The Flow

 This vacation has taken a couple turns. But we flow easily through them. There is no freaking out. So far. I like that. I really like that.

Yesterday, Lin and I decided we would take my mom to see her sister on the other side of the bridge. But this morning I thought twice about it. I realized I need clothes for a funeral and I couldn't just show up in a Guster T-shirt and 15 yr old capri pants. We both would like to get our hair cut. We have dinner tonight with a friend coming down from Providence just to see us.

Also, oh my gosh, how are we going to pack all my shit into my one bag to get home. The Beer. I bought Beer in Maine. For my family. Thinking I was taking a train home. Posters. We'll have to ship the poster because it'll be destroyed in my bag. Linda would be taking a number of things home for me to hold until we next see each other. 

We decided we needed today as the day of getting reorganized and resorted. 

I called my mom at 11 to let her know we were not going to be taking her to see Bevvie, and she seemed okay with that. She hasn't seen her sister since May, and Linda and I really wanted to take her, but, it just wasn't going to work out and she was very fine with that.  I think she doesn't like seeing her sister like this, in the home, with no memory of anything. We are encouraging and also a little bit forceful when we tell her she has to go over, but thinking about it, that may be mean. 

Maybe. I am not sure.

I have feelings, thoughts. I'm trying to be empathetic and merciful. It's some heavy shit to ponder. But for today we won't go. I'll be sad if this was our very last chance.

Linda spent time last night and this morning talking to her Sister In Law, who is going through it with the death of her dad, and, with the fact that she just also dumped her long distance boyfriend of two years because he couldn't/wouldn't come to the funeral. There's a bunch of stuff there, but I won't outline it. Suffice to say she is in "double whammy" loss mode and reeling from it. So this morning she was downstairs and upstairs and bringing my lazy ass coffee as I goofed off chatting with my cousins down the island to see if we could do a get together once I'm down there this weekend, before I fly away.

Linda wanted to buy tickets to Guster at Carnegie Hall the day after Thanksgiving, so she was online watching the countdown. The purchasing was stressful - but she ended up getting tickets, not where she wanted them, but, she got them.  She sighed with relief to go downstairs again, and I decided I'd get in the shower. 

Housekeeping was outside our door, to clean the room. Like, for us to be checked out to clean the room. 

We were supposed to be booked here through tonight, checking out tomorrow. Linda made this reservation on her account so I couldn't pull it up to look (I made other reservations on this trip, so I had those on my account). She asked housekeeping to hold, please. We pulled up her laptop and logged in. Sure enough.  She missed tonight. Mentally I think we all have issues remembering what day it is. On Tuesday when I talked to Doug he swore it was Wednesday and was sorely disappointed when I told him. 

I think we need to go back to wall calendars to be in our face and remind us exactly where we are. 

Linda ran downstairs to the front desk to ask and I looked up on the website there was ONE room available here tonight.  I texted her to tell her to ask if we can book this. It was 50 bucks more than what we were paying the other nights, as we'd booked this out way back in the spring. Oh well, what's 50 bucks vs. packing up and finding another place? I've been paying for things on my card, so, yeah. 50 bucks. Let's go.

They were able to book her in, keep us in this room, and they gave her the rate that we paid originally. 

Damn. Good. Stuff. 

I noted the wow factor of what if we'd gone to take mom to see our Auntie, we'd be gone already and housekeeping would have shown up here with all our stuff still in the room and us nowhere to be found. 

Fortunate for us, right? Way to go. 

We went to lunch and the server was the only one in the restaurant. It took forever, for everything, but Linda was in family funeral planning mode, creating a playlist, looking for pictures on her phone. It was okay for us to just sit there and do nothing. After lunch, we went to JC Penney because it was in the plaza. 

The good news is my pants size is down to 16. 

The bad news is my belly is still giant, so I still need a really big shirt. But they had some. So that's okay. I found a pair of nice pants, 2 blouses, and a bonus extra pair of shorts. Bingo. Done. Linda found a few things, but she's gained some weight recently so she was mad about buying a size up. She still looks fantastic, and what I wouldn't give to be a size 12. But a 16 is a victory for me, considering back in 2016 I think I was in a 22/24. I'll take it. No complaints. Just gotta figure out what to do about the belly, if that was smaller, I could even wear dresses. 

Anyway. 

Linda was exhausted, so I brought her back to the hotel, and went to get a haircut. I asked our waitress where was a nice place to just get a trim, I didn't need a full 'do, so she sent me to downtown. Found the place, it was an hour wait for a haircut so I put my name in, and drove to the pier and played Pokemon. Got back and got the haircut. 

My sister texted me to say our friend was running ahead of schedule, so he'd be to our hotel at 6:15. I ran back, and got here just as he did. We came upstairs and shared some Guster On The Ocean Beer, and then went out to eat. 

What a fun time to spend with him. At the festival we didn't get to hang out with as many lovely people as we wanted, so this was so nice. He's gearing up for a big hike on Saturday so I'm cheering him on. Over 2 summers he did all the 4000ft mountains in New Hampshire, and now he's doing some long distance traverses, so he is really getting into this as a hobby. We talked a lot about safety, about obeying signs (when it says do not step off the trail... don't step off the trail!) Dinner was delicious, and I had a baked stuffed scallop with shrimp stuffing, and it came in a scallop shell. I wrapped that up to take home with me. I've wanted to make a lightbox for On The Rocks from Red Rocks, and now On The Ocean. I've got good memories for both of them. 

Back at the hotel, Linz is still looking through pictures. I'm going to start to organize our stuff for quick departure tomorrow. Visiting hours for her father in law start at 5pm for the general population but family is welcome at 4. She would like to be there in time to get to the early assembly. Our hotel said we can check in at 2 if we're in the area. We can freshen up from the car trip (if we can't get a ferry we'll drive straight through. 

We'll flow. 

I went to the exercise room when we got back to the hotel too. Half hour on the treadmill, hit 10k steps for the day. The scale down there lied to me. I don't believe or trust it. Jerk. 

Here are some pictures of our visit with Alex. Gotta say, my haircut looks pretty damn cute! 

digits

exercise: Dedicated 10+33. Got my 10 min in early, but then did a half hour on the treadmill at the hotel. Got the 10k steps beat out the window. Boom.

blood glucose:
10am: 202
11:30pm: 211

food:
10am: coffee, protein shake, trail mix
noon ish - trailmix
2pm lunch: steak salad, vodka+soda; metformin
4pm trail mix, hummus+crackers
8pm: scallop with shrimp stuffing (lots more bread than I hoped for) and large bowl of clam chowder. 1 beer. 
10pm: metformin+jardiance
11:30: cheese