Our Guamazing Adventure

I remember very vividly sitting in my gram's basement, channeling our best Bob Ross and painting mountain scenes (mine had a giant duck in the pond roughly the size of one of my mountains) on canvas with my cousin Jill and sister Bree. We were flipping through channels, and good ole Sesame Street was on, and the song "one of these things is not like the other... one of these things does not belong" came on. It was so appropriate, first, for my poor giant duck, and second for my bastard best friends who happened to be my cousin and Bree (you might remember them from "onesie pajamas.")

The feeling of "one of these kids is not like the other" is very distinct. I've decided (today) that there are three basic categories of the Sesame Street Belonging Song. 1) - The "I clearly don't belong here, but no one cares and everyone is being very nice (i.e. when I went to an all black church in Washington, DC and the priest asked me to stand up so the congregation could welcome all of the new visitors>>> clearly I was new, but everyone was very kind, and actually quite patient when I kept clapping on the wrong beats. Oops). 2) - The "I clearly don't belong here, and someone will make a passive aggressive comment illuminating this fact (i.e. squadron picnic last spring when my husband was one of three people that had to work, so I took his spot on the squadron softball team. It was all active duty, and moi, the sole spouse. No one on the team seemed to mind since I am a) the most competitive person ever, and b) used to pitch for both the Department of Homeland Security AND the General Services Administration's intramural softball teams, but several of the wives made the ole "oh so we're not good enough to play with?" kind of comments... let the record show my very fair defense was that of the 20 wives, something like 72% are pregnant, and maybe 14% have ever played softball and that does not a competitive softball team make..) and 3) - the "what is SHE doing here??" My least favorite. Takes me right back to the eighth grade. We had just moved from Kansas to Colorado (two weeks into the school year) and when I politely refused to make out with a boy (sidenote: I had never been kissed, and certainly didn't intend to waste my first kiss in the parking lot of the King Soopers Grocery Store), the entire eighth grade class (save maybe four girls, one of whom is world-class marathon runner Paige Higgins) called me a lesbian. I'll never forget walking into our eighth grade dance and everyone stopping dancing and staring at me. Note to the kids (graduating class 1996) at St. Mary's: if you cup your hand over your mouth and point at someone, they can STILL HEAR YOU. I transferred back to Kansas the next week, and lived with my Aunt Michelle and Uncle Dan for the rest of the year. I went back to Colorado for high school, but miraculously grew 8" and breasts before returning. Suck it.

I digress.

I started Scuba certification yesterday. Today, we did four "confined water" (shallow enough that you can stand up) dives, and two "open water" (self explanatory) dives. I think you all know my complete fear of the ocean. It's still here. In fact, I totally feel like one of these kids is not like the other! The fish just stare at you, as if to say "what the hell are you doing here? This is my home. You do not belong. If you were meant to breathe underwater you'd have gills." It's very unnerving for me. We did see some eels (which led to 20 minutes of me singing Little Mermaid in my head) and then a giant see turtle (which led to 20 minutes of channeling Dori from Finding Nemo and repeating "just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Swimming swimming swimming swimming.) My instructor (Wade Hood, GTDS) rocks and it's looking like I will pass tomorrow. I am doing the three day accelerated course in anticipation for diving "the Grotto" in Saipan this weekend. Oh yeah --- my big news: we're going to Saipan! This weekend! I am SO excited to go. My grandfather (dad's dad) was stationed there during WWII, and he and my Gram returned to Saipan for their 40th wedding anniversary in the early 1980s. Especially since both my grandparents are dead now, I feel a strange pull to Saipan to go "visit" them, in a way. I am so, SO excited. Until then, I have to get through one more day of scuba lessons, plenty of mini-anxiety attacks, some homework, some work, and hanging out with my good friends - the ones who make me feel like I do belong, even on an island 10,000 miles from home :)


WINDY!!! And giant waves. Not safe. At all.



This is our cold front :)




You guessed it. Back to front - Jill, Bree, me (sing it with me: one of these kids is not like the other... :)