Picnic Week

It drives me absolutely nuts that Seth refuses to share the gym with me. We have a beautiful home gym with ridiculously expensive workout equipment in it, and we both love to work out. After pounding the roads pre-dawn all week, I consider it the height of luxury to sleep in on a weekend morning and then enjoy a leisurely workout in my own house. Especially now that the Woodway is up and running-- I swear it feels like you’re running on butter. Or maybe silk. Anyway, I hate that I don’t get to cheer on Seth’s progress in the gym anymore now that I’m no longer on the school schedule, and every weekend I beg him for a gym date. Inexplicably, still no dice. The man who ran a half marathon with me on what was basically our second date would now rather subsist on tofu and watch Lifetime than share space with me while I’m on the treadmill. Don’t get me wrong, I have no desire to share my regular workouts or lose out on the solitude of Friday long runs, but I had long harbored a daydream of being the cute newlywed couple swatting each other on the butt with towels between sets on Sundays. I finally gave up on it this weekend and snarled through a quick turn on the spin bike while Seth watched ESPN.

Still, it’s a minor annoyance, and I’m otherwise pretty lucky. Seth put up with a ridiculously cranky wife all week, as I juggled the upcoming end of month filings with the absurdity that had become the TJAG Picnic. I came home late every night, alternately bummed out by an afternoon reviewing casefiles on child exploitation, and stressed out because the miniature pony had lost its transportation and the bounce house company had insufficient insurance. The picnic planning had basically shut down operations- although not due dates- at DAD, and this stuff was nowhere near as funny as it sounded. By Thursday we were in crisis mode and I was considering the possibility of cargo strapping farm animals to the back of Seth’s truck. Friday we spent an entire day cleaning up a public park in preparation for the big event. I was thrilled to learn that, at the ripe old rank of field grade, I was still somehow not exempt from scrubbing public toilets. 

Seth was a champ about it all,  and tried not to laugh at our ridiculous dinner conversations about the park's prohibition on tiki torches and water ballons (which- just for this week- even took precedence over updates on his new leg and cool vacuum socket), and even came to the picnic after he went shooting Saturday morning. (I was insanely jealous of this outing, as the luau-themed decorating started at 0730, along with the roasting on an entire hog, head and all.) He socialized with boring lawyers, told me I looked lovely in my- yes, really- grass skirt, and managed to avoid beating anyone’s children. Which was tougher than it sounded, since Vince and I got stuck running the sno cone station, and by the time Seth arrived some of the little monsters were on round five.

I’ve literally never worked so hard in my life. Hordes of children screaming for more syrupy treats threatened to overwhelm us, the beer taps leaked and meant that we smelled like the floor of a filthy bar all day, and I almost punched a woman who pulled a soda out of a bucket of ice and waited in a long line to inform me angrily that it wasn’t cold enough. There were no food or bathroom breaks. Perhaps fortunately, I never even made it outside to check on the petting zoo (which was apparently a hit.) Seth took me for dinner and beer on the way home (I was still covered in sno cone syrup and remnants of BBQ cleanup), and after a couple hours at the Irish Inn with he and his friend DJ, I dragged home wondering why I had stayed out so late. I looked at my watch as I face-planted onto the couch: 8:30! What a day.

 

Sunday we recovered. The husband of the year, after skipping out on our workout date, redeemed himself with a spectacular brunch and mimosas at one of our favorites places in Palisades. We went suit shopping for next weekend's wedding in Minneapolis, and I made a Trader Joe’s run and did yardwork with my parents and grilled crabcakes for some surprise dinner guests (some friends of Seth’s who were passing through.) It was a pretty nice Sunday, even if it definitely felt like a short weekend after Saturday’s chaos. Still, the picnic was over and Labor Day was just around the corner.

I’m looking forward to the long weekend and getting away for a bit. We're overdue for an out of town adventure that doesn't involve moving trucks.

Seth, of course, is counting down to hunting season. If the daily Cabela's packages that arrive at the house are any indication, that is.

Photo of the week, by unanimous vote, is the first pour of the picnic, which occured at 9:23 a.m. Saturday.

Just a Normal Week

It was a normal week for the Niemans. And that would sound really boring, if we had those all the time. It's just that we've been craving normal for so long that it actually kind of feels like we won the lottery.

Seth broke with the usual physical therapy routine and made a trip with some other wounded warriors to Lancaster Archery in PA, where he made friends with Nick Mundt and some other famous hunters whose names I can't recall. And of course bought a bunch of new dangerous-looking arrowheads. He had a blast, and was of course a big hit with the pros. I'm expecting a contract for his own hunting show in the mail any day. (He has me practicing for guest appearances with a standing Wednesday lunch date at the archery range near work.)

I worked (another long week of trying my damnedest to get fired by my imprisoned clients, and to get my Captains to stop feeling sorry for theirs) and ran and scouted team uniforms and supervised picnic preparations, which have inexplicably taken over the entire defense appellate division. "Wrongly convicted in violation of your constitutional rights? You're going to have to wait until we figure out how to get the petting zoo animals to the picnic, sorry." (True story.) I took a break Wednesday for a long-overdue "wine-d down Wednesday" with girlfriends to celebrate Michelle's birthday at Cheesetique in Del Ray. I probably consumed 10,000 calories' worth of bread, fondue, and pinot, but it was a terrific time. And no one tried to slip me any goat cheese (a major bonus, since I despise it and usually have to be pretty vigilant at upscale cheese places.) Double bonus, I made it home in time for the season premiere of "Duck Dynasty," which was awesome.

We ran errands this weekend. Bought a couch that is probably too large for our living room. (We'll see when it gets delivered. Neither of us is really the "measure first" type, which makes furniture purchasing a pretty serious adventure.) I ran a beautiful 10k complete with river crossings in Clarksburg, the last of the Blue Crab trail series. We picked up another gun or scope or something for Seth. Went to a movie. Got frozen yogurt. Found a cute brewery in Sterling, of all places. Considered yardwork, and then were grateful when it rained and let us off the hook.

Just normal. And nice. Today Seth had an all-day bowhunting class required to hunt on Belvoir (the man has killed every animal available for slaughter in North America, but of course the Army still says he has to pass some sort of test to hunt on post), and I spent a rainy day running errands and being kind of lazy, for once. It felt luxurious. I did spend a couple hours cursing at the Target shelving unit I bought in my efforts to reorganize Seth's closet... but finally got it mostly put together and escaped to have lunch and a pedicure with Ranj. It was still raining when I got home and I was feeling domestic, so I did yoga and made mini apple pies and drank wine on the couch and watched a bad Adam Sandler movie. Seth made it home in time for the end of that one, and- of all the luck!- another one followed. We decided to temporarily ignore the piles of boxes dropped off by his movers Friday and are now pretty much down for the count, enjoying our little Sunday evening slice of normal.

Photo of the week is back by popular demand, and this one made us the laugh the hardest. Our rock star little niece Lehua, marching down the beach like a boss:

Life, and the Start of A New Adventure

The sun beat down on my back, and I could feel the beads of sweat start to collect, getting ready to soak through my brown tshirt and create puddles inside my boots. I eyed my target and tried to ignore the salt stinging my eyes. I wondered for the millionth time why the Army wouldn’t let you wear a decent pair of sunglasses in uniform, and what had possessed me to wear my regulation brown wool socks in 90+ degree heat.  It reminded me of more than a decade’s worth of other sweltering days at the range.

Except that it wasn’t like those at all. This was Fort Belvoir, and I was on my lunch break at the archery range near my office, shooting a few arrows with my new pink bow (courtesy of my new hunting-obsessed husband, of course.) My Mom offered me some of the cold soda she had brought along, and, laughing about something, headed downrange to pull out my arrows. I took a brief work call. Something about the big picnic my branch was in charge of planning at the end of the month.

Yes, I was a million miles away from the Center of the Universe and my old life at Fort Bragg. Most of the time, of course, life is just life and you roll with the punches- but every once in awhile it hits me just how much of mine I could never have predicted even a few years ago. I loved living in the dirt in the Middle East and throwing Soldiers out of airplanes, and I was used to the long hours and perpetual suck factor that came with the territory. I was resigned to the idea that I would never be able to make a long term relationship work or live anywhere near anyone in my family, and I daydreamed about spending my twilight years bumming around the country in an RV alone. I was obsessive about “adrenaline sports” and ultradistance running. I was constantly scheming to get out of the lawyering gig I found myself in and get back to the real Army (read: avoid DC at all costs), and I spent  most of my evenings avoiding the post-divorce dating scene, drinking wine by the bottle with girlfriends or watching “Golden Girls” reruns on the treadmill.

Now I’m about as lawyer-y as one can get while still being in the Army. I have a big corner office and six or seven of my own counsel, doing the generally-distasteful if constitutionally-important job of representing the Army’s already-incarcerated to the appeals courts. The only perk is that we do not have to bill hours. (Well, that and the fact that anything after 1730 is “working late.”) I have an incredible husband who I literally adore, and we live a pretty settled life in our suburban rental house in Glen Echo. I rarely hit a happy hour with girlfriends, instead lining up with the other pitiful hordes to sit in rush hour traffic on the beltway on my way home to see how whatever I’ve thrown into the crockpot for dinner has turned out. Some nights, we grill out and shoot arrows at the life-sized deer target in the backyard. I cannot remember the last time I went skydiving or rock climbing, and we haven’t taken a vacation all summer. I swim laps and have coffee with my Mom a couple days a week, run with the Belvoir ten miler team only to keep from getting fatter, and notice a lot more Outdoor Channel than Lifetime on the DVR lineup.

Sometimes it just blows my mind.

And I still miss the real Army. DC is definitely not it.

But life here is really, really great. The Niemans have finally wrapped up business for good in North Carolina (thanks to Seth’s gargantuan efforts getting his Raeford house market-ready last week) and are finally settled in Maryland. Or will be, once Seth gets all of his dead animal heads situated in the man cave. He goes to Walter Reed for physical therapy and appointments every day, but our life no longer revolves around the hospital. As of yesterday, he’s officially, legally walking without crutches or a cast, and is back in the gym (and back to helping out around the house.) I feel like I got my partner-in-crime back, and I’m ecstatic. I finally got all of the shelves and pictures hung (kind of precariously) on the wall, and the grill, smoker, and kegerator are all operational.

It’s been a summer of really big milestones. We're thrilled to have turned a corner, and started a new adventure.

We remain incredibly grateful, and are ridiculously happy.

And committed to writing a few lines about our new adventures occasionally. I swear.