Long "vacation"
Oct. 22nd, 2025 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shivverI put "vacation" in quotes because, since I don't actually have a job, what did I vacate from?
But yes, I'm back after a month of being away from home. I went to my sister's place for three weeks, to hang out and to house- and cat-sit while she and my brother-in-law went on a trip with his sister and her husband. Then my husband and I went to visit his mother for a week. Then, we returned a day early to my sister's place before heading home, but that's a story for later (in this post).
First, the important bits:
Cats!
My sister has three cats, all ragdolls, and my MIL has one, a mutt. You must see pics of all of them!
First up is Maxx, my sister's cat and her favorite. He seems to be the leader of the three and is the most level-headed and friendly. He discovered that my husband's laptop, sitting on the kitchen counter, emitted heat and sat on the backpack next to it, then insisted on sitting on it for the rest of the time we were there. Apparently my niece also trained him to enjoy getting scritched in the bathtub, so he would visit us at night as we were brushing our teeth to wait for bathtub scritchies. Apparently, sink scritchies are also acceptable.
Next up is Rosie, who was originally my BIL's mother's cat, but he took her in when she passed away. Rosie is now his cat and his favorite. Rosie's a bit tetchy and hisses at the male cats when they come near her when she's relaxing, but she otherwise gets along with them. She was also the first one of them to come sit near me and beg me for scritchies. And she sat on my lap while we were watching TV, which my sister says is completely unusual.
The third cat is Danny. I am not sure why he's here at all, as they already had two cats and then decided they needed a third? He's definitely the third wheel here. He's rather shy (and my sister said that originally, they had trouble coaxing him out of hiding places), but is the most vocal about wanting to be let outside. All of the cats are really good about going outside and then coming back in when called, but at one point after a jaunt outside, Danny ran out when we opened the door for something and we chased him twice around the house to get him back in. :P Despite that, he's my favorite.
My MIL's cat is Georgie. Everything she told us about him turned out to be wrong (though that's a tale in itself): she said he wouldn't behave and tried to get into everything, and that he doesn't like strangers, and that all he did was sleep, and, well, he behaved just fine, came right out to meet us and immediately cleaved to my husband, and hung out with us and played with us. He's actually really sweet. He has a beautiful and unusual face but I wasn't really able to capture it in a photo.
Next, the sister part of the trip.
I don't remember how this all came about, but the point was that my sister needed someone to take care of the cats during the trip, so that she didn't have to find somewhere to board them. Normally, on domestic trips, they drive and take the cats with them, but this time, they were going to Italy, and BIL's sister and husband, who live just down the road and usually take care of the cats, were going with them. I think, honestly, that I'd called her up and said we were planning to visit MIL and wanted to stop by to visit them, too, and she'd said, great timing, can you come up and take care of the cats?
So, the original plan was this.
So, I spent most of the month at my sister's place. She has a large property on a lake, with a huge house (slightly larger than ours), plus another building that's a garage/workshop (that holds their three cars plus riding lawnmower, golf cart, four-wheelers, and two other work vehicles; their tractor and two boats are housed nearby on another property) plus workout room plus game room with pool table, foosball, and darts. A block away, they have another property which could have a house on it but is entirely a fenced garden where they raise their veggies (thus the golf cart, which is useful for toting tools and baskets of edibles).
I had the best time there, doing some stuff but honestly, mostly doing nothing or my own thing. I didn't get much writing done, but I did study Japanese and work on some music. We got to go out on the lake in a boat, played pool and darts, learned how to play cornhole, and played with the cats. My sister also has Netflix, so we took the opportunity to watch the entire Sandman series, which I'll discuss in another post.
My sister also took me to a couple of glassworking classes, one for making swizzle sticks and one for making beads, and that was so fun, I started looking for similar classes here at home. Apparently the craft center at the university offers classes, so that might be something I'll do in the spring. The center also offers time/materials at their studio to work, so if I really take to it and want to do it (or any of the other crafts) more, I don't have to set up a home studio for it. There's also a glassworking studio closer to home that anyone with experience can work at, so that's another possibility.
I also took advantage of her workout room, which has pretty much every device you see at a gym, except a treadmill because she has bad knees and can't use one. She trained me on strength training, which I did every other day, and then I also used the elliptical every day. I found that on the first day, I was only able to stay at a good speed for ten minutes before exhausting myself, but by the end of the month, I was going for twenty-plus minutes. Also, on our trip home, we had to dash to our connecting flight across two terminals, and I found I wasn't winded at all when I got there!
I had such a great time! My sister asked if I would be interested in doing it again, and offered to pay airfare, and I was absolutely, "Yes yes yes!" The only downside was that yet again, I was away from my husband on our anniversary -- all three of my Europe trips and this trip were over our anniversary; this has become a recurring joke between us now -- and they tend to travel at the same time every year, so that might become a tradition. :D
Next, the mother-in-law part of the trip.
I've mentioned MIL a number of times in the past, and we really weren't looking forward to this trip. Well, it was terrible, though as I think about it, I'm not entirely sure it was *terrible*, but more "annoying and uncomfortable, but multiple days of 'annoying and uncomfortable' mushes together into 'terrible'".
Basically, all of the days we spent there was mostly sitting on the couch listening to her talk. That might sound like an exaggeration, but it really isn't. She told us a few stories about her family, which my husband really enjoyed (he likes hearing family history), but beyond that, most of it was her current life and friends, in other words, people, places, and events we don't know. I don't know how many times she told us all of the afflictions her friend Pat has and how "they're not fixing them" and "she needs to see my doctor, he'd fix them for her."
We got a few opportunities to talk, but each time, invariably, you could see that she wasn't really paying attention and was trying to think of the next thing to say. As soon as we ended our story, she'd say, "Well, that's interesting," and then launch into her next, usually unrelated, subject.
So, yes, ten-hour stretches of that got on our nerves really quick.
We did go out shopping with her twice, to break up the monotony and we have to kudo the cat Georgie for making frequent appearances and demanding play and scritchies, which stopped the monologue for a while. I did mention that MIL described the cat as being intractable and unfriendly, which turned out to be false, and honestly, it really just seems that MIL thinks she's engaging with him but really isn't. She said, for example, that he doesn't like to play, but he played with us for long stretches. The couple of times she tried to play with him, she threw a toy, and when he didn't choose to chase it, she said, "See? He doesn't like to play," and stopped.
Similarly, she complained that Georgie rolls over to expose his tummy for scritchies for everyone but her. He would come over to us and lie on his side, and we'd rub his side and he'd then show us his tummy. When he laid on his side next to her, my husband said, "See? Now just pet him and he'll turn over." She said, "No, he won't," and then kind of touched his side with the tips of her fingernails, then shrugged and shot my husband a "see, told you so" look when he didn't roll over.
Looking back on everything that happened, I think the real problem is that she still views my husband as her baby, as the younger son who never grew up, and possibly also as the good, obedient son in contrast to the older belligerent son (who you probably don't remember died in a car accident a few years ago). Basically, we haven't lived near her for twenty-nine years now, so she still thinks he's the same person as back then -- the single boy (well, he was in his early twenties) living at home, no career, no life, responding to the same jokes and same family dynamics in the same way.
But of course, my husband isn't the same. He's grown and changed, and he doesn't enjoy the same things as back then, and he doesn't want to be treated like a child (and neither do I).
Anyway, on the second day we were there, MIL asked my husband (when I wasn't in the room), "So, what time do you leave on the 9th?" If you look back up at the schedule I listed at the top, you'll see a problem there -- we were scheduled to leave on the 10th. My husband was well aware that it was the 10th and with a bit of quick thinking, agreed, "The morning of the 9th, I'm pretty sure. Let me go check." He came over to me and said, "My mom asked what time we're leaving on the 9th. It's the morning of the 9th, right?" I got his point right away, pulled out my phone and verified that yes, it was the 10th, and said, "Right, the morning of the 9th." And he went off and told her. Thus, we cut a day off our time with her, to save our sanity.
(Yeah, I know, it's terrible.)
That evening, I realized that the way things were scheduled, we'd stay in her town in a hotel for a day longer than she expected, then drive up to the airport city, meet my sister to give her back the car, and then stay in a hotel there for anotehr night... OR ... we could leave MIL's town on the ninth and drive all the way back to my sister's and stay there for two nights, thus getting the car back to her and not pay for two hotel nights. I called her up to arrange it and she was happy to have us back and to not have to drive to the airport city just to get the car. Her husband had to drive us to the airport, but it turned out he was already heading in that direction that day anyway to go do some work out in their woods, so it wasn't an inconvenience for him. So that all worked out really well.
But I have to say, after a month away from home, as a guest in someone else's home for most of it (even though it was my sister and she's great) and then hanging out with MIL, I was SOOOOO happy to come home. My house is nowhere as cool and comfortable as my sister's, and in some ways it's really awful, but it's home, you know?
But yes, I'm back after a month of being away from home. I went to my sister's place for three weeks, to hang out and to house- and cat-sit while she and my brother-in-law went on a trip with his sister and her husband. Then my husband and I went to visit his mother for a week. Then, we returned a day early to my sister's place before heading home, but that's a story for later (in this post).
First, the important bits:
Cats!
My sister has three cats, all ragdolls, and my MIL has one, a mutt. You must see pics of all of them!
First up is Maxx, my sister's cat and her favorite. He seems to be the leader of the three and is the most level-headed and friendly. He discovered that my husband's laptop, sitting on the kitchen counter, emitted heat and sat on the backpack next to it, then insisted on sitting on it for the rest of the time we were there. Apparently my niece also trained him to enjoy getting scritched in the bathtub, so he would visit us at night as we were brushing our teeth to wait for bathtub scritchies. Apparently, sink scritchies are also acceptable.
Next up is Rosie, who was originally my BIL's mother's cat, but he took her in when she passed away. Rosie is now his cat and his favorite. Rosie's a bit tetchy and hisses at the male cats when they come near her when she's relaxing, but she otherwise gets along with them. She was also the first one of them to come sit near me and beg me for scritchies. And she sat on my lap while we were watching TV, which my sister says is completely unusual.
The third cat is Danny. I am not sure why he's here at all, as they already had two cats and then decided they needed a third? He's definitely the third wheel here. He's rather shy (and my sister said that originally, they had trouble coaxing him out of hiding places), but is the most vocal about wanting to be let outside. All of the cats are really good about going outside and then coming back in when called, but at one point after a jaunt outside, Danny ran out when we opened the door for something and we chased him twice around the house to get him back in. :P Despite that, he's my favorite.
My MIL's cat is Georgie. Everything she told us about him turned out to be wrong (though that's a tale in itself): she said he wouldn't behave and tried to get into everything, and that he doesn't like strangers, and that all he did was sleep, and, well, he behaved just fine, came right out to meet us and immediately cleaved to my husband, and hung out with us and played with us. He's actually really sweet. He has a beautiful and unusual face but I wasn't really able to capture it in a photo.
Next, the sister part of the trip.
I don't remember how this all came about, but the point was that my sister needed someone to take care of the cats during the trip, so that she didn't have to find somewhere to board them. Normally, on domestic trips, they drive and take the cats with them, but this time, they were going to Italy, and BIL's sister and husband, who live just down the road and usually take care of the cats, were going with them. I think, honestly, that I'd called her up and said we were planning to visit MIL and wanted to stop by to visit them, too, and she'd said, great timing, can you come up and take care of the cats?
So, the original plan was this.
- My husband didn't want to be away too long, so first, I would go to my sister's a few days early, to learn how to take care of the cats and the house.
- My sister and her husband would then go on their trip, which was something like 10 days.
- My husband would join me about halfway through their trip.
- Once they got back, we'd hang out with them for a few days.
- Then, we'd borrow their car to drive down to MIL, who lives about five hours away.
- We'd spend six days with MIL.
- On the 10th, we'd drive up to the airport city that we flew into. Sister and BIL would meet us there to have dinner and pick up the car, and we would stay overnight in a hotel.
- We'd fly home the next day.
So, I spent most of the month at my sister's place. She has a large property on a lake, with a huge house (slightly larger than ours), plus another building that's a garage/workshop (that holds their three cars plus riding lawnmower, golf cart, four-wheelers, and two other work vehicles; their tractor and two boats are housed nearby on another property) plus workout room plus game room with pool table, foosball, and darts. A block away, they have another property which could have a house on it but is entirely a fenced garden where they raise their veggies (thus the golf cart, which is useful for toting tools and baskets of edibles).
I had the best time there, doing some stuff but honestly, mostly doing nothing or my own thing. I didn't get much writing done, but I did study Japanese and work on some music. We got to go out on the lake in a boat, played pool and darts, learned how to play cornhole, and played with the cats. My sister also has Netflix, so we took the opportunity to watch the entire Sandman series, which I'll discuss in another post.
My sister also took me to a couple of glassworking classes, one for making swizzle sticks and one for making beads, and that was so fun, I started looking for similar classes here at home. Apparently the craft center at the university offers classes, so that might be something I'll do in the spring. The center also offers time/materials at their studio to work, so if I really take to it and want to do it (or any of the other crafts) more, I don't have to set up a home studio for it. There's also a glassworking studio closer to home that anyone with experience can work at, so that's another possibility.
I also took advantage of her workout room, which has pretty much every device you see at a gym, except a treadmill because she has bad knees and can't use one. She trained me on strength training, which I did every other day, and then I also used the elliptical every day. I found that on the first day, I was only able to stay at a good speed for ten minutes before exhausting myself, but by the end of the month, I was going for twenty-plus minutes. Also, on our trip home, we had to dash to our connecting flight across two terminals, and I found I wasn't winded at all when I got there!
I had such a great time! My sister asked if I would be interested in doing it again, and offered to pay airfare, and I was absolutely, "Yes yes yes!" The only downside was that yet again, I was away from my husband on our anniversary -- all three of my Europe trips and this trip were over our anniversary; this has become a recurring joke between us now -- and they tend to travel at the same time every year, so that might become a tradition. :D
Next, the mother-in-law part of the trip.
I've mentioned MIL a number of times in the past, and we really weren't looking forward to this trip. Well, it was terrible, though as I think about it, I'm not entirely sure it was *terrible*, but more "annoying and uncomfortable, but multiple days of 'annoying and uncomfortable' mushes together into 'terrible'".
Basically, all of the days we spent there was mostly sitting on the couch listening to her talk. That might sound like an exaggeration, but it really isn't. She told us a few stories about her family, which my husband really enjoyed (he likes hearing family history), but beyond that, most of it was her current life and friends, in other words, people, places, and events we don't know. I don't know how many times she told us all of the afflictions her friend Pat has and how "they're not fixing them" and "she needs to see my doctor, he'd fix them for her."
We got a few opportunities to talk, but each time, invariably, you could see that she wasn't really paying attention and was trying to think of the next thing to say. As soon as we ended our story, she'd say, "Well, that's interesting," and then launch into her next, usually unrelated, subject.
So, yes, ten-hour stretches of that got on our nerves really quick.
We did go out shopping with her twice, to break up the monotony and we have to kudo the cat Georgie for making frequent appearances and demanding play and scritchies, which stopped the monologue for a while. I did mention that MIL described the cat as being intractable and unfriendly, which turned out to be false, and honestly, it really just seems that MIL thinks she's engaging with him but really isn't. She said, for example, that he doesn't like to play, but he played with us for long stretches. The couple of times she tried to play with him, she threw a toy, and when he didn't choose to chase it, she said, "See? He doesn't like to play," and stopped.
Similarly, she complained that Georgie rolls over to expose his tummy for scritchies for everyone but her. He would come over to us and lie on his side, and we'd rub his side and he'd then show us his tummy. When he laid on his side next to her, my husband said, "See? Now just pet him and he'll turn over." She said, "No, he won't," and then kind of touched his side with the tips of her fingernails, then shrugged and shot my husband a "see, told you so" look when he didn't roll over.
Looking back on everything that happened, I think the real problem is that she still views my husband as her baby, as the younger son who never grew up, and possibly also as the good, obedient son in contrast to the older belligerent son (who you probably don't remember died in a car accident a few years ago). Basically, we haven't lived near her for twenty-nine years now, so she still thinks he's the same person as back then -- the single boy (well, he was in his early twenties) living at home, no career, no life, responding to the same jokes and same family dynamics in the same way.
But of course, my husband isn't the same. He's grown and changed, and he doesn't enjoy the same things as back then, and he doesn't want to be treated like a child (and neither do I).
Anyway, on the second day we were there, MIL asked my husband (when I wasn't in the room), "So, what time do you leave on the 9th?" If you look back up at the schedule I listed at the top, you'll see a problem there -- we were scheduled to leave on the 10th. My husband was well aware that it was the 10th and with a bit of quick thinking, agreed, "The morning of the 9th, I'm pretty sure. Let me go check." He came over to me and said, "My mom asked what time we're leaving on the 9th. It's the morning of the 9th, right?" I got his point right away, pulled out my phone and verified that yes, it was the 10th, and said, "Right, the morning of the 9th." And he went off and told her. Thus, we cut a day off our time with her, to save our sanity.
(Yeah, I know, it's terrible.)
That evening, I realized that the way things were scheduled, we'd stay in her town in a hotel for a day longer than she expected, then drive up to the airport city, meet my sister to give her back the car, and then stay in a hotel there for anotehr night... OR ... we could leave MIL's town on the ninth and drive all the way back to my sister's and stay there for two nights, thus getting the car back to her and not pay for two hotel nights. I called her up to arrange it and she was happy to have us back and to not have to drive to the airport city just to get the car. Her husband had to drive us to the airport, but it turned out he was already heading in that direction that day anyway to go do some work out in their woods, so it wasn't an inconvenience for him. So that all worked out really well.
But I have to say, after a month away from home, as a guest in someone else's home for most of it (even though it was my sister and she's great) and then hanging out with MIL, I was SOOOOO happy to come home. My house is nowhere as cool and comfortable as my sister's, and in some ways it's really awful, but it's home, you know?
