Random 5 for August 5 – Vacation, packing, worry, weather, good times

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Getting ready – We were away for a few days recently. I am astounded that I pack almost as much for a weekend as I do for a week. That’s not including clothing. It’s an age thing that deserves a full post all by itself! I remember the days of throwing in extra underwear and tee-shirts and heading out!

From a few years back

Lining up anxiety – Leaving the cats for a few days always makes me anxious. I have a great cat sitter but I will miss them, especially Velcro cat Gracie. I don’t know if I can read a book without a cat sleeping on my legs.

Batting a thousand – So far this year we have had rain for every major event we planned. Part of the reason is that we have had almost constant rain. That and I have the worst luck picking dates.

For our friends Fred and Louise

Kicking back – Seeing old friends makes it all worthwhile. All the packing, all the cat anxiety, all the rain – none of it matters when you can connect and laugh, giggle and talk. Did I mention food? Good food too!

Nothing beats coming home – No matter how great your time away was, coming home is something special. I picked up a Starbucks on the last leg home and all was well with life.

So how was your week?

 

69 thoughts on “Random 5 for August 5 – Vacation, packing, worry, weather, good times”

  3. The rain has wreaked havoc with about everything this Summer. When I was chatting with the couple at the marina the other day, they said they had missed eight weekends of sailing – when it was not an all-day rain (we’ve had a ton of those since mid-April), there were changes of pop-up storms, enough to keep them off the water. The best days have been the weekdays – we are coming off a four-day heatwave and a week of stormy weather. My friend Carol (the one that I sent you the link about her three cats and sheltering the feral kitties) also has a catsitter for when she has to go out of town. And her three cats have issues – eating issues (different foods for each) and meds they take. Sometimes she has to have the cats fed in separate rooms.So she got someone from her vet’s office. Last time, the person didn’t show up. Carol was beside herself. She didn’t have a smartphone but got one for the next trip because she got some type of gizmo that she could control the dry food for them from off-site. I don’t know how it works and I don’t have a smartphone, but I’d be happy to ask her what it is if you’d like. She has not been out of town since she got the phone a few months ago – had a flip phone (like me) before.

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    • Wow! A cat sitter didn’t show up! I would complain loudly. My problem is not dry food. There are dry feeders with timers too. My cats eat mostly wet food and you need to dish that out daily. They all eat at different places so no one steals (at least not initially) or pesters anyone else. Also the litter has to be cleaned at least once daily. I do it twice a day. My cats like a clean box. Cats who only eat dry food are much easier. Sounds like we’ve had similar weather. I’m retired but I really feel sorry for working folks who did not get many nice weekends this year. There is a huge festival locally. It started last Thursday. They were flooded over the weekend and we just had a torrential downpour. Really bad for business.

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      • Carol was very upset about that cat sitter and reluctant to go anywhere. Her husband works in North Carolina and only comes home twice a year, and she has not really befriended anyone in the neighborhood since they moved there about 15 years ago. Carol’s cats used to eat raw foods and she specially ordered it, but she has been experimenting with different options for their delicate stomachs. The weather has really not been nice this Spring or Summer and I’m hoping the Fall will improve. The weather folks are hinting at an El Nino Winter and I am hopeful for that – it may help to make up for these past three seasons. All Summer we could not plan anything because of storms, or threats of storms. They predicted a storm in the afternoon rush hour and it has not shown up yet (not that I am complaining about that fact).

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        • A long time ago I had a friend cat sit. She wasn’t reliable. If she was busy she gave my key to the kid who lived next to her. I wasn’t happy about that at all so I always us a bonded service. I have had the same woman come for the last 10 years and it works well. She knows them. The grays come out to play and she’ll stay a while to tire them out. El Niño means more snow for us.

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          • Carol should find someone reliable like that and I wouldn’t appreciate the house key being handed off to a kid (or anyone else for that matter). She thought the vet tech would be reliable, but she forgot them. That sounds like a good service you have. In reading over posts, I saw one of Carol’s cats had four teeth pulled earlier in the week and she described the effects of the sedative as it wore off. She had to lock him in her bedroom with her as it is a two-story home and she was worried he’d tumble down the stairs. She said he was very out of it. That’s too bad you’ll be saddled with more snow – well, they sometimes can’t predict the afternoon’s weather, let along six months ahead. They made that prediction for us on the first day of Summer.

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  5. I don’t travel light and never have. How can I possibly know what I’m going to want to wear every day I’m gone? I haven’t even figured out tomorrow yet.
    … and leaving Theo is hard for me too, although I always leave him in good hands. Going home is always sweet after being away.

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    • The place we went to this past weekend was in the middle of no where so I was sure to pack all sorts of things that I might need in case of an emergency! However, I’d still do that if we were going to the shore where a general store is within walking distance. Some sort of primal fear. No place like home for sure! Where the litter needs cleaning.

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  7. I understand leaving the fur kids, worrying and missing them. But, I never packed light when I was younger and still don’t. I always thought it was a woman-thing. I have to have 2 tops available for every bottom, not to mention shoes and anything else that I might need “just in case.”

    That’s a great photo with the chipmunk. If that is you, your hair looks nice. I know you hadn’t liked the cut, but you look good.

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    • That picture is a few year old (at the same country place) but that’s the way I like my hair to be. Right now it’s a whole lot shorter but growing. The good thing about summer is that my hair does grow faster. To be honest I was awful about packing shoes when I was young, especially for a car trip. I’d need 4 pair for a weekend!

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  10. We traveled this weekend as well… and yes, I packed the same bag I took for a 3 week trip…and it was still full. We took our dog with us this trip – first time ever to a dog-friendly AirBnB. And while I did not like the place we stayed, it was fun to not worry about our dog. And the kids (nieces) loved playing with her. They do not have a dog… they have cats…I think they will be begging for dog now.(oops)

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  11. I would really like to stick to day trips or one night away. Even when we packed for two or three weeks for Florida in the winter we were light packers. Could do laundry and didn’t need much. Always figured we could buy what we needed. It was always hard to leave here… we always kept extending… 🙂 I am glad you had a few days away and had fun with friends, Always fun to visit friends, they make a trip more than worthwhile! When we had Z Cat our traveling came to a screeching halt, I couldn’t leave her.

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  12. Vacations are stressful. I’m with you on the packing now versus then. You never know until you get there what you’ll actually need when you’re there. Obviously. But of course after you get home, it was the best vacation ever. Glad your had a good time, despite it all.

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  13. Sounds like a wonderful trip! Glad you had a good time away and are now happily home 🙂 I too pack like I’m off on a round-the-world expedition, when it’s just a week or weekend away. But look how well that worked out for Ginger!

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  14. A few years ago I went on a three-week Rick Steves tour of Sicily and southern Italy. He required that we bring only a small bag, the kind you don’t need to check on the plane. That was the hardest packing job I’ve ever done. In the intervening years, I’ve come to require more things. When I go someplace by car, I’m lavish in my packing choices. It sounds like you had a great time visiting old friends. I trust the cats got along fine.

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  15. When I was young I did some traveling but no more. I am quite happy to stay home. As to rain…we have had some rain every day and tonight it is raining. The rain isn’t bad but tonight’s thunder is awful! So loud it is even scaring the pigeons off the roof. Of course, Teddy and Jack are under the bed.

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  16. It’s wonderful that you enjoyed being with friends and could look forward to a cat reunion at home. John keeps a checklist on the computer of the things he has to take with him, so I consider that pre-packing. No, it’s more like cheating. He goes away a LOT more than I do — trips to NY ferrying the grandsons and jaunts to the train club in Tennessee. His 9th trip to NY this year is coming up next week. I’ll stay home to get Nathaniel to and from work.

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  22. Getting away makes coming home the real treat. Sounds like you had a great time and the happiest parts were the visit with old friends and reunion with the kitties…and of course a return to your own familiar Starbucks.

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  23. I also don’t like leaving my cats when I go places for an extended period of time. When my brother was dying from cancer, I went to visit him one last time, and was gone for three days. I had boarded out my cats at a trusted veterinary clinic,still, it made me anxious to get home. and be with my cats. It was good seeing them, even if it was only three days absent. I got a whole lot of love, and affection. 🙂

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    • I had to board my cat Jake later in his life because of his meds. I hated to do that. At first we had a boarding place where they had cat runs so he wasn’t cooped up in a cage but they converted to all dog. My vet has the standard cages. 😦 I was never happy about that.

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        • I don’t like the cages at all. There are a few “upscale” cat boarding places but the per day cost rivals a hotel room. The place I use to use was really great. I could put a carpet in and hang catnip around the sides. He could climb up to a window too. Dogs usually get much better facilities than cats.

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  26. One thing about being a liveaboard was when we wanted to go away for a few days, no packing! However, going to visit anyone for a day or a couple of days was a mammoth operation securing the boat, in cold weather making sure nothing would freeze, digging out holdalls and clothes. A real pain! Nice to come home though. Nothing like sleeping in your own bed snuggled up in your own duvet with your own fluffy pillow.

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    • We were lucky. Both our home area and the place where we visited got a lot of rain but neither place was affected by the flooding. We have a local festival going on this week and it was flooded. I hate that. It only had about 10 days to make money and some vendors will lose out.

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  28. I love the photo of you, and how nice to be on a trip. I totally get the anxiety over your kitty cats since, I remember it well. We don’t realize how much we love them till they’re not there.

    I’m even attached to those that don’t belong to me. I’ll be feeding Zeus for a week when his mistress goes away. It says a lot about you Kate, how you love your critters so, so much.

    🙂

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