I might actually get my wristwatches repaired. The guy at the Exchange has only been able to fix 50% of my watch problems. He was able to replace the battery in my Timex running watch and was able to resize my metal band on my knockoff watch from China. He was not able to replace the band on my Timex Expedition nor replace the cracked crystal on my generic Casio. Can't replace a crystal on a Casio? Seriously? But your sign says you replace watch crystals???
--- 2 ---
Running races won't begin at 6 AM. I've only run two races in the past three years on Guam, and I love running. The real reason? They all have a start time of 6 AM or earlier on a Saturday morning, meaning that you need to be getting registered by 5 AM or at least 5:30. Come on, we all know it's hot and humid on Guam, but starting a 5K at 7 AM that takes at most 30 minutes to run won't kill anyone's personal records.
--- 3 ---
There are urgent care clinics on the mainland. When child X develops a fever Saturday night or gets a bug bite that swells up half her leg, we won't have to go sit in the freezing cold ER at the Naval Hospital because they're the only place that can see a patient before Monday morning.
--- 4 ---
There will be a ton of things for the kids to do. I am not joking when I say we have seen and done just about everything our toddlers would be interested in doing on Guam. We attended a fundraiser for a children's museum for Guam about a year and a half ago, excited at their goal of opening a museum by the end of the calendar year. That was supposed to be December 2008. We have not heard from the project since. Kind of sad, really.
--- 5 ---
Typhoons won't ruin my weekend plans. Nothing crimps my style more than waiting in line to fill up my cars with gas, buying cases of bottled water in case "the big one" ever comes through, and hoping that the kids will enjoy eating canned chili cooked over a Coleman camp stove. Then I wait by my phone waiting to be recalled to the Regional Operations Center. At least once a month since August of this year we've gotten all excited over some baby typhoon nearby that has threatened to sock Guam - only to have it bypass us completely or peter out into an embarassingly sunny day.
--- 6 ---
The postal system might work - or at least work better. Only first class and priority mail or higher comes by plane. Anything less, like magazines, non-profit mailings or parcel post, comes via ship. I swear that there is a container for Guam someplace in the US where the island's mail accumulates. Once it fills up they put it on the next boat that is scheduled to go to Guam at some point in the next 6 months. You can tell when that container arrives because everyone's post office boxes are bursting with junk mail and magazines. It's always funny to open up your PO box on November 1 to find the October issue of Good Housekeeping with "Great Ideas for Halloween!" Maybe next year.
Also, I understand that they've curtailed home delivery in the mainland, but on Guam we've been ahead of our time. Our PO box is in Hagatna, 15 minutes away. It's not big enough for packages, and when we first got here they would give out packages until 5:30 PM. Since then they have cut hours at the post office to be from 8:30-4:00, which is right when everyone works. Instead, we all line up to pick up our packages on Saturday morning, where the post office also cut hours and is only open from 9-12.
--- 7 ---
I might win the fight against mold, rust, ants, boonie cats and the bestial jungle plant that eats my driveway. We store nothing of real value in the garage because the mold or wasps would find a home in it. I bought a pair of clippers to cut down bananas from our trees, and after two years they are completely unusable and rusted shut. Ants have invaded our kitchen and are finally getting the best of us after two years of ongoing war. Boonie cats peed on a box of our Christmas ornaments the first year we were here; we had to dispose of the whole box. The landscapers do their best with the jungle plant, but after two weeks it grows big enough to make backing out of our double driveway a near impossible task.
***
Next week: the seven things I will miss most about Guam!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment