Pilot Training, Part II

The best advice I have for coping with pilot training:

Find a job/hobby/volunteer gig/start a home business.

Doesn't matter what you do, but you need your own thing. Maybe it is because so many of the spouses are newly married and just out of undergrad, but that seems to be a hard one for people to follow. People are also hesitant to look for jobs because they will be moving soon (keep in mind, UPT is thirteen months long, so you'll most likely be there at LEAST that long! And don't get me started on how the pipeline is backed up right now coming out of UPT).

Don't get me wrong. I understand that the cities where UPT bases are located are not exactly metropolises (also, why is it metropolises? shouldn't it be metropoli? I digress...) but if you can't find a job in your field, you can find something that will at least engage your brain and give you something to look forward to while your spouse is gone 12 hrs a day and studying another 6 on top of that.

I have a full time job. This keeps me more than occupied. But if a full time job is not your style (for whatever reason) or just not in the cards, here are some other things I've seen people do successfully:
-Start a business (Mary Kay/whatever or something of your making)
-Volunteer (on base or off)
-Offer to run spouse groups
-Train for a triathlon (seriously, the girl I know who does this is SO BUFF)
-Take a class- online courses are your friend! There are so many legit schools with awesome programs, look around!
-Take a class- community ed! check out you local library! Cooking, languages, ballet for adults oh my!
-Part time/substitute gig
-Write (and publish!) a book
-Work on reading through the literary canon (The woman who does this is so cool, she is always reading something totally awesome and looking to talk about it).

I'm not saying you have to go overboard. But find something that is just yours, even if it is only a couple hours a week and then OWN it. Be excited about it, talk about it, enjoy it, make your spouse learn at least something about it. You'll be a lot happier, trust me. All the people I've met who are happy and dealing well with the stress of a spouse in UPT have something of their own that keeps them occupied. I hate to be all "just think positive" but seriously, find something that at least adds to your happiness and then focus on that.

**Disclaimer: I have no children. My advice is for people who also have no kids. If you have kids and your spouse is in UPT, you are a better soul than I. But from observation I can tell you that it is very doable whether you work outside the home or not. I know lots of ladies who manage it with style and grace.

Pilot Training, Part I

Before Einstein and I married, we knew he was headed to pilot training. Air Force UPT (Undergraduate Pilot Training) is 13 months of twelve hour duty days, endless studying and emotional exhaustion.

In other words, it is like most military training.

Amongst my Air Force friends (and I had a lot, even without that fancy brown card!) UPT had gathered a mystique. Whether or not their husbands were pilots, my friends gleefully gave me a metric ton of unasked for advice:

"Don't plan on talking to him for a year!"

"My husband was too busy to hug me. It was the worst year of my life, and of our marriage."

"You shouldn't even bother moving there. It's not like you will see him anyway."

The last bit of advice was one that I heard from numerous sources. Obviously, I didn't follow it. Looking back now, at roughly the halfway point (almost!!) I have to say that it was hands down the worst piece of advice that I was given. I'm going to try to write a little series on pilot training, with my advice for those wives/girlfriends/fiancees who are headed into those dreaded 13 months. I hope that my advice is more reassuring than any of the advice I received.

I'm planning to concentrate on different aspects and problems we've faced. I have a feeling most of it will be applicable across the military, not just to AF pilots. I will probably end up repeating things that most of my reader's already know. But maybe it will be handy for that scared, research and internet dependent woman like me, who was hoping for some ray of sunshine and practical advice in the sea of negativity.

My motivation is gone

I love my job.

I love my job.

I love my job.

(Seriously, I do.)

Summer, however, kills me. My public school childhood hardwired the three month vacation into me and I am SO DONE with working during the summer. I want to sleep in, lay by the pool, take afternoon naps, eat picnic lunches and swim all day. And I have not had a single spare moment to do any of those things. I want my summer!!!

The obvious solution is to become a school librarian *insert hysterical laughter here*.

Honestly, I have this sneaking suspicion that summer isn't half as relaxing as a grown-up, even if you don't have to go to work. It's just that a lot of my IRL friends are not working outside the home right now and they seem to be having so much fun this summer. I want to have some too!

*Note: I really appreciate school librarians. I think they are amazing people, and I wouldn't do their job for a million dollars...which is obviously far far higher than the average librarian's salary. Literally, the thought of working in a school library makes me ill. Even with three months "off" in the summer.

Collection development

Librarian post ahead.

So one of the main parts of my job is ordering books and other materials for my library. Specifically, since I am a children's librarian, for people ages 0-12. This is really really hard.

Why? Because I used to be a teen librarian. I know what is appropriate for teens. I know what they like. I know what's new, which authors are cool, which one's teachers like (and assign!) and what is so last week. Kids? Not so much. Library school (and general library work) have given me a pretty decent clue about picture books and a few chapter books, but most of the time I am adrift, trying to learn a whole new age group.

It's good. It's broadening my horizons.

It makes me take FOREVER to complete one stupid order. After the fifth inquiry about when I would have an order list completed, I finally broke down and confessed to our collections librarian today. It went something like this:

"C, I have to look up every book to read reviews,"

"What? You mean to check if we have it already? The system will auto-notify you!"

"No. Because I have no idea what these books are about. I look up review for every single one."

It was hard. It was ugly. But it bought me a few days on my order. (Also C wasn't mad, just amused that I hadn't confessed earlier.)

Also, spending tens of thousands of dollars on books makes me want to go to the bookstore for myself really, really badly. Since, you know, it is definitely NOT ethical to sneak my own book wants into a purchase order.

Unending Anticipatory Grief

Okay. I spend enough time on Spousebuzz to realize that anticipatory grief is a pretty normal thing in the milspouse world.

My problem is that I can't turn it off, and there is no end in sight. Any day that Einstein flies is one where I fear for his safety. This isn't a problem with rational thought; trust me when I say that I know flying is safe, that Einstein is a good pilot (for a student, anyway!), that really pilot is a pretty safe job when all things are considered, and that in a training environment everyone is on their toes, etc etc etc. I get it.

I think about his death every single day. Several times each day. On the way to work. When I get to work. On my lunch break (what if they were looking for me while I was at McDonald's???). When I get home. While I wait for him to come home. I rehearse the knock, how it would happen if I was at work. It is to the point where I pick up the house before I leave in case he dies while I'm at work and I have people all over our house that night. I think about my clothes, and whether that is what I want to be wearing when they tell me my husband is dead.

The past few nights Einstein has gotten home later than anticipated for various reasons. I go into panic mode immediately, calling other wives to see if any of his flight mates are home. I'm not a wreck...it is just always there.

And I can't live like this for the rest of my life. If he were deployed, I could rationalize it. I would expect this level of obsession. But he is going to be flying nearly every day for the next ten years (hopefully! he's a grouch when he doesn't fly!) and I can't sustain this that long. I really can't. And I can't turn it off.

Seriously, how do other people cope?

Maybe you can help me...

"Maybe you can help me" is seriously my least favorite phrase to hear from a patron.

Dude, I get paid to help you. It is the main component of my job. I went to freaking grad school so that I could help you.

I'm pretty sure I can help you.

Also, what do you say to that? I mean, what do you say that is friendly and customer service oriented? "Yes, I can help you" with a perky smile is my usual reply, but even I get sick of that after awhile.

Oh, Family Gatherings

Sometimes I feel bad for relatives of military people. I can slot pretty much all of our extended family (and the extended family of our military friends) into four categories:

1) Military relatives. Obviously they "get it." While you may not like their Jalepeño Apple Pie, you don't have to worry about dumb questions from them (usually).

2) Endless Questioners. "So do you really move that much? Can't you just tell them you don't want to deploy? What types of planes are those again? How long is your commitment? Do you think...." The worst form of this is the relatives who don't understand "I can't tell you what I know about that" or "I can't talk about that." I am always embarrassed for them (after all, I know how it feels to be told that Einstein can't tell me something) but I am also constantly shocked at how people try to get around it by continuing to ask questions about a topic he has told them is off limits!!! What is that about??

3) The Know-it-Alls. This type of relative (I have a LOT of this type) are the ones who never served a day in the military in their lives, but know all about the military. They seem to honestly believe that they know it all and are constantly trying to impress Einstein (and whatever other poor souls are sitting on the deck with him) with their encyclopedic "knowledge." Some of these types are fairly harmless, and can even be amusing (the uncle who always tries to finish Einstein's sentences and is crestfallen when he is wrong). Some of them (my uncle) are annoying, patronizing and dead wrong about pretty much everything. ("You'll see how it is after you've been in awhile" Um, excuse me? You were never IN the military!) Also, this type tends to think they know more than me (the little wifey). Naturally, this makes them my least favorite.

4) The Oblivious. These range from those who have no understanding/experience with the military, and who have so little concept of what the lifestyle is like that they do not even realize the differences from their own lives. Some of these are the apathetic relatives, who also tend to be narcissistic. My least favorite is this type are those who actively dismiss you after they hear about the military affiliation. That drives me crazy!

My revelation for the weekend is this: it is hard for the "civilian" relatives to break free from these categories, because if you don't ask a million questions or act like you know it all, I am liable to think you are Oblivious. So what is my perfect relative like?

They are as interested in asking questions about Einstein's life as they are in asking questions about his cousin's med school antics. They never assume they know more than he does. And they don't dwell on it overlong (for instance, trapping Einstein in a corner the entire night of a family barbecue and grilling him about military life) before moving on to other topics.

A quote from ALA past

To make up for my own dissaointment over missing ALA (the American Library Associations monster yearly conference) this year, I am going to post my favorite quote from ALA's past.

In 1937, Frances Clarke Sayers gave an impassioned address entitled The Nightingale, which focused on how children's librarians needed to combat the tendency to give children books that were dumbed down, that focused on the mundane and easy to understand. Every day I struggle against this same issue. Collection development (which books to buy), reference interviews (which books to recommend), reader's advisory, etc, they all lead me back to this one issue. So I try to keep this quote in mind throughout my day.

She said:

“Of what are we afraid? Of words, of emotion, of experience? We are very tender, it seems to me, of the young,
and tenderness is no preparation for a world half mad and savage. "

So, can we talk about something besides flying now?

After spending the ENTIRE weekend as the only civilian with a bunch of military pilots-in-training, I can safely say that I really would rather not talk about anything flying related for, oh, hmmm, well, you know, at LEAST a month.

The chances of this are slim to none.

Don't get me wrong. Einstein has wanted to be a pilot as long as I've known him (really, since he was five and went on his first helicopter flight). And he loves flying so much. And I love him so much. He spent years thinking his dream of flying in the military was impossible, and then it was a long process of maybes, and "if this works out" and now he is finally doing what he has always wanted to do and I don't begrudge him a second of it.

I'm only saying that it might be nice to talk about other topics, from time to time. We don't even have to talk about books or libraries or anything like that. We could talk about how Spain defeated Germany today in the EuroCup (hooray!). We could talk about cooking. Or the rising price of gas...but that would lead to talk of jet fuel...

I know lots of families that don't discuss religion or politics at the dinner table. I'm thinking maybe no flying at the dinner table? Just for a few days?

Stop! No hitting in the library!

Today I had to stop a six year old boy from mauling his sister. I was walking over to the information desk from the back of the stacks (that's shelves, in librarianese) and made the turn just in time to see the young man tackle his slightly older sister to the ground (hard enough that he caused my computer monitor to spin like a top!) and begin to beat the living tar out of her.

And yes, I can say living tar. I live in the South. Deal with it.

So I rushed over and started with the "Stop! We don't hit people in the library!" spiel. I would have added that we don't hit people at all, but I got taken to task once for telling a patron's child that "We don't hit other people EVER" , so now I limit myself to saying "in the library."

I seriously though I was going to have to pry the kid off of his sister. It was out of control. He finally stopped and ran off to destroy one of my display racks. His parents? Nowhere in sight. Sigh.

Also, a conversation between Einstein and I at dinner:

E: And then so and so said "Well, it sure sounds like *insert mysogynistic/anti-woman comment here*"
Me: REALLY? I totally can't believe he said that, he doesn't seem the type.
E: Well, I think he's just like me...it doesn't matter if you believe it, it is just easier to say it once and awhile, you know, to fit in...
Me: OH REALLY? So what kind of things do you say?
E: uhhhhhhhhh. Nothing. I don't say anything at work. Ever.

Conversation with a coworker

"Wait, your husband is an officer?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. So, why are you working here?"

What I said "Well, *random lame ramblings about my love of libraries and massive student debt*"

What I was thinking, "I really have no idea."

Disclaimer: I love my job. But this was at the end of a looooooooong day.

Yes, we go to bed that early

Most of my non-military affiliated friends live the life of the young and upwardly mobile or the young and well-trust-funded (tough, I feel for them). This leads to a fair amount of dissonance between our lives and world views. It always has; after all, I could never afford to hire a maid or send my laundry out. (Yes I had friends in college who did those things.)

But the sticking point lately is less about political debates about the necessity of the military or inability to cope with the idea of frequent and seemingly pointless moves around the country.

The sticking point is our bed time. My friends cannot handle the fact that any call to us after 9 PM will not be answered.

Now, I grew up in a house where if you were calling after 9 PM you had better be 1) dead 2) dying or 3) calling about someone else in one of the previous two conditions. This was non-negotiable. My parents are hardcore about very few things, but the 9 PM phone cut off was sacrosanct. I never thought much about it (other than a brief interlude in college where the jealous ex of my roomate's new boyfriend called EVERY NIGHT at 3 AM) and I certainly didn't follow it. But with Einstein's flying schedule and my own work schedule, it makes sense to go to bed at around 9:30. And I need a half and hour of quiet time before I can fall asleep. So if the call comes in after 9, I don't even see it (oh the wonder of cell phones!) until the next morning. Obnoxious? Perhaps. Ornery? Maybe. Ridiculous? No.

Frankly, if you want to talk to me that badly, call me before 9 PM.

I like Summer Reading

For those of you who don't have a double major in library-ese to go with your major in military-ese, Summer Reading=Summer Reading Program (commonly abbreviated SRP)=a reading program for library patrons (usually kids) that involves some equation of time spent reading/number of books read with prizes.

And guess what, I like it! I like having kids in the library! I like that they are reading (even if the little darlings are probably fudging the number of hours they are reading for). I like all of the kitschy programming. I like doing storytime for 200+ kids. This has made me odd person out at work.

There is actually a countdown on a bulletin board in the staff break room- the number of days until the end of summer reading. Since we are only about a week in, I think it is more depressing than motivating, but hey, at least it gives my coworkers something to complain about!

I'm really having a hard time dealing with the bad attitude about it, though...I mean, seriously, it is a PUBLIC LIBRARY. The more people who know we exist means the more people who might vote yes the next time we have some sort of levy.

Although to be fair, most of their angst seems to stem from the fact that the SRP snuck up on them! How dastardly, a whole season sneaking up on you!

Oh, little garden!

Einstein and I live in an apartment. Since we don't have a yard for gardening, I have turned to container gardening. This year's crops include (drumroll, please!):

Tomatoes
Beans
Lettuce
Basil (yum!)
Chives
Lemon Thyme
Mint

So far they seem to be thriving, although I worry a little bit that they will not survive the summer. I grew up in the North, and summer below the Mason-Dixon line seems a little, well, harsh. Like, soul sucking heat that is out to kill all living things, me and my baby plants included. Technically, half of them aren't babies, they are perennials from last year, but still.

There are few things that make me happier than coming home and picking things right off the vine for dinner! If you've never tried gardening of any sort and are interested in starting a few pots of tomatoes (or being even more ambitious!) check out The Edible Container Garden by Michael Guerra. It has great photos and excellent blow by blow instructions for all types of plants and containers. It is excellent for all levels of gardener, from the complete neophyte to the experienced gardener who is new to containers, or just looking to branch out from tomatoes!

Also, I love the farmers market. I went to the commissary today and didn't have to buy ANY produce. (Our commissary has the nastiest produce ever). Hooray!

Note to random parent

Dear Madam,

Thank you for bringing your son into the library. We are so happy to have him in the children's section, and I sincerely hope that your visits to our fine library inspire him to a lifelong love of books.

I'd also like to point out that leaving your child unsupervised in a public place is technically child abandonment and you are so freaking lucky that I didn't call the cops. Since you apparently think that your son is young enough to wander around with a pacifier in his mouth (even though he can walk and talk, although he is hard to understand around the binky!) I am at a loss as to why you think it is okay to leave him all alone in a 40,000 square foot building while you are on the other side of it, completely immersed in your internet surfing.

Just because I am sitting at the desk in the children's area does not mean I am watching your son. Luckily for you, I am a fairly patient person who loves children, and didn't mind him following me around or providing him with some books to look through or things to color with.

BUT. I could have been a child molester. Your son has no sense of stranger danger or where to go or not to go, since he is three. Leaving him unsupervised for over an hour is not only unwise, it is also criminal. Also, looking at me contemptuously when I walked over to you (since you hollered for him from the circulation desk, instead of coming to the children's area to fetch him) and reminded you politely that according to library policy all children under seven must be with an adult at all times did not help your case with me. What really sealed the deal was the "little bitch" comment you made under your breath when I told you that if it happened again, I would call the police.

So I've changed my mind. If you do it again, I will go ninja librarian on your ass.

Sincerely,
Nomad Librarian

I don't have words of my own, for this

Dirge without music by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.


We'll miss you, dear friend.

Overheard at work today

"Jimmy, let's go! You've got enough books already!"

"But look, Mom, books on sharks!!!"

"Jimmy, we still have to go to the grocery store. Let's go!"

"Why do we need groceries??? We should get more books instead!"


While books over groceries is not exactly practical, I couldn't help but smile at the little boy's enthusiasm for books and the library. The whole thing made me smile, and in my head I was agreeing with him!

Happy National Library Week!!

Go visit your library!

Libraries are so much more than just storehouses for books! This last weekend I had a frustrating discussion with a new acquaintance that started like this "So you're a librarian, huh? Isn't that kind of a dying profession? I mean, there's the internet..."

Libraries are essential to the American way of life. Not only because they are collect information and make it available to the public, but because one of the primary missions of any library is to equip its patrons with the ability to discern which information sources are reliable, which contributes to the informed citizenry necessary for truly democratic government. Another vital aspect of democracy is a literate citizenry, and I think most people would be hard pressed to find a group of people more dedicated to literacy than librarians. Whether it is adult literacy classes and book sections or children's storytimes and summer reading programs, literacy is obviously a priority of libraries. So no, I don't think libraries are dying. I think that my profession is one of the most necessary of this century.

Plus, you know, libraries have DVD's and free computers, too.

An email from my MIL

My mother-in-law is amazing. Every time I hear stories about other people's awful in-law experiences, I become even more thankful for my fantastic in-laws, who I love as much as my own parents. Einstein and I are lucky as hell for a lot of reasons, but having two fantastic sets of parents is where we really hit the lottery.

Gushing aside, though, for the first three or so years that Einstein and I were dating, I thought his mother was a little bit of a flake. She tends to come off a little absent minded (okay, more than a little!) and I was like, "OMG! Does this woman not see the way her family pushes her around?!? And she never even says anything to them!" Keep in mind that my family was definitely run on the lines of "if momma ain't happy ain't nobody happy", so a woman who seemed to let her family push her around was way out of my comfort zone.

And then, one day I suddenly realized that all of her ditzy comments? Complete and utter sarcasm! The woman had been making fun of everything, including herself, since I'd met her. So this week she finished off an email filled with family news with this little gem:

"I put some vases of sik flowers on the deck to have the wind blow the dust off on Saturday. Now they are just under a foot of snow. At least they are not dusty."

She slays me. Seriously.

You're gonna miss this...

I listen to country music.

Mostly because I switch back and forth between VH1 and CMT at the gym in the morning so I never have to watch a commercial, but that is a little beside the point.

The point is that there is a song by Trace Adkins that talks about how you can spend your whole life wishing away your present, thinking about the future. The chorus, for those who don't listen to country, goes:

"You're gonna miss this. You're gonna want this back. You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast. These are some good times, so take a good look around...you may not know it now, but you're gonna miss this."

The song has gotten me thinking a lot lately about how much time I spend thinking about the future, wishing that things were "different"...and listening to others I think it is especially common among milspouses to wish away the present selectively. For instance, no one sincerely believes that deployments and remote tours should be enjoyed and savored. And yet, at the same time, there are always things happening that we are going to miss. When I think about the years that Einstein and I spent apart, I remember how much it sucked. Believe me, I do. But I also remember awesome friends, learning to live on my own, being independent and impulsive and having sushi for dinner (Einstein hates it).

Which brings me to now. If I had a dollar for every time that some well meaning (military pilot spouse) soul has said "Pilot training is awful! My husband never even had time to hug me!" or "I don't know why you are even moving there with him, you'll never see him!" or "Just get through it, thirteen months and then its over!" I could buy myself a really nice dinner. With as much sushi as I could eat.

It's not fun. I mean, I look at friends who's significant others come home from work at the same time they do and they cuddle and cook together and go for walks, blahblahblah, and it makes me sad, because Einstein comes home, refuses to hug me (more on that story later!), studies and goes to bed. But seriously. Some of the women I spend time with every day think it is going to get better after pilot training. Reality check! It's not. First squadrons, deployments, TDY's, etc etc etc. Which while depressing, begs the question: why aren't we all looking for the things that we enjoy about where we are right now? I'm not talking about being Polly Perky, I'm talking about having good days and bad days and trying to look at the glass half full, not half empty.

So, since Einstein won't be home tonight...SUSHI!!!