The comraderie of the military

I got a phone call from my friend Mel this morning informing me that a typhoon is heading our way. What?!!! You would think there would be big announcements on the t.v. or something, but I haven't seen anything. All those times I thought that maybe I should get a typhoon kit together at the house comes back to bite me. Now I have to fight the crowds and panicked people at the commissary. And wouldn't you know that our flashlight fell off the refrigerator last week and broke. So off to the store we go. The water section in the store is completely empty, but then I find that they have set up huge pallets of H2O in the aisle by the milk. Guess I should pick up an extra jug for Mary. Whew, we're set. Plenty of water and non perishables. You can live on peanut butter and ritz crackers, right? The typhoon is not supposed to hit until Friday or Saturday, but the wind was picking up today and we had a couple of heavy downpours. I looked at our awning flapping in the wind and figured that we'll have to buy a new cover sooner than we had planned, since I certainly can't reach it to pull it down. Low and behold, our neighbor came over this afternoon and volunteered to go to self-help (for you non-military, it's sort of a loan office) to get a ladder. She and her husband later came over and helped me bring in anything that could get blown away and pulled down the awning. You can't tell by the pictures, but it was raining at the time and we all got drenched. Good thing it was warm. Mary had a good ole time. What wonderful neighbors. I started thinking, if we were civilians, would my neighbors volunteer to help like mine just did? Would they even know that my husband was gone and I was alone with my daughter? Gosh, we went almost 3 years without really talking to our neighbors in Hawaii. Sad, but true. I am so thankful to have such good friends close by. Thank you Beth and Orlando.

Wet baby Oh what did you sit in?