i’m at san dog right now for a fine duty day. i spent half of it at the physical therapy. and then now i’m spending the rest on the computer. we obviously don’t have to paint over the side of the ship right now because the smoke’s so thick and a lot of ash is falling down. when i passed by one of the drains to the ocean it was filled with logs, and ash. really gross stuff. have to use a stinken medical mask just to be outside. and the really bad part is that you get really dirty quick because of the ash.

anyway, my family and i are lucky that are homes didn’t get burnt down like some people that i know. the ship has given everyone except for the people that have duty today, so that they can evacuate if they have to. i’m quite tired cause of the late train ride, so i’ll probably spend my duty day sleeping. after my watch that is.

And so the fires here in San Bernardino and San Antonio Heights are looking to finally calm down. But when I go to my second home in San Diego County tonight, there will be fires there. It’s quite worrisome, but my family and I are thankfully not too close to these fires; even if we are able to drive 10 blocks up to see the hilltop fires. My nose has been stuffed up and sneezing because of so much ash and smoke in the air. The sidewalks are caked with ash. It looks like a child had too much fun on the sidewalks with the black chalk.

It’s about 9pm right now. in an hour i have to leave the comfort of my mom’s home. i talked to dad today cause he left a rude message today. He called me yesterday once on my cell phone, and then today’s message was like ‘if you have enough respect you’ll return my calls.’ i don’t know where the plural came from since he hardly calls me at all. And if he does it’s cause grandma asked about me. Speaking of grandma, I forgot to call her this weekend. Even though it isn’t an excuse, I just didn’t find time. The real reason is that lately my mind has been absent minded lately. And just to tell my dad’s family about how I feel about dad’s childish behavior, let alone dad, is just quite hard for me right now at the time.

Half an hour. I don’t want to go back to san dog. This sucks. This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy. Crazy. And I’ve noticed now how insane I’ve been with my money. I’ve been buying books and cds, when I’ve already got about 50 of these (unread or hardly listened to) at home, and I’m still readying like 10 books.
The rooms look different now that we’ve got rid of the bunk bed that fell apart cause dad never fixed it. And I would’ve, but I wouldn’t know where to start. So are neighbor’s now has the old fallen apart beds, while we have my sister’s old beds.

Well…. I’m going to continue to pack up. Hopefully when I get back to my ship I’ll be able to play with the computer there.

and so i’m home and able to relaxe, and use the computer. two things i haven’t done for 2 weeks now. hmmm… my sisters are here right now, and they want to go to a halloween party. but one of my sis’s doesn’t have a costume. but neither do i. well.. these right here might be a little too sexy for the party…

Hello everyone. I’m alive. Graciously alive. And quite busy lately.

I was in a car accident about a month ago. It was a horrific one too. My friend was driven about 10 or so miles over the speed limit on the freeway, and about to drive onto a clover leaf on ramp from one highway to another. Well my friend downshifted his gears, thus skipping a gear, and looking up both the gears and back tire. He lost control of the car and it went off the ramp, and down the hill for about 30 or so feet. The car flipped over about 3 times before hitting a tree. All’s I could think about at that time was please make it stop. The car landed on the passenger side (I was on that side, backseat), which was wear the car got the most damage, even though it’s a total disaster – no other cars were involved luckily. And so since I was able to kind of crawl out the back window, and about 20 or so minutes later I was taken to a trauma hospital in san dog, because my back and neck felt numb, and I was kind of in shock (but still speaking, etc).
I’m a lucky girl cause I only got multiple muscle strain from my hip to my neck, my two friends who were in the car are fine. The doctors at the hospital (who ironically were navy – can’t get away from military life it seems) said that the shoulder strap seat belt saved my friends and I from serious injury.

So that is that part of what I’ve been up to… and going to physical therapy, then skating for about 3 or so hours after the appointments. I mean really, my LPO doesn’t need to know the exact time of my therapy. So instead of coming to the ship right after the appointment, I’d relax at downtown. Sneaky I know… my back… well there’s good days and bad days. I’d try and just do simple twist stretches to my back, and my back would pop, a lot. So my back, hip, and neck are quite easy to pop. But the doctors that took those MRI, X-ray and CAT scan back at the trauma hospital said the results were all negative.

And I’m able to come home this weekend (right now) and next weekend before we leave for Cabo San Lucas. That’ll be interesting, but it’ll be more interesting to see if our ship would actually be able to make it there… our latest “training practice” was a real laugh. We were a day or little more late in leaving, and it took the engineers almost 30 times to light the 2 boiler flames. Reason… they had contractors take the boilers apart, and enlisted members build it back together. There were extra parts, and welded parts. It was bad. But it runs; minus some lube pole leaks, etc.

So I’ll come back again this weekend here…
cheers
~sailor “broken” Michelle

Oh and then there’s my dad and mum. Dad’s lost his job, and is having disputes with that company he worked for. Plus he’s hardly given mum any money. Yes, they’re legally separated, but this does not give dad an excuse to give mom only 250 a month for the mortgage, bills and her medical… she’s not been feeling good and the doc’s just found that she has crown disease. I’m quite worrisome here in Cali. I’ve been trying to help mom financially, but she’s been working on finding dad’s salary from twist tite and the business that he owns… t and t machine. I know dad has a lot of money right now, and money saved up, but he’s being stingy, and trying to do the divorce on his terms. He even got made at mom when she filed the legal separation, saying that HE was going to do that, and then threatens with the whole; well I guess you don’t need my medical benefits. My dad’s a real control freak, so whenever he doesn’t get his way, he gets mad. Like how he’s mad at me cause I’m not an email person, making him actually calling me. Since this past month n a half, I’ve received only three phone calls from him. Two of the times were when I was in that accident, and the 3rd, last weekend when he lost his job. So yaw, it’s been a real trivial time here in Cali.