In Preparation, Part III

 The new suitcase is mostly packed. I'll add a few other small items to it between now and when we leave, but it's done. It's only half full. I don't expect much more to go into it between now and March.

My big canvas backpack has all of my pills, my phone/vape charger, and three extra vapes packed into it -- along with a spare pair of shorts and a shirt, travel tissues, nicotine gum, and a few other little odds and ends. I'm not nearly done there yet. I have to plan for almost all possibilities when I travel or my anxiety goes haywire, so it's quite possible the backpack will be mostly full before we leave.

The rental car is booked. I don't know what Daisy booked for us, but she usually gets a "full size car," which last time was a Volkswagen that we weren't huge fans of, but was very pretty. Whatever it is, it will be fine. 

Almost all of my cosmetics and toiletries are packed and ready to go. I plan for almost every situation and most of the time my toiletries bag is more like a first aid kit than it is a toiletries bag. It contains over the counter medications for almost all ailments, band aids, flossers, Q-tips, allergy meds, sinus meds, stop-pooping pills, ibuprofen, L-Lysine, deodorant, tattoo cream, Noxzema, spray cologne (if you must know, it's "Dirty" from Lush) and other little emergency items like a spare pair of earbuds and a spare wall plug charger. I don't like leaving things to chance.

When we have about 2-3 weeks left before the trip, I will be pre-ordering and shipping some supplies to the island -- energy drinks, snacks and goodies to share with the parents, etc -- so that we don't have to purchase those things while we're there and so they'll be there when we arrive. I should have thought of this on the previous three trips down there to visit, but I did not. 

At the same time, there is a great contrast happening -- my parents, on the beachfront island in North Carolina, are currently experiencing the strongest snowstorm the North Carolina coast has ever seen.  Maybe the entire state, I don't know. The live feed videos and live storm coverage are harrowing and remind me far more of midwest and West Virginia snowstorms than anything else I've seen in recent memory. It will likely take weeks to melt off and for power to be restored for a lot of areas after this passes. The south had a crippling snowstorm last week too, for those of you who weren't paying attention, and large chunks of Tennessee and Kentucky are still fucked by that. The continued ungodly cold temperatures down there aren't helping either.

My parents have told me that the island isn't built for extreme cold weather and snow; it's built to withstand the bulk of tropical hurricanes, not blizzards. Most people's pipes aren't really insulated and may actually be exposed in a lot of places under houses and decks and the like. The state of North Carolina shuts down when there's even a dusting of snow; this storm could drop 5-10 inches on the actual island, let alone the rest of the state. So, for them, this is a nightmare scenario. It is also a historic one; while they have had some snow there in the years they've lived in North Carolina, it has never been anything like this. Records are being broken all over the state for cold temperatures and snowfall, and I'm guessing there are a lot of power outages. My parents, thankfully, have underground power, so that is far less of a concern for them than it would be for, say, us here in Omaha were a storm like this to roll through (don't worry, it has before, and it will again). 

Still, what a fuckin' mess. I am guessing even when we're down there in March they'll still be feeling some of the effects of this. 

Also, welcome to February. January has, finally, ended. The next two weeks up here in Omaha are looking...somewhat pleasant, interestingly enough. Highs in the 40s and brushing with 50, lows in the 20s and maybe high teens. This is what winter should be. I am not a snow denier; I know, of course, that it'll be really cold and we'll likely get at least one more big snowstorm this winter, but I am certainly not going to complain about some mild and more seasonal weather here in Nebraska for a few weeks. 

The wife and I have some goals for the next few weeks -- we plan to begin our slow return to the gym, we plan to start systematically cleaning out her office little by little, followed by the closet (and once it gets warmer, the garage). I've begun slowly hoarding a little cash for the trip to NC to try to stifle what we spend on our cards, and I'd like to do another hard run-through of my closet for clothing donations. All of this takes a lot of work and time, and more than that it takes intention. We have to do these things with intention or they won't get done. It's hard to work up that motivation every weekend when we have a new season of The Pitt, a new season of Bridgerton, a new Star Trek series that's streaming, and a new Game of Thrones series that we haven't even started yet. I fully admit that I am a toad; in my downtime all I really want to do is eat, watch some television, and sleep. It's hard for me to break out of patterns like that when I'm low-energy in the winter. 

I do have some good news, though -- it seems we have finally mostly eradicated fleas from the house via our vacuuming and laundering of blankets and pet beds and combing the cats out. Daisy hasn't combed a flea off the cats in days, and we're staying completely up to date on all of their Frontline doses.

It also seems that Gary's intestinal troubles are finally becoming more regulated. We spoke to our vet about him when we were in last week to get the girls checked out, and he told us that -- essentially -- we're doing everything right (or at least trying our hardest to do so). He also told us that it won't hurt Gary to, essentially, be on the liquid medicine we have him on to help regulate his bowels indefinitely if it seems to be helping him (it is, a lot). We're still working to figure out his allergies, and they could very well be food-related or they could be environmental. We don't know. He seems to eat pretty well. We got a novel protein diet for him that we're going to mix into the food in the feeders -- it is made from black fly larvae. 

Yes, I'm serious. It's apparently a new thing, a new type of food -- new as in, it hasn't been tried before by pet food companies and our vet hadn't even heard of it, but was excited for us to try it with them and see how well it worked. 

Naturally, it's a Canadian company who makes it -- Canadians continually chasing actual innovation as always.

Anyway, Gary and Dolly seem to love it (I am mostly convinced that Dolly will eat damn near anything) but it'll be a slow process to kind of back off the chicken we've been giving all the cats and slowly transition over to the bugs. My hopes are that by the time we go on the trip to NC, he will mostly be eating bug food (as will the others) and it'll settle his stomach a bit more -- because, honestly, it's likely going to be hard for our Catsitter to squirt the medicine down his throat while we're gone.

Dolly's DNA test has been performed and is currently in the mail on the way to be processed. It can take up to two months, maybe more, for the results to be sent back to us. I am of the mindset that she's got a very high percentage of Maine Coon in her, with a possibly high percentage of Norwegian Forest Cat as well. She could also have a lot of Ragdoll in her because wow does that cat like to be held and loved. Aside from that, I have no idea. She's growing so quickly and some traits she had are sticking out more (mainly the Maine Coon traits) and others are starting to fade. It is very unlikely we'll know what she is before we leave for NC, but I'd love to be able to tell my parents all about it when we're down there.

Yesterday, Daisy finally found herself a suitcase. 

There was a lot of planning involved in this; she looked at different luggage on countless websites and retail stores online trying to find something that was either deeply on sale or spoke to her. By the time this weekend rolled around, we'd made plans to go out on Saturday and get a limited number of groceries (again, budgeting) but also to go to places like TJ Maxx and Kohls to look at suitcases physically in stores to see what was there. 

Again, I'm low-energy in the winter -- the thought of going to multiple different stores and walking around for hours when it's brutally cold and I'm super tired was not something I was a fan of. However, I wanted to be there for Daisy to support her, and if she needed me there for moral support and to stave off any decision paralysis, then I was going to show up and be there.

We went to TJ Maxx and within half an hour found a very nice teal soft-side Samsonite suitcase that she really liked, for $119, and purchased it. She was concerned that it was a lot smaller than the one she had that she was replacing, and I thought it was smaller too -- but it's put together and organized a lot better than her old one, in my opinion. 

Not to be outdone, we then went to Kohls and walked up and down the aisles of their luggage collection -- yes, after we'd already gotten a suitcase for her -- to see what they had. What they had was not on any sort of discount whatsoever and prices on anything above child-sized luggage started in the $300 range and only went up from there. We did, however, on the way out find a Columbia backpack cooler for $11. Eleven dollars. Similar ones on Columbia's website start around $60. So, we bought that, and returned home.

Comparing the new suitcase to her old one...we found that the new one is not smaller; it is, instead, much bigger. The new one is 29". The old one was 26". It towers over her old one (which to be fair, slumps over and has seen far better days at this point) and has better wheels and a taller handle. I think my new neon green suitcase is ever so slightly smaller than her new one. 

So, that's one of our biggest to-do-list items off the list -- we now each have new luggage. Daisy's old suitcase will be saved and used for storage, as a bag-of-holding for organizing items in the closet of the spare bedroom (read: Daisy's office). 

Valentine's Day is coming up -- now that it's February, after all. Valentine's Day holds special meaning for us, as in way back in 2013 that was the day I proposed to Daisy in the kitchen of that little rented house in Newton, Kansas. Thirteen years later, we will celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary this year. We don't really have any Valentine's plans, which is good because that weekend they're already starting to make some rumbles about that being the next possible giant winter storm for our area. February is a short month, and bills already sting a little harder in short months anyway. It's also a month that we have to get all of our proverbial shit together because right after it ends, we'll be diving right into "vacation mode" and will be heavily prepping for the trip to North Carolina.

Finally, tomorrow morning -- an hour after I get off work -- we will be driving across town in the cold to have our yearly dental appointments/teeth cleanings. Do I want to do this not only on Groundhog Day but before I can even sleep for the day after a full night of working? Absolutely not. Will I do it anyway? Yes, unfortunately. It takes a year to get rescheduled when you have to move or cancel an appointment with our dentist. My last one was in November 2024, and we couldn't do it for some reason, so they rescheduled me for more than a year out, and set it for February 2, 2026. 

Yeah, that's a thing. 

So tomorrow morning, we'll be doing that -- after a full night of work and no sleep for me until after I get home. I'm going to be frazzled and exhausted and I just have to prepare myself for that now.