Casualties and Logistics

For my last trip to Seattle in November/December of last year, I bought one of those horseshoe-shaped neck pillows so I could sleep on the plane.  I actually didn't sleep on the plane but figured I might this latest trip, so I took it with me.  I actually used it more as a buffer for my elbow which was wearing a spot in my arm at the window seat.  I don't know how/when it happened, but the silly pillow did not make it off the plane with me.  I just suddenly noticed that it was no longer with me.  It was a $12 purchase--certainly NOT worth the effort to drive back to Seattle from Bothell to locate it.  Hope whoever has it now enjoys it.  I'll get another one next trip.

This trip, since I had a companion, we took a motel rather than interrupt family routine trying to figure out where to put two visitors.  It cost a bunch more, which limits future trips, but the motel was great and probably only a quarter mile from my daughter's house.  There were considerations, however.  I usually take my laptop computer wherever I go.  This time, the question was where to put it?  My original thought was to set it up at Meg's house and leave it there...and I did that several times, but it was a pain.  Finally, Meg said that they could set up a laptop at their house for me to use, but almost at the same time, my grandson wanted to use it at school.  Frankly, we were so busy that I probably didn't even need to have it with me, but I feel naked without it.  In the end, it stayed at the motel while I was gone from there.  There just was no time.

There were other considerations.  Leaving the motel in the morning meant that we probably wouldn't be back there until bedtime.  What would we need in between?  I need breathing treatments with a nebulizer, so it went back and forth with me.  So did my make-up and my wig, Jeannie, and my sudoku puzzle book.  And my little packs of Kleenex, my motel room key, some cough drops, etc.  I did the countdown every day before I left the motel.  It worked.

The only other casualty of the trip happened at the last minute.  As we were packing our stuff to check out of the motel (Red Lion Inn and Suites), I couldn't find my room key card.  I'd had it the night before, so unless it got stuck on the bottom of something Denis took home that night, it had to be there, somewhere.  But it wasn't.  The room had a small kitchen area with a counter.  I always put the card on the counter at night before going to bed.  That morning, it was nowhere to be found.  Got all the way home to Indianapolis when it appeared.  It had somehow become shuffled into the pages of my Les Mis program.  'Tis only a useless souvenir now!

And so, another lovely vacation is in the books.  I hope my family isn't the worse for wear.  Meg is sick, so what does that tell you??