I need a vacation from my vacation
I write this from balmy Kansas City (and I write that unironically...it's actually been quite nice most of the time I've been here). I'm here for a week visiting my parents...they drove up to get me last Wednesday night, and we'll be driving me back up Thursday afternoon.
I was expecting this to be a quiet, calm trip home, but various forms of chaos have ensued. When they were in Iowa City visiting me, the coolant system in their car failed while we were downtown and ended up having to go in to the shop (so we left later on Thursday than expected), but that was just standard operating procedure for my parents when visiting Iowa City - it seems like almost every time they come up, they have troubles of some sort or another, frequently automotive.
Then right after we got back, I had my baby brother's birthday party, at which I found out the details of my stepbrother's legal battle with his crazy baby-momma (well, baby-momma-to-be - the baby's due next month). And we've had to run around a lot in the last few days, and I've been trying to get the stuff I officially came down to do - get the last stuff in my bedroom boxed/crated/ready to go up to Iowa City with me, as well as maybe working on some of my comps reading/annotation - but it's been difficult because SHIT JUST KEEPS HAPPENING.
Example: today, when we got up, the car had a flat tire, so we had to call the auto club to change it and then my stepdad drove it up to our mechanic and they took him into work. My mom and I stayed home, only to be interrupted by a call from the vet - over the weekend we noticed our dog Mina had a weird lump on her side, which the vet confirmed was indeed a tumour and was malignant, so we're looking at expensive surgery for her (which we'll have to schedule around my mom's retinal surgeries, of which there's one later this month and one early next, and which I have to go to a preop for tomorrow with my mom because she has trouble reading street signs in unfamiliar places, at least until after her surgery). Then, as we were recovering from the whole tumour thing over lunch and trying to decide what to do about it, my mom got a call from Tia Chucha Press, where she submitted a poetry manuscript like a year and a half ago (maybe two), and it finally got accepted! That one was at least a good thing, but seriously, all this happened before 2 p.m.! And I think my parents' life is ALWAYS LIKE THIS, with some kind of dramatic thing happening at all times, whether for good or ill. I'm kind of looking forward to getting back up to my peaceful life up in Iowa.
But sadly, a result of all the crazy stuff, I haven't gotten into touch with any of my KC peeps, and I don't think I'll have time to get together with anyone before we head back up. (Sorry, plainjanesdubc!)
Hopefully Christmas will work a little better for seeing folks, since I'll be here for probably three weeks. I was originally going to cut it short when we thought my older sister would come up from Phoenix for a month during the holidays, but now it turns out - another of the little surprises this week has presented - that she's getting married the Friday after Thanksgiving (presumably she will get a divorce from her husband first so she can marry her live-in boyfriend of 9 years) and then she and said boyfriend are converting to Mormonism the day after. There's a whole bunch of family drama surrounding this, but the upshot is she won't be coming up and so I can stay the full time because I can sleep in my bed.
I was expecting this to be a quiet, calm trip home, but various forms of chaos have ensued. When they were in Iowa City visiting me, the coolant system in their car failed while we were downtown and ended up having to go in to the shop (so we left later on Thursday than expected), but that was just standard operating procedure for my parents when visiting Iowa City - it seems like almost every time they come up, they have troubles of some sort or another, frequently automotive.
Then right after we got back, I had my baby brother's birthday party, at which I found out the details of my stepbrother's legal battle with his crazy baby-momma (well, baby-momma-to-be - the baby's due next month). And we've had to run around a lot in the last few days, and I've been trying to get the stuff I officially came down to do - get the last stuff in my bedroom boxed/crated/ready to go up to Iowa City with me, as well as maybe working on some of my comps reading/annotation - but it's been difficult because SHIT JUST KEEPS HAPPENING.
Example: today, when we got up, the car had a flat tire, so we had to call the auto club to change it and then my stepdad drove it up to our mechanic and they took him into work. My mom and I stayed home, only to be interrupted by a call from the vet - over the weekend we noticed our dog Mina had a weird lump on her side, which the vet confirmed was indeed a tumour and was malignant, so we're looking at expensive surgery for her (which we'll have to schedule around my mom's retinal surgeries, of which there's one later this month and one early next, and which I have to go to a preop for tomorrow with my mom because she has trouble reading street signs in unfamiliar places, at least until after her surgery). Then, as we were recovering from the whole tumour thing over lunch and trying to decide what to do about it, my mom got a call from Tia Chucha Press, where she submitted a poetry manuscript like a year and a half ago (maybe two), and it finally got accepted! That one was at least a good thing, but seriously, all this happened before 2 p.m.! And I think my parents' life is ALWAYS LIKE THIS, with some kind of dramatic thing happening at all times, whether for good or ill. I'm kind of looking forward to getting back up to my peaceful life up in Iowa.
But sadly, a result of all the crazy stuff, I haven't gotten into touch with any of my KC peeps, and I don't think I'll have time to get together with anyone before we head back up. (Sorry, plainjanesdubc!)
Hopefully Christmas will work a little better for seeing folks, since I'll be here for probably three weeks. I was originally going to cut it short when we thought my older sister would come up from Phoenix for a month during the holidays, but now it turns out - another of the little surprises this week has presented - that she's getting married the Friday after Thanksgiving (presumably she will get a divorce from her husband first so she can marry her live-in boyfriend of 9 years) and then she and said boyfriend are converting to Mormonism the day after. There's a whole bunch of family drama surrounding this, but the upshot is she won't be coming up and so I can stay the full time because I can sleep in my bed.