Non-Sequitur

[*Author's Note post-publishing: Eventually the internet did come back up and I was able to finish the blog ALMOST all by myself. Except I can't get the pictures to upload so luckily, since that is Dan's FAVORITE thing to do, you will have to wait to see the associated pictures after I send them to dan and he has a chance to upload them*]

For those of you who are not familiar with the word (as I previously was not until described by a good friend as one), non-sequitur is Latin for "it does not follow" as in, an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises; an inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises or evidence. Basically, in a nutshell- something that does not logically follow another.

For those of you that know me (and presumably, if you have committed this much time to reading this much nonsense for so many days/weeks/months/years, then you must know me. If not- who are you?) you would probably be inclined to agree with my good friend, Bridget Barry (aka Bridgee, author of this blog which I love to follow to get my sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, fill of random honesty. We can probably all admit that we probably need a little more random honesty in our lives too.) who once described me as a "non-sequitur". I think this is a pretty spot on description (after I learned the definition of the word). I wouldn't say I have ADD or anything like that but frequently I easily and deftly jump from one subject to another, skipping around stories and ideas and thoughts. (again, if you've been following my blog, you are probably already aware of this fact).

So it should only be fitting to warn you that this blog is going to be a non-sequitur because I came up with 4 stories today, none of which have anything to do with the other nor are they really all that important. Don't worry though, I won't even try to come up with grandiose conclusion at the end to tie them all together. I don’t have THAT much time on my hands!

First. Let's talk about some new changes to the blog. You might have noticed on the left hand side, half way down the page, the new section entitled "My Cheerleaders." This is the section previously known as "My Followers." Apparently, most of my family/friends/readers think "My Followers" is a creepy thing to call yourself (i think stalking is technically considered a misdemeanor in some states), or else only 6 people are actually reading my blog. If that's the case, then apparently I need to come up with some better stories to start drawing in the readers. I am pretty sure though, that I have more than 6 readers. And for arguments sake, we will discount my parents/dan's parents who I don't believe have gmail accounts and probably don't religiously "follow" blogs at the rate at which our generation does (that means you get a free pass for not being "official" followers, mom and dad. I am excited that after 3 deployments you both finally started posting comments. This means a lot to me :)

Anyways, back to the point (here we go again with this "it does not follow" theme again). I changed around some things about the blog to help better tell "my navy story." So then I thought, I will call the followers section "My Fan Club"- but then again, that sounded too creepy as well. I mean, I think fan clubs dissolved sometime back in the mid 90's, right around the time that New Kids On the Block dissolved (the first time around).

So then it hit me- who are all of the people that read my blog and comment on it and send me emails? They are really my own personal cheerleading squad. Yes, that's it! They are my cheerleaders who bring a smile to my face and keep me going with their funny stories and comments and knowing that my family & friends are actually reading this blog (other than Dan who I think is required by some antiquated marriage law to faithfully read his wife's blog posts, even if they are super lame) helps me feel connected to them and to home. And let's be honest, who DOESN'T want to be in a cheerleading squad? Let's just say that if YOU had a cheerleading squad, I like to think that I would be on your team, cheering you on from the sidelines. That was basically a long-winded and overly desperate attempt to convince my loyal readers, whoever they are, to join "My Cheerleading" Section of the blog. If not, that's cool too, you can cheer quietly from in your heart. And if you have a blog that I am unaware of, please send the link my way because I would loooove new blogs to follow!

Two. Tonight as I was getting ready to leave the watch floor, one of the Surface Trackers (I don't know who she was because she was a NIMITZ watchstander and I don't really know that many of them) said "Ma'am- do you know who you look like? You look JUST like Jennifer Love Hewitt!" I was like "whoa, no way, that's the SECOND person to tell me that this deployment" and she said that all of the other watchstanders have been talking about it for awhile. I thought that was the funniest thing ever! I didn't see it a month ago and I don't get it today either. So tonight, I googled "JLH" again and after finding MANY racy photos (apparently she's quite the babe these days!) of her, I found this one that I held up to myself in the mirror. Now, I know I've been gone a long time, as I looked at this picture and looking at myself in my rumpled, frumpy coveralls with no make-up on, I thought "there is no way that ANY amount of time away would give me such long and healthy looking hair and such a great tiny waist to large chest ratio, topped off with killer toned arms" (in fact, the longer we are away, the SHORTER my hair is getting!). Anyways, I thought that was funny because I feel completely opposite of this polished movie star right now. I don't even think I remember how to apply eyeliner. I should probably brush up on that over the next few weeks, lest I return home looking like a Halloween costumed-girl.

Three. I have beat the Navy internet system. Yes, the one that doesn’t allow Gmail or skype or anything else EVER. The one that limits our “open internet hours” (anything non-Navy or banking) to only 8 hours a day. Well, it turns out that google is always available (however, after you click on the link that you would like, then you get blocked out). But, because you can physically log onto Google, type in something and see at least the results, that means that you can always log onto blogger (since it is now supported and run by Google). What does this mean, you ask? Well, this means that even after midnight, I am able to read and write blog posts. SUCCESS! This also means that I am not QUITE as dependent on my husband to get out the good word. However, as I was proudly blogging all by my self (a very fulfilling thing to do after months and months of having to email off my posts for uploading), the internet cut out. Stupid, stupid Nimitz internet system. Totally predictable. UGH. Just when I had the system beat!

So now I am blogging with slightly less enthusiasm, knowing that I will have to wait until the internet comes back so that I can email it to Dan and have him post it for me like 15 hours from now when he gets back from work (no, Dan doesn’t work 15 hour days but we’re SEVENTEEN hours ahead of west coast time so he is just getting up and getting ready for work so he won’t get around to this until after he gets home. Apparently he is a very busy/important person at work and doesn’t do frivolous tasks like blogging at work. Weird, I know since that is the norm for me. However, Dan also doesn’t live at his office, or at least to my knowledge he doesn’t… I think/hope he still lives & pays rent at 1455 Kettner Blvd, since that’s what I’m counting on… and apparently they do let him go home at nights so he will get to it them shortly)

Four (finally, I know right? You’re wondering when this will end already!) I wanted to tell you about these awesome shoes I bought in Malaysia (and given that I have bought no fewer than SIX pairs of shoes this deployment… oops?... I have to delineate where I got them AND the story behind them).

These sandals are AWESOME. They are definitely different than anything that I would buy back in the States (my other 5 pairs of shoes were all flats. Right now as they’re reading this Dan/my father are thinking “FIVE other pairs of flats?! Molly, you can only wear one pair at a time!”). These sandals were procured at the Central Market in Kuala Lumpur. They were made by this little old lady and man out of “the official Malaysia wood” (which I promptly forgot what it was that made it so special/official). The old man (he is over SEVENTY and still making shoes EVERY DAY!) takes the wood from the trees and sands them down into this wedge/platform style. If I could best compare it to something back home, it would be like the shape of the sole of a Dansko clog. Some of them were higher than others, but I picked out a medium height wedge. After he sands them down, the old lady hand paints Malaysian flowers on the sole and the wedge part of the bottom of the shoe and stains/finishes the wood so that it is shiny. Then, they take this material known as “Batik” which is a very traditional and brightly printed cloth, with flowers, geometric designs, birds, etc etc. It runs a range of colors and styles, but it's basically a really pretty material that they use for skirts, sarongs, napkins, table clothes, whatever.

So after the painting of the wooden part, she takes a small piece of batik and drapes it over where you would logically place fabric to make a sandal. Then, she uses a big staple gun to staple the fabric to the shoe. Then she takes a hammer and nail and hammers the nails across the fabric to secure it to the shoe and then removes the unsightly staples.

This process was made much cooler by a few facts. One- these handmade right in front of you shoes will run you about $25. Which is more than I paid for some shoes this deployment, but I thought was pretty reasonable after watching the process of how they were made and how special they were. Two- the lady didn't have the 100% combination of what I wanted (the height of the sole, remember, I didn't want a really high one) with the brown/gold/tan printed batik cover. Also, your average women's foot is much wider than mind, so I could tell by trying on a few pairs that my foot was going to slide around and thus it would not be a good purchase. So, she lets me pick the exact size and height sole and the Batik print that I wanted and then fit the fabric directly to my foot. Three- she was about to use these brown-ish nails when I saw that some of the sandals had gold colored nails, which I thought matched this fabric more. So, since she was already going to go through the whole staple and nail process for me, I thought I'd ask if I could have the pretty nails instead. No, no, no, she explained to me, those nails make the shoes more expensive, this price does not include these nails. Remembering back to my childhood with my economist parents who I think at one point explained that in capitalism, everything can be had for a certain cost (or was it everything can be had at a certain price? shoot, i forget. that's why I'm in the Navy and not an economist...) Anyways. So I ask the lady "can I pay a few extra dollars (or ringits or dinars or dirans or bat or whatever ridiculous monopoly money currency were were in at this point in the deployment) for the gold nails?". She immediately picks up on this idea and says that yes, for $2, I can have pretty nails. Given that we're already spending the time and effort to make these specially for me, I figured an extra $2 for the prettier and less-unsightly nails was a good idea).

So here is the final product- my less than $30 hand picked, hand painted, hand made, made to order like a Sheetz sandwich batik covered flowered wooden Malaysian wooden clog/sandal. Ta-Da! And of course, what else to show off next to my shoes, but a can of Coke Light (I have NO idea why I took a picture of these shoes next to a Coke Light can, but in light of the blog from a few days ago, it is interesting to note that as you move into South East Asia, they have apparently figured out how to master the non-removeable soda can tab, as evidenced here).

And a side note, as she was hammering away at my shoes, I look across the market and see a girl in a similar pair of shoes and I asked the little old lady "are those your shoes too?" and she looks up at the shoes and after studying them for a minute says with enormous disgust "those are commerical, not hand-made, fake" and I immediately felt EVEN better about my purchase.

Whew. Ok. That is done. That's all I've got. Back to work for a little bit and then good night. I'm sure in another 24 hours I'll come with more logically unrelated things to say.