Amen and Hallelujah. We didn't get out of the house until 9pm. That's right, 9pm. Why? My husband and I crashed at midnight on NYE, after watching Kathy Griffiths be an a-hole on the old, what used to be Dick Clark countdown with Anderson Cooper,(and what is her deal?). . .and burned. My husband had basically been in bed since last Wednesday, sleeping off some sort of weird flu / sinus / cold / coughing thing. He's still sick, and plans on going to the campus doctor sometime today. It's very unusual for him to be sick at all, let alone this badly as he has the constitution of a horse.
I had the flu thing for a bit last week and slept quite a bit from Christmas night 9:00pm, until Saturday morning at 3:30am--interrupted by only one pee break at which time I also took some pills before going back to sleep. And it seemed to pass by in seconds.
So. We both woke up at 5:00pm. That's right, PM. Neither of us feel 100%. But all things considered, we both wanted the hell up outta there, so we started packing. And the parents started trying to talk us out of why we should leave at night. My MIL started going through all her books to give me some she thought I might enjoy reading (which I will), then old photos, of her childhood home, wedding, her friend's trip to Egypt, blahdy blah, then my FIL was telling us how unsafe it is to drive at night, there would be fog, stay and go in the daytime Friday, etc., etc.,; and my husband decided that was a good time to take a shower. (****!)
So from 5Pm all the way until 9pm before we actually managed to get out of the house.
The roads were wide open. I don't think I've ever seen the 101 through the Valley with so few cars on it. I mean, ever, and I lived there for eleven years.
We stopped at our favorite Bob's Big Boy in Burbank for some dinner, and we still made it home by 5am. The best time ever for our road trip.
Pascal is traumatized and spent about an hour wandering around meowing, and jumping at strange noises; Charley, well, he's just Charley, and that involves lot's of running, leaping, and chasing of cat toys. I feel like an evil mommy.
We just let them out into the yard for the first time in ten days. Boy, are they happy.
So, we have a van full of more crap (sigh), you know, stuff we'll have to pack and move in June when R. is done with school. No amount of no, can we get it after we move, this is not convenient, we don't want it, mattered: we still came home with crap. Whatever. I should have worse problems, right?
So my husband picked up the mail, and money we were expecting is, of course, not there. Well, not all of it, but some of it. Frustrating and depressing.
So, I have lot's of stuff to write about, but right now I'm going to take a shower and then eat something because we need to run errands shortly. Bills are overdue, cell phones are hours away from being shut off. It couldn't be helped: we were down there, our money was up here, and R. was down, and I mean down hard, with the flu.
January has always been, for me, the most depressing month--the doldrums. Cold or rainy weather that keeps me inside; no more family gatherings; no sparkly or shiny lights and ornaments; no baking; and when I was working, that meant no long weekends until May, Memorial Day. That's right, the big phone company has no paid holidays--zip, zero--from New Years Day until Memorial Day. It always depressed me. My last year there, I worked all but four Saturdays from January 2 until I left in August. That's six days a week. Lot's of overtime money, but I was damn rundown by the end of that.
So my template reflects the. . .desolation I feel at this time of year. It's also a time of self-reflection, where do I want to be in a year, what do I want to accomplish this year, and review the mistakes of last year. January is not a cheerful month for me, at least not historically. Maybe this year will be different.
In the meantime, it's damn good to be home back where all our sh*t and pets are.
Happy 2009.
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