Closer to the Sun

7.3

Happy almost July 4th y'all. The midst of summer is upon us although it doesn't feel like it's a major holiday to me. I've been on call today (went in for 1 case) and the 4th lands on a Tuesday this year and it's my normal day off. I could have sworn that I'd have Mondays off by now (I've sort of given up hope on that possibility because I was offered months ago and things don't seem to be changing). That would have given me a long weekend with some call but that was not meant to be. Besides, International Reggae Day was yesterday and that's more exciting to me. Especially since I got to celebrate it by going to Champlain Valley Exposition with Dayna to see The Movement, JBoog, Iration, and Slightly Stoopid. We got there a little late and missed The Movement but that's ok because we've seen them before and Slightly Stoopid was THE bucket list band. They were good, real good. The cherry on top was hearing Closer to the Sun live. Love that song. We were able to get pretty close to the stage and I'm happy to report that I didn't get flippin irritated with anybody around us. Someone usually pisses me off. In fact, some of our neighbors were generous. At one point, Jackie Ames noticed me and tapped me on the shoulder. Random. An interesting day, overall. It started with meeting Archie at the range in West Leb to shoot our guns (the first time using mine) but that was short lived due to rain and storms. We did talk to the only other guy there for a while and learned a lot of pointers. He's taken all the handgun classes at Sig and does competitions having only been using a gun since March. Dayna and I left Leb and got caught in heavy rain on the way to Worthy Burger. I drove though some large puddles and ended up damaging something on the bottom of my car and now it sounds like a rattling junker. It's really embarrassing so I hope to get it fixed Tuesday. Continued to Essex Junction and encountered a driver that had to be under the influence of something because he would speed, slow down, tail gate, and swerve all over the place. At one point, I slowed down to 40 and he was still on my tail and did not pass. We reported him. Hopefully he was pulled over. Luckily, the rain held off and the concert was awesome.

It was a few days before my birthday when I last published. I'm 34 now. Mid 30's. When did that happen. Gross. Even though I continue to age, I still get excited for my birthday. It was a good day...even though it was really hard to bring my kitty to Ctown and start a 10 day stint of not seeing him. I worked but was able to leave early. Meg (my birthday buddy) and I got to celebrate with 2 Cravin's cakes and Bibhu got us a giant tub of ice cream to go with it. Lisa also brought us in cupcakes. Tiff got me a sweet, thoughtful gift. I hung out at home with X for a little bit before I put him in the car. Hung out at my mom's house before leaving my kitty for what seemed like a month. Stopped in at Ashley's for a little bit because she was having a get together for Chelsie and Clay because they had flown in the previous day to visit with their sick dad. I got sung to (again tehe), more cake, and was sent home with a balloon, flowers, and a pint of Half Baked. Good times.

It's especially hard to be without Xander at home so between that and travel anxiety, I didn't sleep well. That trend continued for the duration of the entire trip. We were go go go pretty much the entire trip; we did so much and saw so many things that it felt like I was gone for a month. Not nearly enough sleep to recover from everything done during the day. It was quite the week; I don't know how much detail I can cover here but I can safely refer this synopsis to all the pictures I took in the various places we went. Pictures say a million words although all of the pictures do not do the real thing much justice. My intention was to keep a journal (much like the journal Ashley kept both times we went to Europe) but I went the whole time without writing down even one word. I did, however, post pictures on Facebook almost every day. I had a lot of worries about this trip (on top of my inherent homebodyness), but I'm glad I went and had the experiences I had with my fellow travelers. It's one of those exhausting, need a vacation from vacation, once in a lifetime trips and I'll remember it for a long time to come. Despite all that, coming home is my favorite part, even though it was really upsetting because I missed my connection in Frankfurt due to the immigration line so I had to wait for the next flight to Boston which meant getting home Sunday morning instead of cuddling with my kitty Saturday evening. Could have been worse; Denise, Eric and Faith saved me from a night at Logan. It really sucks to have something you are so looking forward to ripped away from you.

7.7

It's Friday night but it's not the fun kind of Friday night because I am on call all weekend and Monday night. Four nights in a row...a first. Wasn't originally on call this weekend but had to make a swap because my next scheduled weekend fell during a vacation and I had already signed up for this coming Monday night. Ain't no way in hell I'm taking even an hour of call during a vacation. Gettin' it done now so I can begin the 4 week countdown. Right now, I have a purring kitty in my lap so life is good.

Boy I'm really kicking myself now for not writing even a couple sentences at the end of the days in Italy. Aside from the itinerary email and all the pictures I took, I can try to synopsize the trip here a little bit. After taking to Dartmouth coach down, I met up with Heidi at our gate. We had a drink before getting on our flight. We flew Lufthansa (nice airline) and the flight was pretty uneventful. Unfortunately, I was unable to sleep at all despite the prescription I had for various reasons, one being all the children around us who were not sleeping as well. I finally dozed off on the bus from the airport once we were in Milan. Made it to Mio Hostel via cab and I ended up taking a little siesta and got up around 7 pm to meet with some of our group and to have dinner. The rest of the trip went as follows (please refer to my pictures to view the sites at each destination):

Saturday: Last Supper and tour in Milan. Train to La Spezia (favorite hotel) and local dinner at a pizza place with the whole group.
Sunday: Morning boat to Cinque Terra.
Monday: Train to Pisa. Day in Pisa. Train to Florence (least favorite hotel; please refer to my review online lol). I had my favorite meal, however, at the restaurant near where we were staying. We stayed in Florence 3 nights.
Tuesday: Exploring across the Ponte Vecchio. The David in the afternoon.
Wednesday: Uffizi, shopping, lots of stairs, Vespa tour in Tuscany (most fun and favorite activity although Heidi did not fare well).
Thursday: Morning train to Venice (favorite city). Exploring Venice, very short gondola ride at night.
Friday: More exploring, train ride back to Milan. Last dinner at this super yummy place near the hostel.
Saturday: Long journey home that extended to Sunday morning due to previously stated hiccup. Damn I missed my kitty.

My first full weekend home, I took a little trip to Ctown to hang out with Simone. We went to the playground (she made some new friends and played with them by herself for a little bit) then we went out for ice cream. Played outside some more, watched Elf and had some pizza. I went to the Goss house for a little while before coming home. Lots of sad family drama going on there in very recent times.

Work has felt a little off as of late and I'm not sure why. I find my self cranky a lot. Maybe I just need a real restful vacation. I've had a couple independent days in Echo and I don't like it. I don't have good IV skills and I don't feel like I have enough experience and educated judgement to be stressing people. Busy TAVR days irritate me and I'm just tired. This job consumes more time than any previous one; sometimes I just want to sit around and do nothing, but I have obligations on my days off. My lists are always there and they don't seem to change. I want to escape somewhere tropical and be left alone for a week. But with Xander, always with Xander.

I suppose I ought to try to go to bed. Who knows how much sleep I will be getting this weekend.

I've gone back to my Deftones roots for a while but I've been listening to Slightly Stoopid radio since Sunday. Music makes my world go round. And Xander.