The month of July has been busy. With a capital B. It's been hard to find time to catch up with my thoughts, let alone digest them well enough to put them down for you to read.
Work is very busy in summer. Last week, we had the big high school football camp in town, followed by the firemen's tournament late in the week. That was a blast. Lots of fun. Article and photos to come soon, I hope.
I still am trying to find time to do an article and pictures about a visit to a museum in Rhinelander, particularly a one-room schoolhouse. Found some interesting stuff there, especially to those of you who are in the education field.
But that has to wait. Next week, my wife and I will be going on a trip to central Wisconsin, and we really need to work out a plan very soon. I'm hoping we can get together and plot everything out tonight. This is mostly a trip for her, places that she wants to visit. We're going to the Wausau area first and then to Oshkosh to visit S and her husband.
More things going on ...
--As you may know, we are trying to sell my mom's house. We have moved nearly everything out of it, but my wife wants a few of the remaining items for us--bedroom furniture, the kitchen table, an old sewing machine table. So we need to find a couple guys and a truck to haul it from one place to another. Along with that, I am tracking down various bits of information regarding the house for the real estate agent who is trying to sell it.
The house is costing me a lot of money--property taxes, insurance, upkeep, utility bills. All this money is coming out of my wallet, and the so0ner I sell the house, the happier I will be.
--My friend B, whom you read about recently, is going on a trip. She is flying from Alaska to a major West Coast city (You'd recognize the name in a instant.), where she will meet a friend of hers. This time the friend is not me. She told me about it about a week ago.
The news came soon after she had to call off a get-together we were talking about in mid-August. I have one weekend off in August, and she was planning a flight to the Midwest so we could renew acquaintances. But someone in her office is getting married, and she has to cover for her during the honeymoon that week. (Her weekend with this other guy is the weekend before.)
It wasn't happy news, certainly, and B was worried how I would take it. But look at it this way:
1. B and I did meet just a few weeks ago. Not a long time but long enough to know that we enjoyed each other's company very much. It was a wonderful time--one of the best of my life.
2. B and her other friend are both parts of polyamorous couples. They have been writing each other for about a year. It's time they met, I think.
I'm not sad they are meeting and spending a weekend together. What makes me sad is that the door is rapidly closing on our chances for another visit for quite a while--fall and football are just around the corner, you know. And right after that: winter.
I am angry. Not at her. Not at him. Not at myself. But I have been muttering "this damn job" to myself a lot more than I ever have. Work increasingly is getting in the way of personal happiness. Think about it: The one August weekend I could get away is the one weekend she can't. I told B that I feel we are both tied down to our respective offices by invisible ropes we just can't break.
Anyway, B and I had a long phone chat last weekend, and we agree that we will be seeing other people because our next visit may not come for a long while. Maybe not until 2010. Maybe not until next summer.
Maybe somehow, deep inside, we knew that when we got together over the Fourth. Because we packed an awful lot of living into those four days and three nights.
--The last bit of news is about my wife. She may be going on an Adventure! With a capital A. Believe it or not.
She is considering taking a bus tour to Branson, Mo., for a week-long series of concerts and shows. This would take place the week before Labor Day. I would drive her to the bus station and pick her up again a week later. In between, the kitties and I would fend for ourselves.
She hasn't committed yet--no check has been sent. She seems to be leaning that way, though, and I am urging her to go for it and have an Adventure. I don't want her to get cold feet--I want her to get out and do something fun and different, maybe even a little selfish, for once in her life. It won't bother me that I'm back home--for me, frankly, a little country music goes a long way.
(She would like to go on long trips with me, too, but then I would lose much of my vacation time, which I want to keep for other opportunities. This damn job.)
How different would this be for her? It would be the farthest she has ever been from home. For that matter, it's also farther than I have ever been from home. And our time apart will be our longest separation since we started going together--just after the first footprints on the moon's surface. That's a long time.
But I think it would be a really good thing for her, and we are moving ahead. Maybe we'll invest in her own cell phone so she can keep in touch with me--cheaper than using motel phones, certainly.
Occasionally, I noted to her, her sisters take trips to Vegas, and that may be something she wants to think about--to go along with them. Time will tell.
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