random thoughts – Day 1,641 – (Saturday) – packing and relaxing

Yesterday afternoon, I started feeling kind of cruddy – tired, simultaneously stuffy and runny nose, head ache, and overall general major ick-factor. To add to the "fun," the tinnitus has been on overdrive for a few days and nights. I rearranged a plan I had been looking forward to and headed home. I made it to bed early-ish and slept as if a wicked witch from a Disney movie had cast a spell on me. There were nearly nine miraculously full hours of uninterrupted sleep and by morning, I felt a few steps closer to human again. 

The rain we were promised arrived. The gutter cleaning, repairs, and filter screens installed a month ago seem to be doing a great job, or maybe it didn’t rain enthusiastically enough to be a true test, but there was no waterfall feature over the front door and the top step was dry. I enjoy a water wall in the proper setting, but over my front door is not such a place.

The wet and chilly weather kept me away from the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race, where human powered sculpture machines are raced over cobblestones, through a mud pit, and in the river. I love this event and look forward to it every year, but I wasn’t feeling like standing around outside in the rain. Instead, I lounged around the house (an activity at which I'm exceptionally good) and once fully caffeinated, let myself get excited for vacation.

Preliminary wardrobe.

The vacation wardrobe spreadsheet was started a few nights ago. In it, I list the bottoms across the grid, and the shirts and tops down the side and enter an X in the cells where tops and bottoms coordinate for an outfit. Any individual item without a sufficient number of X marks is cut from consideration. Yes, I really do this. To get things started anyway, and especially when I haven't been on a beach resort vacation since the 2017 trip to Jamaica.

Today, the carefully prepared spreadsheet was completely disregarded. I went rogue and started laying outfits on the bed and rolling and folding clothes and setting them into the suitcase, knowing full well that there are about two weeks to departure and I would be taking them all out again when the stuff still in the laundry is done. More items were edited into the mix than out, and I’m pretty sure that five swimsuits are probably too many, but I value options. There are sill no sandals or toiletries packed. Or underthings. Or sleepwear. Or books to read on the beach. Yes, there is still work to be done, but it's the mostly fun kind of work.

The most difficult aspect of being away from home , even for one night, is the anxiety of leaving the plentiful options in my closet and dressers. For me. I know less neurotic people who don't live with this curse. Weather forecasts can be unreliable, and I can't predict my mood. I've never been to this resort, so I don't know what the vibe is, and it doesn't help that I can freeze in any climate and as a result, require layering options. Once, while my family swam in the pool while visiting family in Florida, I wore a hooded, zip-front sweater with long jeans and sat poolside in a lounger. There are photos.    

The whole body temperature, mood, and weather uncertainty, combined with not knowing what activities might be engaged in, has led to a lifetime of overpacking. But hey, if I’m ever stranded somewhere, say, on a deserted island during a three-hour tour on the S.S. Minnow, I’ll have enough clothes to last forever, just like Ginger, Mrs. Howell, and Maryann on Gilligan’s Island. (Goals!) 

relax. Candle says so!

The evening has been dedicated to relaxing. The official two-wick jar candle with "relax" lettered on the jar, was lit. An Exhibit A Brewing Company "Hair Raiser" hazy double IPA was poured. The current limited series K-Drama “Miss Night and Day” played on TV.  

The only thing missing from the tableau of domestic comfort and bliss is a family size bag of chips and a cat in my lap. I’m really, really trying to eat more mindfully after three ballet classes in a space with mirrors on two walls. It’s that, or gouge my own eyes out. And as for the cat, Kiki is warming up to me, but we still haven't reached lap cat relationship status.