The Troublemaker

I did not pen the name, as accurate as it may be. Lisa and I met when I arrived at NAF El Centro. What can I say about her?...let's just say...she likes to keep her finger on the pulse of the base. (Was that Christian enough for you, Lisa?)

I'm quite certain Lisa did not like me right away...although, what's not to love, right? I think she thought I was weird. I have NO idea why! I was just your average, Mormon, thirty-something officer's wife...living in a 27 ft. travel trailer with my husband, 4 home-schooled children and our Rottweiler.

Although Lisa isn't THEE most high-maintenance officer's wife I've known...let's just say, she won't eat at a restaurant unless they "serve" her, she summers at "The Shore" and she shops out of pretentious mail-order catalogs that I had never heard of before I met her. She has definitely "broadened my horizons", much to my husband's dismay...but I figure, now that he's made LCDR, I need to jump on the band wagon!

Lisa and I were here together at NAF for just a year and a half...but it flew by like nothing! I'm sure she never imagined she could have SO much in common with a "chaplain's wife." The first time she heard my "Echo and the Bunnymen" cellphone ringtone, I thought she was going to fall out of her chair. She was evidently expecting Amazing Grace. I think she kept expecting to see me wearing pants under my dress...and she couldn't figure out how I got away with wearing my hair so short. She was certainly NOT expecting that I could beat her any day of the week and twice on Sunday (blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back) in "Name that Eighties Tune."

As it turned out, we had more in common than our love of the eighties. We also love scrap-booking, cooking, older men, old-fashioned parenting, pedicures, shopping, have wicked senses of humor, and our parents even graduated from the SAME high school around the SAME time! Her mom was in the same class as my aunt. (I wish my aunt remembered her so I could ask if her mom was as big a troublemaker as Lisa is!)

Lisa moved back east about a year and a half ago. It just hasn't been the same here without her...I miss her all the time! But lucky for me, since I am leaving the country, she flew all the way back out here to see me for one WILD weekend!

FIRST order of business:

Lunch at Junior's! We used to do breakfast there often, but his lunch menu rocks, too. Junior is an impossible flirt...unless we bring our husbands with us...then he minds his Ps and Qs.

Then we had some time to kill before we met friends for dinner...so we went around the base, visiting the ladies at the commissary and some other places she used to frequent.

Then, we went shopping...

and found matching shoes on clearance! OK, so my feet are bigger and whiter...but pastey white is the new tan!



Then, Lisa M. and Deb met us for dinner at Carino's. We were taking a gamble, but actually got GREAT service this time!

The visit was over FAR too quickly. Hopefully I can convince her to meet me in Bali or something...or who knows, maybe we'll meet at "the shore" one summer...


One thing is for sure, Lisa is a keeper! You just never know who God is going to send you when you are in need...If only He would arrange orders for them to Oki!