Vacation.

Everyone is on vacation but me.
Woe is me.
It's slow this week. Always is and always will be
We used to go to the lake at this time when we had our house there.

Rick is working on the 4th.
We have a neighbor who asked him to do her cabinets.
He has no time so he will be working on the 4th and the weekend to finish.
Me? I'll be walking Izzy and just hangin' out at home alone. Poor Peg, drinking rosé and watching "girl" shows on TV. Too damn hot to sit on the patio until evening. I only like 98 degrees when in the water. (or on a boat) 

We have a vacation at the end of the summer for the same week we always go to the lake. I miss having a house there but I don't miss having a house there.
Make sense? 
I miss just running down for the weekend and having a pretty place to stay that I know is clean. I hate renting places to stay.
I miss just hanging off our dock in a floating chair and watching Izzy "fish"
I don't miss the upkeep, the constant work when we arrived instead of just playing. I also don't miss the big mortgage payment. 

We are also going to visit Rick's newfound sisters in January.
Remember he met his sisters 2 years ago when he did his DNA.
They have been bugging us to come out since they have been here.
But it's not cheap and if we don't work, no money comes into our home. So we have to go when it is normally slow. The dates we gave them didn't work for them. It's been a long battle but finally found dates that work for all people and I bought tickets yesterday. 

My husband has been all over northern CA but never southern California.
I have been many many times so I asked him, "what do you want to definitely see or do?"
I want to see my friend Rusty, spend time chillin' with my sisters and going to an In 'N Out Burger. 
Oh, the man has lofty goals, doesn't he?
I told him he was a simpleton. He had a hearty laugh and asked what that says about me then if I married one?  Shit, good point.
I know he is going to love it and he'll want to move there. 
But we can't afford to retire in California unless we somehow get millions.
We are leaving an area with the same prices of real estate and the same traffic. Our goal is to get away from traffic and outrageous house prices. 

His sister Erin said "of course you are staying here!!"
"No, we are not."
Rick tells her, I can't have hotel sex at your house.
That made her laugh and back off.
Good one Rick.

The real reason is not having met her husband before and the others and because we like having a place to retreat.
What if we just need to get away? What if everyone is great but we just need a break? Some alone time in our room and our shower etc.
We both feel her husband is a jerk from the stories and his photo.
We could just be horrible people who are prejudging him. (I'll let you know, I am not normally wrong about my "feelings")

He looks like someone who would watch fox and believe it as news.
So Rick said that after spending hours with him and if he gets on my last nerve we are still stuck in his house. He went on to say he thought it was best to be with them all day and then retreat to our hotel.  I loved the idea because I don't care to stay in peoples homes so it worked for me. 

I know what I go through when people stay here. The menu's, the rooms, the linens, the cleaning, the everything to make sure they are comfortable.
I also know that his sister who asked us to stay, Erin, will fret about my being celiac and what foods I can and can't eat. She will make herself a wreck. I don't wish to do that to people. I get it done to me enough to know first hand it can be so stressful that the visit sucks. She will be running around doing all this work. This way she doesn't have to worry about doing half of it. I won't be eating there. We will probably go out more than not.

When Rick was on the phone with her, I heard him say what he said about hotel sex I gasped. I turned to him like, "what the hell are you saying to her?"
When he was off the phone he said, "No one has a response for that and she instantly stopped bugging me about it. It didn't go on. End of story." 
Okay, that worked.

We don't even stay at my parents before they had cats.
(Now it's because of cats and heat)
My parents keep their house so fucking hot.
Yes, fucking hot is the only way to describe my parent's house.
They don't open windows, they don't turn on the air conditioning and in winter the heat it is up to 80 and the rest of the humans are dying but my parents are chilled.

One Christmas we went to visit them and to have the big Christmas family dinner. I had on a pair of winter white wool slacks and a sweater. Rick asks me if I really want to wear this? I said you don't think this looks good? Oh no, he tells me, you look great but isn't it warm? Do you want to put something under that sweater so you don't die of heat there and you can take the sweater off? I did not heed his advice and did not put anything under my sweater but a bra. I thought I'd be fine. HA! What the hell was I thinking?

Then I see Rick dressing. He put on a pair of shorts, a Hawaiian style shirt and over top of that he put on sweat pants and a sweatshirt. I said you are wearing sweats to Christmas dinner? Oh no, I'm not wearing sweats, I'll take them off when I get there and will have on my summer clothes because between the ovens being on and the thermostat it will be like Hawaii in there.  I just left the room and laughed. I can't tell this man what to do so let him wear his summer clothes. 
In my mind, he was going to feel foolish when the rest of the family is all dressed up. 

But I was wrong.  We get to my parent's house and we are greeted in the foyer and mom takes our coats. I am taking off my boots and Rick is taking off his sweatpants.
My mom slaps his hand and says, "What are you doing Rick? 
Keep your pants on for Pete's sake it's Christmas!" 
That line to this day makes us laugh.
Apparently taking off your pants on any other day is okay though in her eyes.

When she saw that he had his docker style shorts on and his Hawaiian shirt she slapped his arm and called him an ass. She knew what he was doing.

But let me tell you what happened - everyone who came loved that Rick was dressed accordingly. My cousin said he changed before coming to just have on a shirt instead of the sweater over it because he knew it'd be hot. I had now changed and I got an old T-shirt from my mom that was my fathers because I had water dripping down my back. So much for the gorgeous clothes I was wearing.
I looked ridiculous but I was cooler. 

My father kept saying it is not that hot in here.
As all of his daughters, son in laws and others who were there had a collective LOUD moan.  
Dad laughed.

We never stayed at my parent's house because of the heat. Rick couldn't take it and honestly neither could I. When I was there in the summer they would never turn on the air. It wasn't so much the cost, trust me, it was the fact that they were always cold. I used to worry I would end up like them. But I am now the age they were when this went down. I use my A/C and I never keep the heat above 70. The dog, Rick and I prefer being a bit cool and putting on a sweater than being hot. Thank God we found each other.