Now that's a sleepover!

You don't really appreciate how spacious an aircraft carrier is until you do a Scout overnight on a submarine. Our Pack usually goes to the USS Hornet for an annual live aboard program, but just to mix it up this year we stayed on the USS Pampanito in SF bay. I always suspected that I wouldn't be a good submariner, but now I know. But not for the reason you might think. I didn't even think about drowning or any of that other petty fear stuff. Nope. I just wanted to get some fresh air. It must have sucked serving on a sub. We had modern conveniences, like deodorant and starbucks, and it still sucked.

I did learn a few things:

• Never, EVER sleep near the head. Imagine moving an outhouse into your family room. Then imagine everyone living ONLY in the family room. Nuf said.

• My son SNORES. I mean he REALLY SNORES. Like some sort of dying animal. Disturbing.

• Aircraft carriers are SPACIOUS. REALLY SPACIOUS.

• A LOT of people can sleep in a really small space. We had all of us in this one room. Thanks to this trip, I now know I can sleep 35 people in my kitchen. That knowledge alone makes the pending depression less scary.

I can hardly wait to get back to the aircraft carrier.

Stick it in your ear....

At some point, far in the future, I will look back on this and laugh. I will be old, senile, and in some sort of care facility (or living in a van, down by the river..) The above tools were used to flush out detritus from my son's ear...

He was all smiles and laughter. I think he knew the total number of things he had stuffed into his ear, but he wouldn't say....The grand total was 12. Three little plastic fruit things from the centerpiece on the dining room table, several large pieces of pencil lead (with pencil attached in some cases) and the rest was pencil lead from a mechanical pencil. 12.

I am not sure what the thought process was...

"Hmm. This would fit well in my ear.
This too.
Oops. I better use a pencil to get them out.
That didn't work, and I'm running out of room in there....
I better use a mechanical pencil.
There! All full!"

The doctors and nurses love to see us coming. We are like a comedy team. Always entertaining, and always in ways no one expects. Who needs those contrived reality TV shows. I live in one.

Where the heck are the cameras?