It's that time again!
- Whelp, I have gotten my second COVID booster now for a couple weeks now. I qualify under the immunocompromised stipulations.
- Had another successful trip around the sun, and I celebrated my birthday with a few buddies going axe throwing, doing an escape room, and screaming at a videogame. It was brilliant fun.
- I have more than six months of a nurse, now, under my belt! Holy crow, I have learned so much since January, let alone since August. At this point, I've even had my first review with my manager, which included some good discussion. I have a lot of space to grow; I'm eager to see it.
- Had a family vacation this last week! We gently tumbled into some tourist traps, properly ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the Smokies, went to Dollywood, and got to play some games together as a family.
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| Wonderworks, and all the ridiculousness therein |
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| The view from the Ferris Wheel at the Island. There's actual TOPOGRAPHY out there. |
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| Andy had to get creative around some obstacles at minigolf |
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| Would just like to point out that I managed to be the top-scoring player in our round of lasertag...because I camped and sniped people. Literally have no idea what 3/4s of the place looked like |
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| The Pirate's Voyage dinner show was a lot of fun, with some wonderful surprises |
- Our household was unaware of quite how many songs we sang to/about Luna until we were away for her for a few days. We knew it was quite a number, but, oof, it was revealing when we started one, made eye contact with another member and sighed. There were zoomies when we came home, so I like to think it was mutual. (Thank you again, Anthony, for watching her!)
- One of the tourist traps was a Jurassic Park boat ride that Mother and I peeled off to while the rest of the group made toward the go-karts, knowing full-well that it was going to be silly. However, I did not put two and two together to realize that the whole thing would be in the dark. With some things roaring and moving toward you. Neither of us are the person you want to take with you into the haunted house as your "protector," to say the least, which meant there were a couple of points of "No, don't you pop out at us!" and some legitimate yelping. I guess I thought there would be more "nice" dinosaurs before the chaos inevitably happened. Still, the right kind of silly.
- We have a few coaster enthusiasts in our group and Dollywood had some real zingers. My favorite part of any coaster is good airtime, when you crest a hill and float for a moment or two. Lightning Rod was our first coaster of the day, and it was definitely one of the top coasters I've ever been on. Brilliant airtime, loads of fun.
- Back at the Vrbo, we played Euchre, Pinochle, variants of Uno, Trash Pandas, and Telestrations. The latter always dissolves into a particular brand of chaos, even when we're not trying to actively sabotage each other. For example, I failed to read "Raisin Bran Cereal" correctly and interpreted it as "Russia Brand Cereal," hence the drawing of Soviet Flakes. Kitty, however, delights in deliberate but tangentially related sabotage, which is why she is labeled "the black hole."
- I tried to count how many times Andy was in conversation with strangers about the Rivian, and I lost count somewhere. One notable moment had a dude pulling next to us at a light and yelling "what the fuck is that?" over their toddler and replying "It's badass!" after the name/brief explanation. Tutti definitely pulled a LOT of gazes when we drove by the old truck expo, with all of these vintage Fords and Chevy's out in the lot. Andy has a lot of fun with it--really, Rivian could not ask for a better ambassador. He held court in more than one parking lot, certainly.
- Speaking of the truck, Andy and Mike had the chance to take Tutti through an off-roading class and course. They have a much more tuned sense of the truck's dimensions after that adventure, for some reason, as well as some good stories.
- I have another couple of days at home before going into three days in a row at work, which will include some recalibrating back to some degree of routine. I've also been putting off a couple of things until after vacation, which include a new workout system called TapFit as well as some rock climbing classes. For TapFit, I already do a fair bit of Zumba and the like, but I wanted to shake things up a bit there, try a new style of something. The community on the surface seems more focused on the weight loss angle, though the self-paced choreography basics are intriguing me in the right ways, for the first couple days in at least.
- I am already poking at what our next adventure might be. I had forgotten how much I appreciate a good road trip but for these last few destinations (Minneapolis, the Wisconsin Dells, and Pigeon Forge) I daresay the company at our destination had something to do with it.
- Andy has already planted another tree and at least a dozen small plants this season. I will have to make a cleaner budget line for gardening supplies for future months, but I comfort myself in knowing that he'll run out of space EVENTUALLY...even though I know that there will be some significant new landscape features. Even over the sound of my wallet screaming, I see how much joy it brings him, and I don't mind seeing the flowers nor would I stop myself from enjoying the black cherry tomatoes right off the vine. While I limit my involvement mostly to engender Andy's creativity and vision (following direction but seldom giving it), I also acknowledge my poor record for keeping plants alive, taking a backseat to minimize exposure of my herbicidal aura to the area, if you will.
- I am remembering from last summer that not only should I be wearing sunscreen because I have had a basal cell carcinoma dug out of my shoulder, but I am also basically mildly allergic to the sun, too. Post-vacation, I have a few spots on my arms that will need some help and time to go away, maybe some prednisone again. I'm considering what kind of light, full-sleeved options I want to employ so that I am not permanently painted white with SPF WowYou'reFlourescent to take Luna on a walk (yes, it has been that bad).
- Andy and I hit our ten-year anniversary on May 26th! He's still my favorite and brings color into my life. I look forward to our adventures to come.
- And speaking of, happy early birthday to Andy! I predict there will be more plants bought as part of the celebrating.
Much love, all.
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