X: Recognition

It is a dog day afternoon. Yes literally it is the midst of the dog days of summer, and I am hanging out with Hank doing nothing in particular. It is time for our annual stay at the trailer. As always it was proceeded by more than a small amount of ado.

To start with, this is yet another year where the week we get to come up just happens to be the chilly, rainy one. It's annoying never to be able to come during the height of July heat, but I suppose that is the trade off for a free vacation spot. The drama this time waa that on Saturday when we were preparing to come up, there were tornado and storm warning on the route and it just felt inappropriate to rush out of what was a perfectly nice day in Burlington to go somewhere rainy, cold, and possibly dangerous.

I wasn't beaten up about it myself. I had wanted to go up Monday and thus spend the weekend decompressing and getting the house in good shape but mom offered that the trailer would be vacant all weekend until the following Thursday, so we adjusted to take advantage. And in the meanwhile, Mel agreed to go to a Jays game with her work people.

The weather had stunted our plans and Mel was really let down so we chilled at home for a while. I was looking at the weather report and decided we could make a calculated risk and go, which delighted her. For me, going to the trailer isn't always worth the hassle -- it's a lit of prep and labor to do stuff you could do at home, but with worse supplies and no internet (coverage is better this year, mind you, perhaps because we are on Fido.) But Mel really likes it and I do find it peaceful. Not necessarily a good night's sleep, but still.

It took the whole afternoon to put everything together, but all things considered we packed it up quick. We were on the road around 7, which was maybe an hour or 90 minutes later than my initial hopes but the delays, partially to get some lunch in before we went, were necessary.

Things went ok on the drive, although I made a wrong turn that was eventually rectified and didn't really cost us much time. But by the time we hit Fergus the expected rain appeared and OH BOY was that intense. We crawled through the puddles to the grocery in town -- although Mel had some unkind words about some of my technique as she never likes it when I get too close to a car parked on the side of the road -- and waited it out in the parking lot. It wasn't too bad; we figured we could wait until 9 or so and see how bad it was but it started to clear around 8:45 and we were back on the road with the sunset before us. We got to the park around 9:30, walked Hank and settled in with some Tuna Helper for late dinner and the first half of Top Gun Maverick.

Today I had to make a trip into town early for some essentials I/we had forgotten, including BACON, and coffee. We had also used the last of the milk and will have to replace their margarine. We had a nice brunch but Mel started not feeling well so she went to lie down. It's been raining off and on so who knows if we would have been able to go to the pool, but I have a feeling we are going to gut out some swim time on the next few cool days because NOTHING gets between Mel and pool time.

Other than that, work is admittedly driving me nuts. I've been leading this Fanexpo project which has been a lot of co-ordinating, which admittedly I am more than capable of doing, but I feel like I have half of what I need and the other half is divided between various parties who don't share well. Being that I am on vacation this week I had to pass the remainder off to James anyway so it's his time to shine. By the time I am back it will all be over but the cleanup. Not my prob. I think I did well under the circumstances.

I still have fantasies of what else I can do but it's like banging my head against a wall. Who the eff knows what I am even supposed to do in life.

Well, I do, but it's hard to get to that.

That about covers it. I was hoping to do some writing but I smartly brought the computer that doesn't even have Office 365 on it. At least we've got books.

Keep on rockin'

Scotto