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.
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