As the year (and this series of posts) draws to a close, I find myself reflecting a lot on the times, particularly the past several weeks and the next several weeks ahead of me. I do have worries and stresses still, of course -- I don't know what I'll be teaching in the Spring aside from one class, I got my electric bill for the month (and it's $180 -- again, electric furnace), and I have stuff around the house to do, as always. I did send the department an email asking for updates on my class schedule for the spring, if they have any, and I do have a little extra cash flow coming in within the next week or two, but I'll get to that when I get to it and when it's appropriate -- right now, however, let's finish up this series of recaps so it can all be done.
By Friday morning, we'd already had our entire day planned out for us. Daisy's other sister, the middle sister (Daisy is the "baby" of the family) and her own family were coming in for a few days; it was said sister's birthday, and they were bringing donuts and were going to spend the day with us, all of us were going to a play that evening, and then Daisy and I would be packing everything into the car once more for our trip back to Kansas in the overnight hours. It was a long day.
Said sister's family is large -- she's married and has four kids. Daisy is the only one of the three sisters to be unmarried and without children (though that situation will be rectified soon enough, obviously). Of those children, one of them is highly allergic to almost everything under the sun, and this includes cigarette smoke and even residual cigarette smoke on clothing or fabrics. Because of this, when they all visit, I can't smoke even outside on the porch as I normally do, as it still sticks to my clothing for a bit afterwards, and I don't want to make him sick. To most people, this isn't a problem, but as I'm the only smoker in, well, the entire family, and as family visit time tends to last 12-16 hours or so, my nicotine addiction has my mind bouncing off the walls during that time.
I love Daisy's sister and her family, of course, so I deal with it -- I'm not so shallow and self-centered that I wander off and sneak cigarettes or anything like that at risk of making the kid sick, because that would be a dick move. No, I deal with it. It's part of life. I've gone entire weeks without smoking before; a few hours during a day or two isn't a big deal. Does it make me go slightly nuts internally? Yes, but it's minor, and I don't care. Again, family first. When they come in, I smoke outside beforehand as much as I have time for, then I go shower and dress in fresh, clean clothes and the kid doesn't have to be allergic to me. I have my electronic cigarette if I need it (though in situations like that, really, it doesn't do dick to help).
There had been some debate on whether or not said sister and her family would actually be able to come in at all -- all of them had been dreadfully sick over Christmas with some sort of stomach virus, which kept them mostly incapacitated. They were still all sick with it on Thursday, and as it's a two-hour drive from their place to the family home in Omaha, we didn't know if they'd make it. Not to mention, obviously, that they shouldn't be traveling if they're that sick anyhow, especially with four kids -- one of whom is an infant. So, on Friday morning when I got up, I made sure we got the status report of their trip. Daisy called her sister, and they were 80 minutes away at that point in time.
Later, as in, shortly before that 80-minute window ended, they updated us and said that they had to "reset" and go back home for something (or something along those lines) and they'd be two hours later than originally expected. This gave me a bit more time to smoke, relax, and shower beforehand. With said sister's family there, we'd have a total of thirteen people occupying the house, including myself, with half of those thirteen being children seven or younger. That's a lot of people in one place at one time, especially with all of the kids making everything even more hectic. However, the "reset" made the family bonding time, the "Christmas" for the other kids, birthday celebration for said sister, and the family dinner before the play even shorter than it was going to be anyway, which was unfortunate.
Daisy and I had plans of our own; we had to go out in the morning because she needed lotion for her face and skin, as the cold beforehand (and the stress from constantly running around and doing holiday stuff, no doubt) was making her break out. She had to pick up something else for the household too, though I don't remember what it was now -- we were running around so much and I was already frazzled from not being able to smoke that my memory is, and was even then, mostly fuzzy. We left an hour or so before they were supposed to get there, and when we got back from running our errands they had already arrived. It did help that it was almost 70 degrees outside that day, though -- and remained even in the 50s long after dark set in.
We had the family's second Christmas for the kids and the birthday lunch/dinner/etc for Daisy's sister, and it was fun. It was nice. Again, I love all of Daisy's family, and all of the kids already look upon me as "Uncle Brandon" (except for the youngest ones, who have only a vague knowledge of who I am). Rarely, however, do I get any real interaction time with any of the adults unless all of the kids are asleep or otherwise occupied. Daisy doesn't, either, for the most part. She and her sisters are close, yes, but with the kids running around and playing with one another (as it's a relative rarity that all of them are together in one place), any real bonding time rarely happens. As a result, said visiting sister has been there twice during my own visits, and we're still mostly strangers to one another -- I've never, to this day, been able to sit down with her and have a conversation with her longer than five or so minutes. Some of that is a failing on my part, yes, but some of it is just because there's so much going on when everyone is there, and we're almost always on a time schedule of some sort for the next event of the day. Her husband, actually, I've been able to get to know decently well on my/their visits -- over Memorial Day weekend, I built a new porch swing with him and we shared a few beers during that particular bonding experience, for one.
As mentioned before, however, because they came in later than expected, that cut the family time down more than it would've been otherwise. All of us were going to a play that started at 7 -- a local playhouse's production of "Narnia" -- and to be able to get there on time and actually get parking, we had to leave the house by 6. Daisy's sister and her family were staying at a hotel a block or three from the playhouse in the downtown area right next to TD Ameritrade Park, as they were able to get a comped room somehow due to the husband's business/industry he's in and a conference he went to, and they had to check in first before the play. Well, Daisy's sister accidentally left her purse at the house when they went to go check in at the hotel, and they needed her ID (which was in the purse) to be able to fully check in and use the shuttle service to the playhouse. This meant that we had to get ourselves ready rather quickly and then go to the hotel first to return the purse, then get to the theater in enough time to get parking, pick up the tickets for us (Daisy's other sister and her family were handling that) and get our seats before the play started.
This is an example of how hectic things can, and do, get when everyone is there. As always, for a lot of it I'm just along for the ride -- literally as well as figuratively. I do what Daisy or the parents tell me to do, I go where they tell me to go, help with what I can, and the rest of the time I just stay out of the way. I have a complex about being in the way, inconveniencing people, or otherwise holding up plans, so I always do everything I can to avoid scenarios in which I'd be viewed as a hindrance. Yes, I wanted to go to the play -- it sounded interesting, and Daisy had asked me to go weeks beforehand -- but I'm also the kind of guy who doesn't ask questions when it comes to family event scenarios like that; I go with the flow.
Regardless, everything went fine -- we all got there and the play was very well-performed to what appeared to be a sold-out house in a theater of probably 1,500 people. Daisy's sister and her husband (the ones who had come in that day) had to leave the play early, as it was scaring the hell out of the younger kids -- there were some creepy characters and lots of loud yelling and singing, for example, and it was making the kids cry and freak out. I felt bad for them, but I was able to give said husband a brief recap of what they'd missed after the play was over at the hotel. By that time all of the younger kids were asleep, but as I'd finally been able to smoke after the play was over, I didn't go upstairs to the actual hotel room so that I didn't risk the allergic kid getting ill from residual smoke once he woke up in the morning. We took some photos and said our goodbyes, and the half of us still staying at the family house went back home.
By this time it was nearing 11PM. Daisy and I were both exhausted, and we still had an all-night drive ahead of us. I was mostly packed-up already, but nowhere near finished and ready to go. Neither of us had eaten since around 2PM or so, either, so we were hungry. We made a quick "dinner" of sorts, and Daisy napped on the couch while I hung out with her sister and husband, who were still awake as well. When they went to bed, I awoke Daisy and we began getting ready to leave. I made a pot of coffee which I poured into Daisy's thermos, as I knew I'd need it for the drive if I were going to stay awake the entire time.
I'd packed everything into the suitcase beforehand, of course -- one of the other reasons I'd purchased it -- and had everything layered, insulated against bumps and shocks and what-have-you, and was ready to go. Still, with all of my clothes from the trip as well as all of the Christmas/birthday gifts, my computer, toiletries (read: toothbrush, deodorant, etc) and other little things, my backpack and the suitcase were filled to bursting levels. The cooler was also a part of the traveling-home-luggage as well, as the parents always encourage me to take back as many leftovers/foods as I want or need, and I usually do. This time around, that consisted of leftover ham and turkey, the rest of Daisy's mashed potatoes, a bag of Mama's stuffing, the hazelnut coconut milk creamer I used in my coffee while there (nobody drinks it but me, apparently) and some other odds and ends that Daisy put in there for me to eat and enjoy. She encouraged me to take more than I did, as she knew I really didn't have a lot of food in the house and that my food budget for the next month or so is pretty tight -- but as the rest of the family is still there and in town, and they'd probably need and/or eat a fair amount of what was there during their stay(s), I didn't. I am not a mooch or a glutton, and I wasn't going to clean them out. That's not my way, as you know. I'm pretty self-reliant most of the time when it comes to food. I get by just fine.
As we left the house, we noticed that the temperature -- which, again, had been in the 50s even after dark -- had once more dropped like a stone, and the driveway/road had started to freeze and frost over. I put everything in the trunk of the car with the exception of the thermos of coffee and our "driving snacks" -- Daisy likes to keep snacks out when we make the drive, though I don't usually partake in many (or any) of them. And we left.
That's basically the end of the story, really, as it wraps back around to the beginning of this tale three posts ago here. She drove the first leg of the trip to get us to York; we stopped at Walmart there but didn't get anything, and then I drove us the rest of the way back to Newton, stopping at the gas station there around sunrise so that I could fill her tank for her before we went home to sleep.
In the days since, Daisy returned to Omaha (with barely enough time to get to work that night) and has been working ever since. Tonight is her first night off since she returned home. I, meanwhile, have been taking care of the chores and other things around the house, and haven't left the house since I returned; the car is still in the garage, and I have had more than enough food to be okay with. My sinus infection is still rearing its ugly head and is making my face/ upper gums swell up, so this morning I began taking the antibiotics (Bactrim) in hopes that I can just finally knock it out and be done with it -- it's been six weeks since it first started bothering me, so that's probably a sign that it's not going to go away on its own without antibiotics. I should've just started them weeks ago when it first popped up -- but usually my sinus infections will last a week or two at the most and then heal themselves. Daisy is sick now as well, as is Mama -- both of them seem to have a milder case of whatever stomach virus it was that her sister's family had before they came in on Friday. Luckily, I haven't gotten that and have thus far been able to avoid any sort of holiday sicknesses (aside from the sinus infection, of course). Daisy is sleeping it off right now, since she returned home from work early this morning, and I hope she rests well.
So that's the story, really, of the Christmas trip and return. There isn't much else to tell.
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