In the end, it was simple, but then again, most things, when concentrated to their essences, are.I packed my swimsuit before flying out west, even though I knew it would be too cold to swim outside. They promised that the hot tub would be nearer than I believed, and that once I got in it, I would … understand.

It was, and I did.

oh God oh God oh God I thought she wasn't ever coming back! Tenzing kept saying she wasn't ever coming back and I kept telling him that she would, but the sun kept coming up and she wasn't ever there to feed us in the morning and I was starting to worry that maybe Tenzing was right.He's the smarter kittybrother, after all.

Let's see if we can't knock out the two most important topics at once here. No point in beating around the bush, really:

1) I am, at last, on vacation.
2) I'm not pregnant.

I am scheduled to catch a flight out of Atlanta tomorrow … uh, okay, in about fifteen hours. (Perhaps I should go sleep.) I'm winging out West for close to a week of enforced peace, quiet, cooking, and shopping. I'll have my cell phone on me, but I'll likely not be allowed near any of the computers in the house where I'm staying.

You want me to get back to #2, don't you?

Hush. I'll get there.

The phone rang.

"Jupiter, Florida?" I said to myself. It looked like a real number, not one of the pseudo-numbers that a telemarketing center might use. Still, since I wasn't sure, I decided to let the answering machine grab -

Oh, crap. We did know someone in Jupiter, Florida: Brandon, one of Jeff's Theta Tau brothers. I put down what I was doing and raced to the bedroom, hearing our old, generic message ("Please. Leave. A. Message. After. The. Tone.") play as I did so.

After fewer than four hours of sleep, I was on the road again. I'd been shaken awake with a jolt, and I was dressed and charging headlong into Brian and Suzan's kitchen before I'd really awakened. We headed out, Jake and Chris and I, in the middle of one of the worst thunderstorms I've ever driven through. Brian and Suzan's road more closely resembled a moat, and getting to I-20 represented a difficult tightrope balance of caution and insanity.

By the time it was over, all over, we had paid our fifty-seven dollars for parking and aimed the fully-loaded Jetta back to Brian and Suzan's, just the three of us. We had escaped the worst of Hurricane Frances thus far, but we knew it was just a matter of time before she came to pay her respects.