Washington DC

Back in 1997, in a final attempt to rebuild our marriage, my ex and I took a trip to the east coast.  I flew in on the morning of the 4th of July, got my rental car, and located my hotel. The concierge gave me advice about the difficulties of a car and parking in DC, so I drove over to the local Metro parking lot, bought myself a ticket and hopped on a Metro train.  (If you know me, you know how out of character it's for me to travel alone!!)

I was pretty brave to just head downtown without a destination or purpose.  I found my way to The Mall. I walked around the Lincoln Memorial then headed back toward the Washington Monument. I grabbed a lemonade from a street vendor and sat down in the grass to rest.  There were a lot of folks setting up blankets and chairs to watch the fireworks show;  I curled up and found myself waking from a nap right there on the grass! (Thank goodness no one attempted ... anything!)

I didn't get to see the fireworks, I had to head back to the Metro, locate my car and pick my husband up at the airport. 

I've always wished I could spend time in DC, but the hubs was in a hurry to cover a lot of ground along the east coast. I ended up being the driver the entire trip; one of our arguments was about him being able to see all the sights while I was seeing was the lines on every freeway.

That's when I knew this wasn't going to be the trip that helped make our marriage work.

The mind is a funny thing.  I remember that day - alone in DC - as the best. It was the highlight for me! 

How Ironic

With my second husband, we drove to Death Valley.  On vacation.  In the summer.  I think it was 1992 or 1993. Yes, crazy, but thats what he wanted to do.  We were in our Chevy Van, which had no AC.  

We explored a few places, but didn't wander far from the van.  It was 121 degrees.   It was mind boggling to me at the time; living in the Bay Area all my life, it was rare to have temps near 100.

How ironic is it now that I choose to live in the Valley of the Sun where we are currently on a streak of 108 days with temps over 100.  Yes, we track all kinds of odd things here!

Life takes us on funny turns, and we don't know what's in our future. Makes me wonder what will be next on the horizon???

Family Time

One thing I'm learning as I age:  It's difficult to transition into things outside my normal routine!

I have family here visiting for five days:  My daughter, her husband, three teenage girls, and their dog, Zoey.   

Teenage girls love to stay up late and sleep til noon. 
I go to bed early and am up before daybreak!

Meal times have become so scattered!  I usually eat meals at 8am, 11am, and 4:30pm.  Which means I've had both breakfast and lunch before the girls are awake!   hahaha  It's amusing, but it's also difficult because I wasn't able to have the same days off.  I had to get up and work both Monday and Tuesday.  That puts us all on an odd schedule.

But besides sleeping and eating patterns, there are other things as well.  Showers have become difficult.  My small house has a 20 gallon hot water heater.  For six people??  That does't cut it!  We've adjusted to spacing them out, but ... last one in gets a cold shower!

Another trouble is having two dogs in the house.  Zoey is a large dog, and can be a bit aggressive -- and very protective if there's food around!  Sadie is a happy go lucky pug most of the time.  But she's very protective of "our safe haven" -- which is on top of my bed.  When Zoey attempted to jump onto the bed, Sadie became a growling beast!  But if there's food and Sadie comes sniffing around, Zoey is snapping her jaws at Sadie!  It made coming home from work on Monday rather interesting.  I couldn't eat my dinner unless I was standing up.  The dogs wouldn't leave me in peace!  We ended up sitting in the backyard --- they could roam around and I just kept on the move as well.

There's nothing like family time to make us all feel closer to each other --- we just all have to learn to respect each others' space and time. 

thank goodness for Tylenol PM.
lol

Vacations and Age

Vacations are terrific.  Vacations take you away from the normal routine and give you something new to look at and experience.   But let's face it, vacations are also a lot of work.  When you're single and old like me, there are so many things to deal with.  It stressed me out to put Sadie in a PetHotel; it stressed both Sadie and I out when I got out the suitcase to pack.   Traveling always stresses me out as well.  I *hate* using airplane toilets and try my best to avoid it at all costs. 

Just five years ago, in 2014, I traveled to Cali and back again once a month.  But it was easier then.  My son was here, stayed with Sadie whenever I went.  I could rest easy that someone would be at the house, and Sadie would be well cared for.   But no more.  I miss that.

Putting Sadie in a PetHotel was an experiment to see if I could swing the whole travel thing on my own, and for the most part, I think I can do it.  Four nights was just a bit long, but would go better if I change up Sadie's diet so that she eats more nuggets and less wet food. 

And I'm rambling.

I had a little bit of a breakdown today; I miss my son, and I was tired from traveling, and it all converged at once.  After a crying jag, I put Sadie in the stroller and took a walk to shake it off.

It worked.  Mostly.

Trips with Dad

Our summer vacations were often centered around a trip "home" to Minnesota to see family.  I remember one summer, late June probably, driving in the truck.  I'm thinking mid 70s probably.  We were taking a route we don't normally take somewhere in Wyoming I think.  We ended up on this remote pass through the Rockies -- there was six feet of snow on either side of the truck, and it was summer by all accounts!  (Being a kid from California, this was shocking!)  As we climbed up the steep pass, I remember Dad watching the gas gauge.  Because we were on unfamiliar roads, it was hard to say when the next gas stop was going to be.  (That was before you could ask your GPS unit!)  We crept our way up to the top, and then pretty much coasted down the backside.  Even though there were concerns about having enough gas, I was confident that Dad knew how to get us down to somewhere to get some gas.  Sure enough, at the bottom of the peak was a gas station.  A huge sigh of relief from Mom!  



I couldn't find an archived picture of it.... I'm sure there were too many worries about the drive than the scene, but it looked a lot like this one!

Vacation

 

Quick pix of my trip - 

highlights were morning walks,

 

shooting pool,

and spending time with family!

Back to Normal... almost!

Well, getting away is always a good thing, and seeing family is even better! I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful family and good friends!  It was so enjoyable getting away and letting go of some of the stress -- but if I knew things were gonna work out as they did, I might have stayed home so I could "run around nekkid" for a bit!  *laughs*  That's always been a joke in my family when the kids would ask "What will you do when we're all moved out?"  That was my answer:: "run around nekkid".  :) 

My days of running nekkid are over.... so... what happened, you're probably wondering.  After a week, my son decided that living with his GF wasn't what it was cracked up to be!  Living with someone, sharing space, can be a good thing - especially in the beginning of a relationship.  All those wonderful discoveries and sharing things, doing things together.  But when real life gets in the way, it can be an altogether different thing.

Neither of them have a car, and she works from home.  So you can see already that it was 24/7 togetherness, and not under the best of circumstances.  Money being tight, a four year old, and a baby on the way just added to the madness.  Add to it expectations about how it might be, and it was quite a disaster.  Nothing like blown out fights, just not being able to meet expectations and get along in general circumstances led to them making the adult decision that neither of them were ready for this, and they needed their own space.

When my plane landed, I drove over to their apartment and picked up Brian and his little pile of things.  (Thankfully, he listened and didn't take ALL of his stuff...!!)  I know from conversations with him that he realizes just how difficult it can be, and that both people on the "same page" when it comes to expectations and ideals really would have helped the situation.

As for my vacation, there wasn't any highlight, other than spending time with family, talking, laughing and sharing.  What more could a gal ask for???

Come Fly with Me!

Nothing like a quick little trip to visit my folks in the Bay Area.  My Aunt and I decided it was 'girls weekend', so off I went -- without my kids!  I haven't taken a flight in over five years. And with all the changes that have happened, as you can imagine I was a little leery of what to expect.  We flew out of a small, newer airport here in the Valley, and it was pretty casual.  Yes, we still had to take off our shoes and walk through a metal detector, but we've been doing that for years, not such a big deal.

We boarded our plane up the tail cone staircase -- that was a first for me!  We got all settled in our seats, and then we sat there.  The pilot came on the overhead speaker to tell us about the flight, temps in California, and why we were just sitting there.  Seems the plane needed a pitstop to change a tire.  They jacked up the plane while we were in it, and got it done.  We took off late, landed late.  It was beautiful flying into the city and being able to see all the lights at night.

On the way back, we left from an International Airport, and yes, security was much tighter.  After removing shoes, putting all the 'stuff' thru the xray machine, we had to stand like you see on tv:  Between two big boxes, hands raised up to our ears, feet shoulder width apart for 10 seconds.  I happened to be wearing two metal bracelets, so I was stopped, they had to be inspected.  Some gal wearing gloves came and turned them on my wrists as she looked them over, making sure they weren't.... well... you know how it goes.  I have to admit to a thought I've had after that, however.  If people are recognizable by their dental xrays, will they also be identifiable by their airport body xrays?  Are they beginning to collect those?  Oh such paranoid thoughts, but its a strange world we live in at times.

Our plane took off on time, no mishaps, no tires needed to be changed.  We sat on the left side of the plane, and according to the captain, it was going to be a pretty view along the coast as we flew south.  And he was right!  It was fun looking down at buildings, cars, life as it was going along at its own pace.  We landed in good time, a few minutes early, during the eclipse at sunset.  It was gorgeous, I tried to snap a few pictures and liked this one the best. (Can't tell its an eclipse, but I liked the heat it implies)