Brandon and Daisy Attack the Carolinas 2026, Part VII: Home Again, and the Aftermath

 

Shortly before 4am the next morning, we loaded everything into the car, hugged and kissed the parents goodbye, and we were back on the road to the airport.

We parked the car in the rental lot, dropped off the keys in the after hours drop box, checked our suitcases and put the new ribbon tags on them, and then we were off to security.

There was no line at 5am for security. There were three or four people in front of us, and then we went through with no issues and we were at our gate. 

The flights were fine; I slept about 90% of the way from Wilmington to Chicago, and was falling asleep in the gate at Chicago before we boarded our flight home, which I also fell asleep on for a good chunk of the trip. We landed on time in Omaha, if not a little early; we got our luggage, Daisy's parents picked us up as expected, and we were in the house, home, and with our cats before 2pm.

I wish there was more to tell you about the actual travel involved, but there's not. It was supremely efficient and absolutely uneventful. 

And suddenly, we had three days to ourselves, off work, to do whatever we wanted. 

The cats were fine; they ate like hogs while we were gone and our Catsitter took multiple photos and videos of them playing that she sent to us while we were in North Carolina, and all of them were perfectly happy and content. When we returned, Hank and Emmy were mad that we were gone, but they came around. Dolly, Gary, and Charlie all came running to us when we got into the house. Mable hung back for a bit until she realized she could once more run into my office with me and get all the love in private, away from the eyes of her mama or any of the other cats. 

Daisy immediately showered and went to bed, where she's spent the vast majority of the past three days as she is still attempting to recover from the sick, which is still taking a toll on her. I remain feelin' fine and symptom-free, so I have no clue what this sickness is that's knocking her on her ass, but whatever it is, apparently my immune system is doing its job. 

Everything is once again as it was. For better or worse, anyway. 

I spent the vast majority of the weekend taking care of all of the laundry from the trip. It had all been washed, but because of the pollen and dog dander all over the parents' house in North Carolina, I was taking no chances; I apply a "scorched earth" policy to all of our laundry after returning from a trip -- any trip. I don't care how clean the clothes are or how recently they've been washed before putting them back in the suitcase, everything gets washed anew once we get home. I am slightly obsessive about it. It took two full days of running the washer and dryer day and night to get everything we had fully clean again. Daisy's suitcase was placed into her office, my suitcase was placed back into my own office in its usual spot, where it will be refilled shortly (stay tuned there). 

And for the next two days, we rested. Both of us slept whenever we wanted, we ate when we were hungry, we watched TV when we were interested, and generally we finally got some downtime at home with just us and the cats and nothing pressing to do. This was good, because Daisy desperately needed some recovery time, some not-at-work, on-the-couch or in-the-bed recovery time to try to push the sick out of her system. 

On Thursday, we ran some light errands and did some grocery shopping. On Friday, we watched some TV and lounged about the house. On Saturday morning, I had my eye appointment that was originally scheduled for before we left, but we couldn't make that work out, so I rescheduled it for the Saturday after we got home.

My eyes are...well, mediocre, I guess. Every year I can feel my prescription getting just a little stronger. I have to remind myself that I'm old now, and that this is likely going to be a thing every year until I die. Since I have diabetes, it is very important to get my vision checked and prescription updated once a year (roughly, anyway; sometimes it can be 15-16 months between appointments just because of how the days fall and how my work schedule is). This year, after a thorough exam, I was told that my eyes look fine, they don't have any macular degeneration or any blood spotting from diabetes, and my prescription was made slightly stronger -- the doctor's words, not mine, because when he compared my current prescription to my new one, everything looked super-high-definition with the new one and blurry with my current one in the tests. 

It also turns out that my new vision insurance has a frame allowance that I used all of to get a new pair of glasses directly from the optometrist; normally I don't do this, but they're essentially paid for, so why not use the benefit? I found a pair of browline frames I liked, picked the color I almost always choose (black, of course) and had them write it up. Total cost of the appointment, including my new prescription, with all fancy extra diabetic eye tests conducted and new lenses and frames? $169. The new glasses will arrive there in about two weeks and I'll need to go pick them up when they come in.

I did, of course, immediately come home, go to my normal glasses website, and pick out seven much, much cheaper pairs of glasses (one of those being a pair of transitions sunglasses) and ordered them with the fastest shipping possible. Six of those were frames I've already had and loved over the years, but I will tell you they were not my favorites overall because all of my favorites have been discontinued or retired over the years, including many pairs that I would have immediately reordered with my new prescription were I able to. So that was somewhat frustrating. 

But, it's done, and I now have new glasses coming to me from two different places in the next few weeks, and hopefully they will be as HD-vision as the prescription in the office showed me they would be. 

Moving onward -- and this is the big news -- we're going back to Canada this summer. 

This is probably not a surprise for you folks, as this tends to be the trajectory of our travels almost every year -- we go see my parents and we go to Nova Scotia to see the family. It's what we do. 

However, there's more story to it this time around. Daisy's grandmother is, of course, always getting older and her health is declining as those years go on; the woman is nearing her mid-90s and it's sort of an unspoken thought that every time we see her could be the last. Well, this time around that could really be the case. We scheduled the trip for earlier in the summer out of fears that she may not make it to the end of summer. We're actually quite nervous about that. I am, anyway. 

Part of the reason we waited to schedule the trip is that we wanted to see if Mama wanted to travel with us again to see her mother. I like traveling with Mama; she slows us down a bit, but honestly she's a blast to travel with and be around, and I adore that old woman. It's a delight to experience her hometown and her old stomping grounds with her, and she also gives us an anchor to her own mother. She finally told us this week that she wants to go with us.

We'll all be staying in the family homestead unless something major changes in the next couple of months; Mama will be staying upstairs in the spare room and we'll be downstairs in the basement, which will be cooler at night and we will have our own fridge, sink, and access to the washer and dryer, but (sadly) the only bathroom in the house is no longer across the hall from us but up the stairs and on the opposite side of the house. It is what it is; I'd much rather have to walk upstairs and across the house to use the bathroom compared to spending $1k on the local motel there for a week during peak tourist season.

So, Mama's onboard, all of the flights are booked, rental car is reserved, Catsitter has confirmed her availability, and we're set to travel to Canada again in a few months. Second verse, same as the first.

This will likely be a very subdued trip back to Nova Scotia for us; we don't have any plans other than to be in and around the homestead for a few days. As it will be summer, I'm sure we'll be going to the beach there a number of times and I'm sure Daisy will want to try to replicate the whale watching trip in Pleasant Bay if we have time for it, since last year they canceled on us. But other than that, we have zero plans, and we're there for a much shorter time this year -- about the same time we were in NC visiting my parents, maybe a little longer. Also, like flying to visit my parents, we're flying in and out of Chicago O'Hare again on both routes -- Omaha to Chicago, Chicago to Halifax, and back again in reverse. This helps cut down on a lot of travel time and waiting around in airports, generally. I do not know what model of aircraft we'll be on, but I do know that the layovers aren't bad in Chicago and we should be fine -- believe me, Daisy searched for two days for the cheapest, most accessible, and most streamlined flights. 

Of course, for any trip to Canada massive preparations must be made; I can travel to visit my parents in the summer with the clothes on my back and a few spare outfits in my backpack, taking the bare minimum of toiletries and accessories. Canada is different; I'll likely need to take a light jacket (even though it's summer) and full shoes/socks, 3-4 outfits and underwear, and will need to leave a lot of space in the suitcase for anything we bring back. I am a huge sucker for Canada-themed merchandise and snacks, and it's not like I can ship a case of energy drinks up there like I can to my parents' house on the island (well, I'm sure I could, but it would be extremely inconvenient and cost-prohibitive). So, to-do lists will be made and every I will be dotted and every T will be crossed to make sure we have the most streamlined trip possible to the Great White North. I will, of course, document all of that here in the coming months. 

Finally, to start wrapping up the wrap-up, I am now officially on Mounjaro. The prescription got approved while we were in North Carolina, and I ordered it off Amazon Pharmacy as soon as we got home. It arrived and I stuck myself with the first injection on Friday night, and...so far, so good. I have noticed zero side effects or digestive issues on Mounjaro, so we'll see as we move forward how much it actually helps. I'm trying to remain as positive as possible about the experience; no, I don't want to be on another injectable every week that I have to keep jabbing myself with, but...aside from the digestive side effects, I was doing really well and managing my diabetes amazingly with Trulicity, so I'm hoping Mounjaro is going to do the same. I also hope, of course, that it helps me continue my weight loss, which has plateaued since I've been off the Trulicity, despite increases in activity and further tweaks to my diet. 

The diet goes out the window in Canada, of course. So, let's try to get a good baseline before we do that, shall we? My next doctor appointment should be riiiiight around the time we're readying to leave the country (it's not scheduled yet, so we have some wiggle room). 

I also got a call while we were in North Carolina about scheduling the audiology appointment I requested in order to get my hearing checked. My hearing loss is slightly worsening the older I get, to the point where it has become very difficult to hear someone right next to me if there is any background noise around at all. I don't like that. I also haven't had my hearing checked since I was a teenager, when I was told at that point I had significant hearing loss compared to normal folks. 

Meh, normal is overrated anyway.

So sometime within the next week I'll be scheduling that appointment. I don't know for when. It'll likely be on a Friday when we're both off work so I can just get it done and check what actual hearing loss I have these days.

There you have it, that's the whole story. Tonight, I return to work for the foreseeable future on my normal schedule. I have been off for eleven days straight, so here's hoping tonight is smooth and quiet as most other Sundays are. 

Brandon and Daisy Attack the Carolinas 2026, Part VI: The Lockout

 

I want to stop here for a moment and tell all of you what an amazing little device this is, and how much of a genius I was for getting one for each of us for Christmas last year.

Amazon is not paying me to say this (if only). I bought Daisy the green one and I bought myself the black one, and got cases for both of them, for approximately $90ish total on Black Friday. It was one of the greatest ideas I've ever had. Throughout the trip, we were both easily able to entertain ourselves with these little tablets. I have several books and trade paperbacks of comics loaded to mine, as well as every streaming service I subscribe to and the Libby app for our local library. Daisy uses the Libby app heavily, as well as Netflix and the like. Let it never be said that we were bored or starved for entertainment on this trip. I read books on the plane and whenever I wanted to read something, and in the hours where Daisy was sleeping next to me but I'd awakened quite early, I pulled myself up in bed, plugged in my earbuds, and I was watching TV and movies. 

I never thought I needed a tablet; I thought they were nice ideas, but I have a cell phone that can do the same thing. Well, I was wrong; the tablet is a wonderful little thing to have in order to be relaxed and just watch some TV or read some comics. I used mine heavily while we were there, and I plan to use it again this summer on our next trip (more on that shortly). 

Generally when I travel, and this time was no exception, my sleep schedule gets completely upended and out of whack. It's getting harder by the year to flip back and forth from an overnight working schedule to a "being awake when the sun is in the sky" schedule on weekends, holidays, and vacations. As such, even when we were there, I would find myself going to bed in the early evening hours and waking up sometime in the middle of the night because I either had to use the bathroom or I needed to get some food on my stomach or both. In those dark hours, when everyone else in the house was asleep, I'd sit up in bed and log into one of my many streaming services and catch up on watching some things. On this trip, I watched:

• Several episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Netflix finally recently added the later seasons
• Several episodes of X-Men '97 to try to catch up on that a bit more
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves on Paramount+

And a couple of other odds-and-ends things too over the course of the week. 

It's hard for me to sit down and watch stuff at home. I'm usually interrupted by the cats, or by Daisy, or by needing to take care of work and other responsibilities. On vacation, though? Not hard at all. Vacation means downtime, vacation means time to kill, especially in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep. And when you're awake, have earbuds, and don't want to get out of bed, it's even better. 

Tuesday was our last full day there, and we had one plan and one plan only -- go to Wilmington to eat one last time at the Sealevel City Vegan Diner, pick up bagels for us and for Daisy's parents at Seaside Bagels, fill up the car, and go to bed very early. Our flight would be wheels up at 7:30am, which meant that we needed to be at the airport and to turn in the rental car by around 5 at the latest. 

Well, Tuesday morning was the worst morning for Daisy's sickness. She was up early to see if she could get the first telemedicine appointment possible to see if they'd send in antibiotics for her to the local Walgreens, as she was nearly positive it was strep and was getting worse. 

Well, she couldn't telehealth; based on her medical plan, telehealth has to be done by someone local, and there are no Nebraska doctors who are also licensed and physically in North Carolina who could do it. Yes, I know, it's telehealth and it's stupid to have restrictions on it, but that's what it is. She ended up getting an appointment in the 9am hour at the local clinic in Southport, which (wildly enough) is in her health insurance network, so figure that one out. 

I mentioned this in an earlier post about the trip, but yes, Daisy tested negative for flu, Covid, and RSV at said appointment, but the on-call doctor diagnosed her with an ear infection and told her she would call in some antibiotics for her to knock that out and to prevent whatever was making her sick from causing a secondary chest/sinus/whatever infection, as Daisy is hugely susceptible to that happening when she's sick.

So what does she have? Well, an ear infection -- which at this juncture, five days later and three days after we've returned home -- should be knocked out at this point. It's very likely she just has a bad cold, and if that's the case it's one of the worst colds I've seen in a while. Even with daily meds, the antibiotics, the throat spray, and a lot of rest, Daisy is not anywhere near close to recovered yet and she can still barely speak, as it's painful for her to try. She sounds like she's dying and feels miserable, but she is slowly but surely getting better. It is still up in the air whether she will be able to return to work today, as her job entails talking to people on the phone for eight hours straight. 

Anyway.

When we finished with Daisy's appointment, it took them forever to call the prescription in to the Walgreens legit next door to the clinic, so Daisy and I gave up and told ourselves we'd circle back later in the afternoon once they let us know it was ready. In the interim, we went back home to the island. 

We debated on going to Wilmington at all -- Daisy was not feeling good in the least, and it was our last day there with my parents -- did we really want to spend all of it out and about?

Well, the deciding factor there was my parents' activity levels. My mother had used up all of her social battery by the time we got home from the doctor, and had closed herself up in the master bedroom with the TV. My dad was taking this opportunity to do some work downstairs in the backyard and in his recording studio down there, so he wasn't around. That would've left both of us in the house essentially alone with our thumbs up our asses and with nothing to do were we to stay there. 

I will also note that this entire time -- the whole time we were there -- we had not set foot upon a beach, we had not touched sand or looked for seashells, and we had not even seen the ocean except on the horizon when we were at the American Fish Company in Southport, where I snapped this photo from the docks:

So, it was kind of important we find a way to work that in as well. 

Daisy felt nasty, but was well enough to be up and mobile. Regardless of what we did or didn't do, we still wanted to see the beach (at that juncture, though, I was tired and indifferent) and we would still have to go back out to Southport, if for nothing else to fill the car with gas and pick up Daisy's antibiotics from Walgreens.

"Do you even want to go to Wilmington today?" she asked.

"I will if you're feeling up to it," I said. "I don't really care at this juncture, I just want you to feel better."

We did, eventually, decide to just go to Wilmington and to fulfill our original plans of a final lunch at Sealevel City and then pick up the bagels for her parents before returning back to Southport, picking up her meds, refilling the gas tank in the car to return it with a full tank when we flew out, and only then go to the beach for a bit, as long as it wasn't dark and we could see still.

This would have been a lot if both of us were full of energy and good health. As it was, I was exhausted and wanted to go back to bed, and Daisy felt like hell.

So, we let my mother know we were going out, and left to accomplish those tasks.

When we'd finished everything and were pulling into the parking lot at Walgreens to pick up Daisy's antibiotics, my phone started going crazy with vibrations from notifications. I could see from the previews of the cameras that there were multiple people in our yard and what looked to be uniformed men in our driveway and doorstep talking to the Catsitter.

"What the fuck is going on?" I asked aloud, opening the live feed to find two men standing on our stoop talking to the Catsitter about dispatching people out to our house and taking care of the problem. Mind you, we had no texts, no missed calls, nothing from our Catsitter as to what was taking place in real time 1,000 miles away from where we were sitting in a rental car in coastal North Carolina. 

"I'm calling her," Daisy said, and immediately began dialing her up via a Messenger voice call.

We have an interesting relationship with our Catsitter. She's several years older than my mother and has many years of experience doing this work, yet we don't even know her last name (she goes by a pseudonym on Facebook). We're not even friends with her on Facebook, we don't have her cell phone number, and the only contact we have with her -- as great as that contact always is -- is via Facebook Messenger. We pay her in cash only, give her our house key, and then wave goodbye to our pets for a week. In any other situation this would raise multiple major red flags, but this lady isn't a red flag. She's just old and she loves animals, she takes great care of our cats, and our cats adore her as much as she adores them. So, I'm willing to give her a lot of leeway and I don't need to know her life story or be super-close with her -- this is a business transaction more than anything else. 

She immediately answered the phone when Daisy called, and sheepishly told her the story of what was going on.

She had locked herself out of our house. She had gone out through the garage to take our trash cans to the road, and the kitchen door had locked behind her. She had the front door of the house open, but had bolted the storm door shut -- she does this when she's there so the cats can look out and nobody can just come up and open the door. So there she was, locked out of the house, cats looking at her through the front door and front window, and she couldn't get back in -- she had but one key to the house, and it was to the front door. While there are keyed locks to the kitchen door out to the garage and on the storm door, we don't have a key to the storm door and the only known keys to get us into the kitchen if the door locks are on Daisy's key ring...which was 1,000 miles away with us in North Carolina.

She knocked on the doors of multiple neighbors trying to see if anyone had a spare key, and finally called a locksmith -- who hung up on her. She called a second one, who came out and unlocked the door for her finally, so she could get back inside -- and then gave her grief about her not being the owner of the property and wanted us to send scanned copies of our drivers' licenses for proof that we were the owners and lived there and authorized our Catsitter being there and inside, etc etc. Luckily, they believed her as to who she was and waived that need, and then all of a sudden the first locksmith who hung up on her showed up out of the blue to help. It was her talking to them and explaining the situation when I pulled up the live feed and heard people talking. 

Locksmiths are not cheap -- they're likely $200-300. We paid her $260 (I think) to watch the cats for this trip, meaning that with that one call to the locksmith, she wiped out any and all profit she'd made by watching our cats for the week. 

She did, of course, assure us that everything was now fine, she was back in the house and made sure everything was okay, and admitted that it was completely her fault that she'd locked herself out of the house, that she felt stupid, etc etc. Mind you, she can't see me sitting in the passenger seat of the car throughout this entire conversation shaking my head, rubbing my temples, and rolling my eyes, because of course something like this could happen. 

We assured her that it was okay and expressed our empathy for the situation, but Daisy very quickly pointed out that even if she hadn't had access to her phone, she could have rang the Ring doorbell and it would pop up for us on our phones, and the Ring acts as an intercom system to where we could have talked back and forth with her through it.

What a marvelous future we live in, right?

Anyway, she vowed to double down on her carefulness when she was there to ensure nothing like that could or will happen again, and about an hour later she left the house for the last time.

We got Daisy's meds, we filled up the car, and we headed to the beach just as the sun was beginning to set.

Something I'd like to mention about Tuesday is that it was cold when the wind was blowing. The high temperature for the day was only in the 50s, and with that cold wind on the beach, it easily felt like it was in the 30s. That's something else I should have mentioned -- that wind on the sea never stops, it is constant and blustery. This is good in the summer when you want to stay cool -- it is not fun in the beginning of spring when you can still measure temperatures in wind chills. 

We were on the beach for ten minutes -- enough for me to touch sand and for Daisy to pick up some shells and to get her toes wet before we were like "okay, it's cold" and I was like "I desperately have to pee and if there weren't houses around us I'd whip it out right here and pee on the beach."

Yes, that's a true story.

So we came home, after a quick circle through the local souvenir shop (I didn't buy anything, but I like looking around) and, finally, our day was wrapping up and coming to a close. I did the last of our laundry, we both showered, Daisy made our breakfasts for the airport, and we packed up the last of our things in anticipation of wheels up the next morning. Sometime around 9, I passed out hard. Daisy apparently followed shortly thereafter.

Brandon and Daisy Attack the Carolinas 2026, Part V: In Cod We Trust

 

There are certain things I take for granted when we go to visit my parents, and a lot that I do not. Some of the things that I take for granted are that we have a safe place to stay and home base of operations at my parents, there will always be more designs on more souvenir t-shirts at more gift shops, and there will always be the Lexus waiting for me when my parents pass on into the next life.

Well, cross that last one off the list. 

A few months ago, my parents' (really, my mother's) Lexus sedan -- clean and immaculate, low-miles, carport-or-garage-kept its entire life -- blew a $2,000 part that could only be replaced by a qualified Lexus mechanic, and the parts and labor would have been about $4k total. So, my parents cut their losses, sold the Lexus to Carmax, and picked up a used 2017 Honda CR-V. 

The CR-V is fine; my parents love it, and it's the second CR-V my mother has owned -- she had a 2001 CR-V she got shortly after 9/11. My mother drove that little SUV for many years before it sat in the driveway for a few years in WV after they'd made the move to NC and she eventually sold it to a colleague for one of their kids. 

Mind you, my mother had told me if I wanted it, that vehicle could've been mine -- I would've just had to pay her something for it (it had been paid off long, long ago) and I would've needed to find a way to get it home from West Virginia. As much as I would've liked to have that little truck, it was never going to be in the cards for me. I'm not Vice Grip Garage; I can't just fly to WV with a box of tools to fix up a vehicle enough to drive from there back to Nebraska. I do think it would have made it, but I don't for a second believe that a 25-year-old SUV wouldn't have given me some major trouble of some sort on the journey.

Anyway, so, the Lexus is gone and they now have the new CR-V, which is far more practical for them but not in any way the status symbol or fashion statement the Lexus was. 

So now when they pass I guess we're just left with the bird and maybe the dogs. 

Mind you -- I am talking about all of this firmly tongue-in-cheek in a very joking way. Of course I don't want my parents to die anytime soon. 

Monday was the midway point of our trip, and we'd designated that day as the best day to go to Gabe's in Wilmington. More than that, it was a day my mother would get to spend with us, where shopping with her is the focus and thing to look forward to, especially for her. I am sure it's nostalgic for her to be out and about with us, just like it was when we were much younger -- the only difference now is that we're older and I have a wife who comes with. 

Now, every time we've gone to Gabe's, in the years we've been going down there to visit, it has poured rain hard on the day we've chosen to go. It doesn't matter what day we pick, it doesn't matter what time we pick -- either on the way there, the way home, or during the shopping trip the skies have always opened up and we've been caught in it. 

This time around? Nothing. Almost not a single cloud in the sky -- it was a very peaceful morning.

"Can we stop at the Harris Teeter afterwards?" my mother asked, almost sheepishly. 

Ah yes, the Harris Teeter. Basically an upscale version of a Kroger store, because it's owned by the Kroger Company. It's in the same plaza as the Gabe's is and my mother delighted in going there last year for some grocery shopping once we'd finished at Gabe's. 

"Sure," I said. "Of course."

Now, by Monday morning, Daisy was feeling pretty rough. She thought it might have been allergies, but she was now seeing the white spots in the back of her throat and she said she had more of a sore throat than she'd ever had with strep, which concerned her quite a bit.

I have not had strep throat in over thirty years. Aside from a very mild cold here and there, and a bout with Influenza-B in 2018 or so, I have not been actually sick other than the two times we had Covid in the past decade or so. My immune system tends to do pretty well for itself. I can be around sick people and not get sick, pretty much...ever, unless it's something nasty like the flu or Covid. So, what I'm saying is that I felt fine, and to this day still feel just fine, but Daisy did not.

We mostly struck out at Gabe's. Daisy found some leggings, a new swimsuit, and a couple of other little odds and ends, and I found a bottle of cologne I liked and a few pairs of shorts for the summer -- but that was it. I have no clue what my mother found, though I know she got a few things. I wasn't disappointed in going there, but I certainly wasn't overwhelmed with things I wanted but couldn't fit in my suitcase. My dad asked that if we could find them, to pick him up a pair of grey sweat-shorts as he liked to wear those around the house. I found him two pairs, and felt more accomplished in that than I did in my own shopping there. 

All of the Carhartt stuff they'd had in stock in previous visits had completely vanished, and instead there were a few Carhartt t-shirts stuffed onto a rack with some other workwear/outdoors wear. A guy who walked into the store right in front of us asked one of the employees where it had all gone -- and I just happened to be browsing the same section of the store when he asked his question. The employee responded that it was a one-time overstock shipment to them and that they didn't expect to get any more of it in anytime soon.

This is, sadly, the nature of the beast at Gabe's. They're an overstock reseller and they get a lot of stuff in what amounts to basically overstock dropshipping. If you see something you want when you're in there, grab it because you will never see it again. I've made this mistake many times and have missed out on a lot of stuff I should've just picked up when I had the chance -- such as the Carhartt jacket of my dreams for about 1/3 of the price it is on their website right now (believe me, I checked), a jacket I passed up on two years ago when I was there.

"Don't feel bad," I said to the guy when he had finished his conversation with the employee, "that section is what I came for, too."

We had a short chat about what they had two years ago when I was in there, and how I only make it up to Wilmington to stop in there every so often, etc. He mentioned where he was from and it was a decent distance away as well, though I cannot remember off the top of my head where. What was clear is that he was on a very similar pilgrimage to mine at the time. 

But, that's the way it goes sometimes.

We left Gabe's for Harris Teeter, where we immediately began picking up natural "make the sick go away" stuff for Daisy -- this included kombucha, energy shots, fresh juice to pump up her immune system, cough/throat drops, and a few bags of Utz chips. 

Okay, so the chips weren't necessarily to make the sick go away, but you understand I'm sure. 

My mother got a single package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts (likely for the dogs, not for my parents) and I don't think she got anything else -- which was wildly strange for her.

Then again, I've seen my parents' pantry, where they have more food stockpiled than most doomsday preppers do, so I can tell you with certainty that my parents don't really want for anything when it comes to shelf-stable, easily-prepared food.

Don't get me started on the refrigerators and freezers. Yes, plural. 

By the end of the Harris Teeter trip, Daisy was starting to fade fast and her voice was beginning to become affected by the sick. She wanted us to go find the Trader Joe's in Wilmington, as Trader Joe's has a store-brand all-natural throat soothing spray that she really likes and tends to make her feel a lot better when she has a sore throat. So, I was agreeable to that and told her that was fine, as it gave me the added middle-aged-man excitement of taking my mother to a Trader Joe's for the first time.

This is also why I could live in Wilmington happily -- there's a Gabe's, a Whole Foods, and a Trader Joe's -- not to mention two of our favorite vegan restaurants in the entire country, Sealevel City Vegan Diner and Seaside Bagels. The only problem about living in Wilmington proper is that there is a hard and set limit of no more than three cats allowed in a household. 

That doesn't mean that statute applies in any number of the other local towns around the area, though.

Anyway, I digress.

My mother said she had been inside a Trader Joe's before, but I don't know where she would have done that. To my knowledge there are still no Trader Joe's locations in West Virginia, and I doubt she hit one up in the Pittsburgh area. Well, the one in Wilmington is about the same size as the one in Omaha, but the parking lot is tiny and the store is set up completely differently. Daisy was able to find her throat spray, and we picked up a few other tiny things (including a bag of their potato chips to bring home to my dad so he could try them). My mother got one single jar of salsa, which we just bought for her so she didn't have to wait in line or worry about using her card for. 

My mother is an odd duck, and I think as the years go on she's getting even stranger. This doesn't bode well for my own mental health, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. She made it a special point to tell us that she had not had a drop of alcohol since last June -- well before our last visit -- and that after she stopped, all of her heart problems magically cleared up (go figure, right?).  But since then -- especially on these last two visits down there -- she has seemed a lot more odd, a lot more withdrawn, a lot more overly cautious, anxious, and set in her ways than ever before. She was never a great conversationalist, but she could always hold her own in a deep conversation. She now tends to shy away from discussing anything in-depth and will give one word or short one-sentence answers. She endlessly paces the house, saying that she always has to keep moving, it's just how she is.

"They make drugs for that, you know," I told her. She didn't really find that amusing. 

She has a lot of the symptoms of OCD or early stages of Lewy Body Dementia. She's very young for the latter, as it doesn't usually present until a patient is in their 70s or older, but as my mother drank like a fish for 30 years, it's quite possible that the rest of her body is much older than it should be, to put it mildly. What's more concerning to me is that she is developing the hunch that her own mother had, and appears to be shrinking in her old age -- and she is exhibiting a lot of the mild OCD-like symptoms her mother had as well. 

Mind you, I loved my grandmother very much, but she had her quirks -- she was a mild hoarder of nearly everything, well into her 70s, and she obsessively washed her hands, couldn't sit still unless she was forced to (that changed when she got older, of course) ate the same foods for every meal at the same time every day and got cross when anything was out of its place, etc. I'm seeing a lot of that behavior in my mother as she ages and slowly deteriorates, and the scariest part of all is that it seems like the alcohol, when she was drinking it, gave her a blanket or a mask that she could function under without a lot of this bubbling to the surface. Without the alcohol, without that crutch, all of these behaviors are now laid raw and are seemingly amplified. 

I mentioned last year that I thought my mother had adult-onset autism and that the lack of alcohol sharply amplified that. And, maybe, that's all it is. It would certainly explain a lot about me, as well as her. But I'm not sure it's just that. It always feels now like she's holding back, like she does not know how to speak freely, even to us -- the man she's been with for 30 years, her son of 43 years, and his wife of almost 12 years -- in casual conversation. I'll bring up old stories with her, or memories of stuff we did together, and she either doesn't remember it or she acknowledges it and will quickly move on or become silent again after a sentence or two. To an extent it feels like my mother was abducted by aliens and replaced with an old lady pod-person who only knew the bare minimum about who she was as a person before being dropped on this planet. And if I think back to how she was 3-4 years ago on our visits, compared to a decade ago, compared to now -- I see a really strange progression of my mother, one of the smartest and sharply-tongued people I've ever met -- retreating into what feels like a shell of her younger self.

Is that to be expected? I don't know. The old know what it's like to be young, but the young don't know what it's really like to be old.

As an example of her lack of ability to hold a conversation these days, I asked her in the car on the way up to Gabe's about her tooth, and asked her to tell us the story of what happened. She gave the barest minimum of details on how it got fixed and how much it cost. I asked her if it hurt when she broke it, and she said no, and that was about it. My mother is not a storyteller -- she does not weave a long, winding tale like I do -- she is very brass tacks in the sense of "X is what happened, Y is what was done to fix it, and now it's fixed" and I can't even tell you whether she said that many words when I asked her about the tooth. 

I repeatedly offered to take her out to lunch at Sealevel City ("absolutely not") and asked her if she'd prefer to stop and get bagels, or bagel sandwiches, at Seaside Bagels, or if she wanted to get more of the beignets at the shop we got them from last year:

Note the Tragically Hip t-shirt I have on. Always represent.

She continually turned us down or showed no interest. When I told her she could get normal bagel sandwiches without them being vegan at Seaside Bagel, she responded "I'm not really a bagel person."

"You literally have a bag of bagels in front of us on the counter right now," I responded, pointing at them.

She didn't really have a response to that other than saying "Well..." and trailing off before either leaving the room or changing the subject to something else. 

Another example of this is the chicken.

I mentioned here before that I shipped a fair amount of goods down to the island before we came -- that included some energy drinks for me, some cookies and nuts for the parents, and...a bag of natural, dried chicken jerky for their three dogs.

"I am not giving that to them," she said.

"It's...chicken," I replied. "Dried chicken strips, jerky for dogs. That's all it is."

These dogs eat chicken every single day -- my parents, mainly my dad, cook fresh chicken for them which is then hand-shredded, mixed with some vegetables like green beans and the like, and that's their fresh dog food.

"I'm not giving that to them, I'm not giving that to them," she repeated. "Let me see the package, where is this even from?"

"Mom," I said, "it's chicken. From Amazon. Just dried chicken."

She scrutinized the package and read every word on it, and then again repeated "No, I'm not giving that to them."

Daisy and my dad watched this conversation like the woman had lost her mind. 

"It's fine," I said, gently and evenly as possible. "I can return it, it came from Amazon. It's not a big deal. I just wanted to do something nice for the dogs."

"I'm just...not giving it to them, I don't know where it's from," she said again. 

This coming from the woman who fills up the dogs' chew toys with cheese out of a can and will only give them name-brand Jif peanut butter.

I'll also add that with the last set of dogs, they ate beef jerky straight from the bag, right off the shelf of the grocery store, and I'm sure that jerky -- made for humans, not dogs -- had a lot more unhealthy ingredients in it than dried chicken strips. 

It's stuff like this that's very concerning to me. I don't know if she has good and bad mental health days or what -- she seemed wildly social at the Mexican restaurant, both this year with just us and absolutely last year for their birthday party, but around us she seems heavily withdrawn or has outbursts like this.  These are just a few small examples, and there were more, over the course of this particular trip.On the phone, she's pretty normal. In person, it's like she doesn't know how to interact with us anymore, like Daisy and I are strangers she just happens to be related to (and one of us she pushed out of her body). That's about the best way I can describe it, actually -- strangers in her house, old friends she doesn't know how to talk to anymore, etc. 

I then begin to wonder if it's my fault, if I've changed so much in the 20 years since I've lived at home that she doesn't feel like she really knows her son anymore. I was a "boy" then, but I'm a man now, and as about 90% of the men she's ever known have treated her poorly, it's hard for her to interact with them without all of her shields and guard up. Maybe it's the fact that I grew up and grew apart from her, I got married and she sees on a daily basis how content and happy Daisy and I are -- something that didn't last long in her own marriages -- and it makes her feel even more disconnected and sad. I'm grasping at some straws here, of course.

Maybe it's just that as she ages, she's just getting a little nuttier.

If that's the case, as I told Daisy later when we were alone, look forward to your future with me, baby, because no matter how much I have grown and become my own person, I am my mother's son. 

Daisy did not find this anywhere nearly as amusing as I did. 

I do, of course, have to look at it in an amusing way -- laugh to keep from crying and all that -- but it is very noticeable that my mother is not the same person she once was, the woman who with a glass of wine in her hand while waiting in line at our wedding to be seated, said "let's get this show on the road please" loudly to all of our wedding guests. 

Yes, I returned the chicken jerky via Amazon once we returned home. I didn't have to physically return it because it was a food item, but I got reimbursed for it. I'm going to donate it to the humane society the next time we go over there for volunteering or an event or what-have-you.

Anyway, onward. 

Monday night ended much like most of the other nights of the week. My parents wanted pizza for dinner, and wanted to get it from a local place in Southport. We agreed to get one of our own and then just go pick it up along with theirs. I put it all on one order and my dad gave me a $20 for their pizza. And it was...not great. 

Like, this pizza was not bad, but it was far from good. And the veggie pizza we got certainly wasn't worth the $35 we paid for it. Maybe we've been spoiled by having great mom-and-pop pizza places that we really like, both when I lived in West Virginia as well as now in Omaha. Maybe as I get older, especially now that I've been vegetarian for almost eight years, my palate is a little more discerning. But, that $35 pizza wasn't great. It was passable, but for the price point it almost teetered over the edge from passable to just bad. 

That's three strikes for places my parents like to eat at that we have ended up either outright hating or leaning heavily towards dislike on -- the third was the place we took them to for their birthday dinner last summer, where the food was shockingly bad for us (theirs was great, so they said) and shockingly expensive for what it was. I'm not trying to be harsh, but I just don't think I have the palate I used to. I'm sure when that's all you've got for cuisine on the island, if you eat it enough, you think it's awesome -- it's the analogy of living next to the waterfall; after a while, you don't hear it anymore. Same principle.

We left the rest of our pizza in the fridge and I believe Daisy just chucked it out when we left on Wednesday morning, since we knew the parents wouldn't eat it. 

After that, we finally settled down for the night, and I emptied my pockets of the change I'd had. In that change, I found a quarter I'd never seen before. It was a 2023 quarter, and on the back was an image of some lady I couldn't place, and no text whatsoever. 

Now, I've never heard of this woman. Until I read that, I had no idea who she was. The back of the quarter doesn't print her name anywhere or anything like that, and to be able to read the inscriptions you'd need a magnifying glass -- my eyes are not that bad, but the text is so small I couldn't make it out until I squinted hard and looked for it. 

However, look closely at that bottom part above.

Look, I don't get a lot of change in my daily travels -- I can count on one hand how many times I've seen or held a new-ish quarter since it was redesigned some years ago -- but I thought that one looked odd because it didn't have any writing on the back.

That wasn't what made it odd, though -- because after looking at it with the magnifying glass, all four of us in the household agreed that it absolutely looks like it says IN COD WE TRUST instead of IN GOD WE TRUST on the front. 

We compared it to images of the normal quarter as well as images zoomed in on the misprinted one, and I'll be damned if it doesn't look like I have one of the error coins in my possession. 

I'd have to get it looked at, of course, by someone who can verify these things -- but if I have a truly verifiable error coin, it's worth quite a lot. And I got it in change when, I believe, we bought stuff from one of the stands at the Spring Fling (not the tie-dye people, but we got stuff from a few places). 

I tucked it into my wallet in a safe place and brought it home, and it's now sitting next to me at my desk. I don't know what I'll do with it, or if there's even someplace local I could get it checked out. Seems worth a shot to get it looked at, even if it doesn't end up being one of the certified error coins. If it is, $2400-2500 would go a long way to cut down some credit card debt, or be a down payment on a new vehicle. On Ebay, they're selling for a lot higher than $2500 -- I've seen some on there listed in the $40k range. Whether they will sell for that is another story, of course. 

So, that was Monday. With two days left of our trip, we were beginning to wind down as much as possible, given the energy we'd burned off with something to do every day. 

Brandon and Daisy Attack the Carolinas 2026, Part IV: Not Shot

 

Sofie, my parents' oldest dog (13), on Daisy's foot on the back porch.

So, roughly a day and a half into the trip, Daisy said she acquired a sore throat.

This in itself is nothing really new; the allergens down there are brutal even on the best of days, and Daisy and I are both really allergy-affected. Plus, and we learned this was no joke when we arrived, we were indeed in the peak of pollen season -- pollen so thick it left an ugly yellow dust on everything, but especially noticeable on automobiles. And, Daisy is slightly allergic to dogs. It's not awful for her, and my parents' dogs have never really affected her much, but it bears bringing up because that's a thing. 

Over the course of about two days, her sickness got worse and worse. She could barely speak, she had white dots all over her throat and uvula, and she was deathly afraid she'd gotten strep. 

She hadn't, by the way -- we got her checked out at an urgent care in Southport the day before we left -- she tested clear for strep and also clear for flu, Covid, and RSV. What she did (and really, still does) have is an ear infection and a bad cold, just enough to make her miserable. And it put a damper on the entire trip for her, really. Her energy levels were lower, she slept longer, etc.

Anyway. Onward with the story.

On Sunday, my parents had floated the idea of going to the local Mexican restaurant, where (as they tend to do with all of the Mexican restaurants they frequent) they know everyone there, and they are adored customers. That's a thing with my family, actually -- has been since the 90s. Both of the big independent Mexican restaurants in Morgantown, to this day, are on a very friendly, first-name basis with my parents due to their frequent patronage, and the owners and longtime proprietors also know me -- and I haven't lived there for almost two decades now. That's just who my parents are -- they make friends with the local Mexican places and because of this, they get top-tier food and service. I can't tell you how many stories I have about my childhood and teenage years that either started at, or revolved around, one of these restaurants.

So, because of this, we were down for it. Well, I was at least -- I enjoyed the food there last year when we had my parents' birthday party there in August. Daisy was less enthused because of the cross-contamination of foods and the fact that there is very little on the menu she can eat because she's vegan. For me, at least, I can enjoy anything if it's fried hard enough or if there's enough queso involved, so for me it's a delight to get something different that I don't normally have at home. 

The meal was fine enough; I got a few a-la-carte options, and some were better than others. Daisy got some vegetarian rice and vegetables dish that she only ate about half of to be polite; she wasn't feeling it that day and mentioned to me privately that she pulled some cheese and/or meat out of her dish, which soured her on her experience there. My own food was adequate, but not amazing or anything like that. It was a decent meal, but I'm not clamoring to go back the next time we're there (spoiler alert: my parents love it, so we will definitely go back the next time we're there). 

And then we returned home for dome downtime. My mother had mentioned that she wanted us to go see live music at the American Fish Company in Southport that evening, as they knew a couple of people in the band from...somewhere. I have no idea where. I know my dad knew the drummer pretty well, from what he told us. 

Live music isn't exactly our thing -- I can count on one hand the number of times we've gone to concerts in the 14 years we've been together, and those very few events were almost always my idea (seeing KMFDM live in Omaha a couple years back is a very good example of this). However, we're in North Carolina with my parents -- my parents who, for most of their lives, live music has been an integral part. My dad was a performing musician for close to 50 years of his life, and my mother (likely because of this) has always loved seeing live music, whether in the park or in a bar or in a small concert venue/bandstand area such as at the American Fish Company in Southport.

"It's the place where the shooting was a while back," Mom said nonchalantly, as if it were just a passing event that came and went.

And this is true. In the time since our last visit (August) to this one (March) there was, indeed, a mass shooting at the American Fish Company that killed three, injured six, and brought a lot of pain and anguish to the community down there. Southport is not a big city; there's less than 4,000 people who live there, and about double that on Oak Island where my parents live. They're small ocean resort communities and this shooting greatly rattled them.

For a short time. And then apparently everything went back to normal. Because that's what America does with mass shootings -- they're so frequent that nobody lets them linger in the public consciousness that long, for there's always another one on the horizon. Oh sure, there are some of them we'll remember forever -- Columbine, Kent State, etc -- but by and large, they are sadly forgotten with the next news cycle or the next stupid political backfire.

Anyway. None of us but my mother really wanted to go see the band play. I was five minutes from falling into a deep sleep before we were reminded that it was time to go. But, because we're good sports and because we only get to see my mother once or twice a year (if that), Daisy and I got ourselves ready and then got into the back of the parents' new CR-V (I'll get to this later) to go see this band play.

They...weren't bad. 

Look at all of us, not getting shot at.

Once we were there, you wouldn't know that a shooting had occurred there barely six months ago. Aside from a simple memorial cross at the entrance (you can actually see it in this photo on the far left, if you zoom in at the edge of the dock where the pole is), there was no mention of or other memorial to the shooting victims. Life goes on, I guess. 

It was loud and we were on the water and standing to the back and to the left of the band -- no, that's not a shooting joke, it's just where we were -- and we stayed there for maybe forty minutes before I was like "well, I'm done," which seemed to be genuinely to the quiet relief of Daisy and my dad, and we left and came back home to the island. 

So now, I guess, I can say I've actually been somewhere a mass shooting happened. The entire time I was there, all I could do was think to myself this is likely like any other Sunday night here. I bet those folks who were shot thought that too, and how many of these employees who are here right now were also here the night of the shooting, and lived through it...and are just pretending to be okay? I can tell you, with a fairly high degree of certainty, that I would not be okay were something similar ever to happen anywhere I ever worked.

Now that Daisy and I work from home and all four of our parents are fully retired, the likelihood of something like that happening to any of us is greatly lowered. But it still is one of the many, many things at this point that make me disgusted to be an American these days.

What's wild is that in North Carolina, everything outside the bubble of the beach communities seems so much more inconsequential. Nobody seems to care about gas prices or the war in Iran, and it appears the people there who are Trump supporters are always going to continue to be Trump supporters. The big thing I saw that had everyone's fur up, while we were there? Overdevelopment of the island and surround communities. The residents there are up in arms that all of the peaceful land and lots around them are being bought and built upon, sometimes being built up big time -- hotels, strip malls, apartment complexes -- everything popping up everywhere. My mother says it's a concern that the island will run out of fresh water. Which, I guess, should be a concern everywhere, but is much more of one in an oceanfront community. And it is true; almost everywhere we went, we saw new construction or new houses being built on formerly vacant lots -- lots of money being spent on expansion.

Still, I think it's safe to say the island will be almost exactly the same twenty years from now than it is now. There are 8,000 people on Oak Island who are full-time residents. That balloons to 50,000 during the tourist months, and honestly, they have to have somewhere to go and things to do. Aside from some restaurants and bars, and some beachfront souvenir stores, there's almost nothing on the island to do. There's not a movie theater, there's not a dedicated music venue, there's not even a comic shop or record shop that I was able to find. There's no Walmart, no Target, not even any fast food places I can remember -- all of those things are in Southport at the closest, and if not Southport, Wilmington.

There's ten different ice cream places, though, and probably fifteen seafood-centric restaurants. 

Look, I would move there just to get away from everything else -- don't get me wrong, I think Oak Island is a gorgeous little seaside town, surrounded by beaches and being right there on the ocean. And I personally would not be bored living there, because I don't need to constantly be entertained by public venues and events -- but make no mistake, it would be a much, much slower lifestyle than it is living in the middle of a big city like Omaha, and I could absolutely live with that.

There would be times, though, where I'd want to go see a movie, or I'd want to go do something outdoors that didn't involve getting sand in my shoes, and I'd probably feel a little stifled. Would that be worth it for me, knowing that? 

Yes. A thousand times, yes. Get me the fuck out of Nebraska.

Anyway.

I don't remember much of the night after returning from the concert; I don't even remember if I showered or not. What I do know is that I fell into bed and let sleep take over, quite early -- possibly even before it was fully dark outside for the night. This is speculation, though -- when I was there, I did this a lot, and the days tended to blend together.

Brandon and Daisy Attack the Carolinas 2026, Part III: Overblown

We have gone to, and returned from, North Carolina safe and sound. We're fine, the cats are fine, and all is as it should be. 

So, let's tell the story.

The Uber picked us up normally and we got to the airport without issue, bracing for long security lines, to find....nothing. We had zero wait, we got our suitcases checked and got through security without issue, even though one of the TSA ladies was a bit snippy with Daisy. We arrived at our gate with plenty of time to spare. 

I should just come out and address this now, because otherwise you folks may think that it's going to hang over our heads throughout the entire story of this trip -- there were no TSA problems anywhere we flew through when traveling, neither there nor on the way back. It was one of the smoothest traveling experiences of our lives, and easily the fastest trip down to NC (and back) that we've ever had when it comes to the airports. Even in Chicago, which was being hyped as a nutty airport for security screenings and TSA agents (and one of the few airports that had ICE move in on Monday) -- nothing. I will repeat that for the record here: nothing. Zero issues. The way that O'Hare is built, you will walk past security on the other side of the gates a lot, and I saw zero lines and zero ICE agents. Nothing. 

And then you watch the news and it's hyped up about how people are having six-hour-plus security delays, and there's video of long lines at airports and reports of half of the TSA workers calling in sick or quitting and...folks, it's really overblown. I've read hundreds of comments on these news stories online that are voicing similar experiences to ours -- it's all media hype. Nobody is having any issues, and in fact a lot of the comments are that the TSA folks are there in abundance and being cheerful and helpful as always. Which -- aside from the one rude TSA lady here in Omaha -- was exactly what we experienced. They were all awesome folks. No waiting, nobody yelling, no problems seen or found. 

I'm not saying the news reports aren't accurate for certain places and certain airports -- I can't tell you one way or the other on that -- but I can tell you that we saw nothing of the chaos that's being portrayed daily on your television screens, so...take your news reporting with a grain of salt, please. It's nowhere near as bad as the media is making it sound.

I looked damn good while traveling, though.

Anyway.

We arrived in Wilmington with no issue, picked up our rental car (another Chevy Malibu) with no issue, went to Sealevel City Vegan Diner for lunch and picked up some light groceries at Whole Foods after, and were at the house on the island well before dark, for once. We sat up with my parents for a bit and eventually all of us went to bed at varying times. 

And that was a week ago today now, last Friday. 

When we awoke Saturday morning, we started making plans with my parents what we'd be doing for the week. Both of us were fairly groggy -- not jet lagged, just tired from traveling so long the day before -- and as such, were more agreeable than I'd normally care to be. My mother wanted us to go to something called the "Spring Fling" on the island's fairgrounds/park area, the same place that they always do the farmer's market and craft fairs in the summer and fall. 

"What is it?" I asked.

"They have a bunch of vendors and food and live music," my mother said.

"Sure," I replied. Aside from the live music, it sounded like pretty much any other farmer's market/craft fair we'd been to there over the years, except it was being done on a Saturday and not a Monday. 

Now mind you, as I'd mentioned before, I had pulled out a fair amount of cash for this trip, much like I do for other trips. Walkin' around money, basically. It was for stuff like this -- places I knew either wouldn't take anything but cash or where cash would just be easier and with less hassle. So, we went.

It didn't take long before we found a booth selling really gorgeous, professionally-done tie-dye for...well, not expensive prices. When I say "not expensive," I mean that if I were to buy tie-dye stuff off Amazon, it would easily run me $30 or so for a shirt that I would know, for a fact, would shrink if I washed/dried it on too warm of a setting. These folks were selling shirts starting at $10, and they were shirts worth buying. 

Now, I will tell you, I don't need more tie-dyed clothing. Ever, likely for the rest of my life. What I have now is adequate and will last me many years, and I am happy with it. I have too much clothing as it is. But it was there, and we had cash, and Daisy found a tie-dyed shawl/wrap that was gorgeous and gorgeous on her, for $25 or so. I told her I'd get it for her. And then, in the back of the rack, I found the holy grail I'd been looking for for many years.

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted a rainbow spiral tie-die hoodie. I could not make one myself; it would be prohibitively expensive and if I screwed it up and the colors came out wrong, it would be really hard to bleach back to white without destroying it. It was one of those projects I was never able to tackle and thus never tried to do. And on the back of that rack, in my size, was a rainbow spiral tie-dyed hoodie. For $45. 

I'd seen similar hoodies online sell for $60 or more, usually higher. And yet, here was one that was not only affordable, but I will stress, in my size, which...well, the odds of that happening are generally astronomically against me. I immediately purchased it, and it is proudly hanging in my closet in our master bedroom now. I have not yet worn it, but I have washed it to make sure it's not going to bleed or shrink. No, I don't have pictures.

So, the "Spring Fling" was a success. We returned home and ate lunch, and I believe both of us passed out again in the mid afternoon/evening hours. And that was our first day there.

We'd made preliminary plans for the entire trip, but they were loose plans at best. I'd spoken with my mother and asked when she wanted to do stuff with us, and we'd made a sort of mental calendar for it. This is what that calendar consisted of:

Friday: Arrive
Saturday: Spring Fling
Sunday: Lunch at the parents' favorite Mexican place, then live music in the evening at American Fish Company

Monday: Trip to Wilmington, to Gabe's
Tuesday: Trip to Wilmington to go to Sealevel City again and pick up bagels from Seaside Bagel for us and Daisy's parents to bring home
Wednesday: Return to Omaha

It was a six day trip with two of those days being travel days, and with not a lot to do that didn't include the parents while we were there. Which, honestly, was the overall plan. My goal for the trip was to relax and detach myself from responsibilities and from the daily grind -- to sleep when I needed to, eat some good food here and there, and to not think or worry so much about anything going on at home. 

Well, we got to accomplish some of those things....

Brandon and Daisy Attack the Carolinas 2026, Part II: Free, At Last

 (written between 30 and 5-ish hours before the trip)

My body hurts and my brain aches, but I am free and on vacation until March 29. 

There's still a lot to be done before we're wheels up to North Carolina tomorrow. My to-do list seems short and inconsequential, but in reality, it is full of tasks that will take time to complete. We also need to be able to eat and get some sleep too.

"Thought I would remind you guys," my dad texted us this afternoon, "it's the peak of pollen season now."

Allergies in NC are generally unreal at the best of times. I always make sure to take allergy pills with us when we go, because we almost always need them even in the midst of summer. There's just something about the climate and sea air there that is really irritable to my allergies, and to some extent Daisy's too. I acclimate to it after a couple of days, but ironically we're usually only there for a couple of days, and this time around that's no exception -- we're there for five days, in and out.

The Catsitter came over tonight, picked up her money and the keys, and sat with us and the cats for a bit. I still marvel at how much our cats are put at ease by her. All of them came out to see her, she helped us give them Churus, and all of them hung out with us and got attention from her. Cats can sense good vibes in a person, I think. It's part of why she puts me immediately at ease as well. 

At this point, all of the major stuff is taken care of around the house. Daisy prepped the pans earlier tonight, and I'll finish prepping the extra food for them in the morning. Mail is on hold, travel notices are on my credit cards, the Uber to the airport has been reserved, and Daisy has found her travel pants. 

And of course, I have insomnia. 

It's almost 2am and I can't sleep. I planned to sleep tonight and take care of everything left during the day tomorrow while Daisy worked (yes, she chose to work, get off a little early, finish up everything, sleep, and then essentially jump on a plane) and she was passed out within 20 minutes or getting out of the shower tonight. I am not as lucky; depending on how and when I sleep, I may be up for a very long time trying to get everything done, especially if I don't sleep that well tonight at all. 

Twelve hours later....

So, I have slept. It wasn't a lot, and wasn't enough, but I have slept.

We're checked in for our flights, everything is in its places, and all of the stuff around the house has been done. Daisy and I had a nice, delivered dinner from Veg.Edible, and she took care of a lot of the little things around the house before and during my evening nap. She is in bed now and will awaken an hour before the Uber gets here to do the last few things left.

I remain cautiously optimistic about the TSA situation. I don't think we'll have a lot to worry about there, but I'm also not an optimist overall; I am a realist. I find myself second-guessing whether I should've booked the Uber for 3 or 3:30 instead of the 4:15 trip I actually booked. The flight is wheels up at 7 and boards at 6:30, so theoretically that should be more than enough time, but what if a billion people are flying out of Omaha this morning for some reason?

It's this last few hours before the trip where I question everything and my anxiety flares up. What if the lines are longer than we've ever seen before? What if the vapes I've packed are duds and won't work? What if the nicotine gum is not enough to sustain me while I'm locked in airports? What if we have to wait multiple hours on a rental car?

Those of you who know me well know that I hate long travel trips -- I want to get to my destination as quickly as possible and then just be there and be done. I don't like lines, I don't like waiting, I don't like being around large groups of people, and I certainly do not like delays. There's a possibility I'll have to deal with all of those today, and if not today, then when we return on Wednesday. 

There's also the concept that the anticipation of the trip is more exciting than the trip itself, and the comedown from it once I've returned and no longer have anything to look forward to can be and frequently is devastating.

I don't like leaving the cats. I never do. Realistically I know they will be fine, and they likely would be just fine even if we hadn't gotten the catsitter, but I still do not like leaving them at all. It's psychological for me. They're an emotional support system I won't have while traveling, and I go through this mental pain before every trip I go on. I recognize this, of course. The parents' dogs, while we love them, just isn't the same. 

So, here's the rough plan for the next few hours before we hop in the Uber...

1. I will consume as much caffeine as possible, but also as much liquid as possible since I'd rather not be dehydrated all day. This possibly sounds counter-intuitive to you as we'll be on two different planes today, but I can tell you that trips like this are draining, and for diabetics like me this really is the best option.
2. I will take what I refer to as a "stop pooping" pill -- essentially, an anti-diarrheal that when taken while I don't have diarrhea will "lock up" my digestive system for about 24 hours or so, on purpose. This virtually guarantees I won't have a shit attack in an airport or restaurant bathroom that could jeopardize the trip. You may think that's funny, but last year my stomach attacked me on the way home from visiting my parents, in the airport, and it put the return trip in danger because when it happens, it happens, and it's either shit my pants in full view of the public or be forced to spend 20ish minutes on an airport toilet no matter whether I want to or not. 
3. I will take allergy pills, because apparently...peak of "pollen season" in NC. I've also made sure to put not one, not two, but three packs of travel tissues into my backpack pockets. 
4. I will make sure my phone and vape are both charged fully and completely before stepping out of the house. I won't get a real chance to charge my phone again until we're home on the island, and I'll be using it a fair amount in the 12-15 hours it takes to get from here to there. My vape I won't be able to touch for approximately eight hours between two airports, but believe me, I will need that full charge as soon as I am outdoors. Yes, I have nicotine gum at the ready. 
5. I will, of course, take my daily pills from the bottles I have here at home, not from the travel pill box I'm taking with me, so that in an emergency I will have an extra set of my meds.  
6. I will ready my timecard for work -- this takes about ten minutes or so -- to reflect my vacation. I have already gotten the PTO approved, of course, but I have to make adjustments to the other days on the calendar because my job's timecard operates on a M-F 9a-6p schedule, and my actual work schedule is not that, so I just have to make sure there are 40 hours on the clock for the week no matter what so red flags don't get raised in the system about it. It's stupid, but it is what it is. I've had to do it for every vacation I've ever taken since starting there, and even for some holidays where the system has said that even though it's a holiday and marked as such, I should be putting in the 8 hours to compensate -- by hand. Yeah. It's all dumb.
7. Even though it's warm here (even in the middle of the night) I will be putting on a hoodie as I'll need it while I'm traveling and will not be stuffing it into my backpack. It may be uncomfortable on the planes but I will need the front pocket and I will absolutely need it while on the trip, as it will be slightly cooler there than it will be here while we're gone (go fuckin' figure, right?).
8. I will do a final check of the house to make sure doors are locked and secure, everything that needs to be left on is on and everything that needs to be turned off is turned off, and I will do a physical check/count of the cats to make sure they are all okay, safe, and aren't locked in any rooms. Even though I always do this, it makes me wildly paranoid after I've left the house that somehow, somewhere, I've forgotten something. 

Look, these posts here as I run down through these things in my head are more for me than they are for you, and I realize and recognize that. Leaving for a trip is stressful and exciting all at the same time. I have always had anxiety issues and since the pandemic I've fought harder than ever to rein them in to minimize their impact to my daily life. That becomes very difficult when stressful situations arise and I am forced to deal with that stress whether I want to or not. 

That anxiety is also why I've stacked these posts -- I will never, ever mention my actual travel dates online anywhere until after I have returned safely. Doing so beforehand, and even talking about it on Facebook or someplace similar while we're gone, is wildly stupid -- it's basically a notification with big flashing lights saying "hey, we're not home, come rob us" and yeah, I'd rather not do that. 

Anyway. Skyward.