Notes regarding comments from yesterday’s entry:
Possibly if I’d had more than 20 minutes or so sleep the night I spent in Dulles, LaGuardia wouldn’t have been such a hellhole to me. As it was, I was ready to throw up my hands, give up, and begin wandering the streets of New York (assuming LaGuardia is actually located in New York. Which I’m not sure it is.).
And yeah, probably if I’d driven, I would have made it to Maine quicker. Actually, if I’d realized when they first started delaying my flight that I was going to end up spending the night in the airport, I would have rented a car and driven to Maine. It’s a 10 – 12 hour drive (or thereabouts) and I would have arrived in Maine before my flight left Dulles the next morning. At the very least, I could have driven for a few hours, stayed in a hotel, and then driven the rest of the way the next day.
Y’all are awfully sweet for offering your extra rooms and couches. I’ll certainly keep you in mind next time I travel! 🙂
Thursday.
So after 12 hours of sleep, I woke up feeling mostly refreshed and ready to hit the road. I took my shower, and my mother and I were on our way to Rhode Island by 8:30 or so. We weren’t in a big hurry, because the GPS and Google Maps agreed that the drive would take 3 hours and 15 minutes, and the spud had a doctor appointment in the morning. We stopped in Portland for breakfast at IHOP, and then hit the road for real.
We made it to Rhode Island in pretty good time, and that goddamn GPS got us right to the street the spud lives on, but once we turned on the street, she said “You have reached your destination” all smug-like, and I was all “Um, wha? Here? Where is she?” The GPS just smirked at me and said “Oh, you think it’s so funny to mock me and take exits I don’t tell you to take, then whine about having to PEE when I tell you to turn around? Let’s see how you do on your own, Madame Hilarity!” I had to dig the Google Maps printout out of my purse to see what her exact street address was, and it was about half a mile down the road.
She was waiting for us (I’d called to let her know we were close), and we loaded up the car and then talked about where we were going for lunch. She mentioned that there was a Friendly’s nearby, so off we went.
It was nice to see her – it’s been about six months since she was in Alabama after Christmas – and we ate lunch and chatted and caught up with what’s going on with her and what’s going on in her life (in short, you nosy people: working a lot, going to school, has a boyfriend). We left from Friendly’s around 2 in the afternoon, headed back to Maine.
Things went well, we made a few bathroom stops and the traffic around Boston sucked, and we were getting back a lot slower than we’d gotten there, but when you’re driving around a big-ass city during rush hour, what can you really expect, right?
The problem came not long after we crossed the New Hampshire – Maine border. I started feeling very, very gassy – the high-up gas, not the down-low about-to-be-a-fart gas – and it was very painful. I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, and usually if I’m going to have food-related gas, it happens within the first hour, sometimes two. By the time the gas got really bad, it had been three hours since I’d eaten.
But things got even more fun.
We were on 295 North, and we had just passed the last Freeport exit, when traffic came to a complete stop. Turns out, FIVE MILES up the road, they were going from two lanes to one, and traffic was severely backed up. There was no exit between Freeport and Brunswick, and there was no way to turn around, so we could only go forward. And forward we went, incredibly, amazingly slowly. Crawwwwwwling.
The gas got worse.
And then, to my horror, I started gagging. And I started barfing. Inching down the road, I was throwing up into my hand while the spud and my mother searched desperately for something I could use to barf into.
“Pull over!” my mother said and “Just pull over, Mom!” the spud said, and I said “NO FUCKING WAY!”
There was no way on earth I was going to pull over to the side of the road, even just for a few minutes, because pulling over to the side of the road and parking meant there would be no forward progress, and all I wanted to do was get the fuck home.
My mother found a pack of tissues in her purse and handed them to me, and I wiped my hand off (up side to having had weight loss surgery: if you’re barfing almost 4 hours after you’ve eaten, there’s nothing at all present in your pouch which you can barf up. I barfed up a handful of foam.) and stuck the tissues in an empty cup.
Twenty minutes later, off I went again.
“I never EVER barf in the car!” I said to my mother during the brief period when I was feeling better. “The only other time I’ve barfed in the car, you were with me! This must be your fault!”
(She wasn’t convinced.)
We finally made it off 295 and were headed down the road that means it’s just ten minutes to my parents’ house when the gas that had been rumbling around in my gut finally made an exit.
“Sorry,” I said, blushing. I rolled down the window on my side of the car, which resulted in the wind rushing into the car from outside, snatching up the noxious odor, which bypassed my mother completely, and slammed it into the spud’s face.
(A story we recounted, and I do not exaggerate here, at least five times over the course of the weekend.)
We finally made it to my parents’ house, and as I pulled into the driveway and parked, the gagging and retching began anew.
I’d intended to take the spud over to see Debbie and Brian, but I felt like such total shit that I begged off. Brian came over to see the spud, and then they went off to hang out for a while, and I went to bed. The gas and the nausea eventually abated, and I went to bed and slept like the dead.
To be continued…
Look who’s back!
Friday, I went and got them back from the foster mom who was caring for them while I was in Maine. I don’t know if they remembered me or not (I’d guess not, but who knows?), but they were certainly willing to be held and kissed.
I kept them in the foster room overnight, and then Saturday morning we let them out to roam the house. These guys are THE most laid-back kittens we’ve ever had, I swear. When Fred opened the door to let them out, they immediately came out and started exploring. It’s been my experience that kittens, when they’re let out, are at first wary and slink around, looking at everything. Not these guys! These guys were like “Hey! More room to explore!”
The funny thing is that with the entire house to explore, they’ve ended up spending the majority of their time in the computer room with me, sleeping on my desk or by the door. All kittens ALWAYS end up in the computer room! It’s apparently a house rule that our cats are whispering to them when we’re not paying attention.
Favorite thing to do: smack the blinds cord back and forth and back and forth AND back and forth!
Miz Poo does not approve of this letting-the-kittens-run-free business.
Previously
2008: Taking a few impromptu days off.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: I’ll try to drum up some drama for tomorrow, m’kay?
2004: (For the record, I do vacuum out there every couple of months…)
2003: A Day in the Life
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: I will be hurting bad tomorrow, though.