(1:53am, 10/11/07)

I'm still awake. :p

I stayed out kinda late, talkin' to some girls from church until 1am. It's funny, because I was seriously feeling antisocial yesterday and last night (I didn't even charge my dead phone until yesterday evening, and the battery'd been dead since Sunday). Suddenly tonight I'm feeling like a sleepless chatterbug. Hormones are weird.

I got home and turned on the light in the bathroom – and found a SLUG on my floor!!!

I went to the mudroom to get the dustpan, but decided to turn on the lights, just in case – and there were TWO SLUGS in there!!!

I have nightmares about this sort of thing. I've gotten pretty cavalier about spiders, but ... slugs are GROSS!!! How many others have snuck in that I couldn't find?! If one could get to the bathroom, where are others hiding?! I shudder to think about it!

I collected them all in the dustpan and flung them out the back door. Then I laid copious amounts of salt on the front and back doorsteps, because I'm pretty sure that's how they were getting in (these aren't the first slugs to get in the house – just the greatest quantity at one time). UGH! I hope that stops them!

Well, it appears I CAN fall asleep, after all, so I'll stop writing for now. I'm suddenly tired; I guess I just had to sit still for a bit. Now my eyes won't stay open ...

Oh well, I'll talk about my win over Tricare, DEERS, and the Army tomorrow. Now, I gotta sleep before I find myself with a screen full of k's.

(9:09am, 10/11/07)

I didn't get to the "submit" button before falling asleep last night, so I guess I'm finishing this up this morning. :)

There are other critters getting into my house, somehow. I found a BIG squished spider in the toilet this morning. I'll have to ask Sweetie where that came from ... I've had lots of little spiders running around that I've squished, but I'm wondering where these big ones have been hiding. :p

Now, speaking of squishing things ... I'm FINALLY done with my seemingly-neverending battle with paperwork and red tape regarding Sweetie's orders and Tricare. It wasn't pretty at first, but there's a happy ending. :)

I woke up in kind of a nasty mood yesterday, which didn't help the situation, but I tried to be pleasant during my Kiwanis meeting (and succeeded – it's hard to be unpleasant around Kiwanians). I got out of my meeting around 8:30am, and went straight to the Navy Hospital to see if Sweetie's orders had gone through yet so I could enroll in Tricare Prime. Nope, not yet.

I asked them if there was a DEERS (Defense Eligibility Enrollment Reporting System) office at the shipyard, because that was closer than going to the submarine base. They said yes, and managed to dig up some information on their operating hours and give me directions to the building. Great! I found it with no problem, and it definitely was open.

I signed in and waited half an hour to be seen. When I told them my problem, they became concerned and told me that they couldn't do that there. I had to have my husband with me. No, power of attorney could do nothing in this case (liars!), because it's changing a record. He's still showing up as active reserve, not active duty. You have to go to an Army office to get this done. Etc.

I tried to tell them I'd had it done before, on the submarine base, without my husband, but I didn't have enough of an understanding of what had been done so I could explain to them what they needed to do. If I'd been thinking clearly, I probably could have had them call the DEERS office on the submarine base to get the situation cleared up, but I still wasn't sure who was right. And it frustrated me.

They tried to pass me off to the Army – one of the armories in the area. "See, we can't do this, because we're Navy. He's Army. Maybe you can get it done at the Bremerton or Port Orchard Armory, but we can't deal with this, because it's not our area."

NO – you're DEERS. It doesn't flippin' matter what branch of service you're in or what branch of service I'm in. DEERS is DEERS, and it's military-wide. And an armory office cannot help me with this information – I could just as well go to my husband's armory and get turned away there. Again, if I'd been thinking clearly, I could have told them that, as well, but I was annoyed and confused at that time. I could have better spent the last half hour beating my head against the brick walls outside, and come to the same conclusion.

I left empty-handed, but was too mad to go to Bangor to try that DEERS office. I was too mad to call my husband, because I had a feeling I wouldn't be nice about it, and there was no reason to ruin two people's day. Instead, I went to Port Orchard, located where my Kiwanis interclub meeting would be two hours later, and went to Fred Meyer to browse and calm down. I talked to a couple people on the phone after that and calmed down further. The interclub went well, too (they even thought I was one of the high-school-aged students-of-the-month, which was flattering). On my way back to my end of the county, I called my husband to see if there was anything he could do on his end to make this whole active-duty orders thing process before the enrollment cutoff for Tricare Prime showed up next Friday, because I'd hit a wall. If I had to, I'd show up in Tacoma and drag him off to Camp Murray or Ft. Lewis to get this straightened out, but I didn't want to have to do that. He also didn't want to storm the gates of any DEERS office in our end of the state if he didn't have to. And he didn't know why DEERS wasn't reporting him as active duty when the orders were clearly in the computer and he was considered active duty by his unit.

Thankfully, a buddy of his was sitting by him who told him that when you get new active-duty orders, you are required to go to a DEERS office to get them processed – something Sweetie didn't know.

A-HA. Vindication!

And his buddy told him to avoid the shipyard, because they're morons.

PROOF! I was right, they were wrong! Note to self: Not all DEERS offices are created equal.

Okay, I said I'd go to the submarine base, since I was on the highway, anyway, and there was lots of time. If I had any trouble with them, there would still be time for Sweetie to come with me after he got off work, because they were open till 6pm.

I got to the DEERS office on Bangor and there was practically no wait. I got my number, almost sat down, and then it was my turn. :) I was happy to see that the guy who helped me before was in the office, though he wasn't the one who was going to help me. He wasn't the one whose desk I was in front of last time, either. He had just taken over when the lady then had looked at me funny and said something involving an acronym I wasn't familiar with. He took the paper from her and did it, himself.

When I explained to the lady this time (not the same lady), she listened politely to my explanation, then smiled and said, "I can do that."

Hoo-RAY!!!

She had trouble with it, so the guy helped her, but it was done in a matter of minutes. I got a printout, too, to prove it. Then, on a whim, I asked her if she could update my ID card, because I had the reserve card, and if my husband was going to be on active duty for months, I wanted the active-duty ID card. She said I couldn't do it without my husband there, unless I wanted to take the paper and have him sign it and get it notarized. I remembered I had my POA with me, so I asked if power of attorney would do it, and she said that was also an option. SO, I got my new ID card (bad picture, had to update my weight – ugh – but the card, itself, is pretty).

I went straight to the Naval Hospital after that, and they were all up to date! I had my enrollment filled out (it had been filled out for a week or so), so I handed that in and got that ball rolling.

I left there feeling much lighter. My war was OVER! I'd WON!!! :D

I bought myself a mocha on the way home to celebrate. Mmmm ... mocha ...

Sweetie is very happy he didn't have to go with me on any of these trips, I'm happy I didn't have to drag him with me on any of these trips, and I'm happy it all came out well instead of more complicated and difficult than it needed to be. Don't get me wrong – it was complicated and difficult, but the end result is clean and smooth, just in time for my next OB appointment. Hooray!

I like it when things work out for the best! :)