What's that title about? My lovely daughter. Although you'll find my blog is filled with much sarcasm (which you can think of as the big S); don't read any here. She is lovely. And tomorrow she turns 19 (where did the time go, whoa is me) and in 12 days she leaves for Parris Island, i.e. the only female Marine Boot Camp.
As you might imagine, we've had some trouble adjusting to this new world order. After all on 12/26/2009 we were discussing what would fit in her dorm room up at UW Oshkosh. And 3 days later, we were told she was joining the Marines. Lovely. Now that's a big S-lovely.Ironically, Oshkosh Truck won the bulk of the work on the Army's and USMC's JLTV FoV - what must be at least a hundred dollar contract; but don't quote me on that - I might be off by 10^9 or so. They might pump out as many as 10,000 of these things over the life of the program. And maybe my little girl will end up appreciating Oshkosh afterall.
Speaking of the life of the party, my Marine poolie, whose shoes will be covering one of many yellow sets of footprints in the not too distant future, turns 19 tomorrow, as I've already written - or maybe that's today or last week for you. See posting date and don't bother me, kid.
Unfortunately, like many parents of 19 year olds, I probably won't be seeing my 19yo tomorrow. But not for the reasons you may have on your Jump to Conclusion Mat. You see, as I wrote earlier, we've had some trouble adjusting to our new roles as Proud-Military-Parents. We spent so much time thinking we were Proud-College-Student-Parents, that we were surprised by the Proud-X-College-Student-Parent reality. And Proud-College-Student-Parents don't seem to worry so much about whether their Proud-X-Child, will become an X-Child draped in old glory; at least not as much as those military types. Just ask the UW LaCross student's parents, whose children seem to have repeated, land versus river-ice, misinterpretations. I think it's 9 drowned in 10 years walking across the mighty Mississippi? Pretty mighty.
Anyway, I'll admit it to all 3 of you here and now: I blew it, literally. See if you can find this on your conslusion mat: She had one of her less lovely days and I had had enough of it, and I blew my top. I forcefully kicked her out. Thought about calling her Army, or Coast-Guard, and that would have had a then-wanted, and probably relatively short termed affect, but instead I shoved her toward the door and told my little girl to get out. Yes, whoa is me - now.
There's more to tell, but none as riveting as . . . . hey, are you awake?
And when that phone call comes:
I don't think it'll be ringing at my house. Her mom owns a phone too, I think, and it's been a couple years since she kicked the 'girl' out, so that pain has had more time to heal.
Maybe I can be forgiven too, someday.
