Vacation Time Part V, or Going Home

continued from Part IV

Driving home proved to be much hotter this time around. The sun was out in force, and the sky was so very blue but only a few wispy clouds, and the trees and grass were vivid variations of green.

Mom was our audio-book again, and luckily I wasn't as sleepy this time, so I was able to drive a little less than two-thirds of the way before turning it over to Daddy. It's not so much that I can't drive the whole way (I've done it plenty of times), but the more tired I get, the more distractions bother me, and the testier I get with said distractions. When it's just me in my car with music, I can simply turn the music off. Human companions are a bit more difficult.

So Daddy drove the rest of the way. While we did stop for gas and the required bathroom breaks, we didn't actually stop for supper. Daddy said we'd get home around the time that Mom and he usually ate anyway, and I was perfectly willing just to snack for food. Both Mom and I didn't particularly want a repeat of supper on the way up.

They had picked me up from my house so my car would be there while I was gone, and thus they dropped me off before going home. 

Mom said, as I gathered up all my belongings, "I'll help," and then, as I persisted in putting all the bags on myself, said "why won't you let me help?"

"I don't want to go in there" shrugging in the direction of my house, "with strangers." (I meant strangers to the cats, and she knew that, because her response was an enlightened, "oh, right!")

So I staggered into the kitchen with all my bags strewn around me, and announced that I was home, it was me, you can come out, where is everybody? and about that point Thimble thundered into the kitchen, with Apricot hard on his heels and Colby a few feet behind them.

They were ecstatic to see me home. This is only the second time in their lives I've left overnight, and they were worried. Colby even required some coaxing before he'd admit it was me and he was happy to see me. 

I smelled funny, you see, so they thought it was possible I could be someone else. Although I did sound like me. And look like me. And eventually, they admitted that underneath all the external scents, I smelled like me too.

For the past two days (I took two more days off work after I came back simply because I didn't have my normal weekend to do things like wash clothes, vacuum the house, etc) they have been following me around. Thimble's practically been glued to my side. He hasn't protested his crate at night at all, almost volunteering to go into it (this means things are back to normal, being crated at night, thus the willingness to "leave" me). 

And the other two, while willing to sleep during the day and let me unsupervised, are trading off that sleep so there's always two cats with me ... or magically always in the same room with me.

Typical view these past days ... I turn around from the kitchen counter, and there everyone is. 

Vacation Time Part IV, or The Reunion -- Updated

continued from part III

The next morning I went for my walk, almost four miles this time, and then went back to bed again. I was definitely feeling that trail ride in my sit bones!

Later the relatives found it hilarious that I'd slept all morning. I found it vaguely insulting that they found it hilarious. It was my vacation, and I'm pretty sure I did more physical activity the previous day than any of them. Cousin P- was there but she wasn't one of the folks who found it funny (probably because she'd be along for most of Friday's wild ride.)

Everybody showed up around 3 ish, although a few more trickled in later.

Cousin G- and A-'s son, daughter-in-law, and family live in the farm across the street. They weren't coming to the reunion, but the son was cultivating the pumpkin field directly opposite the open garage we were in. He finished up right as people started arriving, but then he left the cultivator running. Right at the garage door with only the width of the double-wide driveway between it. Very loud and incredibly hard to hear people talking over it.

Most of the older relatives either farmed or (they all) grew up on a farm, and I guess the noise didn't bother them, but I thought that it was extremely thoughtless to have left it on, and left it right there (it's a big field--he could have driven to the other end. It's not like the cultivator belonged in the garage; its home was across the street in the farm buildings).

In addition, I was tired, and in pain, and I'd had a lot of social activity already this trip. I complained about the noise to one of my relatives, thinking surely somebody else was bothered by the fact that we couldn't hear ourselves speak much less understand what each other was saying. She duly went and told either Cousin A- or Cousin G-, but someone went and told son that he needed to move the cultivator "because it was bothering <my name>".

So before he moved it, he decided to come over and tell me that I was too sensitive and just needed to spend some time on a farm. He was very derisive about it. (Apparently my negative reaction to the intense smell of the mulch when we first arrived at their place two days before had also been conveyed to him. I thought that had been between Cousin A- and me. And I'd only wanted to know what that smell was, not demanded it be eliminated or anything.)

I managed to assess my feelings, ascertain that they were unlikely to lead to anything good happening if I stayed, and leave without saying the nasty things I wanted to say in return. I went in the house (which luckily reduced the sound of the cultivator considerably) and went to my room (I thought "there's a distinct benefit to the reunion being held at the same place I'm staying at that I hadn't thought of till now--I have a place to retreat to") and stayed there.

For a while. The sensory overload produced the meltdown I'd felt coming, and while my meltdowns are unpleasant to watch (and be inside of), they aren't noisy. I just sat in the corner by the half-sized sofa and rocked while I cried quietly. I heard the cultivator moving off, and fade into the distance. I was just as glad this meant the departure of the son as I was glad about the cessation of the noise.

I scraped myself together, washed my face in the bathroom sink that was on my end of the house and wasn't the bathroom everyone else had been invited to use, so no fear anyone would come in and ask what's wrong, and then went back out among the people.

Luckily, the first people I started talking to were a married cousin pair who do contract manufacturing of supplements. I mean, they're the contract end, not the manufacturing end. So they're the people who would pay us to make their product for them. And this was cool because rarely do they get to talk to the analytical chemist testing their product and producing the CoAs for them (that's Certificate of Analysis) so not only did we get to have a back-and-forth conversation about it (and that type of conversation is difficult for me if it's something I'm passionately interested in--I dominate the conversation--or not interested in at all--I don't say much) it was about something I know back to front but that I'm not passionately interested in.

I guess what I'm trying to say was, it was about the easiest way to ease back into social behavior after a meltdown that I could have come up with if I'd thought about it!

And the rest of the night I quite enjoyed myself. I love reunions, and there are so very few "bad" incidents like the two I've described here that I often forget that they can happen, and they take me by surprise when they do.

I got to talk to my Uncles H-, and S-, and my Aunts F- and M- during the eating part of the reunion; I talked to other aunts and uncles during the rest of it, and the few cousins who showed up.

And then, when the sun was setting, Cousin M-, wandering around the front yard, found a kitten, about 8 months old. A very friendly kitten. Knowing I like cats, this kitten was deposited into my hands.

Crouching on the ground, my knees up under my dress, cuddling the kitten and talking to her.

She was a gray calico, with kitten fuzz all over that made the calico part hard to see. She was purring and liked to be petted but then was very squirmy and wanted down. Her sharp little kitten claws got me a good one on my arm before I could safely put her on the ground (didn't want to drop her upside down or anything, and squirmy doesn't begin to discover the contortions a kitten can put herself in). Made me think, "hm, I need to clip my boys' claws when I get home; believe that's this weekend." (They get clipped every other week now.)

She bounced around from person to person. We'd moved the chairs out in a big circle in the back yard's grass, and some people liked her and accepted her, but Uncle C- didn't notice her climbing up his leg until she got over the knee bend, and reacted very startled and "hey, get away" and shaking his leg to get her off. (She left him, her attention to the humans unfazed.)

I felt critical of this behavior till I thought that I would have done the exact same thing to a dog, so it's not like I have room to talk.

Since we (my parents and I) were traveling back the very next day, I couldn't stay up as long as I wanted to. Going to bed at midnight was not an option tonight. So I said my goodnights and went inside to get ready to go to bed. As if my departure was a signal, though, everybody else slowly broke up and went to their cars and drove home, too. So I didn't miss much of the reunion at the tail end.

Updated later: after I posted this, and my mom read it, she told me something that made me stop and think for a while. Sometime between the reunion and when we left, she was in a conversation with Cousin A- (the one we were staying with) and mom mentioned, referring to me, "you do know she's autistic, right?" And Cousin A- says, "no, I didn't know. So that's why J-'s tractor bothered her."

Okay, think about it for a second. They didn't know. They only knew that I was upset by the tractor noise--that I didn't like it. In fact, I doubt any of them realized just how bad it was for me, since I wasn't complaining in a very constructive or informative fashion about it. But they had J- move the tractor anyway.

Because one person didn't like it. (My dad explained that for all the "old folks" there, the sound was simply background noise that reminded them pleasantly of farm life, which is how they all grew up.)

This is why I love my relatives so much. They didn't know I had a neurological reason for having such a dislike of the noise. But they accommodated me anyway. Is that not simply awesome?

My mom says this part of the blog was depressing, and I guess I did go into more detail about the "tractor incident" than everything else, but trust me--I love my relatives, I love spending time with them, and this is one of the main reasons why.

It's just not very interesting to write about the good stuff, which is repetitive (conversations with different relatives) and stays the same (conversations I liked having) ...

Continued in Part V

Vacation Time Part III, or Spending Time with Relatives (Friday)

continued from Part II

Luckily the rain forecast for today had dumped all its sullen load the day before, so we were a go for the trail ride. 

Cousin P- was supposed to pick me up at 7:30 Friday morning, given that Cousin F- lived an hour and 45 minutes away. She'd moved up in the mountains for respiratory relief for her and her youngest daughter, L-, who was the one going on the trail ride with me. 

This was because I was going to be riding Cousin F-'s horse, a fat, complacent, mild-mannered ex-broodmare named Punzie. (Rapunzel).

Rapunzel, after the ride. Her mane, which gave her the name, is on the other side, unfortunately.

Cousin F- had broken her back years ago in a bad car wreck, and Punzie is the only horse with gaits smooth enough she can ride (I think). And they only let strangers ride Punzie (none of the other horses), therefore no horse was available for Cousin P-. 

Given the way Cousin P- backed off with hands up saying no thank you when asked if she'd like to ride around the ring on Punzie, I don't think she would have wanted to go for the trail ride even if there was another horse available.

L- had me in the ring with Punzie to see if I still remembered enough about horses to be okay on a trail ride. Punzie direct-reins, instead of neck-reining, which is what I'd learned. So I also had to learn a new skill quite quickly. But L-'s a good teacher, and I did remember quite a bit about horses and riding them. It took a few times around the ring before it all came back, though. 

I found it odd how the muscle memory triggered the actual memories so I wasn't just riding on instinct (not a good way to ride) and, after learning the direct reining, I managed quite well, I thought. 

The horses were barefoot--no horse shoes--and they hadn't been ridden enough to build up their feet yet. Kind of like how we get callouses on our feet when we walk barefoot a lot. So they had boots! When I rode horses nearly two decades ago, horses had two choices, barefoot or nailed-on horseshoes. 

Now they have boots!

Horse boot next to human in human boots

Boot on horse. The pinky purple stuff is a healing agent of some kind that Punzie had on because the boots had rubbed her wrong the last time she wore them. This also led to her being very crabby about having the boots put on this time. Cousin F- had to do them. 

L- mounted up on her horse, Miss Jet (so named because her mane is black, not the rest of her, which is a fairly typical bay color) and led the way off into the woods surrounding their house.

The woods weren't trail-ridden a lot, the way all the other trail rides I've been on have been, and this meant quite a lot of leaf-in-face incidents. Horses, who naturally look up due to the whole predators in the wild jumping on them from above (the pumas and other big cats), have a nasty tendency to side step just enough to get you into the worst of the tree/weed branches.  Horses also like to try to scrape you off against tree trunks if you don't watch out.

Punzie and I had some discussions about who was in charge during the first part of the trail ride, but after I made her stop and only go when I said so after Miss Jet had stopped, figured out where the next part of the trail was, and started again, Punzie finally admitted I might actually know what I was doing. (She'd stopped when I'd said stop when Miss Jet ahead of us stop, but when Miss Jet started forward again, so did Punzie. Before I told her to. So thus the additional stop and start.)

After that there were fewer tree branches in my face and tree trunks against my legs as Punzie focused her attention on trying to get some illicit food instead. At one point she leaned down to itch the side of her foot. The flies were so bad the horses were both wearing fly masks (another new thing to me) and I've had horses bit before; it's polite to let them at least rub at the spot for a moment. Then while she was down there she tried to eat the one bit of greenery near her and I told her that no, once the itching was over, you had to put your head back up and keep going.

Unbeknownst to me, she'd also undone one of the velcro straps on one of her boots while she was down there. This led to her being very uncomfortable with coming back down the slope through the grass to her house. L- said that's probably why she'd been acting like that (which basically consisted of really not wanting to walk but wanting to go faster, and for Punzie that's unusual, and a few tries at meandering from side to side).

I didn't feel too sorry for Punzie. It was her own stupid fault and next time, maybe she'll learn and not try to take her boots off in mid-ride.

We got back after about forty-five minutes or so, and then L- begged off while Cousins P- and F- and I went for a hike in the nearby state park (which you didn't have to pay to get into ... I thought that was odd). (We had grilled-by-Cousin F-'s hamburgers first. They were yummy.)

The hike was all in hickory forest, and this was nice since the sun was getting kind of hot even though the air was cool. A hike right after the trail ride might seem like overkill, but trust me, I would have been more sore without the hike!

The easy trail

We did a lovely "along the side of the lake" trail, and when that ended, instead of turning around and going back the way we came, we headed up another trail that was more strenuous. Cousin P- could read the map with the elevation lines and didn't figure it would be too awful, as we weren't going the full distance of it, just the bit that wandered back to the parking area from the end of our current "easy" trail.

What the map did not tell us was that the elevation changes, which wouldn't have been that severe had we been going at an angle to them, were quite dramatic since the trail went straight up the side of the mountain.

There were stops to rest.

There were a lot of stops to rest.

And it wasn't always Cousin F-'s idea! She had to use her inhaler a lot and the rest of us worried, but as she is a grown woman, it's rude to tell her that she doesn't know her own strength. I figured she'd say something when she had to. (Or, you know, wave frantically in the air if the whole exercise-induced asthma kept her from talking). 

We saw a turtle

Later she said she'd had fun, even though she'd had to rest extra for two days after, and that's it's good to do things like that.

Then we drove back to her place, and picked up something ... I forget what, that F- had forgotten, and then we tried to go shopping, only I'd forgotten that F-'s "little town near here" was going to be the requisite 30 minutes away, so the stores were closing when we got there. There weren't many, as "little" was quite accurate, and the one stayed open for us. It was a more antique/random stuff place than a gift shop, and although I found a lovely necklace as a gift for someone (I don't wear jewelry anymore), I was also glad I'd been shopping with Aunt K- the day before.

Then Cousin P- and I had to drive the almost two hours home, and stop to get gas on the way, so when I got home, supper was as late as it usually is at my house, and I still got to bed late.

continued in Part IV

Vacation Time Part I, or This Trip is Cursed

I decided to go to our family reunion this year. My parents are getting older and my mom doesn't like driving on the interstate, and my dad, although he's a professional driver with many years of experience behind him, probably shouldn't be driving the day-long distance by himself, either. This worked out very well, then, because instead of driving there by myself, which is difficult both to stay awake and just because driving that long, no matter how much you like it, is boring, I could go with them, stay where they were staying (didn't have to request a place to stay with a relative), and help them drive.

This was the plan. Before we left, however, all kinds of things started happening.

Like: the friends I had lined up to be my cat sitters. I'd asked them back in November of last year when I knew I was going to the reunion this June. Well, they had not one but two deaths in their family, one of those extremely unexpected. So the day before I left I had to find someone else to be my cat sitter.

I asked my neighbor, who I knew liked cats and used to have them, but didn't anymore because one of her grown children married someone who was violently allergic to cats. She texted me every night with updates on how they were doing and who she saw. Amazingly, she saw Apricot the first night she went over there. He didn't even hide, just watched her from the door of the tv room which contains his hiding place. Colby didn't hide either. But after that night all she saw was Thimble and the occasional Colby. Still, it's amazing! My little orange boy's getting some bravery in him.

Okay, so that disaster was averted. Then my dad ends up with this weird sensation two days before where sitting for more than two hours at a time left him in extreme muscle pain. Um, problem driving all day in a car then. The issue did resolve itself and appeared to be just simple dehydration (someone wasn't drinking enough!)

The day before we left I went into work just long enough to write up the previous day's work and leave. And I discovered that a massive amount of work from our outside manufacturers had just showed up (they should have been mailing it to us as they collected it, not waiting till they had a whole group)! Well, this made me feel really guilty about going on vacation and leaving such a massive pile of work to my backup person--whose normal job doesn't involve getting such a large amount done and while I'm used to fitting it in "somehow", he's not.

That was the same day I had to find another cat sitter, too!

Then I'd arranged a trail ride on horseback, my first one in about fifteen years, on Friday while I was up there with family, and the weather, of all things, was forecast to be rainy (and you can't go riding in the rain--it does funny things to the saddle leather, makes you and the horse miserable, and is generally a bad idea).

This trip was cursed ...

The curse continued into the drive itself, sort of.

The driving was fine, except for the fact that my going to bed late caught up with me and I ended up having to switch off with my dad way earlier than I'd planned. But the traffic was okay, and the weather cooperated--nice sunshine with adequate cloud cover.

Mom was our audio book and read to us, except when I had to try to take a nap.

The problem was supper. We stopped at one drive through for them, because they wanted chicken salad, but because I'm allergic to chicken and all that restaurant has is chicken, we had to stop at another drive through for me. I changed my mind at the last minute and got the beef and cheddar. What I did not realize, never having eaten this meal before, was that the cheddar was not a slice of cheese placed on top of the beef. It was instead the liquid form that was drizzled onto the beef.

I'm sure this is just fine for anybody who's not lactose intolerant. Other than being extremely messy to try to eat while driving, anyway. But for me. The only way to get cheddar to be liquid form (well, aside from keeping it heated constantly, and then the cheddar oil separates from the cheese and doesn't really work well) is to mix it with milk while it's hot.

I didn't even think about this. I just ate my sandwich and figured the whole feeling bad business was due to the long drive, the enforced socialization (which is stressful no matter how much I like the people I'm with), and the whole drama leading up to the trip.

It wasn't until the next morning when I was still feeling bad-funny, and then there was the lactose-intolerant bathroom consequences that those of you who are lactose intolerant know all too well, that I figured out what must have happened.

I spent the morning in bed, after stubbornly going for my morning walk.

Which was freezing, because apparently going that far north actually made it colder. I'm not used to this--it's logical, but it's not what happens. Normally it's the same temperature lows and highs that it is here, which is not logical, and thus annoying. I'd packed for the normal experience, though, and thus had no jackets (because I'd forgotten the one jacket I'd planned to take in the car with me, and hadn't packed a walking jacket) and I was going to freeze. Luckily my cousin A- had jackets to spare and she was willing to spare me one. It was even white and a windbreaker, which was very nice both due to visibility issues and the cold wind that morning.

My shadow against the horse farm I walked past during one of my morning walks

It's difficult to walk around their place. They live back in the country--lots of small farms around them with huge fields of barley (almost ready to harvest) and corn (just planted a month ago). But oddly, this means people go faster on the back country roads, which have no shoulders much less sidewalks. Often there's no way of getting off the road either, because it cuts through a mild hill instead of going up and over, so there's either three feet of vertical dirt and weeds rising on either side of the road, or somebody's crops (which I know enough not to trample!).

So being visible as you walk is critical, because the cars have to avoid you, since there is very little way for you to avoid the cars. But the trip "curse" had apparently ended with the bad food the night before (my mother said later she was unimpressed with the food they'd had too, which was her polite way of saying it was icky) and I didn't get run over, and I didn't encounter any transport trucks (18 wheelers) either.

Continued in Part II