Yesterday was one of those very strange days. We'll start backwards.

Right before bed, I was on AIM and found out that Stephen has been married for a week. Congrats, Stephen-who-does-not-read-my-blog! (Ah, sometimes it is refreshing knowing who does NOT read it, especially when you bite your tongue more often knowing who does).. So, Stephen and I were pretty good friends a while back, but haven't talked more than two or three times a year for the past two, I think. It was a pleasant surprise to catch him on AIM for about three seconds, which was just long enough for him to delightedly share about his recent marriage. And that really does make me happy, that he's excited about it. One week down, the rest of their lives to go. I don't know her or anything about her, but I'm sure they know that if they work hard at their marriage, it might actually work.. where if they expect it to be natural, it probably won't. So, congrats to him.

Now, what's with how nearly all of the people that I knew from that group are married or engaged now? Nearly all the ones I knew better, anyway. *le sigh*. This includes all the guys I used to joke with about running off and eloping just to ___fill in the blank___ -- these days, that blank is usually something about getting the military benefits that come (or increase) with marriage. Back then, it'd be things like getting his relatives to stop asking him about it (although we recognized the inevitable harassment about having kids which would follow) or getting me out of my job or something like that. And, you know, you just can't joke about eloping with a married guy.

Before that, I was looking at the website for the church I used to go to when I lived down here, and it looks like they have some hefty voids in their ministry potential, which I was disappointed about. The church was so different when I was around.. And I think maybe it's good for the members now, but they have absolutely nothing to offer someone, say, my age and not in college at which I could really feel like I belonged. *le sigh*. So I ended up skipping church this morning, because when I'm in a town where I once knew a bazillion people and I go to a church, I'm going to be hoping to see people I know there and will be disappointed if I don't, and it really kinda ruins the whole church experience for me. If I'm in a strange town by myself, I can go to whatever church and be focused on worshipping God and on communing with my brothers and sisters in Christ, but to go to one in the town and be hoping to commune with brothers and sisters I'd met before.. well, I have just not gotten over that stumbling block to communion yet.

Earlier, I was spending the day with John and Sloane. John is my two-years-older brother, who is looking good these days and has some amazing talents. His daughter, Sloane, will be 4 on December 15th, which means she's already a grown-up girl and can do anything by herself. Until she can't and then you must help her right that very instant. Oh, and she is absolutely NOT cute. She is beautiful. In fact, she's so not cute that whenever she does those incredibly cute things kids have a way of doing (and honestly, she does them more than any other kid I've ever met) you can't laugh or smile at how cute she is, and you can't tell her she's cute, so you just stifle it. Sometimes it honestly makes my heart hurt trying to stifle it so much, although I think the root of it is just that it's overwhelmingly cute. In spite of how everyone else caters to her being Not Cute, I still call her cute all the time. And I'm certain that at some point, she'll know that that's just what Aunt Patty does and she'll let me call her cute without saying anything, and then no one else will be able to call her cute. Just like I'm one of the only people still allowed to call her Sloaney-balogna, which I can't NOT call her. It comes out when I mean to just say Sloane.

She responds pretty well to me, though I'm not sure that would last if I was around her more often. But she gets excited about anything I do and wants to be just like me, the poor kid. Yesterday I had dressed her in a white little-girl tee complete with ruffles on the short-sleeved cuffs, and a jumper that I don't think was designed to match but they went perfectly together. So when John's neighbor told her how nice her outfit was, she said, "Thank you," and then she whispered excitedly, "My Aunt Patty put it on me!"

So I've been the one getting her to sleep the past few nights, which is the most precious moment in any day. She has these perfectly chubby arms, which she wraps tight around my neck, and adorably chubby cheeks, which she presses flesh against mine, and then she'll tuck her little feet under my knees and you know she's really asleep when you hear this tiny snore and her arms aren't so tight.

My first night here, while I was out having my grown-up wind-down time after putting her to sleep, she went and took over the bed. And since I didn't want to wake her up (she wakes up easily and then doesn't fall back asleep forever), I just took my little slice of the outside and hoped for the best. She kicked and pushed all night long, so that I spent my eight hours just trying not to fall off, which was quite reminiscent of last New Year's, when she and I were together as well. These last two nights have been more successful, one in which I got her very much asleep on one half of the bed, and snuck back in before she could take the whole thing over. And then last night she was staying with her daddy in her special big girl bed there, while I was staying here at mom's with no kicking and pushing to keep me awake.

We had gone to the library earlier in the day yesterday, and I found a couple of teens-or-so books on St. Francis of Assissi, which I've been reading as I can since. Good stuff. I couldn't name my son Francis someday, but I do hope that his life has other significant impacts. Really, it already did.. I just needed some reminders recently.

In the Navy, every conversation about advancing or about if I were to go officer, every conversation about nearly anything, is about money. "It's more money," people will say when you talk about why to do this or not. And while it's very nice having a steady income, it's just not to me to thus think about how I could own a nice condo (if I were gonna be in the area long enough), have a jet ski and a ski boat for my off-days, maybe have a yacht if I really do go officer, at least two vehicles in my driveway plus maybe a bike (as in motorcycle) if I wanted, etc.. It's just not me. I am still driving cars made when I was in elementary school, and wearing clothes I've either had forever, or that were hand-me-downs, or that I got at thrift stores more recently (or on clearance if in a real store). I have no plans to change any of those things about myself, though in the future I will have more money to invest into a nicer car that will have been checked out more thoroughly. The Ru is doing me justice, though, as far as I can tell. It's been such a pleasant change from the Volvo.

I'm glad to have seen these books about St. Francis so that I can keep the money-hungriness in perspective and be glad for my steady income and my ability to make ends meet finally, but also to not want everything that I could have. Especially now that I'm starting to pursue building my credit.. If I let the greed lay hold, I'd have some very bad credit built up in no time.

Back to the story at hand, yesterday I was woken up at some point by my Sloaners playing near the bed with some sort of game she had that involved little cardboard squares. When she saw me open my eyes (you absolutely cannot sneak such things past this one!) she grabbed the squares and a little smiley-face bag, and said she was the mailman, and this was her mailbag, and these were the letters. And as she laid them out in color order (it was five squares each in four colors), she explained to me that these yellow ones were my notes and they said that, "Oh, no! Your daddy was swallowed by a whale!"

Taking her hands off her face from the shock, she laid out some green ones. "These are mine, and My Daddy's Been Swallowed, too!"

Such was the fate also of Mary's daddy and Miwi's daddy.

After a fair amount of talking about this and what it must be like, right down to throwing in some teeth and such, she suddenly flipped over one of my letters and said..

"Oh. I guess he died. Oh, no. That is so very sad."

Her little brow furled and her eyes drooped and the child looked every bit like a miniature professional mourner.

"And look, my daddy died, too. That is so sad."

I gave her a kiss then, because I couldn't keep squelching the overwhelming conflict inside, of the part of me that wanted to play along with her and the other that wanted to laugh forever, the part that was mystified by this small child, and the part that wanted to call an agent right then to tell him she's the next big star.

"Ok, we're done pretending. Except for now ALL of these letters are for MY friend Alexandra, not YOUR friend Aleksandra, but MY friend Alexandra, I have to go take her the mail to tell her that her daddy got swallowed by a whale!"

I wish you could see her. She's so incredible.