Dec 20

Great news, my eldest daughter was just accepted into the Army. She took the test for job placement today and scored 47. She is going into communications. She has the physical on Wednesday and she’ll go to boot camp in June two weeks after she gets out of school. She is pretty excited. After two months of boot camp, she’ll go to her MOS training which is four months long. That’ll put her back home around Christmas time next year. She’s going into the reserves so right after that she’ll start college in mid January of 2012.
I brought her down to the recruiter today so that she could take the test. I was excited for her, but they wouldn’t let me stay. It was a three hour test and it wasn’t held at the recruiter’s office. It was held downtown. I’m sure they just didn’t want a bunch of parents hanging around. But, I wished I could have been there even if it was just for moral support. We arrived a little before 8 in the morning only to discover the time had changed to 1pm. That wasn’t fun. It was like icing the kicker in football. (When the kicker is about to kick a field goal and the opposing team calls time out.) She spent the whole week exercising and watching what she ate so that she could lose the six pounds she needed to be in compliance. Even though her mom told me to promise I would make her eat something before we went, I didn’t. She wasn’t going to and I didn’t want to make her feel self conscious, especially if she didn’t make the weight. But, then we get there and have to turn around and wait some more. (She’ll have to get used to that in the Army. Hurry up and wait is one of the military’s slogans.) But, everything turned out and she’s ready to go.
I received the shipment of my latest two books. So, I spent the time while my baby was taking the test building 18 collections of all eleven of my books to give out as presents. I really didn’t think they were going to get here on time, but they were on the door step this morning. I was so happy. Now, all I have to do is deliver them. I was going to wrap them all up in wrapping paper, but I only tied them up in ribbons instead. It still took me a couple hours. It turns out that not only do I suck at wrapping, I can’t tie ribbon either.
I only have one more present to get, and I am going to have to do it on Thursday the 23rd. (Payday) I had arranged for my sister to use her employee discount to get me something for my wife. But, when I sent her the money, it took nearly a week to arrive and somehow I put her maiden name instead of her married name down on the bank draft. Can you believe how stupid I am? Well, no one would cash it, so she had to send it back to me. Hopefully I’ll get it in a day or two and use it to go online and get it myself. There isn’t time for me to send it out to her and her discount wasn’t that much anyway. I don’t think it will come in by Christmas, but that’s what I get for being stupid. If I have to wait until the 23rd, I can go get it at Target. I saw it there for the same price as online, but it’s the next version up which is fifty dollars more. We’ll see how it goes.
I finished chapter 15 on Friday and I’m starting chapter 16 today. I think I’m going to do a little on My Private Dance later on. I didn’t mean to, but I was thinking about it before I took a nap today and it’s going to bug me until I get it written down. So, I better get going if I’m going to get both done. I’m putting on some April Wine, Cinderella, and Cat Stephens tonight for background music.
-Thom