Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Week 32 - Year End Trip

There’s a reason I used to get on a plane the day the books closed. This year they closed on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. but I wasn’t leaving until Thursday morning. Can we say endless Wednesday boys and girls? Sheesh!

The reason I’d postponed this year was that Mary had scheduled two meetings for the day after fiscal year end and since Carolyn and I had decided the late flight wasn’t worth the sleep deprivation (that flight leaves Omaha at 6:00 p.m. but gets me to RI after midnight), I was flying Thursday morning. After I’d booked the ticket, Mary rescheduled one of the Wednesday meetings to September and I wasn’t going to the second meeting because I had to go to reporting training for reports I’ll never use (it’s a power/politics thing.) I had a hand doctor appointment in the morning, where I was relieved to hear I don’t have arthritis in my hand – just overuse. A fiscal year end injury is better than a chronic problem for sure. I grabbed lunch and then went to the uber boring training. Of course Mary had things for me to do when I got back and I ran out of time. I had missed swimming all week and so had promised I’d go Wednesday so left at 5:00 with work yet to do. Oh well. I’d been very good about getting stuff done all week at home so all I had left to do was put the clothes in the suitcase (they were already washed an ironed) and do a final neatize before heading to bed.

I was on the road at 5:30 a.m. and the flights were completely uneventful, which is as good as it gets with air travel. Carolyn and Aaron picked me up at the airport and we headed south to Aunt Carrie’s to meet my cousin and aunt for steamers, clamcakes and chowder. It was great to see them and the seafood was delicious but my 92 year old aunt is beginning to show her age. There was some shaking going on that was new since Christmas. She’s still sharp as a tack and a joy to be with though.

I was looking forward to a good night’s sleep on Thursday and didn’t give much thought to the lack of firmness of the air mattress when I fell into bed. Then I woke up at 3:30 a.m. enveloped in deflated air mattress with my butt hitting the futon underneath. Apparently there was a slow leak in the mattress that I couldn’t deal with in the wee hours so I just went downstairs to the couch and fell asleep. I guess I gave Carolyn a start when she found me there because it harkened back to Christmas when I arrived with a stomach bug and spent my first day curled up on the couch because of its proximity to the bathroom. A funky air mattress is preferable to that for sure.

I blame a general lack of energy for not having planned a cookout for all my friends. What that meant was I had to see people individually or not at all. The only firm plan Carolyn and I had made was an Ikea run on Friday with Sharyn, who we picked up at Brown at 10:00 because she had to post some batches (something like that) before taking the rest of the day off. We had fun at Ikea and then Carolyn’s friend from South Carolina, who was north of Boston doing research, met us for a late lunch. It was a fun day and I found some great stuff for my Ravelry color swap and Christmas stockings. Yay!

I got home to a message from Cornelia, who I wanted to plan a breakfast with, which is our usual thing. She had sad news. Her husband had been battling cancer but was losing the fight. He was on hospice and couldn’t be left alone so seeing Corn meant going to her house. I asked if I could do anything to help (she’s gotten no help from either her family or her husband’s) and she wanted me to run some errands. I happily did some grocery shopping and a post office run for her on Saturday morning. I didn’t see much of her that day before heading back to Carolyn’s. We had plans for lunch and some shopping before my early dinner with Deanne. We had my favorite fried clams at The Crow’s Nest and then went to The Christmas Tree Shops, where I scored yet more swap and stocking presents. Deanne picked me up at 4:00 and we went out for amazing Italian food. Are you seeing a trend here? I’d been in RI less than 48 hours and had Italian twice and seafood twice. Yum yum. It was great to catch up with Deanne, who is my oldest friend – since 6th grade so more than 40 years. Yikes!

The plan for Sunday was lunch with Bob. This time I combined seafood and Italian with yummy lobster tortellini. After a nice long catch up with Bob and a bit more shopping, Carolyn and I stopped at Cornelia’s to drop a goodie bag off. I wanted Carolyn to see where Corn lived (just a couple of miles from her house) because Carolyn had offered to pick up groceries for Corn since she goes to Stop & Shop nearly every day anyway. After making plans for me to go back the next day for a long visit, Carolyn and I headed home to cook the first meal since I’d been there – hamburgers on the grill so our own mini cookout. I think we watched a movie afterwards but it’s all a blur so I can’t be sure. It certainly couldn’t have been a memorable one.

It was hard to believe my trip was already half over. I’d had a nice relaxing time visiting friends and was happy I could help Cornelia out. I went to bed Sunday (we’d bought a new air mattress after a 2nd night of slow deflation) grateful for my friends and family and the wonderful life I have. And I still had another day and a half. Would there be more seafood? Probably. Certainly more friends. : )

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