Hello Goodbye

Regardless of age, I think we all feel the same way when vacations end and it’s time to face the music. The final day of freedom lurks somewhere in the not-so-distant future and yet we put off our vacation “to-do-list” until that final day appears. This creates a frenzied attempt to cram every last “to-do” into a 10-hour time span – no easy feat – let me tell you people. Ever tried to: detail your car, deep clean the house, create several Julia Child – inspired meals, mend a variety of decaying sweaters, knit a scarf, work at a soup kitchen, read 4 books, organize 2 closets, grocery shop, clean a chicken coop and halter break a baby donkey in a single day? I am personally impressed with my lofty goal to achieve these tasks within this time frame, since I conveniently ignored them until this morning at 8am. You see, today my vacation ends, and I’m experiencing a touch of misery as the happy holidays, the lazy mornings, and late nights recede in my mind’s rear view mirror. Does anyone else go through this every January? Hello? Anyone? I can’t remember a holiday season that’s passed without a quickly following and overwhelming melancholy. But this year – it’s worse. Tomorrow marks the beginning of a job with undefined evening and possible weekend hours, therefore infringing upon my ferociously protected free time. The days of popping into and out of the office for a whopping three-hour time span are decidedly over. And, more tragically, my ability to run off to the land whenever I want, is limited. This brings me to Boo. Boo is my baby donkey. I realize in advance the snickers this statement causes, and that’s fine because I assume few of you have ever had your very own baby donkey (if you do have one, then you understand). It’s probably obvious at this point that I’m what one might call an “animal lover.” As such, it’s tough for me not to know the state of my animal kingdom on a daily basis. It’s easy with the dogs and cats (and chickens) because they are located in the backyard, or on the floor at my feet, or in the nest box, depending on who we’re talking about. We carefully planned the livestock purchase to coincide with my vacation so that I could visit them daily and figure out exactly how one, er, takes care of livestock. The reality now of not seeing them, specifically Boo, every day makes me deeply sad. I lost the battle to make Boo a house donkey (Jeremy has very little imagination, apparently), so alas, at the land she (he) must stay. Before ending this break, I finally attempted to put a halter on the little girl (oops – guy) but misjudged the size of Boo’s face, clearly. I don’t know when I’ll see Boo again but it could be as far away as next Saturday. Next Saturday?!? That feels like forever, so long, in fact, that I’m certain he won’t even remember me. However, at that point, maybe his halter will fit.
Finally, I’d like to add my two cents about the genuinely creepy discovery of the aged wheelchair. My two cents are that it’s really creepy. I have so many questions about how (and why? why?!?) it got there. And I’d like to note that, while intended to be humorous, the squeaky wheelchair sound impressions that ensued last night were not funny, and I will now always be just a little bit scared of the woods. I did, however, appreciate that everyone’s impressions were so completely different (a la the Arrested Development family’s alternate chicken impressions). Jer stole the show though, making the sound of a, and I quote, “accelerating squeaky wheelchair,” because he thinks the idea of a quickly approaching, haunted wheelchair is terrifying. By the way, feel free to question our senses of humor, if you haven’t already.