I managed to get one of these last year.  Definitely worth applying if you are going to school or getting a certificate!

The National Military Family Association’s Joanne Holbrook Patton Military Spouse Scholarship Program awards spouses of uniformed services members up to $1,000 for professional certification, college, or graduate school. The funds are for tuition, fees, and school room and board. Applications are due by midnight February 1, 2009. Visit www.nmfa.org/scholarship for more information or to submit an application.

These scholarships are made possible thanks to partnerships with Fisher House Foundation and Folds of Honor Foundation.

Well, it looks like someone swiped my camera from the Fort Myer Officers’ Club during a holiday party.  We waited all weekend to hear back from one of the party organizers — and she took a long time to get back to us because her cell phone was also stolen from the same private club on the same day.  I know, a little naive to assume this would not happen on a secure Army post, but two thefts suggest to me there is a bigger problem at hand.

So no pictures for the blog until I get a new camera.  Thankfully we had insurance!

Several years ago while out in Seattle, Elysia was awarded a Navy Achievement Medal for her work as an assistant tax officer.  The Navy provides free tax preparation for sailors and their families, although sometimes I wonder if everyone is aware of it. 

At the Little Creek Amphibious Base in Virginia, for example, the Navy Exchange allowed private tax preparers to provide services to sailors without letting them know they could get the work done for free through the local Navy Legal Services Office (NLSO).

These companies all seem to offer rapid refund loans, which are a rip-off in a time when electronic refunds are processed within days and sailors can apply for no-interest loans or grants with the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society for emergency needs and basic living expenses.

On the other hand, we broke down and relied on a tax accountant a couple years ago after I spent 25 hours using Turbo Tax and crashed the program with a complex return.  The pro-rating across three states got out of control.  But for the majority of returns, the NLSO provides a great service.

AARP also offers free tax preparation services through its Tax-Aide program.  It serves low- and moderate-income people (generally under $42,000) with a focus on those age 60 and older, but others are not turned away.  The program is run by very few paid staff and more than 33,000 volunteers.  Both the Navy and AARP tax services are sponsored, at least in part, through the IRS’s VITA and TCE (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and Tax Counseling for the Elderly) programs.

This coming tax season I am volunteering through AARP to do tax returns in our county.  I figure it will be good experience to have when doing volunteer work in the military community.

Today we went to the Navy JAG Corps holiday party, held at the Officer’s Club at Fort Myer.  Citrus was on her best behavior, aided by cookies, and we won the silent auction for a very large holiday gift basket. 

I would include a photo except that we were so entranced with carrying out our loot that we left the diaper bag with my Nikon Digital SLR and fancy lens inside.  It has only been a few hours so hopefully it will turn up.

We are going to get a Christmas tree tonight in case Santa wants to come early to return what we inadvertently gave away.

I think Elysia and I are generally good about not being obnoxious about how great our daughter is other than, of course, posting about her all the time on this blog.  But it still is nice to get some third-party validation that counter-balances the pee-on-carpet stories we hear from day care.

About a month ago we went out to dinner at a French restaurant with a friend visiting from out of town.  We got this email today that made our day:

I have been meaning to tell you an interesting anecdote.  That night we ate out, I left my credit card at the restaurant.  I did not discover it  until the next morning, but they did not open before I had to catch my  plane.  As soon as I got home in Kentucky, I called the restaurant to ask  them to destroy my credit card.  As luck would have it, our waitress answered the phone.  She said “Yes, I remember you.  You were at that table  with that beautiful child.  She was so well behaved.” Then she continued  to talk about how great Citrus was as she destroyed my credit card.

A couple friends have told us that we are going to have to fight off the boys when she gets older.  We are now looking for kiddie martial arts classes.

Someone found my blog by searching for “Military Men in Diapers 3″.  Surely they were searching for Coffee and Diapers, another civilian male milspouse blog.  Because I couldn’t find movies 1 and 2.  They were probably further deep within the hard artillery websites than I was willing to go.

We are trying to figure out what to do for Inauguration Day.  Part of me wants to run for the hills, the other part realizes that it is going to be a historic event in our own backyard and we have no excuse since we are about four blocks from the Metro.

Hotels are booked solid and it appears that hundreds of people are trying to rent out their apartments for thousands of dollars.  It is hard to tell if more than a few people are doing it successfully but it seems risky for all involved.  Instead, we are likely to host a friend of mine from high school.  He appears to be mostly harmless.

In 1969, when I was 11 months old, my parents took me to the Altamont Free Concert.  Or at least that is the story.  I am nowhere to be seen in Gimme Shelter so I have my suspicions as to how far they actually made it. 

What is certain is that they arrived in the Bay Area in about 1968, a few seasons late for the Summer of Love.  It was undoubtedly an exciting time but my dad once told me that when he got to San Francisco he found that everyone was talking about ‘living off the land’ and that was a major turn-off.  He had grown up on a farm in Austria and knew what that life was about and did not want any part of it.

Inauguration Day is going to be our daughter’s Altamont.  Due to to the traffic, I will probably have the day off from AARP and my wife likely will not have to go in to work at the Pentagon.  

It is hard to get any more counter-counterculture than that.  Unless we find a way to make a profit.

We visited part of my old neighborhood in Brooklyn last night and quite a bit has changed since I left in 2000.  I lived there in 1990-1991 and from 1994 to 2000.  There has been a lot of new development downtown and near Atlantic Avenue which over time will probably serve as a reminder of a good economy and booming real estate of the past decade.  From afar we have read one irritating story after another about Brooklyn being the only hip place to live in NYC in the past few years.

And what does hip mean?  Undoubtedly, lots of bars, restaurants and boutiques.  But also an Urban Outfitters, a Trader Joe’s, Barnes and Noble, and an IKEA.  Not very inspiring though probably good for local landlords.

Still, it was nice to walk around the area even if only briefly.  Most of our friends from the ’90s have left NYC but a few are still around.  I once found a stray cat in Brooklyn and took him in, and it turned out he was a mouser for Pete’s Waterfront Ale House.  Norman was one lucky cat.  We walked by the bar but did not peer through the metal grate of the sidewalk to see if he was still working down in the basement, or at least haunting it.

We stopped by Last Exit, a bar we last visited when it first opened.  While we were gone it was rated one of the top bars in NYC so I guess we missed the crowds.  It was nearly empty on Tuesday night, a simple dark nook with red walls and some couches.

It is nowhere near as bleak as the book it is named after.  Years ago, when the movie came out, I went on kind of a blind set-up with someone to see it.  Neither of us had read Last Exit to Brooklyn or any reviews but had heard it was good.  Big mistake.  On the way out of the theater, I heard words that you never want to hear when on a date:  “I feel violated.”

We never went out again.

On Monday and Tuesday I attended the annual meeting of the Military Officers Association of America.  As a member of their Currently Serving Spouse Advisory Council, I attended a panel presentation featuring seven senior military spouses (all wives) sharing stories and advice with new generations of spouses. 

I think I most identified with the comment that after moving to a new location you spend nine months unpacking and setting up, nine months of living in the new location, and nine months of waiting to hear about the next set of orders.  It sounds obvious once you hear it said out loud but you really ought to worry less about unpacking and more about meeting your new neighbors and getting to know your community.

At the meeting I think I was the only person without spouse flair.  Nearly everyone had some sort of crystal, gold or pearl jewelry associated with their branch of service, and the designer of choice among everyone is Ann Hand.  I had never heard of her but wearing her ‘patriotic collection’ is clearly shorthand for being a part of a club, particularly in Washington DC.  Her home page features an inaugural pin for President-elect Obama.  None of it is really my style, if you are wondering.

The spouse panel was a success with standing room only and it has been pretty cool to meet a lot of people who are very active in their community.  My goal is to make as many connections as I can in the next six months, after having lived in the DC area for seven years.  Better late than never!

I had to explain death to Citrus today.  It was easier than I expected although I am sure she will have more questions once she starts to think about it.

When a friend died at age 38 a couple of years ago, his daughter was three years old.  I remember conversations at the time that the best way to discuss it with a toddler is to be direct but of course use situations that she understands.

So first we talked about ants and bugs.  She got the point immediately and talked about how they were dead after she kept stepping on them and they no longer worked.  Then we talked about broken toys or broken crayons that could not be fixed.  She told me that we had to put them in the trash, so if a person died we had to put them in the trash, too.  Uh.  I got as far as explaining that we sometimes put people away in a nice park with trees and grass and decided that was enough.

We talked about being able to look at pictures and tell stories about someone.  She told me that she was sad that someone had died, because he was a silly and funny man.  And then she declared that she was not going to step on bugs any more.