Vacation Recap

Well, the five-day vacation is over. Picked up the girls at the airport yesterday around 5 pm. While their flight down to South Carolina was pleasant, on time, and without a hitch, the returning one was a nightmare. Over an hour delay leaving Savannah airport, a nine-month-old not on board with the program, and an extremely rude passenger in the seat in front of them. Due to heavy traffic at Newark, they had to circle for over an hour before landing. My wife’s ready to throw up from walking up and down the aisle with a crying baby while this plane is making tight loops at 300 miles per hour.

But I treated them as best I could. I negotiated the rush-hour traffic on the way home, stopped for take-out burritos and ice cream sandwiches, unloaded the car at home and brought all the baggage to upstairs bedrooms. The house was clean, the kitchen sink empty, all the bed linens laundered, and three-quarters of my honey-do list done. Not bad.

They had a great time visiting her folks. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperative. Fireworks were canceled due to heavy rain. And it seemed a thunderstorm blew by every afternoon, giving them no reason to head to the beach. They spent their mornings at the community pool instead. The Little One was spot on wonderful with the exception of a meltdown that wasn’t entirely her fault and an accidental spill-of-red-wine on the carpet. Patch was excellent at the beginning of the week but her behavior declined as the days went by. My in-laws are architects who designed their home; it’s a concrete-and-glass type of thing, so those piercing shout-slash-cries of the littlest of little ones easily must have made for very sore ears very soon.

For my part, I had a good five days. I would grade them, in terms of accomplishing things, something like this: A+, B-, C-, B+, B+. The C- is because one day I felt a bit under the weather (sore throat and dizziness) and just loafed around the house, flopping from bed to couch to tub in a series repeated about a dozen times. I didn’t eat too well while the ladies were away, though. But I did manage three walks, and they felt good. I did five hours’ work on the website idea, put away close to 150 pages of The Godwhale, completed one whole peripheral library book, and enjoyed a couple of movies: Signs, The Amityville Horror, Tora! Tora! Tora!, There Will Be Blood (“I drink YOUR milkshake!”), and The Rocker with Rainn Wilson. I also wrote just under 3,000 words for “Bruegel,” a weird-story-in-development, which is impressive though I was aiming for 5,000 words (1,000 a day).

Oh, by the way, woke up last night at exactly 3:15 am! Scared the living heck out of me. Went to the bathroom and almost expected to see two glowing eyes watching me through the window …

Much to do today. C is technically still on vacation, so she’ll be floating around all day, decompressing. We have both the girls, too, so it’ll be like a Saturday. I’m planning on taking Litte One with me to Home Depot to get some supplies to fix the grill out on the deck (keep your fingers on the 9 and 1 buttons on the phone!). Perhaps some burgers later tonight.

All things considered, a positive recharge of the batteries. Not bad at all.