Some of my friends tell me I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer or I’m a few fries short of a happy meal but damn I at least know how to provide good customer service when I’m dealing with customers.

Last week I got a wake up call from back home. My brother received an invoice from the storage company saying that we owe them money for storage of our goods. At first, he thought it was the company that’s holding my van. I immediately called them because I had already paid in advance for the duration of our tour here in Japan. We sorted it out with the manager and my files reflected that we were indeed paid in full until May 2005. Since I had the manager on the phone, I asked that she make corrections on the receipts that they finally sent me for my payments. Well, I received them in the mail today. She itemized the charges but didn’t correct the dates on them, and she enclosed copies. Now, we’ve already gone over the requirements for the military claims and there’s no way we can submit a claim with photocopies so I had to email her back and explain line by line what I needed. I hope they get it right this time.

I called my brother today to find out who sent the invoice and found out it was the other storage company. The one that’s storing our household goods. YIKES! I had taken care of that way back in March, back when hubby got the extension on his orders. I wanted to make sure I had everything in order so I got everything done early. Well, apparently that hasn’t happened. I had to wait until after 1:00 a.m. to phone California to get information from the storage company because we’re talking about 11,500 lbs of my household goods; twice as much as what we brought with us to Japan. I’m not about to have that mistakenly auctioned off because of someone’s oversight. I spoke to the rep and she said she hadn’t received funding approval for the year 2005 and gave me the information of what I’ll need to get from the Household Goods office (here in Japan) to fax back to her. I don’t know where the ball dropped and I don’t really care. I’m just a little pissed because I have to double-track and do this all over again. Luckily, I’m paranoid about keeping our paperwork in order or we’d be in deep kaka if I couldn’t find it.

Take deep breaths

Yesterday’s football game brought back memories of my time as a football mom. It was one of the greatest things about being a mother of three sons. When they were old enough to play sports, I signed them up. It didn’t matter what sport it was, it just gave them something to do where they could be around other kids their age and work off some of their energy. They loved playing sports especially when my brothers would come out to watch them play.

They were fortunate to have other relatives watch them play since they played for military leagues with military children who didn’t have family here to support them. I remember wanting to sleep in on the weekends but was never allowed to because we had to be at game sites which were played around the island as early as 8:00 a.m. Once the game started, I quickly forgot about how much I wanted to be in bed. I used to pack lunches for all of us because we usually had to sit through three different games since the boys’ ages put them in different age groups. That meant we were there from the beginning to the end of the day. The thing about local families is that we feed our kids after a game and I don’t mean serve them a bag of chips and a drink like the other military families do. I mean real meals. Other families used to pass by our tarp and ask if we were selling plate lunches.

When I volunteered to be team mom, I tried to get the families to potluck after games and was surprised to learn that they didn’t want to join because it was too costly for them. I even remember how hard it was for them to do fund raising to earn monies for trophies, jackets, uniforms and banquet expenses. One year I was so frustrated with the parents of the team that I gave them a choice to fund raise, pay their share or have their children go without. It was time the parents start getting involved with their kid’s activity instead of treating the team as though it was a way to get rid of their kids for an hour three days a week.

Another thing that frustrated the hell out of me was those Football Fathers, you know the type. Those who are never around during practice, never volunteer to help coach but during the games they are always yelling at the coach about plays that were called. I know not everyone has time to run down to the field or gym to attend every single practice but when it’s game time, don’t act like you’ve dedicated hours with these children. Know your place and let the coach do what he’s been doing for those many hours spent with your child, time you weren’t willing to give up for them or their team.

I have a few videos of the kids playing sports and sometimes I bring them out when I start to miss the good old days. The days when they were still my little boys and I was kept busy planning snack schedules, planning fund raising, shopping for the best trophy our money could buy and seeing the happiness in their faces when they were called by the coach to recieve their trophies at the end of season banquet. The glory days.

Now I’ll need to wait until the granchildren are ready for sports. I wonder if Kamalani will mind breaking a nail or two playing football?

One of the things I miss about being back home is the football season. A few weeks ago, we were flipping channels and happened to find a football game that featured the UH Warriors vs Boise State Broncos. I was so excited to see a UH game here in Japan. We sat and watched the Warriors get spanked, but that was alright. After the game I went online to check our cable schedule to see if we’d ever get another chance to see UH playing on tv again. They were/are. I’m typing this as I wait for the second half of another spanking, this time given by Fresno State Bulldogs. I can’t believe it, the only two times that I’m able to watch the Warriors, they get spanked!

I’ve had several entries about the increasing drug problems in Hawaii. There is a reason for that, a reason that is very personal for me. I’ve struggled mentally for a long time about whether to write about this or not. I’ve decided to share it.

Those of you who know me personally already know about my Prodigal Son. He is currently doing time in a Federal Prison on drug related charges. I’m not ashamed of him, although I am disappointed in his choices. It’s hard for me to talk about him because I haven’t seen him for the past 3 years but I write to him and encourage him as much as possible. In his letters, he seems optimistic about his future. He wrote to tell me that he’ll soon be entering an extensive drug rehab program and he’s looking forward to getting on with his life. Call it mother’s intuition but I can sense a feeling of anxiety in his words. When he calls me, I’m suddenly taken back to years ago, before his experimenation and abuse of drugs. I’m reminded of the good times when I hear his voice. He sent his picture and I’ve compared it to the days when he was using drugs, I told him that he looks so much healthier now that he’s incarcerated. He wanted to see the pictures of when he was on drugs to make a comparison for himself so I sent him the few pictures I had of him. The day he received it, he called me to ask me to burn the pictures. He admitted that he looked sick, his words were, “I look like an alien, burn it mom and don’t show anyone those pictures.” I told him he should keep the ones he has to remind him of what he doesn’t want to do to himself again.

He’s in a prison in Oregon, about 9 hours from where we bought a house. I wanted so badly to visit him when we went househunting but due to time constraints, we weren’t able to make the trip. He called when we returned and his voice was sad, as was mine. I told him we’d make it out there soon and I’m just as anxious to see him as he is to see us. He wrote again to say how much he misses us and how lonely he is even though there are other Hawaiians there to keep him company. He also requested a favor. You know, children never run out of favors to ask of their parents. Anyway, I think he was sort of embarrassed to ask me but he knows that he has to get past the embarrassment if he wants me to help him out. He asked if I’d go online and find him some penpals.

Penpals? What do I know about getting penpals? I googled my butt off in search of penpals for him. Meg laughed while I did my search. I found a few sites where you place an ad for an imate but there is a charge for the ad. Another place I found was free so I placed one there for him. I’m not so sure I like the idea of placing ads for my son. Really, I don’t know what type of person will respond to it. I understand my son is in prison and people would also wonder what type of person he is but demmit, he’s my boy and I’m concerned for him. I printed out some ad applications from Christian sites and enclosed them with a letter I sent him. I also told him to keep an open mind about the Christian sites. Who knows, it might be what he’s looking for in his life.

I spoke to a friend of mine about my search for penpals and while we were online, she received a phone call from her god daughter so she asked her god daughter if she’d mind writing to my son. She said sure she’d do that. My son has never met this friend of mine nor her god daughter so I told her to tell her god daughter to remind my son that she knows his mommy to keep him in line.

I had a passing thought to start a PenPals for Incarcerated Islanders so there can be some show of support for all the local boys who are away from home and lack visits from ohana. That would be a huge project and right now I don’t have the time to invest in it. But if anyone is interested in dropping well wishes or birthday cards to some of these boys from back home, write me an email and I’ll see about getting names of some of the boys from back home. I suddenly feel like a team mom all over again.

I feel 2 lbs lighter.

On last week’s 60 Minutes, they aired a story about the GI’s in Iraq lacking equipment required to keep them safe from enemy attack. From unarmed vehicles to night vision goggles. I think the government can be a little creative with the budget and do the moral thing by taking from this pot to pay the pork bills.

Wouldn’t we classify these types of missions as suicide missions?