12/13/23

 Happy Birthday Gene and Diane!

Today was fairly uneventful. Avery has her physics conference coming up next month. I told her I would ride with her. It is a 5 hour drive and some change and didn’t want my 18 year old to drive all that way, alone, in the dead of winter.

Because of this decision, we will be getting a hotel. I will either drop her off at the conference daily OR let her take the car and park there. The trouble is, there are no hotels available. I spent about an hour and a half trying to find something within a 10 minute drive that didn’t look like it had bed bugs. No thanks!

By the end of it I was trying to decide if I should gamble with bed bugs or just sleep in the van….in January…I was frustrated and being slightly dramatic about how awful this was going to be.

I do find a helpful coping skill for frustration is muttering under my breath. Sometimes the muttering is simply mean and off color, but with no intent behind it. Just a way to vent the steam. Tonight the muttering included words a pirate might use. I was alone. I was slightly ashamed of my muttering as the dogs were in the room and I exposed them to that filth. Poor pups.

I then began looking at air bnb and VRBO. I did see some options there which was encouraging. Tomorrow I will try to map out the drive from each location and see if that gets us closer to the campus. 

I am now considering dropping Avery off at a firehouse so she can go into foster care and be adopted, then this can be some other families problem. Kidding! I wouldn’t give her away for a bazillion dollars!

We will figure it out.

I had Law and Order on when Paul got home. He sat on the couch and got sucked in really fast. I was teasing him. These shows get you and then you HAVE to watch them until the end. Ice-T isn’t the best actor….but I do like mimicking his terrible lines back at the TV. I find him entertaining.

Penny got her blood drawn today in preparation for her dental cleaning on Thursday. Her breath makes me look forward to her farts at this point. Cleaner teeth leads to healthier organs!