The last few days before a major trip are always incredibly hectic. The trips to the store are for items more and more random, the to-do list goes from general (make list of spices to take) to painfully specific (pick up the air mattress from Stephen because you forgot it today you nimwit). In the end I just want to whisper,
"are we there yet?"

Nope.

We have storms coming in tomorrow morning, so I slipped out tonight after Jeff went to bed. Last errands of the night: fill up the Jetta's gas tank, and pick up more silicone serum for my notoriously-frizzy hair. For now I'm curled up on the couch with the laptop, Tenzing staring balefully at my filled-with-laptop lap (how dare I! that's HIS spot!) and listening to the sound of the wind whistling down the chimney.

I doubt I'll be able to swim tomorrow, with the storms coming in. (Red Cross rules: the pool closes for thirty minutes after a lightning strike.) I'll probably be better off nurturing the shrinkage of my to-do list, which will mostly mean sewing. I have a costume to finish for a friend before I go.

Going is Friday, sometime Friday afternoon, after the mail runs and the chores are done. A dash to Atlanta for dinner with friends, a Saturday of running errands and visiting a few more friends, then either Jeff or Brian taking the thankless task of hauling my sleepy-yet-excited self to the airport for a Sunday morning flight.

I'll be gone for twenty days. While I'm gone I'll stay with friends, go to a lot of little shops I've been itching to visit for several months, and oh yeah, work a little film festival.

Much of my anxiousness about this trip can be attributed to that last little tidbit. I'm aware that it's going to be much like dragon*con, in that I simply cannot prepare - all I can do is show up, believe I'm prepared for anything, and trust that we're all resourceful enough to make the festival happen.

I'm aware that I'm being asked to be the responsible mother hen for the group of film festival volunteers, which probably means that I'll likely be the solid, responsible, and dependable one. Hopefully they'll prove to be good people. I'd hate to have to throw snowballs.

* * * * *

I've finally restarted weightlifting. Oh, Val, you are a creatively brutal trainer; I congratulate you. The first thirty-six hours were the worst. Luckily, I've done this before, and I knew that they would be, so I was prepared.

Or so I thought.

Then my quads started howling. I didn't know that quadriceps could howl. Turns out they can, and they're pretty loud when they do.

The first time I did the workout, I did three-quarters of it, did it too quickly, and nearly passed out. Silly girl, you have to remember that your blood pressure was 98/56 the last time it was measured, and those numbers are the kind that come back to bite you if you don't remember to breathe with your repetitions…

The second time, I skipped all the lower-body work because I could barely walk. Using those muscles to lift weights was laughably out of the question.

The third time was today. i did a full workout. No cheats, no skips, no pain, just the overall leaden exhaustion of muscles well-worked.

Then I went home and ate approximately 3.6 metric tons of food at dinner. In the months since I last did regular weightlifting, I forgot how much weightlifting makes me eat.

I think Tenzing got afraid when I looked at him and wondered, momentarily, if cats were tasty. Luckily, Jeff finished dinner a few minutes later, and Tenzing escaped without even a nibble.

He doesn't know how lucky he is.