Four More Days
We're leaving for our beach vacation on Friday. I'm thoroughly excited and thoroughly nervous about the whole thing. I've talked about the politics, which aren't something I'm much looking forward, but that's actually the least of what's frazzling my nerves right now, and it certainly doesn't add to the excitement.
I'm most thrilled with the prospect of escaping this shitty May weather we've had the past, oh� whole Spring! The last few days have been the worst with record low temps at the freezing mark and high temps that are breaking records for being low as well. We didn't get past 50 degrees for three days now, and it's not supposed to again today either. It's May 21st, for goodness sake! This isn't supposed to happen anymore! The weather in North Carolina looks to be fantastic, and there's a beach there, so it's all good. It's not been so warm down there this week either, but that is supposed to change. It better, or I'll have to string up the whole crew at Weather.com for deceiving me.
As for nerves, well, I haven't packed a damn thing yet. I have my usual truckload of laundry to do, so a lot of stuff can't even be packed until it's washed. Then there's the missing shorts dilemma. I cannot find my very favoritist pair of shorts, and I've practically torn the house down looking for them. All my other shorts are happily tucked into their drawer or were in the box full of summer clothing. My favorite shorts are nowhere to be found. I looked in my winter clothing box (I didn't unpack it all this year). I dug through a few scattered summer things that I had thrown on a chair in the laundry room. I searched through a pile of stuff I'm giving away. I even cleaned up part of the disastrous mess around the futon in the basement thinking that if the shorts had to be anywhere, they would be buried under a pile of junk just to teach me a lesson. They weren't there. Now I'm afraid that maybe I accidentally stuck them in one of the multitude of bags of clothing that I took to Goodwill. I must have my favorite shorts! Good for me they are still available this year, though I don't know if they have the same color, which is the whole reason those are my very favoritist shorts in the first place. Khaki can never stand in the place of olive green! Never! I thought if maybe I can find that color still, I can go buy a new pair, and surely the old ones will turn up. If I'm lucky, the old pair will turn up before I wear the new pair, but I'm sure it will take at least one wearing, so I can't take them back, before the old pair shows up� if at all. This is a tragedy, I tell you. A tragedy!
So there's that, and then there's the whole fact that I am still wearing last year's shorts. That means I am basically the same size as last year. I could look at it more positively and know that at least I'm not bigger, which I was this winter, but still. I didn't want to be this size. I wanted to be smaller, if even just one size smaller. I'd rather worry about not being able to wear my very favoritist shorts because I couldn't fit them anymore, not because they are lost forever and ever. But no, I can fit them, if they ever choose to reveal themselves to me again. I'm wearing last year's swimsuit too. I saw lots of cute swimsuits but nothing that called out to me so much that I thought it worth torturing myself in a fitting room. I like my swimsuit. I just don't like how I look in it.
This is something that's bothered me for a few weeks. Last year, I didn't really care. I was OK with how I was. This year, I'm not OK with that same appearance. A large part of that is because this is the last year we will be going to the beach for a while, and I would have really liked it if I could have been one of the lesser beach versions of myself rather than a bigger one. I've looked different for many of the beach vacations. My weight has fluctuated at least 30 pounds throughout these vacation years. I look at some of the pictures from those lighter years and sigh. I know it's not doing me any good to do that, but I can't seem to stop flogging myself for not doing better.
I know no one is going to care what I look like. I suppose that bothers me too in a small way. I'd rather that someone did care because I looked so damn good that I was noticed. Vain? Yes. I would like the opportunity to be vain though. This isn't going to ruin my vacation by any means. That's what drinking is for, which reminds me� I have to go buy some booze.
I think the alcohol might be the only thing that keeps some people from killing each other when we're out there. I, on the other hand, almost kill myself from the alcohol. I went out in the ocean one year, got knocked over by a wave, and practically drowned. I learned to avoid oceans while drunk now, though that's usually not a big problem around here, not that I drink all that often anyway. It sure makes the booze go a long way for me during vacation week.
I had a haircut yesterday, so that's out of the way. I got it whacked again. It grew quite a bit since the last cut three months ago. I guess that happens with hair. People still commented about how short my hair was though and about fell over when I told them it was a lot shorter. Everyone knows me as a long hair girl, but not anymore. I've been enjoying the short look.
Let's see� I have to dig out the dog's shot records, which I didn't file, so that might be a time-consuming chore. There is cleaning to be done, so our friend who comes to feed the cats won't run screaming from the house and leave our cats to starve to death, though they are such bad, bad kitties that they would certainly break into something to eat, and at least one of them has been busted drinking out of the toilet, even when they had a full water dish. The truck could use a good cleaning too. It's so full of dog hair that we don't need air bags to save us in an accident. We are constantly cushioned. Seriously though, I have to get rid of all the junk to make room for the junk we'll generate on the vacation.
Most importantly, I have to remember my receipt for the plane tickets to my sister's graduation. I have to leave the beach a day early to fly out of Norfolk, Virginia to attend my sister's high school graduation on June 1st. It might not be a bad idea to get a gift for that occasion too.
Well, talking about all this stuff isn't going to get it done. My sister-in-law is already all packed. I don't know how she does it. I probably should start packing something though and doing what needs done so that I can pack. After doing all this work, vacation is much needed once it gets here.
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One Year Ago Today:
