My eldest sister...

Mandy, my oldest sister, has been deployed. She has warned us not to be too specific about where and how and when she goes, she's probably overly cautious, but I don't see anything wrong with that. A few weeks ago, she was in Texas, at Fort Hood, waiting with her battalion to go overseas. I decided to use a few days of my PTO and go and spend some time with her and Mom, attempting to distract her from the fact that she was away from Jake and Scott while still in the country.

One night, Mom and I "helped" her pack loads of interesting, mysterious, camouflaged parafenelia including a flack vest that weighed approximately 2.7 tons; amazing that Mandy, who probably weighs 115 lbs soaking wet, will wear something like that pretty much wherever she goes. But again, we're grateful for the precautions. A couple other fun little whatnots found in and amongst the canteens, gerbers, etc. were a couple of switchblades provided by Scott and Scott's Uncle Mike, one about 5 inches long, the other a little smaller. Obviously, these two men know how and what to arm her with whereas we inexperienced people trust that the army will fully outfit her. When we asked why they each gave her one, why she would need two such weapons, she merely stated without hesitation, "one for my belt, and one for my boot." Very strange, this world I just stumbled blindly into. Very foreign to the microcosm I live in. Amid all these preparations, we were able to laugh, donning "tattoos" and alter egos, which I think at least allowed Mandy to release some need seratonin.

Later that weekend, we visited Grandma Sue and Grandpa Gary's little piece of paradise that Grandpa Gary affectionately calls "Lonesome Dove." It really is beautiful, regardless of what all of you think of the fried, desolate desert you think of as Texas. And Grandma Sue and Grandpa Gary really know how to tap into the local beauty, the flowers and succulents that thrive there. We ate and talked, then ate again, did some dishes, ate again, played with some cute dogs. We laughed that basically when we finished eating, we immediately started preparations for the next meal. On Saturday, the day before Father's Day, Grandma Sue had promised to take balloons to the local nursing home to dress things up a bit in honor of the holiday. With two cars, Mom, Mandy, Grandma Sue and I headed to Walmart to have our balloons filled with helium and tied with ribbon, and they we would be off to deliver them to the nursing home. Grandma had bought just enough balloons, about 30, I think, for the 28 gentlemen in the home; we shopped around a bit, killing time while they filled them, then we started outside, to load them into our two cars. Before we even got to the car, at least two popped as soon as we got out of the air conditioned store and into the 90+ heat of the day. Yeah, the best laid plans. At one point, I've gotten into Grandma Sue's back seat in order to pull the dozen or so balloons in behind me; now I'm smoothered into a corner, the car is running and AC is blowing, but all I can see or feel is balloons, and my heart starts beating a little faster each second as I fully expect several of them to pop, giving me multiple heart attacks as I wait for Mandy and Grandma Sue to reappear out of Walmart where they have reentered in the hopes of getting a few extra balloons for the ones that have/will pop before we get them to the nursing home. I'm not really clausterphobic, but if I ever felt like the world was closing in on me, it was then. I ended up calling Mom on the cell phone in the next car over, slightly frantic and the soon-to-be-popping balloons now seemed to be sucking all the oxygen out of the car. Grandma Sue soon reappeared, and we started off with the first load. All ended well. The balloons were delivered, I lived to see another balloon-free day, and hopefully the residents were pleased with their Father's Day decorations.

Monday, we attended a deployment ceremony. From what I gathered, something more symbolic of maybe what it used to be. A high-ranking someone "inspects" the brigade, the colors of the various battalions are displayed and then wrapped, only to be unwrapped in Afghanistan. Canons are fired, people salute and are saluted. A couple of speeches are made.

We escape the base early in the day, and Mandy, using us as her excuse, leaves with us, and we drive just a little ways south to a little village-town called Saledo. I like Saledo; it's quaint and cute. There's a tea house that we don't quite make it to, several cute antique shops and what-not boutiques. In one fun little "mall," Mandy finds this great little purple, fuzzy puppet guy with three eyes and a long, curled nose, who we start calling Staney the Afghani; he will be Mandy's attention-getter for Jake when she skypes from Afghanistan.

I feel like I'm writing about all this trying to do the same thing I was doing while I was in Texas, trying to distract from the fact that my sister is far away. But there are only so many funny pictures to be taken, only so many silly stories to be told, only so many times you can sacrifice the color of your hair, so many times you can super-glue totally ridiculous tips on your fingernails, in the attempt to laugh or smile about something that you really want to cry about. I love my sister, all my sisters, and I want them home with me, on my commune, with their husbands and sons and cats. Instead, I am the only one of the four of us on the continental United States until Heather returns from Korea...