We are on vacation on the west coast. We are taking vacation in the fall, which I enjoy. The temperatures are cooler, the crowds less crowded, I get a thrill from skipping school and work when everyone else is schooling/working. Vince is not in school yet, it starts at the end of Sept. And it’s my birthday week!
Of course, I’ll start with the logistics. I hired Jeremy’s nephew (not really, but close enough… I think 1st cousin once removed) George to be Elka’s companion for the week. He’s staying in the house with Elka, so my vacation really started on Friday when I took most of the day off to pack and pick up George and his computer set up, bring all that back home, set up the computer in the house, go grocery shopping to make sure George is well nourished, pack some more, order pizza and introduce George and Elka to each other. I usually do not have someone in the house to watch the resident pet dog, but I’m a bit self conscious about Elka and her small bladder and tendency to be incontinent, so I wanted her to pee only in my house if she was going to pee in anyone’s house.
Our flight was late afternoon on Saturday, Jeremy booked us out of Dulles and home from National, so he dropped us off at Dulles, drove the car to National and took an Uber back to Dulles. We had a plan of early, early check in, but the counter didn’t open until 2 hours before our flight. We probably could have used another 30 minutes. We are not only traveling with Edda and all her gear, we were also traveling with Jeremy’s bike and all that gear. We do not travel light. Sometimes I look at other people whose family members each pack one carry on rolling bag for a week in Europe and I’m like, nope nope nope. Not us.
In the security line, one of the TSA agents kindly pulled us aside and recommended that we should get PreCheck for Edda, that then they would only have to wipe down her hands. I mentioned that we travel so rarely with Edda that it didn’t seem worth it and the wipe down they do never seems too onerous, but then Edda got pulled aside and they did the most involved wipe down, full body thing I’ve ever seen them do which took at least 15 minutes. I’m not sure if it because she’s 18 now, or what, but while I was waiting for them to finish it, I was like – OK, that’s worth paying for PreCheck to skip.
Edda did great on the flight to SFO, rocking back and forth and enjoying her TV. I had a long sleeved shirt on so her rubbing didn’t bother me, but the velcro on her arm braces were tough on Jeremy’s arm.
And we are at SFO. The unloading of the luggage/rental car went smoothly. We got into the van and started to drive to Davis. About 20 minutes from leaving the airport, we got a text from George that Elka had pooped in his room (!, she really has only pooped in the house the first week she was with us) and then when George went to go get a poop bag to pick it up, she decided to eat the poop. Ahhh, poopyface re-emerges. Poor Elka, poor George.
