can it be…..FREE TIME?!?

I am now… !!GASP!! … officially on vacation. I cannot tell you what a thrill this is. Especially since the last time I was officially on vacation I immediately got in a car wreck and broke my arm and pretty much everything else after that just went all to hell too so yeah, it was not much of a vacation. And I’m a little nervous. But so far so good. I scheduled tomorrow and Friday off a few weeks ago and we already get Monday off for Labor Day. We are, at last, going to Charleston.  This will be the only overnight trip we’ve had that didn’t involve Morganton or Asheville and incapacitated elderly parents since Christmas. And yes, I am overusing the italics. I am just a tad excited. 

Of course, this being my life, vacation is not without complications. First of all we’re not exactly sure when we’re going to Charleston, thanks to Hurricane Isaac, which despite not being anywhere near South Carolina has still produced quite a lot of rain. I am Charleston’s friend on Facebook (and Charleston loves me VERY MUCH and is the BEST FRIEND EVER) – yesterday Charleston posted this picture. 

YES this is the corner of  MARKET and EAST BAY and the water is so deep these guys are kayaking down the street. And then they kayaked through the Market –

So, yeah. Glad we didn’t plan our trip for yesterday. Long time readers may recall how we went down there a few years ago, arrived in the middle of an unannounced tropical storm, drove through what looked like a puddle and killed the Civic’s engine- "killed" as in destroyed it and had to have it replaced. Apparently Civics have extraordinarily low manifolds. Now we are extraordinarily paranoid, even though we will be driving the much higher off the ground Fit. Well, nobody is driving through these streets, obviously. My point being that we were going down tomorrow, but have decided to wait until Friday. Because, lucky us! we have flexibility this time, and we’re only spending two nights so we have a range of several days we can go. The forecast for tomorrow is still a little rainy, although I think the floodwaters have subsided. By Friday it is supposed to be mostly sunny again. (And yeah, I do realize this is not much of a HUGE PROBLEM compared to what people are facing who are actually getting hit by Isaac. I know, I know.)

So we’ll go Friday and come back Sunday. And still have Monday off. And now I can sleep in tomorrow and lounge around and take my time packing and clean the disgusting filth-fest house. And if it decides it will rain Friday after all, we can go Saturday and come back Monday. That’s the upside of really short vacations. And the upside of our lovely cheap Red Roof Inn as well, which lets you cancel at 8 pm the evening you are supposed to arrive. 

This also means I can skip going down to see my dad this weekend. And that is okay, because I have gone down there every single weekend since he landed in the hospital and then in the rehab. I can’t complain too much about that since Baker B has gone to see his mom in HER rehab twice a week at least for like two months. Or two and a half. Time is running all together in a very surreal manner at this point. As an illustration, though, we decided we both needed to see each other’s parents this past weekend so we went to Morganton Friday after work, came back up here Friday night, went to Asheville Saturday, came back up here Saturday night, and then Monday I went BACK to Asheville for a meeting with my dad’s "care team" and then came back up here Monday night. It’s a two-hour round trip between here and M’ton and a three hour round trip between here and A’ville, and we didn’t spend the night because we didn’t want to leave Stella, our Sick Little Cat, overnight. Since our Sick Little Cat is still not eating anything but Fancy Fancy Ultra-Fancy Feast Appetizers Heated Up In The Microwave and Fluffed Up With A Fork And Delivered in Bed. 

We’ve decided to leave her at home alone for our Charleston Trip, though. She would be miserable at the vets, and perhaps backslide. And I am hoping very much that two nights without SkipJack Tuna Heated and Fluffed And Delivered to Wherever She is Lounging will encourage her to start eating her dry food again. Since it will really be just one complete day without us (we’ll feed her Friday morning and be back on Sunday) I am sure she’ll manage and will not starve. And I’m sure I will not worry to death the entire time. 

AGGGHH. Well, on the good news front, the MIL is doing well in her rehab and may be released in a couple more weeks. Or less, even. My dad had been doing okay, but when my brother and I were there on Monday for his care plan meeting, in which we expected them to tell us he’d get released by this weekend, he was feeling absolutely horrible, was weak and shaky and couldn’t eat and couldn’t do his therapy and was nauseous. So no release date for him. Yesterday my brother called and left me a voice mail  (and let me just say that at this point I HATE voicemails — every time I see that I have one my immediate thought is, OH, for FUCK SAKE, WHAT NOW??!!??) with the happy news that he was feeling MUCH better. Tonight he was better yet- he sounded like his old self, and said they were going to let him start walking the halls whenever he wanted and dressing himself. Until now he’s been pretty much lying in bed except for therapy and meals, and he didn’t do therapy for a few days when he was feeling so bad. SO. Good news all around!

Okay, I am going to end this now because suddenly my cursor is being annoying and jumping into the middle of completely other paragraphs, and that is just way too irritating to endure. Perhaps my next entry will be full of lovely non-flooded, non-stressful very very relaxing pictures of the lovely Charleson!