Nonsense express ahead. You have been warned.
In a few hours, we Stevensons will be northward bound -- suitcases packed, tunes in the stereo, doggies in the back of the car. The sun will be shining, the last leaves will be falling, and visions of stuffing will be dancing in our heads. I love a good holiday trek.
An anonymous someone got into the giving spirit early and left this on our car the other day. (Sweet parking job, Carrie).
This week has been wonderful. I woke up on Monday morning with two big work projects looming over my head, but it hardly mattered a bit -- I knew that they'd get done (and they did), and that things would start slowing down a little around the office (and they are). There's a sense that commonplace worries have died down right now, that something delightful and important is just around the corner, that this is a time worth celebrating. At least that's how it feels to me, and I plan to keep a firm grip on that feeling until the New Year.
This is my fifth Thanksgiving spent with Kyle, which might sound like nothing at all in the big scheme of things -- but when you're 25, that's 1/5 of your entire life! It's half a decade! That is deserving of two exclamation points, at the very least.
Babies, I tell you! Conneaut Lake, 2008
Especially because it means five years of surviving each other's very different "traveling styles" -- his a military-precision type of approach, mine of a more go-with-the-flow/at-the-last-minute persuasion. Is there perpetual good cheer and festivity while he is we are trying to actually get out the door? Um, no. (I'm lucky to have grown up in a similarly-fashioned household, and to bear witness that yes, a happy marriage is still possible). But boy oh boy, once our stressed out dogs and our stressed out selves are loaded into the car and on our way to our destination, life is good.
Okay, that's not entirely true. Things are far from good for Bailey, whose terror of the car knows no bounds. It cannot be cured, not even that time I took her to Burger King and tossed a sausage patty into the backseat, hoping to help her associate car rides with good, delicious things.
That sausage patty remained untouched for an entire 20 minutes, until she arrived home and found herself on safer ground. Which says something, either about her neuroticism or the quality of fast-food meat, or both.
Teddy: Sup? I'm just peeping the cars driving by. Bailey: OMG I AM TAKING MY LAST BREATHS OF AIR, I WILL FIXATE ON YOU AND PANT FOR THIS ENTIRE TWO HOUR DRIVE.
And that, friends, is how we're kicking off Holidaypalooza 2012.
Happy Sanksgiving Eve!