Sandra Tayler

I have washed 12 loads of laundry today and there are still about 3 loads to go before I am done.

Today I am drifting and sniffling and coughing and assimilating an overwhelming pile of experiences. The sniffling and coughing are because of my cat allergies. The house where we stayed had cats. The drifting may be a result of coming down off of the allergy medication load or it could be because I spent 14 hours in a van yesterday. We pulled in at 2 am this morning.

Despite being drifty I’ve been working steadily on unpacking and laundry. By Friday I want there to be no remaining evidence that we went on a trip other than happy memories and a few new things stowed away neatly where they belong. I also intend to scrub out the interior of my fridge because we forgot to dump half a gallon of milk before we left. Mmmm. Yogurt.

The pattern for today has been work a little, then sit while I identify what I need to do next. Then I close my eyes for a minute. One minute stretches to 5 or 10 while my brain wanders. Then either my thought train winds to the end of its path, or some external noise reminds me that I have more things to do. I get up and do the next thing. Repeat.

Most of my brain meanderings today have been pondering on redecorating my house. Not just pondering, but planning. In my head I am picking out paint colors and cupboards and baseboards. I know that I won’t have money for any of this for awhile, but my brain stubbornly keeps demolishing things and rebuilding them better. I’m not sure where my brain thinks I’m going to have the time to do all of this remodeling either. Mostly I’m letting it plan, because then the plans will be there waiting for me when I do actually have the time and money.

“Decorating my house” was on the list of things that I don’t do. Apparently a piece of my brain has decided that need to change. But not today. Today I am doing laundry and stowing suitcases and sanitizing the fridge.

I’ve never chauffeured myself around in a strange city before, which is probably the source of my blithe assurance that it can’t be that difficult. I would probably have been just fine if I had not assumed that general directions would lead me where I wanted to go. Silly me. The 10 minute trip from hotel to convention center took nearly an hour and a phone call for help from our local friend.

Kiki was attempting to help me navigate and was reduced to a hyperventilating, huddling, bundle of pre-teen tears in short order. That was harder to deal with than being lost. Especially since we were never far lost. I had a very solid sense of where I needed to be, I just needed to find the right roads to get me there. Oh and those roads needed to not be One Way in the wrong direction or closed for construction.

We did not actually stay very long at the convention. We stopped by to say hello to Howard and the Blank Label crew. We also stopped at the Girl Genius booth long enough for Kiki to go gaga and get handed a fee copy of one of the books. Howard gave a Schlock book in exchange.

Then we were off to the aquarium. I found it with no trouble at all because I’d researched in advance. The trip from the aquarium to the hotel should not have been a problem, except that I was looking at the wrong hotel on the tourist map. I went straight to the location, but it wasn’t the right hotel. Once I actually located our hotel on the map, getting there wasn’t a problem.

The lost-while-driving experience is engrumpifying because getting lost isn’t something I do. I plan ahead. I use my good sense of direction and I get where I intended to go. Honestly I was only truly lost once. The rest of the time I wasn’t where I wanted to be, but Ihad an idea of what to do next. The one lost moment was sitting in the parking garage for not-my-hotel and having no idea where to find my hotel. I didn’t want to need help, but I called Dan once again to help me find my hotel. While he was looking it up, I rummaged through the van and finally located the map with our hotel circled on it. Instantly I could see a clear path to the hotel. I had Kiki call Dan to tell him “never mind” and we drove straight to the hotel.

The next time I lose my way in a city, I think I’ll try to do it without four bored and over-tired children in the car. That would make a we’re-having-an-adventure mindset easier to maintain. I can think of few things more annoying than a chorus of “can’t we just go to the hotel?” when that is exactly what I’ve been trying to do for 45 minutes.

We are now in our hotel. We’ve reached the point in the trip where Howard has to work and I’m on my own with the kids. I’m not certain what the kids and I will do tomorrow. There are some options that don’t involve driving in a strange city, but I’m not sure they are the preferred options.

I hope that we can manage all of us in one room without causing problems for Howard. If we can’t, then tomorrow I’ll have to de-camp and take the kids to the Strohl’s house.

The Schlockfest party last night went really well. I was glad for the chance to visit with our contingent of local friends.

I’m offline for the duration of the stay at the hotel, except for a few snatched glimpses at email using the hotel business center.

One of the disadvantages of being on an interesting vacation is a lack of time/space to post things as I would like to.  Dan has generously provided a laptop that Howard and I are free to use, without which I would be completely offline until my return.  I want very much to write everything as I go, but I am finding it difficult to create the mental space necessary for composing thoughtful entries.  This is not a fault of the house or the hosts, it is just the natural consequence of having many new things going on at once.  

It has been a wonderful quiet morning.  We had a good breakfast followed by a homework time, a dip in the hot tub, and a craft.  My kids are in heaven.

I hate being allergic to cats. I hate wheezing up when I visit people who have them. It is alarming and uncomfortable to have my lungs constrict and my energy ebb. Most of the time I don’t think of my allergy at all. It is a non-issue. But this trip we are staying with the Strohls who have 3 cats. We’ll be visiting with Pi and Kreely who have cats.

I wish I could love and snuggle the cats. I wish I could tussle with dogs. I hate seeming to be fussy or reluctant about animals. But the truth is that I am. I don’t touch the animals because I know the consequences.

The outside air is cool and moist. The night is filled with frog song. Inside the house is spacious and the guest room we’ve been given is fit to be a bed and breakfast. Our room is stocked with everything from a canopied bed, to a breakfast table, to a shelf full of teas, to a basket full of bath and hand lotions. It is all so thoroughly thought out.

I look around and I wish I had a space like this to give over to guests. Currently our only guest space is a futon couch in my office. Usually the only guests we have are my family. My family will quite happily throw air mattresses on the floor. But I’d love to be able to provide beauty.

I think of my home and I see it with the eyes of familiarity. My home does not seem beautiful, or spacious. I know where all the patches are, the cracks in the walls. I know that the front room, supposedly the nicest room in the house, hasn’t had baseboards since the year we moved in. We removed the baseboards to lay the hardwood floors and never put any back. I see clearly the dark stripes on the paint that mark the locations of the studs behind the wall board. For some reason the stud-backed boards collect more dirt. I wish I knew why.

I could go on listing the faults of my decorating. The core of the problems is this. My house is not beautiful, I wish it were. The reason my house is not beautiful is because I have chosen to spend my time and money on other things. That will probably continue for a time longer. Money is still tight. This expensive trip to Seattle is not going to make it any looser. Perhaps I need to frequent garage sales again. There I might find things which are beautiful and inexpensive. Perhaps I can squeeze enough money out of my budget and enough time out of my schedule to paint some rooms. Just paint would make a world of difference.

I have a dozen things I’d like to post today.  

I want to post about how sweet Patches was in the car during the 8 hours of driving.  Mostly the kids were totally focused on the dvd player, but Patches frequently glanced out the window to comment on the rivers and trains.  At one point he declared his intention to watch for a blue truck.  He wanted one that had both front and back sections blue.  “Watching for a blue truck” has been a past distraction attempt for when Patches was tired and cranky on car trips.  I love that he remembered it and decided to apply it to himself when he was bored.  I don’t think he ever found a truck that met his specifications.  That’s alright we have hours of driving on the return trip to continue looking.

We ate lunch at McDonalds.  The current set of happy meal toys is Ninja Turtles.  The turtles have totally capture Patches imagination. He’s seen the movie trailers a couple of times and now he’s begun to collect the happy meal toys.  He stood in front of the display and made plans to collect the whole army.  McDonalds was an ideal stop for all the kids and it hit at the perfect time because the kids were beginning to be cranky.

Dan and Donna’s house is already proving to be a wonderful place to stay.  I couldn’t be more grateful that they offered to have us.  They have turned over the downstairs for our use.  It is a guest suite worthy of a bed and breakfast.  I look at all the beautiful decoration and I am now spinning plans to decorate my house.  I want my house to be as beautiful as this one is.  Kiki, Gleek, and Patches all made themselves comfortable within minutes of walking in the door.  Link had something of an anxiety attack when he was face with a large enthusiastic dog and knowlege of several cats.  At first he wanted to hide downstairs.  Donna kindly removed the dog which allowed Link to aclimate much more easily.  Link is a much more conservative person than my other kids.  He is uneasy being in this totally new place with totally new people.  Most of the travelling we do is to the houses of relatives.  It is good for him to have this experience, but it wasn’t easy at first.  Thank goodness for legos.  They bridged the anxiety gap and when last I checked Link was playing happily with Patches and the little boy of the house.

Tomorrow we have a tour at Wizards of the Coast and then in the evening is Schlockfest.  I’m really looking forward to both.

Hmm.  This seems to be fewer than a dozen things.  That means I’ve probably forgotten some of them.  Maybe I’ll remember later.  For now I need to give Dan his computer back.

Since arriving at my sister’s house I have spent most of my time drifting.  This is partly due to the fact that I finally caught the nasty bug that laid my kids flat one-by-one over the past two weeks.  Fortunately I had a much milder version that only involved lying limply on the couch and sleeping a lot.  This is much better than the version which required the constant companionship of a pot for 12-24 hours.  

So I slept  for large pieces of yesterday.  I’m feeling much better this morning.  Feeling better is good, but I’m still not feeling motivated.  I intend to drift through today paying attention to my kids and reading stuff.  Today I can be a jellyfish.  Tomorrow I have to be back in action mode so I can a pack the car and we can all head onward to Seattle.  In Seattle there will be places to go and things to do every day.  I’m looking forward to new things and new places, but it is nice to curl up today in the comfort of familiar and just drift a little.