Back from my long weekend trip last week, and this morning I’m prepping for another trip! This time, it will be a week-long trip - some fun, some medical shit.
Last week’s trip to see the girls went off without too many hitches.
I was able to pack everything in my tiny, tiny carry-on. And I impressed myself!
When Wen picked me up at the airport, she was like, WTF with that tiny carry-on?! How did you fit all your stuff in it? I realized it really was a bag that’s on the smaller size. But it was fine to handle.
I’d been worried about ground stops at the airport as I was flying into Nashville and just the night before, there had been a ground stop due to the government shutdown. But again, my flight was perfectly on time and everything was a breeze, thank goodness (I did take a precautionary valium for the flight, heh).
Got to Wen’s place and two of the others showed up. Wen lives in East Nashville in a beautiful old Craftsman. She’s done a lot of work to it, and built this stunning outdoor living room with big, stone fireplace. We sat outside and they drank wine (I had tea and Topo Chico), and we ordered fancy pizzas and talked and talked.
Next morning, Wen had volunteered to transport some foster kittens from Nashville to Knoxville (where we were going to be staying), so she and I left early, while Lis was traveling separately with her daughter’s friend.
The kittens could not have been better! Totally quiet and perfect. I thought I’d be sitting in the car with screaming kittens, puking and shitting in my lap the whole time, but they stayed in the carrier the whole time and purred. It was soooo good. I was even a little sad that I didn’t have lap kittens, but I didn’t want to agitate them, so I let them sleep while Wen drove.
The daughters and younger girls turned into a whole thing. To give you the background: Lis’s daughter is a freshman at the University of Tennessee. This is the school where my Tennessee Girls and I met (most of us were sorority sisters, and we created lifelong friendships out of it). So the freshman and the younger girl ended up hanging with us and staying in our Airbnb. There was going to be another daughter, but she ended up not being able to come.
Long, LONG story short…these girls were so clingy yet couldn’t have acted more bored to be hanging with us! There’s a pretty severe separation anxiety between mother and daughter. Which, fine. Sort of.
The problem came when the girls were bored, and the olds (us) got into our crazy phase (as we do…acting like our old crazy college days), laughing and laughing, and the girls just stared off into space like WE were the DORKS, because of course we were! But it kinda got us all down.
And the thing is, the freshman girl was in the process of getting a new roomie, so she had an open dorm room that she and her friend could have stayed! Like, if you were a freshman in college, looking all cute and chasing boys and other things, would YOU want to hang out with your mom and her dorky girlfriends??!!
NO!!
And the other problem was, Lis, the mom, wanted to hang with the girls the whole time. So it became a thing at the game because Lis spent half her time with us and then half the time with the girls on the other side of the stadium, and then we all got separated, and Wen was PISSED and was stomping around the whole time trying to find everyone.
Don’t get me wrong, I had a wonderful time. It sounds like I was annoyed the whole time - I wasn’t! The game was so much fun (except I don’t like crowds, so I made Wen wait with me while the crowd mostly dissipated, which agitated Wen), the weather was perfect - I got to go on chilly morning walks by myself (since nobody would get out of bed, ha!), and I got to wear my BOOTS to the game.
And there was a HILARIOUS and super dangerous pedi-cab ride after the game that was the highlight of the whole trip. OMG, those pedi-cabs are now driven by people with e-bikes, and the guy was hopping curbs, going up on sidewalks, and narrowly avoiding head-on collisions, and I couldn’t have been on a more thrilling ride!
I was happy to be with my girls! So, so happy!
[Sidenote: Anni did not go on this trip, so I didn’t even have to worry about that aspect. But Wen can be a fucking bitch when things don’t go her way and she is inconvenienced in the least…whoo. She snapped at me more than a couple of times. We are headed for a chat in the near future since she’s coming to my place in February.]
But in the end, as we were saying goodbye, and the girls were safely back in the dorms, Lis admitted that she has pretty severe separation anxiety, and she realizes it. Her daughter goes home nearly every weekend, and Lis needs to help her spread her wings and fly on her own. After all, we all recalled when we went to school there, our parents dropped us off and were like…BYE!!! And don’t come home! Hahaha! I literally never saw my parents the first year of college! And it was an amazing time!!
ANYWAY, this morning I’m prepping to travel back to [old city] where I will meet my MIDDLE SCHOOL and High School childhood friend and her husband. We will all stay in another Airbnb, along with my dog, and we will be spending a week together!
The purpose of this trip is to have some fun, go to the fair, and some other fun places together, see my mom for her [our] birthday(s), and then next week I’ll be doing all of my doctor visits: my 4-year cancer scans (please, please wish me luck!!!), and all of the doc check-ins with my PCP and my oncologist and all of that.
I’m also going to have lunch with my financial guy. Update on my last entry: he did not lose the chunk of money I gave him, but he transferred it wrong somehow. I still have all the money in the bank, so it just never moved. I am annoyed with him, and I feel like I want to change advisors. I’m not 100% sure. He just seems to fuck things up, and I end up owing so much in taxes. I’m annoyed. I will be confronting him.
And hopefully we’ll be doing some vintage shopping and such. I don’t know how I’m going to spend a whole week with these folks, but I’m going to try! We don’t see eye-to-eye from a political standpoint. I’ve seen my childhood friend post some Trumpy shit on her Facebook, and even last week she posted a birthday tribute to Charlie Kirk???!! She and I have never talked politics, and I don’t plan on starting now, but ughhh. I have some concerns about her very outspoken husband.
I know I ask this on the regular in my entries, but please send as many smooth, good vibes my way as you can. Healthy, happy, peaceful, good vibes…
Off we go again!
I love you.
xox,
GS
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