Holiday report: Autopsy

[muckefuck]

Today was my recovery day. Even though the flight back from STL takes less than an hour, between getting to the airport two hours before departure in order to meet up with my parents, accompanying them to baggage claim afterwards, and a truly horrendous commute back through downtown (some CTA drivers should simply not be allowed to work downtown without additional training), my total travel time was only two hours less than the train trip down. Fortunately there was no agenda today except for eating the meal that monshu would've had prepared for me had Mr Smith not treated us to dinner last night (a post in itself). In honour of being almost back to rights, a list (in no particular order) of things I missed while at my sisters:

1. Porn. 'Nuff said.
2. My cookware. My sister has a beautiful kitchen--granite countertops (and lots of 'em), two ovens, storage space for days--but some of her utensils are simply crap. And it's always things I wouldn't expect so I get ambushed every year by, for instance, her lack of a decent meat fork. (It's so ridiculously stunted I can't ever find it in the utensil drawer.) How she bakes hundreds of cookies every year with that embarrassment of a pastry cutter I'll never know. And thanks to her flimsy little meat thermometer, the roast was ruined. (Luckily we had my parents' old one as a backup.) One good thing about my airport rendezvous is that it led me to draw up a list; she can expect a fat package in the mail for her birthday.
3. Sleep. I think there was one night I got to bed before midnight. Sis was really really good about letting me sleep in (and the boys have gotten a lot better about letting me--one of the advantages of their Minecraft addiction), but I had trouble pulling it off due to the general air of excitement in the place.
4. Restraint. monshu and I don't keep a lot of snack food and sweets around the place. That's deliberate. However, it also means we're not accustomed to having to ignore it. I cannot walk from one end of my sister's to the other without passing a dozen things I want to eat but shouldn't. Moreover, chronic tiredness makes me seek consolation in food and attention, though mostly food. I really don't want to think how many calories I ingested while I was there.
5. Mobility. I've complained before about how walking to shops isn't really an option in their neighbourhood. Between being shuttled around by car and having more than enough to distract me indoors, I walked more just leaving the airport than I think I did in the whole five days. I meant to get out and see the lights on Christmas, but between one thing and another it never happened.
6. Music. Even though I don't use my iPod any more, a couple hours of my day is spent listening to music on YouTube. In the past my sister has had something--a CD console, an MP3 player--in the living room or the kitchen to spin Christmas tunes on. Not this time. I took the liberty of playing some tunes on the computer in the family room, but it drew OGI like a fly to rotting meat and within fifteen minutes he was bored with animated carols and just wanted to logon and throw himself down mineshafts. In the car, the radio was always tuned to some bottom-of-the-barrel pop, so I heard more KeSha than Kris Kringle. Sad.

Some things you would think I would miss but I don't really include screen time (filling time isn't really a problem there), fine food (the family are actually raising their game), and my man. He's only ever come down with me once, so psychologically I just don't expect him around. Plus I'm constantly surrounded by people who love me, so it's only when climbing into an empty bed (when I'm too numbed by exhaustion to be much aware of my surroundings anyhow) that I really have a chance to feel lonely.

Comments

[sconstant.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'd have seen your parents' old roast as a legitimate option, I guess it depends how overdone that roast actually was. But other than that, sounds exhausting and hopefully fun in that crazy way that required the day off afterwards.