Vacation Weekend

As I have done on a few other occasions, I’m taking a pass on posting an essay to my Retirement Sparks blog this week. I’m going to New Jersey for the weekend for a mini-reunion with my Green Pond summer friends. I'm also meeting with fellow committee members who are helping to plan a belated 50^th reunion for our high school class, Morris Hills Regional, in Rockaway, New Jersey.

Jagdish is staying back in Rhode Island to keep an eye on Luke, with the help of our neighbor cat-care lady. Luke gets fed four times a day now, and I’ll have the car, so we need to schedule store coverage and cat care carefully around this trip.

Some of you may be thinking: “Big whoop. So why didn’t you write the essay ahead of time and post it today instead of this lame message?” You don’t understand. Going away for three days takes a lot of planning at my age. Planning which doesn’t leave time for creative writing.

As a precaution, I need to change the litter in at least one of the boxes before I go; it can’t wait until Sunday when I return. But if I change it too early, Luke will reject it later on next week. I also had to try on at least six pairs of linen pants to see which ones fit. Based on the color, I needed to assess underwear status. Women readers will know that one should wear skin-tone panties under white slacks. Probably TMI, but fortunately both of my beige ones were in the clean pile.

I’m spending Friday night with my best friend from grammar school, whom I haven’t seen in who knows how many years (50?) Inherent in that is figuring out when to leave Providence so I don’t hit rush hour in any major metro areas. I also want to avoid getting stuck in gridlock on the Tappan Zee Bridge in the summer weekend exodus from Manhattan to the Catskills. I decided that four pm is a good time to leave. That should give me plenty of time for preparations and packing.

Just in case, I started this process Friday night. I stuffed a canvas tote bag full of paperwork and yearbooks and program ideas for our Saturday high school reunion meeting. This morning, when I dropped Jagdish off at his store, I picked out some little gifts for my friend’s grandchildren. Also something for her home. All of which I left on the store counter. Fortunately, I realized this at the wine store (see below) and circled back to get the forgotten bag on my way home.

Saturday night I’ll be at Ralph’s “harem” in Green Pond. As he did for the big October GP reunion two years ago, he’s invited a group of women for Italian food on Saturday night. We leave our husbands home. A few of us who come a distance stay over. Ralph’s family has their summer house on the market, so this will likely be our last mini-reunion at GP. Sad to consider, but at least we’ll have some good memories to keep us going.

We’ll be spending some time on the beach and that presents an entirely different preparation to-do list. Straw beach tote, sand shoes and beach towel. Check. New bathing suit. Check. The big shave. Check. Inspect and shave again. Check. (Definitely TMI.) New bathing suit cover-up. Check, thanks to Spectrum-India. Several bottles of red wine (for the evening, not the beach). Check and recheck. Ear plugs for me and also for my guestroom-mate. (We both snore a little.) Check and double check.

As you can see, I really had not time available to create one of my typically clever, funny and self-deprecating posts. Well, I’m uploading this, then off to change the litter and attack the beach prep list. (Read between the lines…)

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend as summer begins to wind down and the days get shorter. See you again next weekend.