Brandon Prepares to Conquer Canada, Part III: The End of Summer

 Well, we are now in Labor Day weekend, which is the unofficial end of summer and start of fall. As if on cue, it started raining on Friday and really hasn't stopped for longer than a few minutes since -- likely the most rain we've had over a few days' span all year up to this point, at least from a consistency point of view. 

I have the weekend off; I don't return to work until 10pm Monday night. This means my extra "Labor Day" holiday is today. I giveth no fucks about what's going on at work; I know we have coverage for the shifts necessary and once that was achieved, I stopped caring. This weekend for me has been about family, spending time with Daisy, and shopping/paying bills. 

I'm sort of in a holding pattern at this point for the rest of my normal life stuff or for the planning of the Canada trip; I'm either waiting for supplies to arrive for various reasons. Most of the Labor Day sales for various companies or sites don't interest me in the least and I really haven't paid attention to them; I've instead been slowly acquiring the supplies necessary for a trip to Canada in the fall months and am really just biding my time waiting for a lot of it to arrive. Here's the list so far:

• Six different types of vegan jerky and three different packs of vegan Slim Jims to sample/try to see which one(s) I want to take on the trip in my backpack (arrives Tuesday) 
• Not to be outdone, Daisy also ordered a large amount of Louisville vegan jerky that will arrive...sometime, eventually, who knows
• A case of Lenny & Larry's "The Complete Cookie" white chocolate macadamia, to not only eat here in the house -- yes, they're "good for you" cookies -- but to take several of in the backpack (arrived yesterday)
• A $30 jacket from Walmart to see if it's too light/heavy to wear daily up there (arrives sometime mid-month, it's being shipped from overseas; meh, it looked cool and was worth a shot)
• A $53 thin/packable hooded jacket from Columbia to wear anytime as long as I like it, but specifically for the Canada trip (arrives Tuesday; if I don't like it, I got it from Amazon and can easily return it)
• A Poison t-shirt that I originally ordered from Walmart but the order got cancelled because they were out of stock, so I reordered it from Old Navy, who had the exact shirt in stock (arrives in "7-9 business days")
• An Ozzy Osbourne tribute shirt, also from Old Navy (arrives in "5-8 business days")
• The final two presents for my Dad for Christmas, yet again from Old Navy, done in the same order as the Ozzy shirt
• Two Jonathan Coulton CDs (those aren't for the trip, they're just a me thing)
• Three cases of different energy drinks (also not for the trip, just for me)
• A bottle of "Snickerdudel" Old Spice limited edition holiday body wash (again, just a me thing)

I am still trying to mentally plot my suitcase out; the backpack is nearly done. I'll add a few things here and there to the backpack, but there's nothing else I need to put in it that's not already in there. The suitcase is an entirely different ballgame. I'll likely only take about 1/3 of what is in it now and will try to leave it as close to half-empty as I can. Traveling to Canada for me is just like camping, but into a motel with a Tim Hortons next door instead of a tent. I try to survive on the barest of essentials, consume a large amount of what I take with me so that I'm not bringing it back, and leave as much space as possible in the bags to bring new things back. 

Of course, there's a lot of political instability between our two countries right now -- something I never actually thought I'd say. We're likely going to face a fair amount more scrutiny and a bit more brusqueness this time around simply because we're Americans, so my goal is to blend in as much as possible while we're up there. That's also part of the reason for getting a new jacket to wear while there -- if the wife and I can blend in and pass for Canadian there will be less proverbial eyes on us and therefore less worry that we'll be subject to rudeness or any other sort of discrimination.

Per Mama, who is indeed Canadian, this is nothing new; Canadians have generally looked down on and/or disliked most Americans since the beginning, and it's been a running theme her entire life. It's not really something she's seen change; when she married Dad, fifty years ago, it was difficult for him to get a job in Canada simply because he was American, despite the fact that he was living in Canada and was married to a Canadian. Canada has always employed a "Canada first" policy that tends to be way more harsh to outsiders (just from what I've seen and been told) than our "America first" mindset here. You know that whole "made in the USA" and "buy American" sentiment that seems to surge in popularity here every few years? Yeah, it has always been really strong in Canada and I am sure with the actions of our current president, it has absolutely reached a fever pitch there with anti-American sentiment now running at the highest it's ever been. But, even before that, I have watched Daisy's family members, including her grandmother, physically recoil in disgust when they find out that a food item, condiment, napkin/paper towels etc was either made in America or has American components/ingredients. That blew my mind.

Now mind you, I wasn't born or raised in that culture, but I can't imagine feeling that way when reading the fine print on a ketchup bottle or paper towel packaging and seeing some components or ingredients came from another country. Maybe I'm just used to it? Half the shit in my house was made in China, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, or somewhere in South America. It's absolutely not something I ever really think about, much less recoil at. All of my vapes, all of the companies who manufacture and produce the disposables, coils, tanks, mods, etc -- all of them are Chinese. 

So, what I'm saying is...yes, we have to be a bit cautious and mindful while we're up there. More so than ever before. Daisy's family doesn't really treat us any differently of course -- we are welcomed with love and open arms because we're family and also because they know we despise Donald Trump, and aren't "typical" Americans. And, luckily, most of the people we see and spend time with up there are family, or are longtime family friends who also know our viewpoints and mindsets. Still, I would never go out in public wearing any clearly American clothing or anything else that might draw extra attention to myself. I can only hope our rental car this time around doesn't have American plates (it's a toss up a lot of the time, at least in Atlantic Canada, whether this will be the case). I enjoy myself, I learn the local lingo, will now attempt to emulate a bit of the accent of the area consciously, and otherwise stay under the radar. 

Despite it being a holiday weekend, I haven't gotten a lot of real rest or sleep. I've been averaging about 5-6 hours a day/night, and it's not been enough. On Thursday, I got up and did some household chores, and then cooked spaghetti and (vegan) meatballs for the wife and myself for our weekly "dinner and Star Trek night." Friday I spent doing a lot of yard work and even more housework before passing out for a few hours in the afternoon due to exhaustion. Saturday was spent galivanting around town with Mama -- we took her out to lunch for falafels and then went to HomeGoods with her before returning to the family home for several more hours. 

I do need to break down some events though, things I haven't covered here before. 

On Thursday night, during our Star Trek-fueled dinner, Daisy said she smelled smoke -- or like something was really hot, like she could "smell heat." I got a faint whiff of it, and we scoured the house for anything we could find, and came up empty. She thought in the end that it may have been the plastic food processor parts in the dishwasher getting warm during the drying cycle, as she is never downstairs when the dishwasher is running (generally, she puts it on before bed and goes upstairs, and it runs while I'm working the overnight -- but on Thursday I'd been running an extra cycle because I washed all the cats' bowls and their water fountain). When she entered the kitchen again some time after this, she smelled it again, and at that time pinpointed it to the dishwasher's drying cycle for the plastic food processor parts in it being the likely culprit. I could smell that too but I was used to it because, well, the dishwasher is running almost every night when I'm downstairs. So, I didn't think much of anything else of it. 

However, she did tell me -- on Thursday night -- that weeks ago, when she was out in the backyard, she smelled a faint whiff of natural gas. Mind you, the utility board installed our new outside gas meter about two years ago now (eh, roughly, I can't really remember -- might have been three) and we have never had a problem with it. 

"You're just now telling me this?" I asked. I was mad. 

She said it slipped her mind and she never thought of it afterwards. I could not fathom that. I slightly lost my mind a little bit. 

The next day, I went out to do the yard work and it involved running the string trimmer along that side of the house where the gas meter was. So I went to investigate, and sure enough, I smelled gas. It wasn't strong, but it was enough to smell it in the air. There were no visible leaks on the meter and nothing looked out of place, but I knew that smelling gas was a bad thing. I immediately called Daisy over to the door and told her I smelled gas and she needed to call the utility board, and call them now, so that they'd send someone out before the holiday weekend. 

She comes back out a few minutes later and tells me "they're sending someone out on an emergency call ASAP, but they also said we need to evacuate the property."

Mind you, at this point it's hot, I've been in the sun for almost two hours and still have more work to do outside in the yard, and I am covered in sweat and grass. I am at the dirtiest and greasiest I have been in weeks. 

"Fuck that," I said. "I'm not evacuating shit, I still have another hour of yard work to do and the smell of gas is outside, very faint, not inside the house."

Daisy was ready to pack up all six of the cats and take her laptop over to her parents' to work for the day (she had not started work yet) and I was like "no, that's fucking stupid, it's outside the house."

The utility board guy and his truck pulled up to the house less than five minutes later, took a reading and was like "yeah, this nut is loose" -- he tightened it, and the problem was fixed. 

Daisy even had him check the inside of his house with the meter as well, just to make sure there were no other leaks. There were none. 

I wonder how much our gas bill was artificially inflated by a slow leak, for weeks or months, due to a nut that was slightly loose. 

So, crisis averted, we went on with our lives and I continued the yard work. When I finally finished, I had just come back in the house when Daisy came running to my room to tell me not to strip off my clothing yet and not to shower, because the Catsitter lady was coming over to drop off the house key and she couldn't deal with it because she was already working and on the phones for the day. So, I went back downstairs, every part of me aching, covered in sweat, and as filthy as Pigpen from Peanuts, and got the key from our very nice Catsitter lady.

I showered thereafter, and with Pete on my ottoman with me (and occasionally on my chest) I passed out in my chair from sheer exhaustion.

That night, our microwave blew out and died. 

We have had so many problems with microwaves since Daisy and I have been married. The microwave in our apartment blew out more than once, and we had it fixed there by the maintenance people and eventually replaced. The same thing happened here in the house a few years ago -- the techs were able to come fix it twice before the last one completely died and needed to be replaced. Now the same thing has happened again -- it will turn on and rotate the plate, but it will not heat anything anymore. Even before that we would occasionally hear it "short" and make a zzaaaap noise if we'd been cooking anything on the stove beneath it before we used it -- I guess that's a huge design flaw of the over-the-range microwaves. Either that or they just, as they say, "don't make 'em like they used to."

Anyway, Daisy will have to open a home warranty ticket on that to get it fixed or replaced, because in 2025 you can't really function without a working microwave.

The stove is fucked too; the front burner on the right side doesn't work and hasn't worked in years, and the oven itself has something wrong with the control board or something because when it's on, it will flick back and forth between self-clean mode and bake mode. Over and over. The oven, at least, is likely old enough to where if it's a major part, we could just get the thing completely replaced with our home warranty. But, all of it is a hassle. It all takes time and is energy-consuming when legitimately all I want to do is try to find a way to get restful sleep and to feel revitalized instead of in joint pain when I wake up. 

I've found that as I get older, a lot of my time is consumed by pain management. I find myself needing to take glucosamine or ibuprofen, or both, almost every single day. In the spring and fall, that expands to sinus pain and pressure pills too, when my face and nose decides that it wants to pressurize so badly it sends lightning strikes of pain through my cheekbones and teeth. I have also found myself supplementing all of these pain management techniques with energy drinks and strong coffee, because I frequently have trouble acquiring the "get up and go" or "actually stay the fuck awake" energy I need to be able to...y'know, move about the house, do my job, leave the house for errands, or really do anything. Am I just getting old now? Is this part of the process, or am I really breaking down prematurely? I honestly don't know. I turn 43 in a few months and it seems early for my body to just be without energy this much and in such constant joint pain all the time, but maybe not.

Brandon Prepares to Conquer Canada, Part II

 My PTO request for the Canada trip has been approved, and all parties in leadership are aware I'll be out during that week. That was the final hurdle to overcome for me. I will now clear some space on my credit cards (after all, I did use those cards while traveling to NC and back), finish packing up, and when that flight lifts off to the Great White North, goddammit, I will be so ready.

We are there for a little over a full week, as two days of the trip are travel-only. We fly out of Omaha into Philadelphia (which I will now be able to add to the list of airports/cities I've visited, as I've never been there before -- but I hear it's always sunny there) and from Philadelphia directly into Halifax. When we return, it's the same route in reverse. 

I have spent this week, off and on anyway, preparing supplies. I ordered a new phone stand charger, which will go directly into my backpack, and separate plugs for it. I ordered little jars of Noxzema so that I can shave while I'm there without taking a pressurized can of shaving cream or the entire mug/brush shaving soap set that I use here at home.

As an aside, if you're a guy and you've never used Noxzema -- like, normal, blue-jar plain Noxzema -- as a shaving cream, holy hell are you missing out on one of the best shaving experiences ever. Around twenty years ago, I read something online about people using Noxzema for shaving, so I figured I'd try it. I've never had a better shave. It's a bit pricey, and it can absolutely be messy, so I don't use it every time (that's what the mug/brush kit is for, which I like almost as much) but when I want to look and feel my absolute best, the Noxzema shave is the way to go. I will have to touch up the beard the day of/night before the wedding, and there's no easier alternative than to just toss a good disposable razor and a small jar of Noxzema into the travel bag. Until then, aside from a little weekly upkeep here and there, I'm letting the beard grow back out evenly between now and the trip. It takes forever for my beard to really grow out anyway. 

I have also ordered a few types of vegan jerky to test out before the trip; it is a tradition of mine that when traveling to Canada, I always have a bag full of vegan jerky to munch on in airports, in the hotel room, etc. It started several years ago when Walmart put my favorite, Beyond Jerky, on deep clearance -- which allowed me to get proverbial cases of it all at once pretty cheaply. Beyond Jerky, sadly, now seems to be discontinued as I haven't been able to find it in stores or online in well over a year:

Well, shit.

That's really sad to me because it was great. So, I've been trying to find a suitable replacement that isn't ungodly expensive or, if ungodly expensive, actually puts enough into a bag where it's worth the price. This can also get pricey, so I'm trying a few different varieties found on Amazon one pack at a time. The plan is, well, whichever one I like best, order a fuckton of it and stuff it all into my travel backpack. 

The travel backpack, for Canada, is always light and left at least half empty. All of my mostly-important stuff and clothing goes into the checked suitcase, leaving the travel backpack (which is all I took to NC) for my passport, a change of clothes, a spare pair of shoes/glasses, my pills and electronics (such as my mp3 players, vapes, etc) and small food items like the jerky or some protein bars, etc. On the way there, the backpack is a contingency plan of sorts -- if the plane loses my luggage or it's delayed coming in and they have to deliver it to the family homestead later (or what have you), I've at least got a change of clothes, my meds, passport, and food. It's not the end of the world is what I'm saying. I can work around a lot of things with that. No, it's not ideal, but it's workable.

On the way back, the travel backpack is usually bursting full of Canadian candy bars, ketchup chips, some of the new wardrobe purchases I've made, and any other odds and ends that I can bring home. This is planned, this is travel-by-design for me. And most of the time I am amazingly efficient at it.

I may have mentioned this earlier, but I have hit my weight-loss goal for the time being -- or at least, the goal I had from 2018 until now -- I am, finally, back in the 200s again for the first time since the Bush administration. Or, at least I was before I went to NC for a week and ate like an absolute asshole. I have not weighed myself since I returned home. I also don't expect to be in the 200s by the time I get back from Canada; when I am there, I absolutely partake of all of the best foods the country has to offer -- it's not just the poutines, but it's their breads and cheeses, their vegan lunch meats (far superior to those I can get stateside), their sodas, their ketchup and all-dressed chips, their (also far superior) Canadian candy bars, Tim Hortons, etc. I absolutely let myself go and throw caution to the wind when I'm in Canada, and it is so very worth it.

But, I digress.

I should be done stockpiling supplies by the end of next week, and then phase II of the preparations can begin -- making sure I maximize all space while also making sure I bring all the essentials. As I mentioned in my last entry here, the suitcase is currently a "dry run" where I am just checking to see how much space things take up. I'll be removing and replacing a lot of the stuff in it, and will constantly be arranging and rearranging items for weight/weight distribution and just general space likely up until the night before we leave. I am slightly obsessive about it. Daisy thinks I'm batshit crazy about it, in fact. But I am meticulous, and I am a planner. Everything is done by design. I know how long each of my vapes last, because I use them every day. I know how many Nicorette mints I tend to go through during a day of travel through airports. I know what shoes, and what pants, to wear for maximum comfort during travel. I know how long I can live in a single hoodie and pants before I absolutely need to change/wash them at the family homestead. I know how long my mp3 players' batteries last on a full charge. These are likely afterthoughts to most folks, but not to me. 

We have heard back from our Catsitter lady and she may be able to watch the cats again while we're in Canada -- we offered to pay her more to offset the cost of gas, as the other job she's doing during that time is across town about, oh, fifteen miles away. She's considering it, at least, and is going to see if she can work it into her schedule. I'm almost willing to pay her whatever she asks, even if it would normally be an exorbitant fee, because the cats like her so much and she was wonderful with them when we were in NC. I can't stress how absolutely at ease I was with her taking care of the kids. 

I am letting the dye fade out of my hair for the next few weeks -- I will not re-up the color in it, I will not touch it up or treat it with color-protecting products -- I am letting it fade out so that a week or so before the trip, Daisy can re-do it with the new black dye I purchased from Sally Beauty Supply a few weeks ago and have it be all fresh, but with a week or so buffer in order to let any excess wash out and make the hair look more natural. My normal hair is growing back in at the roots, and as it's naturally medium brown it's not too hard to get it to absorb the color needed to make it fully black. I'm eschewing the Just For Men beard dye this time around, though. 

Brandon Prepares to Conquer Canada, Part I

 Our trip to Canada is in the beginning of October. Next week is September. So, it's a lot closer than it seems. As such, we (mainly me) have been doing everything possible to start preparing for it now, because I know once I get bogged down with work stresses again on a daily basis, finding the energy to do so during the brief few days I'm off every week will prove to be an almost insurmountable task.

And, to be fair, there are a lot more preparations necessary for international travel. When we go to Canada, it's not just a "throw some clothes and vapes into my backpack and wing it" experience -- there are so very many factors to consider and plan for, such as the rental car, hotel accommodations (because after all, in Canada, we're not staying with my parents) for two different cities, planning international flights, planning for contingencies like luggage getting lost on international flights, exchanging currency, making sure we take clothing for all possible weather situations, etc. It's so much more work and planning than it is to just fly to North Carolina to visit my parents.

Adding to this, we're not just going for a pleasure trip this time around -- this trip is specifically to see some family briefly and then attend Daisy's cousin's wedding the day before we fly home. PTO is tight for both of us because we just returned from North Carolina -- I have zero wiggle room left after applying my PTO last night upon my return to work. We'll get back into Omaha on a Sunday night (and it hurts that I had to burn the PTO for that day, as I won't get home for hours after I'd have to start work) and both of us immediately return to work the next day with no breathing space or recovery time. 

But, it's still an international trip, so normal international trip preparations must be made in addition to preparation for a wedding we'll be attending.

As an aside, on average I attend about one wedding a year. Again, average. Most times it's not an incredibly formal affair (I don't think this one will be either), but I still try to make myself look nice, if not incredibly presentable. I owe that to the folks getting married. The problem is, well, I don't really have any "dressy" clothing. I have two sport coats -- one I got married in and the other I tend to wear to weddings, but as I've lost so much weight it looks like a tent on me now. I have maybe four pairs of dressy slacks in a few assorted colors, and I look weird in them when I wear them. I have two pairs of incredibly uncomfortable dress shoes that I can't wear for long periods of time or my feet will hurt for days (actually, I'll probably donate those soon). Everything else in my closet is jeans/sweatpants, t-shirts, shorts, hoodies, and flip-flops. I don't leave the house anymore unless I have to, and as formal dress opportunities are once a year on average, aside from those things my wardrobe has been pared down considerably over the course of the past few years since the pandemic. 

I also find it hard to pack for Canada in October. In October, it could be crazy cold below freezing every day/night, or they could be having an Indian Summer™ and it could be in the 60s and 70s every day. When we were there in May a couple of years ago, it was like this too -- below freezing in the mornings and still spring-brisk in the daytime/afternoon hours. I think it hit 70 for the first time one of the last days we were there. So I mean, we kind of have to consider both types of weather because in Atlantic Canada anything and everything can exist in the same day -- I've seen it. 

Space is at a premium too -- as I've written here before, when we travel, we tend to shop and update our wardrobes considerably. Canadian Walmarts are amazing and other chains up there like Giant Tiger are great too. They carry clothing in fat-people sizes and are wildly affordable, especially with the exchange rate being what it is. Let's check on that for a second, shall we?

Yeah, that's about average. Basically, look at it this way -- in Canada, our money goes 39% farther.

But because we know we will be getting new clothing in Canada, it generally shapes what we take with us because, after all, we have to save space in our luggage. Suitcases have a max weight limit of 50 pounds for checked baggage -- and both of us tend to come reaaaaally close to that on return trips from Canada. But, also, like... why would I pack a hoodie, for example, if I know I'll get at least one new one while in Canada? Same goes for a lot of other clothing too. I don't know if there's a trip to Canada we've made where I didn't come back with at least one (last time, it was three) new hoodies. So, it's hard to plan for. What if we go up there and don't find anything new? Etc. 

I have preliminarily started packing my suitcase; there are other things that will go into it and things that I'll end up taking out of it. Mable was not amused:

So far, I have a couple pairs of sweatpants, some jeans, a zipper hoodie, a pullover hoodie, some t-shirts, and my cosmetics case/bag (see the far right of the photo). Where Mable is sitting, I'll zipper in the sport coat and other clothing specifically for the wedding to keep it separate. I also have to take a lint roller, because cats. 

Almost all of the clothing currently pictured in that suitcase will likely change between now and the trip. This is just a "dry run," so to speak, to figure out what I really need and how much space I really have to work with. 

Because of the dress shoes situation I mentioned earlier, I looked up and purchased a nice pair of black slip-on Skechers dressy-ish shoes this afternoon on Amazon. They'll likely be my main shoes when I'm traveling this time around; they would work both in casual as well as formal or semi-formal applications:

Good enough, right? Can wear 'em with normal pants as well as with dress pants and they won't stand out too much either way.

Mind you, I don't need more shoes, lord knows I have enough. But I have to be able to wear something comfortable and easy when traveling, and my other slip-on shoes are either Hey Dudes (too casual) or are tan/white, which do not go with the black/gray ensemble I'm wearing for the wedding. My other choices are Chuck Taylors with flames on them (which, incidentally, I wore to the last wedding I attended) or...flip flops.

Yeah, again, I'm not a dressy guy.

Daisy's cousin, who is an amazing person (her husband-to-be is too, by the way) would likely find it quite amusing that I'm stressing even this much about what shoes to wear to her wedding. But honestly I want to show up, I want my wife to be proud to be seen with me. I want to look good. 

I showed my wife the planned outfits when she came into my office on her break, and her response was "you know this is a really casual affair, right?"

Yes, yes I do.

I then folded up my jacket and dressy pants, and tossed a nice v-neck into the suitcase and zipped it up. Wedding outfit: done. 

I am excited, if you couldn't tell; I adore Canada. There's nowhere else on the planet I'd rather go, and when I'm there, there's nowhere else on the planet I'd rather be. Canada -- especially Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia -- feels so much like home to me. It just feels right, it feels safe there, and even though I'm an American, everything and every place feels like I am welcomed with open arms -- come to us, West Virginia boy, bathe in our maple syrup and Timmies, eat of our bountiful poutine, and listen to the soothing sounds of Gordon Lightfoot, Rush, and The Tragically Hip. I may be an outsider, but I never feel like one when I'm there. Ever. 

Conquering Carolina, Part VIII: The Return

 I awoke around 4am from a fitful, sweaty sleep, and immediately made sure my watch and phone were as charged as possible, along with the vape I had been using. My body craved actual restful sleep, but the best I could offer it was Monster and half a donut left over from the beignet place. I did not risk making a big cup of the strong coffee my parents keep in the house, as I really had no desire to spend half an hour on the toilet in the airport, trying to race the clock. 

At around 5:20, well before dawn, we loaded everything into the car and said our final farewells to my parents and the dogs. From there, it was a 43-mile drive from the island to the bagel place, which opened at 6:30 and was all the way on the other side of Wilmington from the airport. I got a BLT bagel sandwich (vegan bacon, of course) and a spinach-and-pepperjack bagel slathered in a thick layer of cream cheese to eat later. Daisy got...something, I dunno, I was very tired; but, it was good, because I tried it, and she also grabbed a few bagels in a paper bag to bring home to the parents. 

We dropped off the rental car and made it through security and to our gate without incident, made the flight to Charlotte without incident, and once we were in Charlotte...left the plane, got out into the airport, turned around, and....went right back to the exact same gate. And the exact same plane. 

I don't think I've ever experienced this while flying before -- getting on a plane to one airport, getting back off, and then getting right back on it again (different seats, though) to my final destination. It was wild and surreal, especially as Charlotte is a big airport. The odds of us flying into and then flying back out of the same gate has to be incredibly small, but flying out again on the same plane, with the same crew, just different seats? That has to be positively miniscule for an airport as large as Charlotte.

Incidentally, I'd totally name a child Charlotte. The name has been on my list for years.

Anyway, after a quick bathroom stop, we were back on the plane and wheels up to Omaha. Neither set of flights this time around was bad in any sense of the word; American Airlines used to be awful to fly on back in the day, but nowadays they're fine and the last few flights I've been on with them have been, dare I say, stress-free. They have treated us right, and I actually find myself saying that I do not mind them at all now. Plus, we're now both AAdvantage members and we're racking up miles; I believe I'm at like 1600 or something already. We'll double that on our fights to Canada and back this fall. 

What do the miles mean, really? Who knows. I haven't looked at their programs or how you redeem them aside from a quick glance at the app. It would be nice to be able to eventually fly to my parents' and back for free one of these days, or book a free trip to Canada, or Chicago and back, etc. We have a ton of Delta SkyMiles too, which I've also never really looked into. I'd be stunned if, by this point, we don't have significant discounts or free trips waiting for us with Delta, since we used to fly them everywhere for everything, for years on end. 

Shortly after 1pm we were on the ground again in Omaha, and an hour later the parents had picked us up and we were safely home with the kitties.

It was...a long trip.

I don't mean that in the sense that it was bad or stressful, because honestly it was absolutely neither of those things -- this is the most relaxing trip I've ever had to visit my parents, honestly, and the travel was fine -- but I think five or six days is about my comfortable limit for travel. Anything past that for me is very tiring and I feel like I'm counting down the minutes until I can be back home in my own environment and in my own house with the cats. Maybe that's just a me thing; I know most people are sad to see their vacations end, and on some level I am too, but a much larger part of me is very glad to be peacefully at home again.

Daisy returned to work on Friday; I myself do not return to work until Sunday night -- I work a quick four days and then I'm off for another four-day weekend, as this coming weekend is Labor Day weekend. It seems like the summer has absolutely disappeared, evaporated before our eyes. I am working the overnight of Labor Day but not the Sunday leading into it.

In the time since returning home, as I frequently say after these trips, life has slowly returned to normal. I spent most of the weekend doing laundry from the trip and beginning slow preparations for the trip to Canada in less than seven weeks. I still need to mow the grass, and I still need to get some real quality sleep and turn my sleep schedule back around to working overnights again, but we did do some grocery shopping and had a weekend meal with Daisy's parents (after which I promptly fell asleep in the living room chair). 

As if our unspoken prayers had been answered, after we returned home Omaha experienced a great drop in temperature -- highs this coming week are supposed to be in the low to mid 70s, and right now (as I write this) it's 59 outside, in late August, which has been remarkable. I plan to mow the grass on Monday, when the high is supposed to be 73.

The cats, of course, are very excited to have us home. Little Gary has been my shadow at almost all times, Pete has been very glad to have me back in the bed to sleep with, and Mable has tried to be as close with me as possible. Even the introverts, Hank and Emmy, are glad I'm home:

Charlie, however, is very much a mama's boy and has been spending a lot of time with Daisy. He'll come to me to show me he loves me too, but he is absolutely a mama's boy. I love them all so much and I am so very glad they were safe and sound while we were away, being watched by our wonderful Catsitter.

I may have mentioned before -- said Catsitter is not available when we're in Canada; she has another job that week and only takes one pet-sitting job at a time. We have considered offering her more money just to stop by for quick check-ins and to give Pete his pills, just to see if she'll reconsider. If she can't or won't, we'll have to start the search process all over again from scratch, and if we can't find anyone...it'll be the parents. It's sad and a bit frustrating, but I get it. It's hard on the parents, too. I don't want to ask them to do it if we can avoid it, because I know it's time-consuming and difficult for them and it's really hard for Mama to give Pete his pills. The cats know the parents, but they really seem to love the Catsitter. So, it is what it is. We'll see.

I have also started Christmas shopping for the season already. Yes, in August. I ordered a couple of things for my dad that I'll ship to them later in the year, closer to the holidays. I have not yet really looked through the photos I took while in North Carolina, but Daisy took far better ones while we were there as most of mine are selfies and/or short videos of the ocean -- so no, I have no idea as of yet what our "Christmas card photo" will be. We may not use any of the ones from NC; we may get far better ones in Canada. That likely means I'll hold off a bit on designing the cards this year so I can see all of the photos together, unless there's a particularly stunning one Daisy took during the NC trip that I haven't seen yet. 

I also have not looked at my credit card balances from the trip -- I sort of don't want to, to be honest. I spent a lot of money on the trip; I put the trip itself on one of my cards long before we left and every single expense during the trip -- save for Daisy checking her luggage for the planes -- I took care of myself. Every restaurant, every shopping trip, every drop of gas in the car, every piece of new clothing, every bagel, sandwich, or bottle of water was all on me. To be fair, Daisy did cover the rental car. We usually split the expenses a little more evenly, but as this was a trip mainly for me to see my parents, I figured it was only right to cover the vast majority of everything it entailed. And truthfully, I didn't really think about it. 

"Can the Canada trip just be our Christmas presents to each other this year?" Daisy asked me a few days ago. "I don't really want or need anything else."

"I don't either," I replied. 

And it's true, I don't. I'm sure we'll still get each other some little things here and there, but I expect a very light Christmas this year. There's very, very little I actually want that wouldn't just end up taking up space once the novelty wears off. I have like ten games for my Switch (and probably four or five more for Daisy's) that I/we have never played yet. I haven't even picked up my Switch since the holiday season last year. I have enough clothing, we have enough food, I don't want or need anything special. Give me a book and a few CDs and I'll be happy, or some good socks and underwear. I am not a picky guy. 

My aunt and uncle made it back home to WV fine, and we found out the next day that the extreme back pain my 78-year-old uncle was dealing with ended up being a god-awful shingles outbreak. This definitely explains a lot, and we completely understood their return home at that point. I don't know whether they were able to get a refund on the remaining time on their AirBNB, however. They loved meeting Daisy and deeply regretted not getting to see/know her more and spend time with us. Daisy also relayed to me that my aunt had told her, in their brief interactions, that I was her favorite nephew. 

Because of course I am. I'm pretty awesome.

The night before we left NC, we briefly got to speak to my oldest aunt via phone -- the one who was supposed to come down, but did not -- so we even got some interaction with her. She spoke to Daisy for probably twice the amount of time she talked to me (again, showing how much everyone in the family loves my wife). 

I am happy to be home, but I am definitely feelin' it, and it's going to take several days of recovery before I can really call myself normal again. It is what it is; I'm not mad at it, it just takes me longer and longer to recover from travel every time. I now know how Daisy's mother feels after a long trip (generally, she gets sick for a week or two). 

More to come, of course, as normal life resumes...

Conquering Carolina, Part VII: The Birthday

 By the next morning, all the news was talking about was Hurricane Erin and how close it would really get to smashing North Carolina. No other states, no other areas, specifically North Carolina and even more specifically, the Outer Banks. It was some of the strangest weather coverage I'd ever seen in my life, because it was not just local news, but national news-magazine shows like Good Morning America and The Today Show were heavily covering Erin from all angles, and had reporters onsite in Cape Hatteras where the winds and surf were picking up like crazy as the storm moved closer. 

Look, I've been in the epicenter of some really weird weather news coverage before, it's nothing new to me. Tom Brokaw legit stood on my street corner in St. Joseph, 100 feet from my front door, in December 2007 to report live on the great Missouri Ice Storm after it rolled through. Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel has visited different places I've lived numerous times for various weather events. I lived through the Blizzard of '93 in West Virginia, and countless other awful snowstorms, thunderstorms, and tornado outbreaks since then. But, when I can stand on the front porch at my parents' house, turn my head towards the ocean, and literally see a storm that's three hundred miles away out to sea physically churning because it is so big, it's a little different. Weather maps on television don't do the size of these storms justice. They just don't. When you can look towards a hurricane that's hundreds of miles away and its storm clouds still fill the horizon, that is a monster of a storm.

It was about this time when I really began to pay closer attention to Erin. If the winds and waves were bad enough, the storm could affect us by delaying or canceling our flights out of Wilmington the next day. Yes, we were quite some distance from the storm, but those winds and waves it was whipping up were no joke, even as far removed from it as we were on the island. I figured it was better to be informed and to be prepared.

During the day we had multiple people reach out to us to ask if we were being evacuated. Psh, no. There was never a question of that happening past, say, Sunday night or so. It just wasn't going to get close enough.

Of course, nothing happened -- the original forecasts were pretty accurate, and Erin churned out to sea as expected. As I write this, it has transitioned into a post tropical cyclone and is heading out to die in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. 

So, Wednesday -- and my parents' birthday, our last full day of vacation -- was here. When we asked them what they'd like to do and if they'd like us to take them out to eat, they said yes, and offered up a place they liked -- with vegan options -- called "Koko Cabana," which was right on the beach on the pier. Okay, sure. Sounded appealing enough, I guess.

Daisy and I had looked over the menu and it sounded good, so we said that was fine and we'd be happy to take them out. My mother suggested, originally, that we go for a late lunch between the normal lunch time and dinner, around 2. She later updated this to "let's be there when they open, at 11." Okay. Neither of us had any problems with this. So, we all got into the rental Jetta and made our way to the restaurant around 11 that morning.

My mother ordered the shrimp quesadilla. Dad ordered the fried shrimp plate. I ordered the "Koko Burger" with the meat subbed out for an Impossible Burger, and got a jumbo pretzel for us all to share. Daisy ordered the island bowl with tofu and got a virgin strawberry daquiri on the side. 

My parents seemed to thoroughly enjoy their dishes. Daisy and I faked enjoyment through ours. That giant pretzel was easily the best part of the meal for me, because the other food looked good, but it was unquestionably terrible. By far it was the worst meal I'd eaten while on the trip, and keep in mind I'd spent $23 on grocery store Chinese takeout from a hot bar. 

Look, it's hard to fuck up a burger. This place somehow managed to make a burger that looked good but was nearly completely flavorless. Daisy's "island bowl" looked great presentation-wise, but she said nearly everything in it was off and just tasted sad. We both could tell even at the time that neither of us liked the food, but we put on our smiles -- it was not about us, it was about my parents and celebrating their birthday, and they were loving every second of it. A lot of these restaurants, especially the higher-end, on-the-beach places that sell a lot of seafood, put up the front that they're "vegan and vegetarian-friendly" but their vegan/vegetarian options are lackluster or an afterthought only put on the menu to placate people like us. This was absolutely one of those places. It just wasn't good.

The bill was $130 for all four of us to eat there, and I happily paid because birthday, without a second thought about it. 

After the meal, we took the back way home and drove down "Yacht Drive," which connected to the other end of my parents' street. From the end we normally come in on, that side connects to the main drag through town and the beach strand access points all the way up and down the island. Yacht Drive, however, is the backside of the island that connects via the Atlantic Intracostal waterway (basically, a long canal that ships can use to access the ports and a popular recreational boating waterway). It's a long, wandering drive through the back of the island, and at the end of it -- a few blocks from my parents' house -- is a very pretty little park with docks that jut out over the water that can be fished from. Where the docks come off the shore, many oysters wash up, and little quarter-sized crabs -- hundreds of them -- were eating all of those shells clean. It was fascinating to watch; very much something you don't see in Nebraska. 

We got group photos on the docks (thanks to a very helpful girl who was also there with what appeared to be her brothers, who were fishing), watched the water for a bit, and then went back to the car.

I could not resist making the joke that we'd become the people who took their senior citizen parents out for a leisurely scenic drive after their early bird special dinner -- which was one of the few jokes I made that my parents actually found quite amusing. 

After we went back to the house, we asked the parents if they had any other plans for the day or wanted to do anything else. They did not, on either count. I told them we would take them out for ice cream at the place we went to in order to meet Daisy's friend, if they wanted -- that ice cream was amazing and it was indeed hot outside again. They said no, it was a long drive, etc. This led Daisy to look for any vegan ice cream options on the island. She could not find any. I would've been happy to just go get ice cream for them and bring it home, honestly, if the place was close and we could avoid too much melting. They just didn't seem that interested in leaving the house again. Daisy did, however, find a vegan smoothie/coffee place about five miles away that had a natural foods grocery store attached to it, and it looked promising. 

It was then time for the birthday gifts. My dad had gotten my mother a new wooden headboard for the bed, as she hates the current brass headboard/frame and has a quilted cover over it (I don't know why, as it's a gorgeous design). That had arrived earlier in the day and until it could be installed, it was put into the other spare storage room upstairs in the house. My mother, as mentioned, got him the shoes and a shirt, and the new Stephen King book.

I got my dad a Superman shirt, a flash drive full of music, a hardcover Alex Ross Fantastic Four book, and had prepared my old Fitbit for him -- complete with charging cables, extra watch face covers, and the metal band -- so that he could have the same Fitbit I got my mother and they can both use the same app, same accessories, etc etc. We got my mother a Chewy gift card so she can get stuff for the dogs, some new bath towels from Costco (brought down in Daisy's suitcase), I had ordered and sent the Panera coffee she requested beforehand as well. I think maybe Daisy got her a few other little things, I can't remember now.

We also gave them the gift card to the Mexican place I'd gotten during their birthday party.

By this time it was mid-afternoon and they were in for the day; they declined joining us for the smoothies/coffee place, so Daisy and I went out on our own to do that -- where she ended up getting a really good chocolate-based protein smoothie and I ended up getting a phenomenal iced coffee with a dash of oatmilk in it. She then asked if there was anything else I wanted to do while we were out.

"Actually yes," I replied, "I would love to go to the good Walmart in Southport, if you'd like to do that."

Let me explain.

When we came into town and drove down to the island, we'd stopped at the Walmart in a town called Leland, which was on the way down from Wilmington. It was a terrible Walmart; they didn't have half of the (very few) items on my shopping list and had almost no clothing section to speak of. Normally, we go to the Walmart in Southport (about, eh, 20ish minutes from the house) because they always have everything in stock and always have a giant clothing section with a lot of clearance racks every time we're there. We had some space in our luggage and we know the selection will always be good there, and it somehow felt wrong to go to the island and not stop at that Walmart to see what they had. It's legit the only time I/we get sort of excited to visit a Walmart.

Plus, it was late afternoon on a Wednesday -- of all days/times during the week, this was likely the least busy time to go bargain hunting at a Walmart.

We were very fortunate this time around; Daisy found several pairs of shorts, a dress, and some other odds and ends. I found the clearance racks and the men's t-shirt racks and loaded up on comic book shirts and music shirts for both myself and my dad -- I got one for me in my size, and one for him in his size for everything but one shirt (they didn't have one in my size). Now, my dad has a ton of shirts, but he did not have a Willie Nelson shirt or a Stevie Ray Vaughan shirt, and I knew he'd never venture out himself to get these things or look through the racks even if he did venture out, so I grabbed them up for him. He was, indeed, incredibly appreciative.

We filled the car with gas and returned home, tired, hot, and sore. The rest of the night, while we were awake, was spent packing and arranging everything we could to take home with us. My mother was asleep early, by around 9 or so. Daisy and I were up until 11 or so -- I was doing laundry and packing, and she was biding her time while I did the laundry, playing with the dogs, so she could shower and go immediately to bed afterwards. Our plane was scheduled to lift off around 9:15 in the morning, and we would be picking up bagels at the bagel place both for us for breakfast and to bring home to the parents, so we had to be out of the house pretty early. 

Conquering Carolina, Part VI: Erin, Go Blah

 At this point, we had two real days left of the trip -- Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday would be a travel day as we'd have to leave the house at 5am and would be back home in Omaha by 2pm, so we didn't count it. That meant we just had two days and nights to savor and do what we wanted to do with the family.

We'd planned ahead that Wednesday, my parents' shared birthday, would be all about them. We'd spend the day with them, we'd take them out for a meal to a place of their choosing and pay for it, and we would be absolutely intentional about all the time we had with them. It was also the last day we'd be there, so it seemed fitting in some respects. But Tuesday, we had zero plans whatsoever.

Daisy, who works remote from home, works with people scattered all over the country. One of the people she works with just so happens to live in Wilmington. She's close with this work friend, so when we were planning our trip -- even before planning the trip, months beforehand even -- I told her that if she wanted to, to let him know we would be in town and we could meet up with him. At this point, most of our friends, both hers and mine and many mutual ones, have moved out of or far away from Omaha for one reason or another, leaving us with very few friends here in town -- almost none of which we're close enough with to really hang out with (I can count two, maybe three). So of course, if Daisy wanted to take a few hours to go hang with her work colleague, I absolutely support that. It's no different to me than if we were in another city that one of my friends happened to live in, or -- conversely -- if one of our friends were passing through town. 

Daisy hemmed and hawed on it for a while; she experiences social anxiety like I do. I told her it was up to her; I was very tired and achy from the heat and all the activity and if I'd felt better it would be a resounding yes and I'd want her to do it even if the anxiety made her uncomfortable leading up to it, but as it was, I told her if she wanted to we could and if she decided against it (and spending the time/gas in the car to do it) I'd be okay with that too. Bottom line is that it's not just my vacation, it's our vacation and she would have my full support regardless of her decision.

Eventually, it was decided that they'd meet up for ice cream at a place where we could both get vegan ice cream and somewhere her friend could also bring the wife and kids to for ice cream. We'd stop for dinner again at Sealevel City Vegan Diner first -- that would mean the parents wouldn't have to worry about cooking any extravagant dinner for us on Tuesday night (or for the rest of the trip, since we were taking them out on Wednesday) and that they'd get a little peace for a few hours to decompress without us taking up space in the house.

I know they likely don't see it that way, but I also know I'm very particular about my own space, so whatever works, right?

So yeah, we set the plans to meet up with Daisy's friend that Tuesday night, he agreed, and we were good to go. 

Meanwhile, in Omaha...

As I've mentioned here in the past, when we go on vacation we set up every camera in the house and leave them on at all times to capture motion/movement of the cats. Most of the time when we're home, they're off or otherwise disconnected. For us, it's a safety/security issue. I want to know at a glance at my phone that the cats are okay, that nobody is breaking into the house, etc -- but I can also check the outside cameras to see if it's raining/storming, if anyone's approaching the house, if anything is going on down the street -- i.e. the happenings of the neighborhood. I can pull up a live feed of every single camera in real time on my phone any time I want, and that has proven incredibly useful in the past. It also let us know when the Catsitter arrived and we could watch her take care of the babies. Because of the creepiness aspect of this, we did generally turn off the cameras when we knew she was in the house.

Here's the issue with the cameras, however -- they are extremely sensitive to light and motion. You can turn down the sensitivity in the settings, yes, but if you do...well, what's the point? Every time a camera was triggered, I'd get a notification on my phone. I could turn those notifications off, but again, that's kind of the point. Now, we have six cats who tend to be pretty active in the overnight hours (a phenomenon I have, in the past, called goblin time). So every night between around 9pm and 2am or so, my phone would light up and vibrate every 20-30 seconds. It got so bad that to get it to stop, I just had to put my phone in airplane mode for the overnight hours unless I was actively using it. 

The Catsitter lady adores our cats, and this is a good thing because they really liked her as well. She would tell us stories of how they'd come running, and how even Hank and Emmy would come out and play and eat Churus and generally be social. I did catch video of her a few days ago sitting on the couch with Gary on her lap, Mable at her feet, and Pete and Charlie curled up together next to her as if they'd all known her their entire lives. Her love and kindness of these cats absolutely and immediately put me at ease on day one. I knew they were in good hands. 

At night, after she was gone, I would get notifications for cats in the kitchen and I would see Emmy standing on the chair harassing the fish:

Empress identifies as people now.

Or it would give me a movement notification and I'd open the camera/speaker to hear Pete howling because he was sad and couldn't find us (that was heartbreaking, but again, he howls all the time when he feels like it, so this is nothing new). 

Because of this, we wanted to ask her if she was available in October to watch the kids when we're in Canada -- and we did ask her -- but she is, unfortunately, working another pet-sitting job that week and she only works one job at a time. This means we'll have to start this process all over again with another Catsitter, likely, within the next two months. And I don't know if our babies will like someone else as much as her. 

Anyway, she said the cats were dears the entire time. Emmy and Hank were still somewhat shy, and she had a little trouble from time to time getting Pete to take his pills and eat Churu afterwards, but otherwise they were all angels. If she had any questions, she would text them to us and one of us would answer as soon as we were able. I was completely at ease and felt so lucky that we were able to find her. Normally the cats being left alone cause me great anxiety any time we're gone -- not this time. Aside from the fact that I missed them, and aside from showing my parents live video of them galivanting around the house in real-time, I didn't really give them much of a second thought throughout the entire trip.

Anyway, back to the main story.

I actually slept in a bit on Tuesday morning -- I was up rather late with Daisy just hanging out and chatting, and as such I didn't fall asleep for the night until probably around 1am. When I awoke around 6:30, it was gorgeous outside for the first time of the entire trip -- there was a good strong cool breeze blowing, the temperature was finally around 70ish (instead of already being in the 80s before the sun really got a chance to make its way into the sky) and it was overcast -- the perfect "sit on the porch in the early morning and drink a very strong cup of Italian roast coffee" weather.

This was, of course, because of Hurricane Erin -- which was bearing down on the Carolinas like it was aiming for North Carolina personally out of spite.

Ah yes, Erin. As the week had gone on, the local news and weather teams were drinking the hurricane hype Kool-Aid. It had not turned north as the original predictions thought it would, and instead had drifted further west -- making a quick landfall on the Outer Banks/Cape Hatteras a near certainty as the days went on. 

I will bring your attention back to the map that I posted last week before we left:

Now, I will bring your attention to its actual trajectory it took:

Slightly different tracks, of course, but not by a lot.

Well, the meteorologists along the Carolina coast were going nuts, all because it was going to get just a little bit closer to the North Carolina coast than originally predicted.

My parents, who have lived through hurricanes down there on the island over the course of the past decade or so, were mostly unfazed by the news. I made the joke that at least they hadn't bought a beach house on Cape Hatteras, Hatteras Island, or Rodanthe, as by Tuesday they were already issuing evacuations for that entire area.

I dunno, it all seemed rather overblown to me. They put up a red flag warning for all Carolina beaches, saying that it was unsafe to go in the water because of rough waves and rip currents, and Wrightsville Beach (probably, oh, 20-30 miles from the parents' house) had already counted seventy water rescues that lifeguards and beach patrols had performed. My mother made sure to repeat this to us multiple times (because autism), and I flat-out told her I was not going on a vacation to the beach without actually going to the beach and touching water. 

Now, mind you, this was the fourth day we'd been in NC and on the island and we had not even seen the beach once -- this is because we'd had other plans, we were too tired, or (and this was the biggest reason) it was too motherfuckin' hot to enjoy it. But, Tuesday morning, none of those things were a concern -- it was wonderful outside and we had nothing to do until that night when we'd meet up with Daisy's friend. So, once Daisy got up, we went to the beach.

Yeah, so...in North Carolina at least, beachgoers apparently give zero fucks about a red flag warning:

Yeah, I took that video myself, with my phone. There were still a LOT of people on the beach -- swimming, bodysurfing, going out way past the breakers, and generally doing everything that the news (and my mother) said not to do.

We walked along the beach for probably half a mile looking for neat shells, sea glass, and shark teeth. We went in as far as up to slightly above our knees (my rule was that I could get as wet as I wanted below where my iPhone sat in my pocket, but anything above that was a no-no).

I'm sure a psychiatrist would have a field day with that last sentence, but whatever. 

The surf was indeed rough and the tide was coming in and out in what seemed to be a quite unpredictable fashion -- sometimes it would come up and barely touch our toes, and other times a big wave would form out along the breakers and it would come up almost to our crotches, and we had not changed our latitude on the beach. That's a big swing in the span of a few moments -- but that's a hurricane out to sea for ya. 

We spent almost an hour on the beach -- a cool, relaxing hour where neither of us got burnt, neither of us got too much sand on us (the neoprene wetsuit socks I'd purchased are great) and we were able to get back to the house without incident. I also realized, and re-cemented, the fact that my parents live legit like...a mile or two from the actual beach, at most -- "actual beach" meaning "not the waterway between the mainland and the island," but the gigantic actual Atlantic Ocean. 

They're closer to the waterway, but still.

My parents can't tell us the last time they were on the actual beach. It was, likely, years ago. I know it's before they got their third dog, Annie, and they got her a while before we visited last year -- I know it was before they got her because my dad flat out told me she'd never been to the beach yet. 

Like...I can't imagine living in a beach town, on an island, where you can sit on the back porch and hear the waves at night...and never going to the beach. It absolutely blows my mind. And yes, I understand that they are old. But, they wanted to retire to a beach community, and they did, and they never actually experience the ocean, sun, and sand that comes along with that. In fact, it doesn't just come along with it, it is the number one reason to move to a beach bum town like Oak Island..

But then again, they also have the highest-end sedan Lexus made in 2007, take immaculate care of it, and they drive it as little as possible. So, I don't know. My parents are peculiar people, I suppose.

So, continuing.

Later that evening, after a short nap (seems to be a common theme), we went back up to Wilmington for dinner and to meet Daisy's friend. She was apprehensive and nervous, but I wasn't. I had her back, and I was sure she knew that if it got awkward or weird we could just up and leave -- it wasn't anything to me, I was there for moral support.

Well, her friend -- and his wife and kids -- were exceedingly sweet. Their kids were adorable and his wife was a nurse, and all of them were out for an evening of fantastic ice cream and photos. The weather even cooperated and it was a wonderful night to be outside under the palm trees. Turns out her coworker friend is originally from Ohio, and had worked in telecom (like I do now) before getting the job he and Daisy both share now. He and his family have been living in Wilmington for something like 11 years at this point.

"Oh, you're from Ohio," I said, "so you'll get this -- you have a Gabe's here!"

His face lit up. "Hell yeah we do," he said, grinning.  

We hung out for close to an hour, said our goodbyes, and then we drove back down to the island. It was a very pleasant experience with very pleasant new people. It tells me that there are some good folks left in the world. Normal people, normal families. Politics didn't come up once in conversation. They told us both how much they liked Daisy's purple hair (she got, and I'm not kidding, probably thirty compliments from different people in NC on her hair over the course of our vacation there, and I had multiple people stop me to tell me how much they loved my tattoos as well). 

When we got home, it was well after dark -- probably around 10pm. My mother was already in bed but came out for a few minutes to see us. We then showered, got a snack or three, and went to bed ourselves.

There was but one day left, and it was the big one....the birthday.

Conquering Carolina, Part V: A Dusting of Autism

 The next morning was Monday, which is -- during summer months, anyhow -- the local farmer's market and craft fair on the fairgrounds(?) next to the beach. It's a few miles from the house, and it's always a highlight of our trip there, even if we don't get anything and/or it's a million degrees outside.

We had plans for that day; because my aunt and uncle left so abruptly, we were able to cancel our dinner plans we'd had to eat at some fancy restaurant that they all wanted to go to -- there was little there either Daisy or myself could eat anyway, and my parents had been there multiple times and they were just going to do something nice with my aunt and uncle. With that out of the way, my mother asked us if we wanted to do the farmer's market that morning and then go straight from there to Gabe's. We also offered to get her lunch at Seaside Bagels or the Sealevel City Vegan Diner (both places in town that we love and make sure to hit up when we're there), but she didn't seem too interested. When we mentioned that we could also go to the Brooklyn Cafe to pick up the same donuts and beignets that we got last year when we were there, she perked up and said she'd be down for that. That sounded like a great plan to us, so that's what we set out to do.

The farmer's market opens at 8, and if you're not there by 8:30 or so, especially if the weather is nice, good fuckin' luck finding a place to park that isn't a mile away. You'll burn a gallon of gas circling the parking lot waiting for someone to leave and pull out so you can take their spot if you get there mid-morning -- so be there early, grab a spot, and go exploring. Well, we did get there by around 8:30 or so and parking was plentiful.

We didn't personally get anything at the market, but it excites my mother to go and shop around. She always purchases at least one tomato (this time around I think she got two) and that day she also bought a beautiful bunch of asparagus -- asparagus that looked really tasty. 

The rest of the market/craft fair was just meh. They had some very pretty art for sale that I was in no way going to spend $100 or more on (which was the asking prices for the larger pieces; smaller ones the size of my hand started at $40 and only went up from there). They always have food trucks too, and I could have gotten a funnel cake or any number of other goodies were I interested, but I really wasn't. 

"They want nine dollars for a lemonade?" I said to my mother. "That had better be the best fuckin' lemonade of my life." 

She laughed. What I really wanted to say was that lemonade better come with a handjob and a hot towel for cleanup afterwards if I'm paying nine dollars for it, but I held back. 

Gabe's is in Wilmington, about 40 miles or so from the parents' house on the island. Wilmington is a really cool seaside city, but getting through it and navigating your way to locations can be challenging -- it reminds me a lot of Omaha. I've lived here in Omaha for eleven years and Daisy has lived here for almost 25, and we still have to use GPS to find places because of the way the city is laid out. Wilmington is similar. Looking at statistics, the population is about 1/4 of what Omaha has and the entire metro area of Wilmington has about half the population the metro area of Omaha has. The actual physical size of the city is about 1/3 the size of Omaha -- so it's much smaller overall, and it does have that feel -- but the city is pretty condensed into neighborhoods and main drags and business/shopping areas just like most other cities. Well, because of that, and because it's on the ocean, the street maps are fairly creatively drawn and will just veer off in different directions while calling it all the same street, which plays hell with our GPS and following its directions. Gabe's in particular is in one of those shopping areas in one of many long strip malls, behind one of Wilmington's (apparently two) main shopping malls, and at the end of a long residential area. It's like driving through nice little neighborhoods and then you come to the end of a nice quiet street and it's BAM, shopping center! 

Like, it is what it is, I guess. I just find the town arranged oddly. It's likely very normal to most other folks. 

It was the first time my mother had actually been to this Gabe's; she knew it existed, but she never took the initiative to go on an adventure there herself. With how convoluted the GPS instructions were to get us there from the island, I don't blame her -- she'd likely get lost trying to find it herself. But, when we returned from there last year with bags full of things, she said then and there that when we came back she wanted to go with us the next time, and reiterated this on the phone a few weeks before we flew in. My aunt also wanted to come with us and make it a big trip, just like the old days, to see this Gabe's that I had seriously talked up due to its size and amazing selection of products. 

Last year when we went, it was pouring hard rain. I would like to note that as I am writing this, here in Omaha, it is also pouring hard rain. 

The morning was sunny and hot, and the sun at the farmer's market had done us no favors when it came to keeping cool. We had the AC in the rental Jetta on blast the entire drive. I mentioned to my mother that we would never have known this Gabe's existed if she hadn't told us, so any money we or she spent there was her fault. She seemed to get a kick out of that. 

This year, the Gabe's was...different. I've talked about Gabe's before here so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but imagine if Kmart, Burlington, and Big Lots had a romantic tryst that produced a baby, and that baby was a store with 80% clothing and 20% food/around-the-house stuff and clearance racks. That's sort of Gabe's in a nutshell. It's a department store with more clothing than anything else, really, but I've purchased a wild amount of odd items at various Gabe's stores over the years and they have rarely, if ever, disappointed me.

Last year, they had an entire giant section of Carhartt hoodies/pants/coats/shirts, including so many things in my size for deep-discount prices. I did not have the room last year to buy the big canvas duck coat and bring it home, but we knew we were coming to Gabe's this year and thus both Daisy and I left extra space in our luggage to accommodate. 

Well, this year, that giant section of Carhartt stuff was no longer there. They did have a rack of Carhartt t-shirts, and that was about it. Overall, I found a lot of the selection lacking this year, and they had giant sections of the store that was completely empty. Upon closer inspection, these were places where they'd be bringing in the racks of fall and winter clothing -- which wasn't out yet because it's still summer (last year it was out because we were down there over Labor Day, which is when these things start coming in stock). So that was a bit disappointing. 

Still, I found a few shirts, a few pairs of shorts, and several pairs of nice sweatpants. Some were on clearance, some were just "normal priced" at $4, $8, $10, etc. It's pennies compared to retail prices or if I were to try to order the same clothing on the sellers' websites. Daisy found some Torrid stuff, as well as a few pairs of shorts/skorts and some other odds and ends. We were shopping with the mindset that whatever we decided to purchase, money wasn't necessarily an object but luggage space was. 

When we were ready to go, I made sure my mother checked out first and that Daisy walked her out to the car to help put the stuff away while I grabbed a blue-and-gold flannel fall jacket off the rack and purchased it for my mother as another birthday present for her. With that, and with ALL the stuff Daisy and I both got, it was only $130 -- insanely inexpensive. My mother's jacket was $11 and that wasn't even a sale price, that was normal price. 

My mother, incidentally, got my dad a new pair of shoes, a new shirt, and some nuts as supplemental birthday gifts for him. I kind of got the sense that she hadn't gotten him anything at all (aside from the new Stephen King book, which she did show me the day prior) and needed the trip to Gabe's for that.

At the other end of the plaza Gabe's was in, there was a Harris Teeter grocery store. Now, I'd heard of Harris Teeter but I had never been in one. Neither had my mother, and she was curious. She asked if we could go in. Sure, why not?

She got some things -- I didn't really pay attention to what, honestly -- and I very quickly noticed Kroger-brand products on the shelves, so I knew it was owned by the Kroger company. That also meant that our Kroger cards would work there for discounts/sales and the like, just like they work at any of the other Kroger-owned stores (and I was right). But, my attention fell to the hot food bar, where they not only had amazing self-serve veggie fried rice, but amazing lo-mein/yakisoba too. I looked at the price. $11-something a pound. Pricy, but not crazily so. I got a container and got to work loading it down with equal parts fried rice and yakisoba. I filled it as much as I could and closed it up, and tested the weight -- eyeballing it, feeling its heft with my hands, etc -- I figured it was a little more than a pound, and I was okay with that. I'll pay $12-14 or so for good Chinese food that I don't have to cook myself, pick up, or get delivered -- it would be a nice little vacation treat meal for me. 

When we checked out, it was $23.26 (I looked at the receipt) for that container of Chinese food.

It was worth every penny, I'll add. 

Anyway. We got a few groceries there (mainly, we were browsing around while my mother did her own shopping), stuffed 'em in the trunk with the Gabe's stuff, and we were off to drive all the way to the other side of town to get the donuts and beignets -- what my mother had specifically requested. 

On the way there, I knew I had a captive audience with my mother in the backseat, and I knew she wasn't gonna bail out of a moving car, so I had a question for her that I had waited until that moment to ask because I knew she wouldn't be able to avoid it or walk away from it.

"Mom -- and I do not mean to offend you or criticize or anything like that, but I am just curious -- when I was a kid, did you ever have me tested or screened for any type of autism?"

"Psh, no," she said, looking at me like I was insane. "You don't have autism. You were a special little boy. You need to stop reading that shit."

Reading what shit? I had made no mention of reading anything.

"Well, I can tell you, I've taken some tests and I match up pretty heavily with a lot of autistic traits." 

Daisy and I exchanged glances. Daisy was driving and was finding it very hard not to burst into laughter. My mother became withdrawn and silent and did not respond to the question, or my statement, any further. 

Now, mind you, the only experience or exposure my mother has had to anyone autistic or otherwise on the spectrum is the particularly offensive or downright wrong portrayals of deeply autistic people on television -- like the kid from St. Elsewhere, for example -- or shows/movies that have written autistic spectrum characters as being one shade short of being retarded, because to those characters, it is debilitating to them (Rain Man comes to mind) and prevents them from leading a normal life. 

As you and I both know (hopefully, anyway) the spectrum is just that -- a spectrum, and that spectrum is wide. It ranges from people who have a dusting of it, a sprinkling of autism, to those who are full-blown catatonic and cannot function in society. I lean far more to the former than to the latter, but it's still there. It is definitely there. My mother seemed to be basing her knowledge of childhood autism on something like this list:

Well, yeah, based on that, I was not autistic as a child. None of those were traits I had then.

But...

And...

I had almost all of these. Well, not all, but a large number of them. I definitely had echolalia, and I remember hiding it from everyone until I could train myself to stop doing it. I focus on parts of objects, I used to spin around until I got dizzy or sick (apparently, that's stimming activity), I get upset by minor changes, I have obsessive interests, I am extremely routine/pattern based, and I do have unusual reactions to sensory things. 

I also have unusual eating and sleeping habits, gastrointestinal issues, mood/emotional instability at times, absolutely have anxiety/stress/worry/fear, etc.

But I also have a pretty normal life, none of it is debilitating, etc. 

So...it's a dusting of autism. 

But.

Daisy and I both realized something else, something big, and something we noticed at almost exactly the same time -- my mother has autism.

Of a sort, at least. She is definitely, absolutely on the spectrum. Undiagnosed, untreated, just part of her "quirks." I have no idea how I never noticed or realized it before. But it fits. It completely fits. And it explains so very much. Most of the items on the list that I can tick the box for, she could also tick the box for -- and for her, sometimes that tick would be in bold ink, underlined, and highlighted, if you get my drift.

Again, these are not all the traits of autism spectrum disorders -- this list almost completely bypasses the social/interacting-with-people aspects of the spectrum. So, let's go through those:

I have all of these to varying degrees, some of them more strongly than others. My mother also has all of these, in varying degrees as well. 

Again, it explains so very much.

Anyway.

We did get the beignets and donuts, of course...

I apologize for my sweatiness in this photo, but I will not apologize for the Tragically Hip shirt I'm wearing or for the tie-dye shirt my mother is wearing (that I made for her)

And then we returned home to the island after a very long day out and about, and my mother watched her soap operas and we took an afternoon nap. The autism discussion did not linger nor did it present any issues, we just moved on and it was seemingly forgotten.

"But Brandon," Daisy would tell me later with a smirk, "you were a special child."