of them were. I wanted to ask J for pictures, descriptions and names for each kid but I was too embarrassed. One of the girls, who was also blonde, was named Ivan. Yea, a girl named Ivan. Alrighty.

I have the weirdest, most vivid dreams. Last week I dreamt that my cousin Ben invited to go get pizza with him and Justin Timberlake. I wake up most mornings like what in the hell was that about?!