The Transition
Jun 9th, 2005 by Leimamo
I’ve known all along that we were fortunate to have the benefits which the Navy has given us. What I didn’t know was just how fortunate we were.
Take for instance the cost of watching a movie at a rinky dinky little 3 plex cinema which has enough chairs to accomodate approximately 50 patrons per room. For 2 adults and two children aged 8 and 5, it costs $21.00 WITH military discounts. Now, no child can watch Madagascar without a box of popcorn, a drink and a candy so factor those in and my final cost for 1 1/2 hours of entertainment was $29.00 and mind you, the adults didn’t have any refreshments.
The next night we decided to watch TripleX2:State of the Union at the Base Theater and it costs us $10.00 for 2 adults (children 5 and under was free), a medium popcorn and a medium drink. What a huge difference. I don’t care that the base takes forever to show new releases. I can wait for the movie to be shown there if it’ll cost me nearly 3 times less the cost of going to an off base theater.
Another thing I’ve taken for granted with the Navy is the cost of utilities. The truth is, at 43 I’ve never laid my eyes on a utilitiy bill until we purchased this house. We’ve freely used electricity and water while we occupied government housing without even a second thought at how much it costs the government each month. Now that we’re responsible for our bills, I’ve been shutting off lights since we have skylights in the entrance and bathrooms where we need it most. The house also has a lot of light coming in through the numerous windows in the living room. The dining room and master bedrooms both have french doors that allow sunlight so there’s really no need to have the lights on until around 9:30 p.m.
That’s right, I had forgotten all about the long summer days here in Washington. The sun doesn’t set until 10:00 at night. How freaky is that? Well, Kamalani refuses to sleep until the sun sets. I can’t even think of sleeping unless it’s a few hours after dark which now means some time around 2ish in the morning!
We’re still sleeping on whatever padding a few comforters and sheets can provide us because our household goods haven’t arrived in Washington yet. You remember me blogging about getting things ready to be packed out way back in mid-April don’t you? The Inbound personnel said they usually receive goods from Japan ahead of time but they still have until Friday which is the guaranteed arrival date.
On the bright side. I got phone service now so I’ve been calling family and friends whom I haven’t spoken to since we left Hawaii for Japan. It’s nice to have a plan that offers free unlimited long distance domestic and Canada calls, unlimited free regional and unlimited area calls. We’ve gotten to the point that we ran out of people to call so Meg started dialing our number from the bedroom to talk to me in the dining room. That girl is stupid. 
We got together with some of our old friends, it was so cool. It’s like we never left. Everyone still looks the same except for their children who changed their looks over the years. This past weekend, we went to a friend’s friend’s house and we were singing Karaoke. I won’t mention names because I think he reads this blog but he was being a total mic hog. I almost had to throw down with him just to get a turn. *LOL* I’m joking. But he was funny and he really was being a mic hog. CHRIS. Oooops.
Yesterday we went to the Home Gallery at the Navy Exchange so we could sit on furniture. We laid on the display mattresses not because we’re shopping for a bed, but because we knew it would feel good to lay on a bed again. Oh, and the sofas and chairs. We remember what those used to feel like too. Ahh, the simple things in life.
Well, I’m off for now. Megs (the stupid girl) has to use HER computer. I’ll update again real soon.