My travel plans to the annual Miva Conference in San Diego have been finalized. The trip this year should be “interesting”. Heading out I’ll be flying Delta through Atlanta. That’s funny, fly east to go west. I’ll also get to see how well I do with Delta’s “Basic Economy” – I don’t get to choose my seat, it will be assigned for me and I’ll be in the last group to board. Should be interesting for someone who prefers a window seat so I can settle in and not have to move. I know not to complain, the flight and accommodations are provided for me. Coming back will be a little better, I’m flying American Airlines connecting through Dallas will a little over an hour layover (time to make it to the next flight without having to run). I was able to select my seats for this flight. Well, sort of. Out of San Diego, I was able to select a window seat just past the emergency exits, but there were no “free” available seats for the connector to Birmingham. I paid the upcharge to at least have a guaranteed seat.

Of course, I need to get this mysterious intestinal “distress” under control. After about of week (it was probably more than that), I went to the doctor. She told me there was some intestinal bug going around that could last up to 2 weeks. Oh joy. She ordered a CT scan to rule out sigmoid diverticulitis, would send in a prescription for an industrial strength version of Imodium if it wasn’t, told me to continue with the BRAT diet, to push fluids and said if it didn’t clear up in a week more tests would need to be ordered. Yeah, I knew what she meant. Another miserable week went by, what ever is going on was not being phased by the Lomotil. Arrangements were made for me to have the additional tests run, unfortunately, the lab that the samples were being sent to is in Atlanta. It would have been nice if someone had informed me at the time that these tests take a week (or more) to be completed.

I started this post on 2/15 and since then, I’ve had a few updates from the doctor’s office. All the tests were normal. The next step is to see a Gastroenterologist. That appointment has been scheduled. In the mean time I’ve been doing some serious online research and may have stumbled up the source of my distress. It may take up to a week (or more) to confirm the theory. If I’m wrong, then I still have an appointment with someone who has a bit more experience.

The holidays are over and I’m working to put the decorations away while handling the “normal” day to day work load. I figure I’ll be working until I’m at least 70 (I don’t think I have any other choice). Started the morning off slicing fruitcake and packing up cookies for Jeff to take into work with him. All the holiday baking got thrown way of kilter due to the nice idea of purchasing a new range.

The new range purchase might be a metaphor for pretty much all of 2018. I came to the realization, that all of my drama is just that, my drama. My life is no different from millions of other people who have day to day issues. I have the same aches, pains and health issues that millions of other people have. So writing about my “adventures” are really nothing out of the ordinary. People have flights cancelled and get rerouted all the time. Okay, maybe having TSA hand inspect my In & Out burgers is a unique story, but again it’s just my own drama.

My daughter’s wedding was like millions of other weddings, it had it drama, stress and conflict. The only uniqueness was it was my daughter, so the story is only special to me.

The amazing road trip to Colorado was preceded by some bad news regarding our elderly orange and white Persian cat. The vet found a tumor but due to his frail condition and age, she felt it to be inoperable. She gave a through exam and asked if I wanted to talk about the euthanasia process. I said I wasn’t ready.

I don’t think I experienced altitude sickness while I was at tech school in Denver years ago, but I sure did this time around. Granted we were over 2000 feet further up than Denver. It was a peaceful “working” vacation at the invitation of one of my clients. As much as we enjoyed the cross country journey, the next time we go out west we are flying.

The months leading up to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays were fairly uneventful, with the exception of having to cancel the trip to my step-sister’s wedding. Seems our elderly kitty is exceeding the vet’s expectations but we no longer had a kitty sitter to come to the house and stay with him. Megan quit her job here in town so she no longer had a reason to commute 45-60 minutes one way every day. The one day she did come over to visit she wound up hydroplaning her car off the road. She would not have been able to kitty sit even if she wanted to. On the bright side, after being unemployed for around 30 days she found a job a lot closer to where she lives.

We’ve starting buying our Christmas tree pretty much the day after Thanksgiving now. If we wait until when we used to buy it, on my birthday, the selection available is almost nothing. The news foreworned of a “tree shortage” but the trees were in supply, just a lot smaller than what we had purchased in previous years. We weren’t going to decorate outside this year because our neighbor had told us he wasn’t going to be able to do his annual Santa on the Roof due to health issues. At the last minute, a couple of the neighbors pitched in to put up his decorations and that left me scrambling to put up something in our yard. To say the least, the next day I could barely move because I was so sore. At least we had a few things up for the hundreds of people who would be coming to see Santa on our neighbor’s roof. I was also able to bake my first batch of Christmas cookies that 22nd day of December.

I put the fruit cake for my dad in the mail on December 26th. I carried another one out to my husband’s coworkers the next day, with two remaining in the freezer. As New Year’s rolled around I was making cookies to mail and to deliver. I made my delivery to a friend that I have been bringing cookies to for years now, yesterday six days into 2019.

So I wrote more than I really wanted to spend time doing. I’m trying to play catch up for those who took the holidays off and now want everything done yesterday. To them I say “the line starts back there”.

As I update my playlist to include Gold Dust Woman and Both Sides Now, Maggie May, Time in a Bottle, Taxi, Daniel and Hello continue to make me cry. I Won’t Back Down and I Don’t Care Anymore are my oxymoron songs that I sings at the top of my voice. My latest fortune cookie tells me “Your persistence will pay off”. We shall see, we shall see…

Like so many memories over time, many fade. There are some that still remain. Some sad, some happy and some just down right depressing.

Maybe it’s the rain…

The years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends
I found myself further and further from my home
And I guess I lost my way
There were oh so many roads
I was living to run and running to live
Never worried about paying or even how much I owed
Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time
Breaking all of the rules that would bend
I began to find myself searching
Searching for shelter again and again

…

Against the wind
I’m still runnin’ against the wind
I’m older now but still runnin’ against the wind
Well I’m older now and still runnin’
Against the wind

…