Kodiak Day Part 3 (The Anti-Kodiak: A Rant)

Newton's third law of motion states: "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". Perhaps I should make up my own laws of Kodiak "E-motion". For every good day in Kodiak there is an equal and opposite horrible one. Today was one of those days.
Actually it started out fine. Jake is on leave (hooray!). We (all) slept in. We goofed around here for a while until the need to get out of the house overtook us. It was rainy, which should have been my first indictation to not let house-bound boredom weasle it's way into my brain. I should have known to just stay home.

Kodiak on rainy days is horrible in my opinion. There is, simply put, nothing to do. Actually, I take that back. There are some rainy days where I am quite content to just hunker down, watch a good movie, play a game, stay in my pajamas and veg out. It's the rainy days where I've got cabin fever and no real agenda that get me every time. That's the key. You've got to have an agenda. See, in the regular world (aka anywhere but here), if you're bored on a rainy day, you can jump in your car and toodle around Costco...perhaps Home Depot or Target...have a nice meal at a good restaurant....maybe catch a movie....well, not here. I really wish you people could see this town. My dad has experienced it, so I know that he will know what I'm talking about. It, in my opinion, is not a very nice looking place. Everything is run down and disheveled. Humboldt county people: picture being stranded on an island with Orick being the only town. Orick with the crappiest Walmart.

Anyway, now that you've got that fabulous picture in your head, let's get back to my story. The key to not letting Kodiak Town get you down is to always have an agenda. For example: "I need to go to the post office, bank, dentist and Walmart (and here's the importnat part) to get toothpaste, toilet paper and a birthday present for Joanna's friend." is a picture-perfect Kodiak agenda. You're in, you're out, you're good. When you allow the boredom trip to lead you there, you're in trouble. That, my friends, is what happened to us today. For starters, Jake had some revelation about half-way into town that this place doesn't have any traffic lights. You should have seen his face. I'm not sure why, but for some reason it just dawned on him, and I thought to myself "Oh, no. This is not going to be a good trip to Walmart.". It wasn't.
While we wandered we encountered howling babies, high prices on crap we need but couldn't bring ourselves to buy, failed attempts to go potty in the filthy bathrooms and the utter lack of Neutrogena hair products. We somehow managed to spend $40 and left. Now our stomachs were empty which is a bad addition to the equation. Especially for my husband, who's crankiness is directly proportional to the fullness of his stomach. We didn't want to spend $50 on some mediocre (at best) meal, so we decided to stop at Safeway and ended up with some of the most crap-tastic chinese food we've ever tasted. We brought it home and ate it in silence on paper plates with plastic forks while the kids watched a movie. I managed to joke that we could call this the worst date we've ever had. Which led me to think that even if we had dropped the kids off with Christie or Kim and we had some time to ourselves...where the heck would we go??? There's nothing! No restaurants! No shopping! No good movies!! NOTHING!!!! Who the heck likes this place enough to beg the Coast Guard to let them stay another tour??? It's insanity!! There is not enough to like about this place to overcome the overwhelming amount of things to dislike about it. I am sorry, but I had to say it. I have tried SO hard. I try every day. Tomorrow I will try again, but I just can't help it. We are here because we have to be, but I can tell you that the Garris family will not be here one nanosecond longer than we are obligated to be here by the Coast Guard.

You know, I hate to be so negative, but I really have to validate these feelings. To ignore them and not give them merit does me an injustice. Yes, there are nice days. The evidence is right here in this very blog! I equate it to child birth (don't laugh, I'm serious...hear me out.). I've always thought that if God didn't give women some sort of selective memory about birthing children, we would be a world full of only children. Most women (me included) forget and are able to push the negative part of that experience out of their brains and are able and willing to put themselves through it again and again to have more children. The end result is enough to make us forget and want to do it again. In terms of Kodiak, I have not forgotten. No amount of nice, sunny, beautiful days can edge out the memories of this past winter. No amount of wonderful, envigorating hikes and trips to the beach is enough to extinguish the thought that winter is coming again. The next patrol is coming again...

Anyway, I guess if there is a lesson to be learned from all of this is that on rainy days when cabin fever rears its ugly head, we just need to not go to Walmart. Stay home and play a game. Tomorrow is another day, and I will wake up and think of 10 positive things about this experience just like I do every day and hopefully the next 2 years will go by very quickly. Good night.