So It Goes

Hey y’all! Thank you for coming back another week to read my new blog post! For those still interested in reading them, it makes me happy to hear from y’all that you’re enjoying them. This week wasn’t the best week, but it ended pretty great!

On Monday and Tuesday, nothing too special happened. I went to the USO and volunteered both mornings, and on Tuesday, I met Buddy for lunch at the PX. I’m really enjoying volunteering at the USO and meeting all the soldiers, plus I volunteer with some awesome people. I am always at the USO when they open at 8, so I usually leave my apartment around 7:30 to give me enough time to get through the base gate during the morning rush and with time to spare. So on Wednesday, I went downstairs at 7:30, got in my car, turned it on, but it didn’t turn on. Didn’t even sound like it wanted to try to turn on. So two weeks in a row that it doesn’t work on me. I go back upstairs, text my center director that I won’t make it, and change into comfy clothes. Thursday and Friday mornings, I go downstairs at 7:30 ready to go volunteer, but nope, car still doesn’t want to work.

Friday night, I had enough of being cooped up in the apartment. It wasn’t completely horrible as the air quality was really bad last week, but still. When Buddy got off work Friday, he went downstairs to play with it. We used a friend’s jumper cables and jumped the battery. It turned on! So it’s just a dead battery, it’s cold, so that makes sense. After letting it run for a little bit, Buddy says we should go for a quick little drive just to help the battery warm up. I get in the passenger seat and let Buddy drive our car for the first time. We get to the red light before the main gate at Camp Humphreys which is probably less than 2 miles from where we live and we lose all lights, the headlights and dash. Buddy asks me if that’s normal, and I say no. So he suggests that we turn around and head back home. About halfway back home, he turns to me and says he’s pressing the gas pedal, but there’s no power. We were losing power while driving down these 2 lane but really only 1 lane roads through Korean neighborhoods. When the car finally decides to die, we were luckily at a parking lot. Unfortunately, it didn’t make it up the little incline, so Buddy had to push it over the bump to get us out of the road. Fortunately, we have an amazing friend who lives right next door to us (He who shall not be named) and he came to pick us up. Also fortunately, I had made amazing spaghetti for dinner with Texas toast and had given him some. He came to pick us up, brought us back to the apartment so we could get the jumper cables, and then back to the car where we jumped the battery again. Luckily, it made it home after that second jump, but I rode in the van with our friend because I didn’t trust the car.

See, I have a long track record of breaking vehicles. This was not the first, second, or even third time that I was in a vehicle (although I was usually driving) when it decided to die while being used. Fortunately for me in the states, my dad has amazing mechanical skills and always rescued me. It was never my fault, the parts had just gone faulty and I was always the “lucky one” who was driving them at the time.

As soon as we got back to the apartment, we used our friend’s phone to call a mechanic I had seen a post about on one of the military spouses support pages for over here. We gave him a call and he offered to come over immediately to help us, but it was already 9 at night and the guys still had work the next day, so we decided he would come the next day. Then Buddy decided that he was staying home and making sure the car was fixed for me. At 10 the next morning, Mr. Han and his wife drove to our apartment, he replaced our battery (we had the wrong size battery unbeknownst to us), said our alternator was probably bad but that he would test it, and drove our car to his shop and left us at our apartment. At 5 that afternoon, he drove our car back to us all fixed! New battery and new alternator!

Saturday night was nothing special either, I drove the boys to the Ville for them to get dinner and have a night out, while I went to the PX to do some looking around and get take out. I was ready to be out of the apartment. Sunday though was our big date day. It started off with us eating lunch at Texas Roadhouse on base so that I could watch the Titans play against the Ravens in the second round of playoffs. We got there during the third quarter, asked to be seated in the bar area where the tvs were, and cheered on the Titans all by ourselves. AND WE WON AND KNOCKED OUT THE RAVENS!!! TITAN UP!!!

My mother ever since I could remember has been a Titans fan. Kerry Collins and Coach Jeff Fisher were mom’s favorites. I even wore mom’s Collins’ jersey to school senior year of high school during homecoming week for favorite team day and I won along with my friend Marcus who is also a Titans fan. Especially as I have gotten older, I myself have grown as a Titans fan. There’s been a lot of changes in coaches and players in the past couple of years, but Delanie Walker, Jurrell Casey, Derrick Henry, and Taylor Lewan have my heart. For those that don’t know, Taylor and Will Compton (who briefly played for the Titans as well as other NFL teams) have a podcast called Bussin’ with the Boys. From the very first podcast, mom made sure everytime we were in the tahoe before I left that we listened to it. Since moving over here, I enjoy watching the podcasts on youtube. So thanks mom for making me a Titans fan. It wasn’t always easy for you being a fan, but you stuck through the tough years and look where we’re at, almost Super Bowl bound!

After our amazing win on Sunday, I was on a high with so much pride for my Titans. We went to the PX just to walk around and someone was there in a Ravens jersey, and I may or may not have smiled and waved at him (I was wearing my Titans pullover) while motioning to the Titans logo. Then we went to a new coffee cafe, Dewdrop. It was so fancy. We each got a vanilla latte and I got an Oreo macaron. The cafe was 3 floors, and the top floor was a roof hangout. With it being somewhat chilly, we were the only ones out there.

We headed home after getting coffee for a few hours, because we then headed back to base to go to the movie theater and watch 1917. I highly recommend this amazing film which just won best picture and best director at the golden globes.

So although it was a pretty sucky week with our car problems, the Titans winning made for an overall amazing Sunday and good end to our week. Hopefully the next time I write a post, I can say that we beat the Kansas City Chiefs and are headed to the Super Bowl! I also hope that the air quality improves, it has been really bad lately and I can feel that it is taking on toll on my body. Most mornings I wake up feeling achey and sluggish. Our average temperature right now is mid-30s, so the cold air in the atmosphere is trapping the smog so it has no where to go. Friday night you could barely see the moon through the smog. I have scoliosis for those that don’t know and have even started to go see a chiropractor because the smog is causing inflammation around my fusion and I am having some of the worst back pain that I have had in years. So I am ready for spring time to come when the air quality is supposed to be better.