Locked In the Trunk of a Car: Canada 2026, Part III

 Now that the stage has been set and you know where my headspace was throughout the trip and how my mental health was -- for lack of a better description -- rapidly deteriorating, the middle of the week and the middle of our trip up there was Daisy's birthday. And, as she mentioned multiple times, rain or shine she wanted to go to her favorite beach, Inverness Beach, on her birthday.

Well, her birthday rolled around and it was likely the coldest, rainiest, windiest day of the entire trip -- absolutely not the weather you would want to go to the beach in. However, Daisy awoke that morning bound and determined. 

"Seriously?" I asked. "I know you said rain or shine, and I know you really want to go to the beach on your birthday, but honey, this really isn't the weather for it."

But there was no talking her out of it. I shouldn't have even bothered to try. I was given the choice of go to the beach with her and Mama and suck it up, or be left at home in the basement with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and nobody to talk to when I already felt like an absolute prisoner on this trip. Be a prisoner in the car and then in the rain and cold at the beach, or be a prisoner in a basement staring at the walls.  

This is why I did not enjoy this year's trip to Canada. Because it was a lot of choices like this. No upsides, just a bunch of spent calories with nothing to show for it. 

But Brandon, you may be saying, can't you just enjoy watching your wife have fun enjoying herself?

Psh, no. I can't. I can try but I end up faking it. I can't enjoy someone else's fun if I'm not having fun myself. I just can't. If that makes me a miserable person, so be it. I was definitely miserable on this trip. 

I hate being out in the rain and cold. There's nothing I hate more. I'd rather be out in the snow than be in rain and wind. Snow you can brush off you; rain soaks you to the bone, fogs up your glasses, and is just frustrating. 

I promise you I'm not trying to sound like a prick, and I wasn't trying to be one. I was just intensely unhappy throughout the vast majority of this trip. I don't know how much I can stress that, really. 

I promise you, this is the face of a man suffering from intense depression on the inside. 

So we went to the beach, we picked up a bunch of sea glass and a few neat rocks, and then we returned home. I faked it well. I tried to give Daisy a good birthday, after I was able to get over myself a little bit, but again...it just felt so hollow. It felt like I was getting nothing I wanted on this vacation, and my stress levels certainly weren't being lowered. It felt like Canada was being ruined for me the longer I was there and unhappy. I felt, much like the Tragically Hip song, as if I were locked in the trunk of a car. 

That night, not as much because it was Daisy's birthday but because it was the last night with Daisy's aunt and uncle in town with their camper, we all had a big family dinner. Daisy had originally wanted to make tacos for everyone, and we had specifically pre-frozen Trader Joe's vegan soy chorizo and flown up to Canada with it in our luggage so that could happen.

Well, Grandma didn't want tacos. She wanted chicken for everyone. Which was fine for everyone else but me and Daisy, since we don't eat the meats, so on the way home from the beach we had to stop and get alternative vegan foods for the two of us to eat. Honestly I was so tired and frazzled at this point that I do not remember, at all, what we ended up buying and eating during the big family dinner. I really don't. I don't remember much about the dinner at all. I know afterwards I was so exhausted that I went back downstairs to the back bedroom sanctuary and passed out. 

Two days later we gathered our things, packed everything as tightly as possible into our suitcases, drove to the airport, dropped off the rental car, and flew home. There was no pomp and circumstance, there was no big production about it, there were no overly long goodbyes or overwrought emotions. I felt battered and numb, upset that I'd really not had a fun time, tired because it was hard to sleep on the basement bed, disappointed that despite my tries on various stations I had not heard the Hip on the radio once during this trip, and I just wanted to be home more desperately than anything else.

When we finally arrived back in Omaha, our luggage had arrived hours before we had and was being held in the office off to the side. Mama and Daisy's luggage were fine, but my suitcase had been beaten to hell and the top handle and luggage tags had been ripped off -- of my brand new, four-month-old green monster suitcase that I'd purchased because my last one had been damaged beyond repair in the same fucking airport. 

We took pictures, and upon return home I filed a damage claim the next day. The company that the airlines contracts for their damage claims requested I put it in a box or a bag and mail it to them for repairs. 

I declined to do that, mainly because of the likelihood that it will become far more damaged in transit to and from their facilities, and asked if there was just a direct compensation or replacement they could do. Nope. Mail it to them or that's it. So, as that's not happening, I now have a suitcase with a busted handle. 

Like, obviously it isn't the end of the world, and it's not ruined without that handle, but it certainly makes moving it around a lot more difficult and I'll need to attach the luggage tags in a different place (may I suggest the holes ripped into it?) but few things irritate me more than stuff like this. 

I am on the fence on whether I'll purchase another suitcase at this juncture or whether I'll just get some wire, slip it through those holes, and try to wire the handle back on there by wrapping and fortifying it. If nothing else, or if I can't really travel with it as is, I'll stick it under the bed and it can be used as extra storage for bedding and blankets, because we will always need that. 

I need a new travel backpack anyway; the big canvas one I've used for years is wearing out, big time, and its stitching is ripping on the seams and on the straps. Maybe I can get a two-for-one package deal somewhere, somehow.

Anyway. 

So, our trip to Canada ended with a whimper. We returned home to six very grateful, loving cats, 90+ degree temperatures every day again, and a return to work for both of us about 36 hours after we got home. And that was that. I will tell you that I am better now; I am no longer out of sorts nor am I miserable, and I can look back on the trip to see the positives on it, but it was very hard to see those positives while I was there.

Two Canadians Plus One American Equals Three Americans: Canada 2026, Part II

 Traveling with Mama is not usually hard, but it is a much...slower experience. It requires a lot of patience and it especially requires you to not be in any sort of hurry to get somewhere or to do something whatsoever, no matter what. Mama has a walker and a lot of mobility issues due to health concerns and just plain old age, and I have always understood that and have never had a problem with it -- in fact, I am generally first in line to jump up and help her do something that would otherwise cause her pain or discomfort.

But, be advised that Canada is very different than the United States in both how they care for their elderly and/or otherwise sickly population as well as in a grand cultural sense. As Mama told us, there are not laws in Canada that say that the handicapped must get special treatment or special parking or entryways into buildings/ramps etc (whether this is true or not, I don't know; I have not looked it up) like there is here in the states, and in general it seems like the Canadians either look down upon or otherwise ignore the enfeebled almost entirely. As such, we have noticed it's harder for Mama to get around in public at places in Canada, and it's much more difficult to get, say, wheelchair assistance in the airport without telling multiple people multiple times in myriad ways that yes, it is absolutely necessary. 

This being said, when I travel to Canada with Mama and Daisy, I am traveling with two full-blooded Canadians, women with Canadian citizenship as well as American citizenship. I don't expect to be given special treatment, but I do expect to be treated, well, as a Canadian, even if I am not one, as I am married to one and the son-in-law of another. 

But to anyone watching us on the outside, it is very clear that all three of us are Americans. It doesn't matter what flags we wave or how front-and-center my Tragically Hip t-shirt is when I travel -- I stick out as an American. Daisy says it's mannerisms, tone of voice, even body language that gives it away, and even Mama can't hide it now since she has spent so long in the states. 

Mind you, we are all American citizens too; Daisy is and always has been a dual citizen and Mama just got her American citizenship two years ago after being here for nearly fifty years (married to Dad, of course, who is also American). Believe me, if I had any actual Canadian blood heritage anywhere in my ancestry or family line that would qualify me to become a Canadian citizen, I would be doing so -- but, sadly, I don't have that. When I travel, especially during this dark era of the Trump Administration, I try not to stick out as an American. I've mentioned this before. However, it's really hard these days, and I don't think it's going to get any easier. 

However, traveling with Mama does have its perks -- she takes her handicap placard with her everywhere we go, and we hang it off the mirror of any vehicle we're in and get the best parking in the parking lot every time, for one. For two, we do get to board airplanes first with her, and in airports (especially stateside) if we are far from our next gate/terminal, we have people who will jet us across the airport on one of those go-kart things, luggage in tow, all together because we're traveling together.

In non-handicap situations though it is very clear that we are all Americans when out and about (sorry, I'm talking about Canada here, so it's oat and a boat) either shopping or in restaurants. While Mama will slip back into her Nova Scotia accent a bit when she's there, and I am also one of those people that if I spend enough time someplace, the accent there will work its way into my speech, Daisy is not one of those people (though I do think she could if she let it). However, even for me it takes a while, so any time I open my mouth more than a mumble, it is very clear that I am absolutely American. 

So generally I keep my mouth shut in most public places. I'm not making any more waves than necessary.

When we went to Inverness Beach for Daisy's birthday, there's a gift shop on the way that we have always wanted to enter but it has never been open when we've driven by. There's a running joke within the family that it's not open, but it is shut, because that's what the sign says. Not closed, but shut. Well, this time it was open, and we found that it was owned and operated by an American transplant from California who had family in the area. Turns out we're not the only Americans in the area -- especially not up on the island, where a lot of the people there are from the states and have moved there for retirement or to just plain get away from the trainwreck that is the US government.

I don't know how much I really believe that. A lot of the people we see and interact with there are very clearly Canadian, or are naturalized citizens who are clearly immigrants -- I can't say that I see or interact with a lot or any "known Americans" other than us when we're there. Nobody there seems to be overly hostile towards Americans (though if you'd ask Mama, she'd say differently). Also, if you're moving to Canada to retire there? On Cape Breton Island, along the coastline? You have to have a lot of money, because that is not something that is cheap, and it is doubly not cheap for Americans. If it were, I'd already be living there and our cats would be Canadian cats. 

This time around, it seemed like the novelty of us coming to town had worn thin or we had otherwise not warranted a lot of attention from the rest of the family, even with Mama with us. I let Daisy and Mama handle communication with everyone, of course -- it's not my family, it's theirs and I just married into it. While there are definitely aunts and uncles and cousins who adore me and who have accepted me into the family as an honorary Canadian as if I was born and raised there and always belonged, it's still not my place to be messaging extended family and being like "hey, we're going to be in town on X days, be there" because not only is that not my place, but I'm sure everyone would see it as aggressively American -- because I certainly would. 

Now, I will also mention that our arrival coincided with prom and graduation for one of the younger kids in the family and the one I would call, more than anything else, the "golden child" of the family. Yes, Prom on the weekend we arrived and Graduation on the weekend we were leaving, in late June-- school schedules are very different in Canada. Because of all of this activity surrounding the golden child and the preparations/schedules involved for the graduation party (taking place the day we were flying home, unfortunately), a good chunk of the family we'd normally see -- including said golden child as well her parents and brother and at least two other cousins, we did not get to see. Daisy's other cousin who had the wedding in October was stuck coordinating trainings at work in Halifax all week, and thus we did not get to see the newlyweds either.

Who did we spend time with while we were there? Well...

Daisy's aunt and uncle, the parents of our cousin we saw get married in October, always make a special effort to drive the camper up to the family homestead to see us when we're in town. I love them; they are wonderful people and nobody makes us feel more at home in country than they do. These are the aunt and uncle who have told us point-blank that it's time to escape the states and come home, and when we do we will have a place to stay with them. They came up the day after we arrived and stayed a couple of nights before heading home. 

We did see some family friends we always see when we're there, if possible, and we did see Daisy's other aunt and uncle who live next door to the family homestead. However, aside from one of Mama's friends, we saw nobody else while we were there. As mentioned, most of my time was spent in the basement, where I felt trapped and unimportant because nobody wanted to come spend time with us while we were in Canada. The oppressive rain and cold didn't help matters much either.

I was struggling. All I wanted was to have some fun and be happy, to be able to enjoy my vacation and actually feel like I was on vacation, not trapped in a basement while it poured rain for days on end. There were no adventures to really be had, and the parts of the Canada Experience that I'd enjoyed so much in years past just felt hollow and empty. Yes, we would go to Walmart and shop in the vastly superior Canadian Walmart, but...it lacked the charm it had in previous years. 

They changed up the inside of the local Tim Hortons, added kiosks and new seating and new register systems, and in doing so made the place far less quaint and inviting and more like an assembly line with furniture. It made me sad. The food and coffee was just as good as always, but still. 

Yes, when I am in Tim Hortons, my codename is Duke. Nobody knows me. I'm sure there could be other Brandons around up there. But I doubt they run across a Duke very often. Plus, it's always somewhat hilarious to hear the small, waify foreign (mostly Indian) coffee girls yell out "Duke? Duuuuuuke!" when my order is ready. 

Daisy rolls her eyes but I know she gets a kick out of it too. Also, it's pure coincidence that together we are Daisy/Duke. I promise that wasn't intentional. 

Aside from the brief social gatherings with people, we treaded no new ground in Canada this year. Did we go to Giant Tiger and Dollarama? Why yes, yes we did. We spent a little money at each place. Did we take Mama to get her fish and chips in Truro? Yes, we did, and I got a poutine there. Did we go to 5c to $1.00 in Antigonish as we do every year? Yes, we did, and just like every other year, I got a new hat there. 

Sigh. For some reason, it was just all so...depressing. Sad. I was not having fun at all. I was really, really struggling, I was getting increasingly irritable with everyone, especially Daisy, and there was nothing that could really make me feel better. It got to the point where Mama and Grandma noticed it as well, and the last thing I wanted to do was ruin everyone else's time just because I was miserable, but at the same time I wanted everyone to know that I was enjoying absolutely nothing about this trip. 

Looking back on it now, yes, the weather was a big factor in why I felt so badly, but also the fact that we weren't being treated like royalty for our visit and that everything wasn't revolving around the three of us flying in to visit from thousands of miles away was subconsciously affecting me too. Add to this that we hadn't had any adventures planned just for me and Daisy -- we didn't really have any true vacation time to ourselves, everywhere we went and everything we did involved Mama or doing something for Mama or taking her with us, and in those situations I felt very heavily like a third wheel, wondering why I was even there on this vacation with them, because it certainly wasn't for my enjoyment. 

Over the span of a few days, this compounded and I was absolutely miserable. There's only so many things you can do to entertain yourself when you're essentially trapped in a basement. There's only so many hours you can read books or watch television on your tablet (a tablet that, in Canada, only has half the apps be functional -- i.e. no HBO Max, no Paramount+, and no Libby library app) before you're like "fuck, let me out, I have to do something different."

But we didn't. We did nothing different. We did nothing adventurous. Daisy and I didn't take a day trip to drive up and down the Cabot Trail. We didn't go whale-watching. We did little more than sit in the basement, and while I fully realize being there, being in another country, is a treat in itself -- this time around it all just rang hollow. I felt like I had become the ghost in the house, not Daisy's grandfather.

The End of the Universe: Canada 2026, Part I

 We have gone to, and returned from, Canada. I know, you've probably been waiting to hear that.

We have been back for a week. 

It has been...difficult to write about, and process, since our return, and thus I don't know how much I'm going to write about this trip as a whole or as a documentation of our experiences, because -- and I'm going to be 100% frank and transparent in saying this -- I had a miserable time when I was there this year and felt like a prisoner for a lot of the trip. 

I know that this must sound absolutely shocking to you. And it's shocking and sad for me too. 

It did not feel like a vacation to me. Most of the trip was not pleasant. We didn't break new ground or go anywhere/do anything new. Most of the family didn't even come into town to see us (most -- some made a special effort to come visit) and a lot of those family who knew we were there were otherwise occupied most of the time and did not make contact or outreach to us while there. It was freezing cold every day and poured rain, and when it wasn't freezing cold and raining I was, admittedly, in a very foul mood. 

Were there highlights of the trip? 

Eh. I was able to read a lot and I watched a lot of movies and TV on my tablet. 

I'll go down through the list of highlights and lowlights, I suppose, by the numbers:

4 different airplanes

3 different airports

2 rental cars

2 poutines from different places

$50+ of Canadian candy bars brought home

2 new Nova Scotia mugs

2 new Canadian souvenir t-shirts

5 days of trips to Tim Hortons

4 uses of my codename "Duke" in Tim Hortons, for pickup orders

3 new pairs of shorts

6 new pairs of socks

2 new retro, thin hoodies

1 new Canadian themed quilt set

2 sleepless nights on an air mattress

1 well-slept night on a bed

2 mediocre-slept nights on that same bed

1 horribly-slept night on that same bed

1 water bottle filled with urine (multiple times, multiple nights)

1 new water bottle purchased for obvious reasons

1 big family dinner

3 days of constipation

5 days of eating sandwiches and ketchup chips in the basement like a goblin

$30+ for a 12-pack of Monster

105 photos taken

0 photos taken that can be used for Christmas cards

1 damaged suitcase

6 cats happy we're home now

I always felt like traveling to Canada was like slipping into a slightly different, much better/quieter parallel universe. This trip felt like we stepped through the portal into a grimy, beatdown truckstop at the end of the universe. I felt like there was some change in the air, some sort of shift into a darker timeline. I don't remember seeing the Canadian summer sun -- the actual, beautiful summer sun of Canada -- the entire time we were there. Some days were brighter or darker than others, but I don't know that I actually saw a sunny day when I was there. 

Of course, I was in the basement almost the entire time. 

So if I'm going to tell this story, I should probably start with our arrival and what our living arrangements were while we were there. And before I go on I want to state that yes, I was miserable almost the entire time I was there, and when I am miserable it is incredibly hard to hide it. It turns me into an insufferable asshole, and while I am fully aware of this a lot of the time, I am not in control of it. Sometimes, as I apparently was during the majority of this trip, I am not aware that apparently I was being a miserable, insufferable asshole. So as you read through the story of our trip, please keep that in mind throughout -- but also keep in mind that even if I am an insufferable asshole, it does not make me wrong, nor should any of my perceptions be discounted or dismissed. 

That being said, let's move onward.

We arrived in Halifax with no issue. The flights were fine, they were actually comfortable, and we had the wheelchair assistance for Mama that we had needed and requested up until we got through customs and were then told, basically, "alright, you American fuckers are on your own" in less words. 

Daisy always requests a full-size car for our trips, or a medium SUV. As last fall we loved the new Bronco Sport that we had as our rental, Daisy opted for that again -- a "Ford Escape" or equivalent. 

This. Is not what they gave us.

Upon arrival at the rental counter, they told us the vehicle we'd reserved multiple months in advance was not available, and tried to stick us into a Hyundai Kona, which was not large enough to fit our suitcases, let alone the three of us. We declined and told them that we needed something bigger, because not only did we have three giant suitcases but we had our elderly, handicapped mother in tow, and they told us to sit there and wait.

So, here we were, in the basement of the Halifax airport, reliving the situation we'd been in two years ago during the last time we went on this trip with Mama -- waiting there, tired and in pain from traveling all day (with at least three more hours on the road to go before being home at the family homestead) with no rental car. 

To be fair, this time around they quickly prioritized us and got us into a new Volkswagen Tiguan, which was large enough for us and our luggage, but...I mean, it wasn't a Bronco.

It was a fine enough vehicle for our purposes, I suppose. I was and still am skeptical of Volkswagens after the rental company gave us a new Jetta two years ago in North Carolina and it had its check-engine light on the whole time we had it.

Well, this Volkswagen was fine, I guess. I didn't think the seats were comfortable at all (but Mama and Daisy did), but I did like -- for the most part -- the way the cabin sat off the ground and the way it was designed. It was more of an appliance than a car, honestly -- the equivalent of a refrigerator with wheels. We didn't need it to be special, we just needed it to get from point A to point B, and it did that without issue. 

After stopping for dinner and some light grocery shopping, we finally reached the family homestead as it was beginning to get dark. We brought in everything and went downstairs, where the downstairs great room was almost already prepared for us and where Daisy would set up the air mattress.

So, that bears a little explanation as well -- all of this does, I'm sure.

When we were up there last fall, Daisy's grandmother told us that she'd rather us stay there in the house with her than get a room at the Cove Motel or rent the really expensive AirBNB we rented two years ago. We've stayed with her before and it's been fine. It's not incredibly ideal, but it's fine. The upstairs spare bedroom is cramped and hot, but we manage.

Well, this time we were coming with Mama, and because Mama has limited mobility, that means she gets that upstairs spare bedroom, and we are relegated to the basement. 

Now, to be fair, the basement of the family homestead isn't a dungeon or anything like that -- it is furnished, has a kitchen with sink and fridge/freezer, laundry room area with washer/dryer, a workshop (where Daisy's grandfather did leatherwork and built guitars) a back bedroom with a queen-sized bed, and a great room with a couch, piano, TV/VCR/DVD player and Daisy's grandfather's old desktop computer/desk. But, it is not a space that has been occupied, for any real reason, since some time before Daisy's grandfather's passing in 2022. So, it looks like a space trapped in time -- his tools where he left them on his workbench, the CDs and DVDs on his computer desk in the order he'd left them there, the electronics and glassware and everything slowly gathering a layer of dust after years of being untouched.

And of course we bomb down the stairs and begin touching everything again.

Now, mind you, Daisy's uncles have been slowly cleaning out the house, so stuff isn't exactly completely untouched. Grandma also has a home care nurse that uses the downstairs kitchen area/fridge/washer-dryer every week too, so it's not like stuff is falling into disrepair or anyhing. Additionally, Grandma has given the edict that she wants people to clean up the things and get what they want now, so that when she goes there's not a fight about things/stuff/money/property. The woman will turn 93 this fall, so this is understandable. And as much as we'd like to fantasize that we'll be making this trip every year for the next five, six, seven years -- it is getting more likely by the year that each trip up there will be our last. The house is already in the name of Daisy's uncle who lives next door, so whenever it's time, it's time, We won't really have much reason to go visit the family homestead once grandma is gone, of course.

Now, I've been down in the basement a lot while I've been there -- mainly for laundry -- but we'd never stayed down there before. Daisy had come downstairs to sleep in the spare bedroom when it got too hot upstairs during our trip there in 2023, and had said then that the bed wasn't exactly comfortable -- which is why she'd gotten the air mattress. Both she and I have felt her grandfather's presence down there since his passing, and Daisy even saw him once -- this is something she does not like to talk about -- so it's a bit strange compared to if we were staying there while he was still alive. 

I will say that last year when we were there in the fall, I did not feel his presence in the house more than the equivalent of a faint, lingering whisper. Previously, when we were there in 2023 it felt like he was still there, in the room with us at all times. This time? I felt absolutely nothing downstairs. The place felt completely empty and lonely with no wisps whatsoever of his presence there. I did not ask Daisy or Mama how they felt being in the house this time around, but, to me -- the man had finally left the building.

Anyway.

Because she knew of the bed downstairs being uncomfortable for her, let alone both of us, Daisy spent months researching air mattresses to purchase, stuff into the suitcase, and take with us to Canada. It needed to be a king-size, it needed to have its own plug-into-the-wall auto inflator/deflator, and it would need to be firm enough to be comfortable yet not too firm to where it would feel like sleeping on a board. 

She found one on Amazon that had decent reviews, purchased it, stuffed it into our suitcase when we left, and unloaded it once we got there in the basement. 

And it was...awful.

Like, maybe I'm being picky. I'd gone out and had gotten special sheets for the air mattress so that it would feel like some semblance of a bed, and honestly that first night when we had just gotten there after traveling for something like eighteen hours straight...I would've slept on the floor, I would not have cared. So, Daisy inflated it, we put the sheets and a blanket on it, and Daisy passed out on it almost immediately. I joined her and had some trouble, but eventually I slept.

Aside from a short nap the next evening, it would be the only time I ever attempted to sleep on that godforsaken fucking air mattress. It destroyed my back, it made me sweat profusely, and it was near impossible to get on and off of without being catapulted directly into the wall or hyperextending one's knees or elbow joints. It was an absolutely miserable sleeping apparatus that I felt the need to curse with every colorful metaphor in my extensive vocabulary of colorful metaphors.

Daisy was fine with it. She didn't understand why it bothered me so much. She slept like a rock on it every night of the trip. 

Starting on night two, I moved into the back bedroom and slept on the old queen-size bed down there. It was old and broken down, but it was an actual mattress. That second night was the best night of sleep I've had on vacation in a long time. Nights three through six were a bell curve on the downhill swing as I perceived that bed to be less and less comfortable each night I slept on it. 

The back bedroom itself was interesting, though. It was always more of a spare room, I supposed -- there was an old treadmill in there from at least the mid-80s gathering dust, and all four sets of Grandpa's golf clubs. Yes, four sets of clubs. Back in the day, he was apparently a very well-respected, could-have-gone-professional golfer. The great room, where Daisy was sleeping on the air mattress, was filled with golf tournament trophies on top of the ancient player piano. The closets held every jacket, coat, or weird pair of pants that the old man ever owned, most of them looking like they hadn't been touched since the 90s or early 2000s. I didn't mess with them, though I did look through the racks a bit and I examined a few of the clubs out of curiosity.

The good thing about the back bedroom is that it was quiet, it was private, it had its own door and lighting system, and it was likely the coolest spot in the house even when Grandma turned up the heat every morning (yes, in June). It was also below ground, with the only windows in the room being at ceiling level, and those were, essentially, basement windows. It was also right below the bathroom, and in essence also right below the wifi router -- meaning to get full signal, all my tablet or phone needed was to go eight feet straight up through the ceiling. This gave me, accidentally, the best connection in the house. As such, I made that back bedroom my base of operations -- if I ever wanted to go read or watch something on my tablet, I could, and easily. 

Except, well, it was also the furthest room in the house away from the bathroom.

Let me explain. The family homestead has one very outdated, sad little bathroom. It is upstairs on the opposite end of the house from the basement stairs -- as mentioned, the bathroom was right above the back bedroom in which I was sleeping. This meant that for Daisy or myself, when we needed to use the bathroom we would have to walk across the entire basement, go up the stairs, walk across the entire house in the opposite direction, and hope that one of the other three people in the house didn't need to use the bathroom at the same time or weren't already in there.

Add to this that I am a diabetic and I drink a lot of liquids to stay hydrated, and every day/night while I'm sleeping, I get up multiple times to pee. It's just part of who I am now, I guess.

Well, when you're sleeping in a basement with no bathroom and no other options, a 28oz-capacity, dollar-store water bottle with a wide mouth becomes your new best friend.

I wish I were making this up. I knew if I trudged upstairs and made the long journey across the house, not only would I likely wake up everyone on the way there or the way back, but by the time I got back downstairs after a simple pee, I would be wide fucking awake again. It was different when we weren't traveling with Mama and were staying upstairs in the spare room...the spare room that was eight feet across the hall from the bathroom. 

So, when nature called, at least for pee, I would roll over and pee in the bottle, cap it/seal it, and then go wash it out in the sink next to the washer/dryer the next day.

Look, I'm not proud of it, but I'm old and in pain all the time and that is a long walk up and down stairs and back and forth across the house just to take a piss. I'm not here for that. 

When I had to shit or shower, it was bad enough that I had to essentially take my entire cosmetics bag to and from the bathroom every time because leaving it in there would upset Grandma. Mama and Daisy had to do the same thing, essentially. 

This didn't matter much though, because aside from this incident on day two...

...I don't think I had an actual, normal, comfortable shit again until we returned to Omaha. Oh, I had some defecations, yes, but none of them were normal or comfortable. 

I correct myself -- I had an explosive shit in a gas station bathroom outside the Halifax airport the day we flew home. That was somewhat normal for me. 

Anyway.

So that was the living situation for seven days, six nights. It could have been worse. The downstairs fridge was all ours to use, and we did. The washer and dryer are 30 years old, but they run well and run fast cycles with efficiency. In the basement, we actually have a little privacy too. 

Anniversary Weekend 2026

 I will confess that it took me almost a full week to write the previous post here, but I wanted to start June free and clear, and looking forward, onward and upward. 

As many of you know (and some of you reading this were actually there to see it happen), the end of May is our wedding anniversary. Yes, twelve years ago in 2014, these two young weirdos got married:

It was a decision that has haunted them every day since.

Anniversary #12 isn't like...one of those big time milestone anniversaries or anything, and I don't even know what the traditional anniversary gift is for a 12th anniversary. Hm, let's check that, while we're here:

Uh...sure. Not doing that, so...onward.

Both of us took the day off work. I had it off because of the way the days fell after Memorial Day -- I worked Memorial Day weekend, so I had a "comp day" I took to make up for that. Technically I could've taken two comp days, likely -- or at least I could have made the argument for it, but I'll wait to pull that card when I sincerely have zero fucks left about that job and will be looking to get out of work or responsibility at any opportunity. On my last day of work last week before I'd be out of office for a four-day weekend, I told my boss that I have now worked four holidays this year -- and that the crew was on their own for the rest of the year when it came to holiday coverage and I've now done four times the required number of holidays for anyone in the company or leadership. 

This is true -- our new corporate overlords recognize all of the bank holidays, so Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents' Day, and new stuff like Juneteenth and the like are all holidays that our teams are supposed to get off now. I have worked New Year's Day, Presidents' Day, MLK Day, and now Memorial Day this year -- fuck 'em, I'm done for all other holidays. 

Juneteenth (June 19) will already be during my time off for the Canada trip, and is a Friday (which I wouldn't work anyway). 

July 4th is a Saturday -- that'll be all entirely on the weekend crew to cover; have fun, folks. 

Labor Day I will make sure I have other plans for and may take off a few days before and after to do a mini-vacation with the wife. 

Veterans' Day is on a Wednesday this year and you bet your ass that'll be a day I take in order to extend my weekend.

Thanksgiving is on November 26 and is always a Thursday, and I don't work Thursdays anymore. I'll absolutely be taking the night before off on PTO to extend my holiday weekend as always -- this is something I do every year, unless for some reason I would need to work on the holiday. 

My birthday is on a Sunday (December 20) and Christmas is on the following Friday. Oh man, wouldn't it be nice to just take PTO for that whole week and return to office on Sunday the 27th? I might actually do that. 

So yeah. I have this all planned out already.

Anyway, that's a very long sidebar to the story, so let me return to the tale of our anniversary weekend.

For the first time in a while, we had not made any real concrete plans for our anniversary other than "we have it off together, so let's spend time together" and "let's eat some good food somewhere." We like to keep it somewhat loose when we're not going somewhere or doing something on a schedule, and honestly we've both been really burnt out and tired by life as of late.

A week or so before our anniversary, Daisy mentioned (again) that we had not gone to the new iteration of Modern Love -- a famous vegan restaurant in Omaha that had closed up shop at the end of 2024 -- named Fifth House. Fifth House was a new restaurant, a new location, but with most of the same menu and the same kitchen staff as Modern Love had. Essentially it had become Modern Love with a different name, so we were told. 

"Let's do that on our anniversary then," I said. "Book us a reservation that day right when they open and we'll go down there and spend a lot of money on a small amount of food."

Yeah, they're not cheap. Vegan food, especially vegan food in the hipster part of town, rarely is.

So Daisy booked the reservation for 11am, opening time, on Sunday morning. Our plans were to get up, eat something small for breakfast, and then to go over there for lunch at 11 as our main meal of the day. 

And we summarily forgot about it as it was a week out or more at that time.

The Thursday leading into our anniversary weekend we got pizza from our favorite local place. It was good, but that was also the night that I got the horrific allergic reaction (it happened, and got worse, as I was eating dinner that night).

No, it was not the pizza; I was developing symptoms beforehand and over the course of the following few days I ate the rest of the pizza with zero ill effects. It was delicious.

So, day one of our weekend was an absolute washout because of that allergic reaction -- I took the Benadryl and passed out, as mentioned in my last post here. 

The two following days were spent doing chores and running errands. We had to get some grocery shopping done and bills paid (the trip to Canada is, after all, coming soon -- and we must prepare) and Daisy needed to do some work in the yard and garden between days of rain and thunderstorms. I did some grocery shopping and prep work of my own for the trip, which I'll go more into detail on later. Daisy is also back to the weekly schedule of kitten-feeding at the humane society on the weekends, which she started a few weeks ago as we are in the full swing of "kitten season" again. 

During this time, I also received and prepared the anniversary present I'd gotten for Daisy.

Now, mind you, she had told me before that she hadn't gotten an anniversary present for me and I told her I didn't care, that was fine, but I'd done something small (very small) but monumentally sentimental, and that she'd find out what it was on our anniversary. 

And then we both promptly forgot about it while we spent the weekend running around. 

On Sunday morning, the morning of our anniversary, we woke up together and Daisy declared that she'd like us to go to Trader Joe's (for what, exactly, I cannot recall now). So, at what felt like dawn but was really around 9am, we went to do some light grocery shopping. When we returned home, we had juuust enough time to put away the food and change clothes before we had to get in the car for our 11am lunch reservation at Fifth House.

Yeah, remember that?

Well...

Look, navigating downtown Omaha can be challenging even in the best of circumstances. A Sunday morning at 11am is legit what I would call, in most cases, the best of circumstances. Daisy does not classify the area we were going to as "midtown" and not "downtown," and honestly...I label the part of town we live in as "midtown" mixed with North Omaha (we're basically right on the cusp of both) and anything about 10-15 streets east of us as "downtown," including UNO and Creighton campuses and everything else into the heart of the city. 

I understand that you won't understand this or care if you don't live in Omaha, and that's fine. My only point is saying that I classify where we were going as downtown. When there are parking garages and skyscrapers around you, you're downtown. 

Anyway.

A large chunk of the hipsterish area of Omaha (known as the "Blackstone" district) is under construction right now. They've been working on a streetcar project forever, and a lot of the locals hate it because it is, in their eyes, useless and very expensive, but also because the construction is closing off streets and parking, making it very difficult for some of these businesses to survive. If people can't get to you to eat your foods and buy your wares, you're going to go out of business -- it is simple math. 

Well, Fifth House is right in the middle of all of this construction for the streetcar project, and the only real parking was a block away in the (thankfully) free-to-park on Sundays parking garage. So it took us a little longer to get where we were going, but we got there.

We settled down for lunch as the only people in the restaurant. Mind you, it was a breezy, beautiful Sunday -- temperatures were perfect, it was bright and sunny, and the city around us seemed to be alive with people jogging, walking their dogs, or taking their kids on walks in strollers. And yet, we were the only people in this restaurant? 

Why did we need reservations, again?

The entire time we were there, it was like we had a private dining experience. Zero other customers came to eat in. One guy came to pick up a to-go order. That's it.

We had a giant meal, as we were planning -- Daisy got a "fried chicken" dinner complete with oyster mushroom "chicken," mashed potatoes, greens, and a biscuit -- and got a kale caesar salad on the side. I got their vegan seitan buffalo wings, and a burger they called the "buffalo blue burger," which came with fries on the side. To top it all off, we shared one of their milkshakes. Everything was vegan. I'd describe it all, but just look at the menu for yourselves, people:

Now, all of this being said, there's not much on that menu I wouldn't eat or wouldn't be interested in. I chose the burger over the reuben (and I love reubens, especially when they're done right) and the hot honey chicken sandwich, so this should tell you how excited I was for the burger.

However, neither of us were entirely fulfilled with this meal. 

My burger was fantastic; it was, honestly, one of the best burgers I've ever had anywhere. But the fries were not french fries, they were "home fries" -- i.e. little potato cubes. They were fine, but if I want a burger and fries, I don't want fried potatoes with it, I want goddamn french fries. Modern Love, when they were around, had the best fries in town, hands down, fight me. These fries were not that.

My seitan wings were good, but they make them far smaller now than Modern Love ever did and I think that's to skimp on the product and jack up the price more. They used to be about 3x larger than they are now and you'd need a knife and fork to eat them -- they're now bite-sized and it's like ordering a little platter of vegan chicken nuggets. 

Daisy was wholly underwhelmed with most of her meal. Her salad was fine but wasn't what was described on the menu, the "chicken" was fine but the greens were...strange, the biscuit was underwhelming, but the mashed potatoes were fire. I noticed for my own food that it wasn't exactly what was described on the menu either -- while my burger was great, it was not what was on the menu. There was no buffalo sauce or mayo on it -- there were the caramelized onions and a splat of something that tasted vaguely of blue cheese, but they also slapped four giant pickles on it (which aren't on the menu for the item) that I ended up giving to Daisy, and it had some sort of cheese on it, like a slice of vegan cheese that was fine.

Still, I mean, top tier burger and it was amazing, so I really can't complain that much...it's just not what was advertised.

Daisy's salad was the same way, it was more of a wedge salad in a bowl with a bunch of ingredients not listed on the menu. 

This is why we were bittersweet on the entire experience -- like, the food was fine, and it was even quite good in several areas, but it was inconsistent and didn't match what was on the menu. I want these people to succeed because vegan fare like this needs to exist in Omaha, much as Modern Love served a great purpose and filled a food gap where it needed to -- but consistency is always key and their location, especially with the streetcar construction stuff, is doing them zero favors whatsoever.

The poor guy working there -- the only one who seemed to be in the restaurant at all (I'm sure there was a cook back there behind the scenes too) I gave a 30% tip to. He did a great job and it's clear that the restaurant is struggling. I'd give the burger an A+ but overall the restaurant experience here was a B-minus. We'll likely get food from them again, but it'll definitely be doordash'd or some other form of delivery. I'm guessing. 

We left the restaurant and came home, as we'd had some fun plans for the rest of the day.

You see, for our anniversary weekends in the past, we've tended to be traditionalists. By that I mean that we've done similar things a lot because it's the time of the year to do them, or because we really like to do those things together. We've gone to the zoo a few times, we've gone to play games of some sort (mini golf or Dave & Buster's) a few times, and we've gone through the Ashland Safari a few times.

What is the Ashland Safari, you may be asking?

It is apparently the nation's number one safari park, in Ashland, Nebraska -- which is...eh, probably 40 minutes outside of Omaha? As the crow flies? Anyway, it's a drive-through safari, stretching through miles of hills and forest, wetlands and canopy, plains and savannah -- and if you had never been told about it, you would have zero idea whatsoever that it was out there. I've always said that it is wildly one of Nebraska's best kept secrets and driving through it, seeing the elk, bison, pelicans, deer, cranes and other water birds, etc -- is a wonderful experience. 

It's a surreal, very one-with-nature experience, and Daisy and I have made the trip through the safari numerous times over the years -- always around this time of year. We plan to go back in the fall when the leaves are changing, because it will be beautiful to drive through the park with all of the colors in the trees. 

If you're taking your time, it can take about two hours, maybe a little more, to go through the park drive. If you're moving normal speed, aren't stopping for photo opportunities or at the gift shop, visitor center, or any of the mid-park exhibits (like the pull-off area where you can stand at the opposite end of the bison field, or the dinosaur excavation exhibit, or the African Pygmy Goats petting zoo) you can get through the whole park in an hour or less. But, if you're ever in the area, I strongly urge you to find this place, pay the admission, and take your sweet time soaking it all in. I love nature, I love animals, and it's very clear that these animals are happy and thriving in very open and loving environments.

Also of note, if you click the link above, there is one part of the park we've never been through -- that's what they call "Wolf Canyon." We have never seen this Wolf Canyon, and I'm not sure it actually exists -- it's apparently part of a walking trail where there are wolves and bears. I have never seen the entrance to this walking trail, nor would I want to just jump out of the car and be like "hey wife, let's go hike where the wolves and bears are" because I'm not fucking stupid. 

Anyway.

After we left the park, we stopped by Sonic to get limeades (a special treat for us) and then visited with the parents for a few hours, almost until dark, before both of us were ready to crash out. We came home, ate some more food -- I honestly can't remember what now, but I know I was ravenously hungry once we finally got home for the night -- and went to bed. 

I slept off and on all night, despite my goals being to sleep for a short nap and then get back up to reset my sleep schedule. I then stayed awake for a few hours the next morning when Daisy arose to go to work, and then crashed out for the majority of the day so that I could resume my own working schedule for the rest of the week.

So that was, in longform story-telling time, our 12th anniversary weekend. 

The story isn't finished yet, though.

Remember how I mentioned I got Daisy something small, yet very significant for an anniversary present? 

Well.

On the night of February 14, 2013, in my little rented house in Newton, Kansas, I got down on one knee in the kitchen and asked Daisy to marry me. She said yes, and the rest is history.

But -- on the opposite side of the planet, at almost that exact same time, a giant meteor was hurtling down over Russia. The Chelyabinsk Meteor exploded as it traveled over the countryside, shattering windows with how loud the explosion was, and causing panic and injuries throughout the area. I always found it immensely fascinating that, at almost the exact time I was proposing to my now-wife, this meteor was screaming down towards our planet to explode and rain pieces all over that part of the world; it felt very cosmically intertwined with us, somehow. 

I found a reputable collectors' site, and my anniversary present for Daisy -- for us as a whole, really -- is an actual certified piece of that meteor, about a centimeter in diameter and mounted in a display box. It's a piece of rock from outer space that fell as we committed ourselves to one another -- a shooting star brought down and captured in a box in our house forever. 

Daisy thought it was very sweet and very romantic. I thought that as well, but I also think it is really fuckin' cool. 

So, onward. Let's dive into June, and let's get this Canada thing underway.

The May of Discontent, Part II

 Over the weekend, I posted -- and then quickly deleted -- a message about how I can no longer write, nor did I have the desire to do so anymore, and that I would figure out what I wanted to do with this site in the coming months.

May has been incredibly difficult for me. Getting off nicotine has been awful. It's not something I can accurately describe to anyone who has never had to do it. I don't even know how to describe it, actually. It feels as if you, as a sane human, are slipping into insanity in real time...and you can see it happening but you cannot stop it. 

Over the course of the past several weeks I have felt like a spectator, a passenger in the car with myself as I'm going through life, and a horrified passenger and spectator at that. I have not been myself. I have not been a person I want to be, or a person that I like and identify with -- it's like looking into the mirror and seeing a twisted stranger or an evil twin staring back at you. I have not felt safe in my own mind and body, and at times I have absolutely, without a doubt felt that I have been a danger to myself and others.

And it's all because of a lack of nicotine.

Some of you will laugh at this, or make jokes that if that's all it took to push me over the edge, then I must've been closer than anyone realized, har har har, etc. And, maybe -- maybe -- there's a little truth in that. But, the much larger truth is that when you have had a substance in your bloodstream for over 25 years, you don't realize how much that substance takes over and what it regulates or otherwise controls.

Like it or not, nicotine regulated a lot of things in me. It gave me a creative drive, it sharpened my mind, and it was an appetite suppressant as the larger things -- but it also let me manage my stress and anger, it regulated my sleep and bowels, it changed my senses of taste and smell, and apparently -- among other little things -- kept my mouth bacteria under control.

I mentioned before that as soon as I quit vaping, my mouth broke out into blisters, sores, and swollen gums. This is apparently a side effect experienced by something like 30-40 percent of people who quit smoking or vaping, and I have never heard it mentioned or talked about before. Because nicotine is a natural disinfectant, your mouth biome goes nuts when it no longer has a constant flow of nicotine being inhaled through it, and it takes some time for your body to regulate it and get your mouth back to normal. Most people overcome this within a week or two at most, but for others it can take up to a month.

Guess who has been fighting it for nearly a month now? Me.

It has only been within the past several days where it seems -- seems -- like the mouth problems are finally starting to go away and heal. As recently as last weekend the mouth pain was so awful that it awakened me out of a dead sleep. Nothing really helps it -- brushing multiple times a day would make it feel a little better for a short time, and mouthwashes were absolutely brutal as they would amplify the pain tenfold. Daisy got a few different mouth sore soothing mouthwashes for me to try -- one of them had the consistency of NyQuil and did absolutely nothing, and the other had hydrogen peroxide in it and hurt so bad that I screamed and almost blacked out from the pain.

Yeah, I'm not kidding, the mouth stuff was awful. 

I couldn't eat a lot of things -- anything that had sharp edges or would crunch felt like I was chewing razor blades. Because my tongue was covered in blisters and so irritated, my sense of taste almost completely disappeared. I would taste vague hints of whatever it was I was eating, but that's about it. Anything that was overly salty or acidic (except, interestingly enough, coffee) would bring a torturous pain that was unreal. This extended to the blandest of things at times too -- ketchup, for example, when I ate some on fries. The acid in the ketchup was brutal and I just couldn't do it. Anything vinegary, peppery, or spicy at all was a no-no too. Carbonated beverages would feel like they were attacking each and every blister personally.

What finally made it go away? Eh, I dunno. Time and Advil?

It's not all the way gone yet. My sense of taste is still very dulled and it feels like there is a film coating my mouth and teeth that just won't go away. But most of the pain is gone. Most of the sensitivity is gone.

What remains at this point, almost a month in?

My patience and reason are slowly returning. My kindness is slowly returning. My body is relearning how to regulate its own sleep. Muscle memory for vaping is starting to go away. My bowels are starting to completely re-regulate themselves. 

My desire and ability to write are slowly returning. I told Daisy that if I lost that, I'd rather blow my brains out than continue to live without that drive. 

My stamina for, well, life is slowly returning. My skin looks clearer. My breathing is clearer. Even my back spasms and pain have mostly gone away. I don't know how much of this can be attributed to a lack of nicotine, but, well, I'm not going to complain.

So, as I slowly crawl up out of this haze, I am able to poke up my head and look around at everything else going on without being blinded by a chemical dependency.

This coming weekend, Daisy and I will celebrate twelve years of marriage. I worked over the Memorial Day holiday in order to be able to take our anniversary off work in exchange. Daisy took the day off as well, and we are extending our weekend by an extra day. We have lunch reservations at a local vegan restaurant that will likely be outlandishly expensive, but eh, it's our anniversary. 

On Thursday, we're ordering pizza from our favorite local place, and it is one of the very few times -- "rare and appropriate," so to speak -- that Daisy will get a full gluten crust, a full gluten anything, as she tends to avoid wheat when possible. However, it's our anniversary weekend, and I haven't vaped for a month, so...it's celebratory.

Last week, we went to see The Mandalorian and Grogu on its premiere-night-before-release showing of Thursday at 9:20pm. As you folks know, I do tend to book those premiere night tickets these days, primarily because there's almost nobody in the theater on those nights and because it lets us see the movie essentially before release. For some movies I really want to see them as soon as possible, and for others it's just a fun night out with the wife. Neither Daisy nor I work on Fridays, so a Thursday night date night is a little treat.

For those of you who expected a full-on, in-depth review of The Mandalorian and Grogu, you're going to have to go somewhere else for that. I thought the movie was fine -- it was fun, it was well-acted and the production value was great (read: it was pretty), but honestly it's skippable. It's a nice little bottle story that could've been the first 3-4 episodes of the next season of The Mandalorian on Disney+ and nobody would've batted an eye, and I think that is its main flaw -- if you're going to move this to the big screen, either do something mindblowing and universe-changing for the characters, or don't do it at all and just make it, again, the first 3-4 episodes of the next season of the show. Putting that into theaters seems a little...cash grabby. And this is Star Wars, owned by the Disney Corporation -- they have more money than God and no reason to be cash grabby about any of their properties. 

Am I glad I booked the tickets and we got to see it in the theater? Sure. It was fun. Daisy enjoyed it, and she is not a Star Wars person. But it's not something we had to do that was a non-negotiable thing. I do like seeing Star Wars stuff on the big screen when I can, though. 

Next week, we already have our premiere night tickets booked for Masters of the Universe, and I am appropriately excited for that. He-Man has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and the trailers I've seen make the movie look fun, which is something the franchise has needed for a long time. 

In other news, I have now become allergic to...something. 

Let me explain. About two weeks ago, when I was awake in the night playing games or writing here or who knows what, I ate something that gave me what seemed at the time to be a mild allergic reaction in my mouth -- my lips and cheek swelled up and my mouth became numb for a few hours before the feeling, eventually, subsided. With my mouth sores/pain still going strong at that time, I am not sure how bad it was because my mouth was already in pain and feeling raw and numb all the time anyhow.

Well.

A few nights ago I experienced the allergic reaction again, and it was stronger this time -- now that my mouth is healed up and like 95% normal, I could way more easily feel the swelling starting, the numbness and tingling forming, and this time...my throat began to close up.

Now, mind you, the one thing that I thought I had that was different than my normal foods was a new pack of sour blue raspberry Extra chewing gum...purchased, ironically, to give my mouth something to do because I'd quit vaping. I'd used it the night I'd had the mild reaction (and never thought anything of it at the time) and I'd had several more pieces of it the night that I had the strong reaction and my throat began to swell up, so -- this had to be the culprit, or so I thought.

That ruined our night, by the way -- we were supposed to have a quiet relaxing evening watching the new season of Married at First Sight on Netflix and eating dinner, leisurely, and my throat began closing up.

I will say that I have never had a food allergy before, to anything, to my knowledge. I have gone 43 years on this planet, closing in on 44, with relatively few allergies to anything. I have seasonal allergies to pollen, ragweed, etc -- and I have weather-related allergies to pressure changes and storm fronts and the like -- but never anything food-related. Randomly developing allergies to foods or flavorings or colorings, artificial colors/flavors or anything like that -- it has always been one of those back-burner paranoid fears. I've watched Daisy's mother randomly develop horrible allergies to foods she has eaten her entire life, just...out of the blue. Daisy's mother cannot have simple things like quinoa, bananas, walnuts or almonds, cinnamon, apples, and a long list of other things -- those allergies are all new, within the past several years. I have also watched nephews from both of Daisy's sisters have allergic reactions to foods so severe that they'd had to be rushed to the hospital or administered liquid Benadryl, epi-pens, or all of the above.

Good lord I do not want that at all.

So, there I sat on the couch, with Daisy getting more and more concerned with how the reaction was increasing (mind you, this was hours after I'd chewed this Extra gum). She kept asking me if I needed to go to the ER.

"No," I said. "I can breathe fine--" I took deep breaths in and out to prove it to her. "It's my swallow hole that's closing up, not the breathing hole."

"It's the same throat," she said.

"Yes, but it is two different tubes," I said. 

Which is true. It wasn't my trachea that was closing up, it was my esophagus -- it was very difficult to swallow. 

I took two Benadryl -- which, because of paranoia, we always have in the house -- and within a half hour I felt the reaction stopping and I was beginning to get drowsy. I told Daisy that I needed to go upstairs and crash, because the Benadryl was not giving me a choice in the matter. I apologized for ruining our evening. 

I immediately threw the two unopened packs of gum I had left directly into the trash. Not risking that again.

I went upstairs and sat at my computer for a bit, catching up on Youtube, to give the Benadryl some time and to confirm that it wasn't just stopping the allergic reaction, but was actively reversing it -- fighting the sleep that it was trying to pull me into the entire time. When, after about an hour, I was actively feeling the reaction subside, I logged off my machine and settled into my chair -- fully clothed, sweaty, but near unconscious already, and passed out.

Daisy told me that she came in about an hour later to check on me to make sure I wasn't dead, and I told her I was fine and to go away, because I was sleeping. I do not remember this. 

I next awoke approximately four hours later, at which juncture I desperately needed to pee, but my allergic reaction was completely gone as if it had never happened. I used the bathroom and checked my messages to find a message from Mama asking if I was okay -- to which I replied I was -- and then I passed back out.

I awoke another hour or so later with horrible diarrhea (because, of course I did) and texted Daisy from the bathroom that my stomach was going nuts and I just needed to rest, so please let me do so -- and if she heard me struggling in the bathroom to try to ignore me. She was still downstairs and was talking on the phone, at length, to one of our mutual friends who is currently going through a messy divorce and needed some moral support. 

When I finally awoke, it was almost dawn. I had slept for what my Fitbit had declared was almost nine hours, had gotten up to use the bathroom twice, and had a very deep, sweaty sleep in my chair while I dream-battled Benadryl demons (figuratively; I just remember having some really bizarre dreams). But the reaction was over, and as a side effect I'd gotten some great sleep because of it.

Well, for the moment.

Later that morning, as we were getting up and starting our day, I had some chips to put something on my stomach. They were the Walmart-brand, Great Value cheddar-and-sour-cream ripple chips -- chips that I have eaten, no joke, probably 500 times from Walmart over the course of the past 30 years or so. I had four bags of them in the house and they tend to be a go-to for me for cheap chips when I do a grocery order. 

Immediately after eating, eh, maybe 1/3 of a bag of the chips -- mostly finishing the crumbs at the bottom of the bag that I'd been eating, in my office, off and on for a week -- my mouth began to go numb, lips and cheeks began to swell, and my throat started to close. 

My first thought was what the fuck, I'm allergic to the chips too? and then I realized that the days I'd eaten the chips up to that point -- including the fact that I'd eaten a bunch of them the day before -- had coincided with the days I'd had reactions. However, I'd eaten some of the chips in the middle of the night too, between reaction one and reaction two, and had not experienced any side effects. 

This reaction wasn't as bad as the one the night before, but it did seem to come on far faster. I immediately took a single Benadryl and it made the reaction subside quickly, but I was now left with a dilemma. Was it actually the chips? Was it actually the gum? I don't know. I didn't have anything out of the ordinary otherwise, and it seems strange to get a spontaneous allergic reaction to something in the potato chips that I've legit been eating on a fairly decent regular basis for the past 30ish years. 

The other factor is another gum, interestingly enough -- Big Red. I got a case of Big Red when I stopped vaping, because I like Big Red (it's about the only cinnamon-related thing I can stand). I chewed Big Red on all of the occasions I also had the allergic reactions -- however, I've also chewed half the case of it before those reactions with no effect whatsoever, so....who knows. 

I still have an open pack of Big Red in front of me and I am not going to risk chewing any more of it until I don't have to be on the clock for work anymore for the week and don't have anything else to do for the day, because I need a controlled environment. I still have the Big Red and I still have two unopened bags of the chips -- we're gonna find out for damn sure which one is the culprit.

So...yeah. Onward into the rest of summer, I suppose.