B. Update

Enjoyed a fairly long conversation with B. who is getting ready to leave for Ft. Bragg on Friday.  He has a massive list of 'stuff' he needs to have ready and he's out of money - so he needed a loan.  No worries - he is now solvent and will be able to take care of what needs to be done before he leaves.  I don't mind helping him out - he's doing an OK job of keeping track and heck, a year ago, he wouldn't have had any idea how much money he did or didn't have.  So just the fact that he said 'I have $80 left but that's not going to be enough for what I need to do before I get paid again' is a huge, HUGE improvement for him.  Fiscal solvency is a journey - and he's learning.  Glad we are here to help him out when he needs it - if we weren't, he'd be using credit to do stuff and I don't want him to do that. Trying so hard to not have him think credit is a viable option - his credit card is in the drawer of my desk and that's where it's staying.

He will be in a 'lock down' mode for three weeks - they take his cell phone when he arrives and unlike Basic, he says not to expect the occasional call.  He will call when he's done (three weeks later), hopefully with good news.

This new journey he's going on means that while all of his Headquarter buddies were recently deployed out to units, they held him back again.  His commanding officer said they didn't want to hold a space for him when they know he's leaving for three weeks - so once the training is done, he will still be assigned to HQ and have to wait to be farmed out to a unit.  If all goes well, he heads to Ft. Benning (back to Georgia)  for three weeks in May or June and then will be in Ft. Bragg (North Carolina) for a couple years.  We will see.

He is very excited about coming home for Christmas and is trying really hard to get someone (anyone!) there to confirm when he needs to be back.  He has 4 weeks of leave available as well as the Christmas closure time and he'd really like to try to stay home for as long as he can - 3-4 weeks, he says.  That would be lovely -

Thankfully, Southwest doesn't charge a fee for changing a ticket - you just pay the difference in fare should you need to change - which isn't cheap but is better than a fee on top of the airfare change. He's going to try to talk to someone tomorrow and from there, we will just bite the bullet and buy the ticket.  He'll get home - and as military, he can always just 'stand-by' at the airport until they can get him on a flight to where he wants to go.

He is dreaming about being home - lattes, good food, time with friends, maybe some snowboarding.  I asked what things he wants to do while he's here - maybe San Fran for a day; lots of down time...no firm plans and I guess like all of us, that's the best vacation ever - just chillaxing with friends and family while enjoying the holidays.

So instead of heading to work this morning, looks like I will get the ribs in the oven and then head to the office this afternoon for a bit.  A bit of a routine change but oh well - it was lovely to talk to him un-rushed and at a time of day when I'm not struggling to keep my eyes open.

I am really proud of him and happy that he is enjoying what he's doing -