Wish I Was There

This morning, the Golden Taurus departed for a three-day trip to the ocean.

It carried my mom and my dad. It picked up my uncle and my grandfather. At some point, it will meet my aunt.

It did not, you may note, carry me.

This was a somewhat spur-of-the-moment trip, and the spur hit the moment too late for me to request time off. (Which is remarkably ironic, as I received a letter last week from HR complaining that I'd accumulated too many vacation hours.) My uncle's vacations occur at about the same frequency as ice ages, and Grandpa... well, for one thing he's 90 years old, and for another he's a fading shadow of the man I knew growing up. So this may be the last "big thing" they do as a family with him around.

Considering mobility and comfort issues, I figured that the Golden Taurus was a much better option than the other cars the family had available, so I sent it along with them. Meanwhile, I'm borrowing Mom's car to get to work and back.

Today, I slung books with a persnickity crane and stubborn computer that locked up for three hours yesterday, resulting in a massive backlog today. Because it continued to fight us, I get to go in extra-early tomorrow to help whittle the numbers down. (I suppose it worked out okay, me not taking vacation this week, as I'll earn at least two hours of overtime by being here to work them, instead of the standard hours I'd have filed for had I been gone. Still sucks having to get up at 6 AM...) The guy who fills the candy bowl is in Vegas, so we're down to old Tootsie Rolls and a few butterscotch things; the candy bowl is pretty much the main "perk" of the job. After work, I helped wrestle a broken recliner out of the house and pick up the debris generated by furniture rearrangement and washed a sinkful of dishes. Then we drove over to water Grandpa's yard and grab pizza for a late dinner, after which I washed another sinkful of dishes, fed various hungry critters, dumped some trash, and crawled online to clear e-mail and try to shut my brain down sufficiently for an unnaturally early bedtime. Nowhere in there did I manage to pick up a sketchbook or poke at a story, or even just sit down for more than a few minutes.

Today, the Golden Taurus got to taste the ocean air for possibly the first time in its existence. When I called to see if they'd made it okay (Mom was supposed to call when they got there, and round about 5 my sister and I got a bit worried), they were already having a ball. I think Mom needed this vacation more than she realized... not just to the ocean, but away from us for a bit. They'd walked on the beach. They had a big lunch. They saw a doe with three fawns and heard rumors of a cougar sighting in the area. After we talked, they were going to head out to the beach again.

Wish I was there...