Ready to head out

- I'm getting ready to go back to Home City, tomorrow. For 2 1/2 weeks.
- This is stressing me out because all it will be is lurching around from one place to the next, for a few days at a time. No down time at all. I was making up a list of phone numbers for the cat sitter today, and I am going to be in at least 6 different homes (and three different cities) in my 2 1/2 weeks. It is not the recipe for a relaxing holiday.
- This is making me rethink the way I am always turned to face Home City/Region. It gets so tiring. Perhaps I need to spend less time there. I'm torn about this...this is where the closest people in my life are.
- But it's too exhausting...and it takes away from my other vacation time. This becomes how I spend all of my vacations. As a consequence, I feel out of touch, for one thing, with other ways of spending vacation time...I was just thinking last week about how incredibly much I miss camping and canoe trips, for instance.
- For these reasons, it actually makes me quite happy to be planning to stay in Scary City for most of the summer. So that I can go on those camping and canoe trips, and get to really know and feel this region I'm living in.

- Today, though, today. Lots planned for today, in terms of getting ready to go. This morning I started my laundry, and the washer broke - full-on broke - partway through. It didn't drain, and will not. So I was left with a washing machine full of water and clothes. I frantically called my friend L, who I was planning to see later on, to drop Diamond off at her place. She said not to fret, but to bring my loads of laundry over to her place. Thank goodness I happened to have a rental car for the weekend - as a carless person, I don't know what I would have done without one. I brought my loads over to her place, only for us to discover that her power was out. I went back about three hours later, and it was still out. Poor L was sitting there freezing under a blanket in front of the gas fireplace, not knowing what would happen. My laundry was undone. So I had to frantically call a second friend and take my laundry over there. In the meantime I had to take the car back to the rental place, and so friend 2 has to drive my laundry over here when it's finished. Ridiculous!!! What a gong show.
- I had to take Diamond over to L's today. I miss her desperately. I'm become so damn attached to that little one. Damn. I feel all quivery-lipped, thinking about her little face, and not seeing her for almost three weeks. :( Another reason not to go away for so long in future.

- But there are fun things to look forward to in my trip to Home Region. A couple of days with M in Fun City. A blogger meetup over food! Fun New Year's plans. A friend's 50th birthday dance party. These will sustain me.