Leave it to Hallmark

Leave it to Hallmark to have me sobbing in the birthday card section of the store. Sobbing because I am a paper crafter and I make cards for all occasions…and I’m standing in Hallmark ON my husband’s birthday purchasing a card for him. Because I haven’t been able to create a special card just for him on his birthday. So I snuck across the street to Hallmark feeling like a jerk, a failure and a very bad person.

I'm standing in front of the "Birthday for Husband" section and I’m reading these beautiful sentiments and I began to think about how much I love him…how dear and precious he is to me…and now I’m sobbing because my heart is just so full of love and tenderness. He would look at me like I'm crazy if he had seen me. He’s not much of a ‘feeeeeeeelings’ kind of guy.

I’m also sobbing because I just don’t feel well and I’m tired all the time and something is severely out of whack. The fix is going to be a treatment that I don’t care for and don’t actually want to take. (I mean, really...who in their right mind wants to be infused with 1000 mg if steroids for 5 days straight?) But I know I'm going to have to. I’m finding myself having difficulties communicating verbally on a daily basis. Thats a problem for me (maybe NOT for Rocket Man, who fortunately has Auditory Processing Disorder and can blame that when he just isn't listening). I'm a talker. Really. I chat. A LOT! Lately, I am experiencing some difficulty in saying what I'm thinking. The words are in my thoughts, I just can't get them out. And, if I"m completely truthful, I’m frightened that someday I will be locked and lost inside my head and unable to get out.

So, here is the card I chose…for the man who will take care of me even if I become unable to say thank you. Who will, if he needs to, climb a mountain of Yellow Box Sandals to find just the right pink flip flops that he thinks I’d like (and he can’t even see pink) and who will go out of his comfort zone into the realms of a perfume counter (and possibly an encounter with his ex-wife) to find a scent he knows I will like. Who will ask for help from those who know me best and who will hold me through endless nights and comfort me. If it comes to that.

to the man I married

because you let me know you completely, because you are still a mystery to me

because you do not wish to change me, because you have changed me forever

because you see the good and true in me, because you forgive all else in me

because you are not who i expected to love, because you are just who i need to love

because you gave me beautiful yesterdays, because you promise me beautiful tomorrows….

Yeah. I was sobbing in the Hallmark Store. Almost bought a brand new Vera Bradley purse…just to make me feel a little better. Then I remembered. Its not my birthday.

Its not the capsule I'm worried about...It's the rocket!

First of all, you have to understand that I live and have lived in Rocket City, USA for over 20 years now. Huntsville, Alabama was the answer to the Trivial Pursuit question, “What city has more PhDs per capita than any other city in the USA?” Lots of engineers in town. Lots and lots of Rocket Scienctists.

To complicate matters, I’m married to an engineer who just happens to be a Rocket Scientist. He prefers the term ‘Rocket Engineer’. Okay. Whatever. I call him Rocket Man. It isn’t unheard of for me to be sitting in a restaurant booth with him, lost in my own thoughts (or playing on my iPhone) while he has assumed the position with his BlackBerry to his ear and is saying something like, “Well, find Ernie and ask him if the paint loses its integrity at x to the minus 10 or 13! Get back to me as quickly as possible, please.”

There was a time in my innocent life that I would have laughed and that sentence and thought, “Oh, Molli! You heard that on a movie.” I mean, who talks like that? Really? Well, my Rocket Man does…for one. And the people he works with. And about 100,000 other Engineers here in Rocket City. When we say, “Houston, we have a problem”…Houston listens!

I had the funniest dream last night. I’ve been awake for two and a half hours and I’m still giggling. It might not be funny to anyone else in the whole world, but it is cracking me up.

I dreamt that Rocket Man and I were in a high tech NASA building, waiting for a launch countdown. Okay. Been there, done that. While it is exciting, it isn’t hilarious. Only thing was, after that launch, he and I were going to be strapped into an Orion capsule and be launched into orbit. And then the first rocket, the experimental flight, took off and exploded into a billion pieces. Right before my eyes.

In my dream, I looked at Ed Massey and said, “I’m not going! You are NOT strapping my ______ in that Orion capsule and lighting off that rocket! I. AM. NOT. GOING!”

Now, you’d have to know that Rocket Man of mine, and his facial expressions and his way with words to truly appreciate this. He isn’t always the most patient man in the world, but when I get crazy, he gets very calm and extremely patient. So, in my dream, he gets that “Now, Mollianne” look and explains to me that he built the capsule. Its going to be fine. Just trust him. Yada, yada, yada.

Oh, did I mention that I HATE to fly. I hate the loss of control, the feeling of leaving the ground, of moving so quickly AND they make me turn of my iPod during take-of and landing AND I can’t have my knife in my possession while we fly? Okay, so you can imagine how I’d feel about a bazillion tons of highly explosive rocket fuel under my seat. I’m not comfortable about this at all.

I look at him with all frankness, trying to maintain some semblance of logic and reason and say to him, “It’s not the capsule I’m concerned about…it’s the rocket!”

Two of his cohorts were also in my dream. One, a NASA program manager and the other a sub-contractor who IS a rocket propulsion expert. They have assumed the Rocket Man-esque rational, logical stance. They assure me that they have built a fine capsule and I should just trust them. I’m sure if I hadn’t woken up, one of them would have explained to me that they had built a fine launch-abort system, just in case we needed it. But I shouldn’t worry. I wouldn’t need it.

Ha! You can’t fool ME! I know that none of those guys work for the company who actually has the contract to build the capsule.

So, in my dream, I did the last reasonable thing I could think of. I called my Daddy. He answered the phone and told me that he couldn’t talk. He and Mother were in Indianapolis (what?) and in traffic (they hate driving in city traffic) and had just missed their exit. Then he hung up. Hung! Up!

Looks like I’m stuck. Just as I woke up, I was looking at Rocket Man, giving him the look he gives me on occasion and saying, “Really. It’s not the capsule I’m worried about. IT’S THE ROCKET!”

I think I need a vacation!

This is the Ares IX during launch. Rocket Man and his co-horts built the Roll Control System on this baby and it worked. I guess they think they can strap me to anything they build and launch me now!