Further Decline as the Stereotypical Husband...

The folds on the letter were fresh.  I read out loud the final version of my letter of introduction to my future CO to my husband.  For those who don't know, we SWOs (at least) keep to a somewhat archaic tradition of sending letters of introduction (via snail mail!) to our future CO's.  They're pretty generic.  The good ones don't neccessarily stand out as much as the really terrible ones.  I had carefully drafted mine, trying to strike a balance between enthusiasm and professional, memorable not queer.  I had even gone to the trouble of having an instructor at SWOS review it, along with a post-command O-6 (Captain).  

In short, I thought it was a pretty damn good letter.

"'Niles and I have been married for seven years, and he may be ---'"

"Wait, Alyssa, did you say, 'seven'?"

"Yeah...  Seven."

(Semi-awkward pause as I do the math....)

"Crap!  Eight years!  We've been married eight years."

"You could just scratch it out and send it."

I half thought about one-lining it, initialing it, and then sending the letter in...  Like a PMS report.  Then I thought about not making any changes and just sending it in.  But then again, with my luck, it would come up in conversation during my Hail and Farewell...  The CO would then surmise that I have no attention to detail...  And then he would tank my fitness reports because obviously my laziness to print off a new letter to send him meant I would be too lazy to do anything worthwhile as the Chief Engineer.

But you know what?  It's easy to forget how many years you've been married if you overlook your anniversaries.

Good Shiphandling = Watching Paint Dry

First off, a quick explanation.  At department head school, they try to teach you all sorts of useful things: protecting your ship during World War III, how to file the appropriate paperwork, what sort of things will get you and your boss fired...  And of course, how to drive a ship.  One of the scariest truths out there is that a good number of us SWO's (surface warfare officers aka shipdrivers) are really terrible shipdrivers.  So they set us up in evening sessions (1800-2200 anyone?) so you can practice.  During tonight's session on pierwork, I realized just how impatient I really am.  This was my actual thought process:

Hmm...  This whole twist thing seems to be working well...  I'm getting just the slight sternway that I need.  The prudent thing would be to just keep this going, back into that clear area, and do a three point turn... But that's going to take forever... and it is an imaginary ship after all...  Maybe I can do a full twist with the tug in this tiny channel...

And then I hit the cruiser behind me.  I could have sworn I would clear it.  And maybe I would have if I was a better shiphandler (a touch of all engines ahead 2/3, anyone?)  The instructor, who no kidding was on destroyer escorts, wisely summed up his advice:

When things are going well, don't try to make them go well faster.

I should make this my new mantra.  It makes sense.  I tend to figure out the right thing to do if I would just take my own advice most of the time.  Instead, I'm usually too impatient to just things keep going on the same course.  So you would think that as much as I admired this advice, I would take it, but fifteen minutes later while driving my imaginary ship back into port, this was my thought process:

Now I should just line up my ship with the pier heading so I clear the cruiser with lots of space... and then I can slowly do a port twist and just let the wind and current carry me pierside...  But that's going to take forever.  Maybe I'll just close the distance to the cruiser...

And then I nearly crashed into the same cruiser.  This time, the instructor just shook his head, moved my imaginary ship a bit farther out from the cruiser so my stern was now 70 ft away instead of 10 ft and let me finish.

Because the sad and awful truth of pierwork?  When done correctly, it takes FOREVER.  It's like watching paint dry.  And I hate watching paint dry.  So consider yourself duly warned if you ever see me take the "conn" while I keep glancing at my watch.  I always want things to go well faster.