staycation

For the record, I hate the word "staycation", while what it implies is something fantastic and liberating. The idea is simply taking time off from work without the intention to spend it away from home. Last week I did just that, without a necessity to wake up at a particular time in the morning or dedicate myself to any specific tasks during the day. Regardless, I busied myself with various chores. Monday I bought new windows for the upstairs of my house, Wednesday I had cable installed and Thursday I cleaned out the kitchen cabinets and started making preparations for a garage sale on Saturday.

Friday was the real "vacation" part of my vacation. I went with my friend to the beach on Belle Isle and sat out in the sun for hours. We made a sand castle and a giant face in front of our beach towel. It started as a nose, a mouth and a couple eyes. Eventually teeth were added in the form of many tiny rocks and two longer pointy rocks which turned him into a vampire. Next came a chin which we circled around to give him a bald head. We realized we had forgotten ears, and when standing over the blanket I drew line for a neck which made the face appear to be peeking over it. As a final touch, we added fingers of two hands to the edge of the blanket which gave the illusion that he was a giant climbing out from behind. We named him Cornelius, and eventually had to say goodbye, aware that he would likely be destroyed within an hour, but with high hopes that he would at least be noticed and appreciated.

After packing up we drove into the city and had a delicious dinner at Tom's Oyster Bar. We ate on the rooftop patio, where the wind kept blowing around the tent whose poles were sitting right next to our table and kept jumping around like giant, stomping legs. We then walked down to Hart Plaza and along the RiverWalk. The sun was just setting and the weather was perfect. It made a picturesque scene that I wished I had my camera for.

The next morning we got up extra early to set up for a garage sale at my house. We were joined by one of my friends from bike club who brought over a couple tables worth of things to sell. While we didn't have the crazy morning rush that I expected, we had a fairly constant stream of people throughout the day, with enough lulls that I could pick us up thai for lunch and for us to put my roommates in charge so the two of us could walk to Dairy Queen. There was certainly an interesting assortment of characters that came through, and we had so much fun that we're planning to do it again this weekend. After we packed everything up at 5:00 we hung out on my back porch and thought about what to do with the evening. My friend from bike club that she had just met was having a housewarming, and I invited her along. We thought about spending an hour or so there, but ended up staying for several. On the way in, we ran into one of her friends that she hadn't seen in months. We hung out with her on the front porch and talked about books (most of the attendees were Borders employees, after all.) A number of my other friends from bike club showed up later, and we talked to them for a while. Eventually we decided to head back home, and on the way ran into my roommates and some of their friends coming out of The Loving Touch and on their way to Rosie O' Grady's.

Once we got back to my house, I put on LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening and we decided to wait and watch for my friends to arrive after the bars closed. Earlier that day my neighbors had given us a wooden bench to try and sell at the garage sale which we had left on the side of the street. We had the great idea of moving it back into the yard, on an angle looking down the street and just within earshot of the stereo in the living room. There we stayed for several hours. We watched as everyone returned with a case of cheap beer and made a b-line for the beer pong table my friend had set up in the back room. Every now and then someone would come outside to talk to us, but for the most part we were comfortably attached to the bench which we weren't going to be able to throw away now. Before we knew it, the sky was starting to get light. It had been years since I had watched the sunrise, and we kept our seats as the daylight arrived. We needed coffee if we were going to stay awake any longer, so we went out for breakfast. Coffee wasn't enough to keep us from practically falling asleep in our chairs after we'd finished eating, so we both went home and right to bed.

The rest of the day was pretty much a wash. Consecutive nights of little sleep had turned my brain to mush. Thankfully, around 10:00 it became hard to keep my eyes open and I managed ten hours of recovery rest. I thought that might make getting up for work this morning easier, but it didn't. Any return from a long time off is difficult, but this time extended far beyond remembering technical procedures. Give me a day or two and I'll be back to my regular-blog-updating self. Like everyone does now and then, I needed that time off.