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We're trailblazing into new territory here.

I've reached a stage in my career where I can just stay in one place and probably never have to move again (knock on wood).  There are many desk-jobs around the DC area for post-command guys, and not enough inventory of post-command guys to fill the jobs, so the detailer is happy to keep me in the DC area and just rotate me from one desk job to another for as long as I'm willing to stay in the Navy.  I'm thankful that we can let our boys finish middle school and high school in the same school district and not have to move again, and it's a good school district, too.

Staying here this long has resulted in some new experiences for us.

For one, we've finally lived in one place long enough that we ran out of a Costco-sized bottle of ketchup.  Seriously.  All our previous duty stations, we've had to PCS (move) before we finished off the Costco bottle of ketchup, so we end up throwing it away and buying a new bottle when we do our initial Costco food run at our new duty station.  We just thought that was so bizarre that we emptied a bottle and had to go buy another one.

It's also come to our attention that our previous PCS moves every couple of years have helped us to clean out our closets and take a truckload or two of stuff to Goodwill.

I've written a couple of times before about achieving "regular" status (part I and part II).  Usually about the time a barber or a waiter or a sales clerk begins to recognize us and remember us and our "usual" order, it's time for us to move again.  Well, we've now been here long enough to go one step beyond "regular" status at our local favorite businesses.  I'm now beginning to feel like more of a long-term member of our community.

This is our third time being stationed in the DC area and living out in Loudoun County.  We feel a sense of belonging and are well connected in our church and other extra-curricular activities.  When I go out running, there are several spots around my regular running routes that I think to myself, "Hey, that's the Smith's street," as we've come to know more and more families in our community - our sons' friends from school, friends from cub scouts, friends from church, Navy friends.  I see a couple of guys I know out mowing their lawn during my Saturday long runs.  When I started training for my first half-marathon, I liked that I was able to make an unannounced stop at a friend's house several miles out to refill my water bottles along the way. 

It gives me some comfort when a friend tells me, "Hey I saw [your son] out riding his bike on [street name] on Friday."  I like that we've been here long enough and we know enough people that chances are we're going to see someone we know, and they see and recognize our kids out and about, too.  I like when I run into families at the grocery store and remember their kids from cub scout camp or from being a chaperon for the school orchestra field trip.

Last week I was honored to be the guest speaker at a local high school National Honor Society induction ceremony.  As I was shaking the hands and congratulating each of the students walking across the stage, it surprised me that I knew multiple students.  At the reception in the cafeteria after the ceremony, I enjoyed talking with several parents that I knew and thinking about how at least one of the students I've known for 10 years.

It's nice to be a part of our community.  This is a new experience that I suspect is uncommon in most military families.

It's nice to be a regular (Part II)

Being in the Navy and moving to a new duty station every couple of years makes it difficult to achieve "regular" status.  By the time you've been going to the same business often enough that the staff remembers you, it's time to move again.

Now, I'm not talking about Yelp's definition of "regular" where you go to the same restaurant twice in a week and ipso-facto-POOF!  Suddenly Yelp gives you a congratulatory message that you're now a REGULAR at that business.  No, there's no set formula for how many visits or how far spaced apart they have to be to achieve said status. 

It's all about recognition. 

Sort of like the old Cheers theme song, "Sometime you wanna go where everybody knows your name."  The employees don't necessarily need to know your name, but if they clearly recognize you and ask if you want "the usual," THAT's when you know you've arrived.  Yelp should make it so that "regular" status is only conferred by an employee of the business who enters some secret password into your smartphone to show that the employees of the establishment recognize you as a regular.

It happened a few weeks ago at the place we most frequently go to lunch after church.  Our waitress recognized us and asked if the boys wanted "the usual" to drink.  It just makes you feel... home... like a sense of belonging.

I can also confidently say I'm a regular at the Khaki Lounge on the submarine base.  The bartender, Margaret, recognizes me and asks how my boys are.  We have done a lot of wardroom lunches and "leaders lunches" for all our officers and chiefs there.  Then I took my boys in there for lunch one day while my wife was attending some sort of Family Readiness Group (FRG).  I don't imagine a lot of people take their kids to the Khaki Lounge, so it's easy to understand why that stuck in her memory.

Last weekend I was overjoyed and devastated all at once.

At first, I was overjoyed to have achieved "regular" status at the base barber shop.  Deja vu.  Last time I wrote about this, it had taken under a year, but I was in the shipyard and went to the same barber every week.  I didn't write about it on shore duty, but I know it happened a lot quicker on shore duty in the DC area going to the same places for lunch and the same barber shop every week.  Being on sea duty now, I go away for months at a time and the barbers forget all about you.  So here it is, a year and a half into my tour of duty in the Pacific Northwest, and I finally became a regular at the base barber shop.  My favorite barber recognized me and asked if I wanted it same as usual.  Yes, please!  :-)

Then I sat down in the chair and as she started combing my hair before she started cutting, she said sternly, "Somebody else cut your hair."  Ding ding ding!  :-)  That's another clear sign of being a regular - when they can tell someone else has messed with your hair or cut it differently, and another case of deja vu.  I confessed that I had to get my haircut, but she (the barber) was out of town. 

This is where my excitement of being a regular ended.

After my comment about her being out of town, she sighed and confessed.  Yep, she had to go househunting.  Her husband got out of the Navy and they're moving to Texas, so she was down in Texas shopping for a new house.  She just submitted her 2 weeks notice.

Darnit!

Back to ground zero.  It's just not fair!

Oh well, maybe at our next duty station...

It's nice to be a regular

No, no, no, this has nothing to do with eating my fiber cereal in the mornings.

It's nice to achieve the status of being A "regular" at a local business. It's generally hard to do being in the military and moving around every couple of years (or less).

Heck, I've only been in Hawaii a year now, and at some point in the recent past I have attained "regular" status with my favorite barber. She's Korean and doesn't talk much, so it's not like she would remember me from talking about our families or whatever like you might with some other barbers. It took me about 7 months or so before I found her, and a couple more months for me to have sat in her chair enough times that she remembered me.

I knew I was making the crossover into "regular" status a month or so ago when she commented one day, "Samwon else cut you hayah." Do barbers and hair stylists mark their territory? I mean, do they have some "mark" or signature way they do things so they can tell if they were the last person to cut your hair or not? Anyway, she could tell that the previous haircut I got was at the NEX and not in her chair.

Why do I go see this barber you ask? I'll tell ya. One of the things I really liked about Westpac (being on deployment in the Western Pacific) was port calls in places like Okinawa and Korea. I wanted to go get a haircut everyday. Not because I like my hair that short, but because they give you a scalp, neck, and shoulder massage after they cut your hair. I didn't care so much about the haircut as the massage afterwards. Well, this barber I found does the same Korean scalp and neck massage after she cuts your hair, and it's AWESOME. She does a good job cutting my hair, too.

Aside #1: Disclaimer for any of you salty dogs who have been to Westpac before, NO I am NOT talking about the two-pole barber shops.

Aside #2: I know some young impressionable ensigns and midshipmen read my blog and are dying to know what Aside #1 was about. Here's the gouge for any of you guys getting ready to meet your first boat and go on your first deployment: STAY AWAY from the barber shops with TWO poles (your standard red, white, and blue swirling poles outside that tell you it's a barber shop). Your COB will explain why during your port brief before you pull into port, but just in case you're going to fly overseas and meet your boat in someplace like Chin Hae and you get there before the boat does, just remember to stay away from the two-pole barber shops, capiche? 'nuff said.

So what's my point? Why did I bring this up in the first place?

I'll tell ya what's awesome about having "regular" status. Yesterday, I stopped to get a haircut on my way home from work. I didn't have an appointment, and I was walking into the barber shop right behind another guy. She saw me walking in the door and told the other guy that I had an appointment and ushered me into her chair and made the other guy wait for the next chair. That's AWESOME! (Sorry, dude, whoever you were! I didn't ask her to do that!)