The one in which I recount the last traces of my sanity slipping away....

So, I'm living in a hotel. That's for starters...

The cat's mouth? At some point I'm hoping she'll let me get a peak in there at what had better be her mouthful of gold crowns. I expect a serious grill on this kitty considering that paying for her "dental procedure" got us enough points on our American Express to fly us somewhere exotic. My cat's got one expensive mouth.

Also? I spent 9 hours in the car with Ethan on Thursday last week. Followed by two rain soaked, and therefore activity-challenged, days in South Carolina with my parents, and then another 9 hours in the car with not only Ethan, but also my father (who all but turned right around and drove my car back down to South Carolina so that my parents can drive my car across country). All to return home fifteen hours before the packers were scheduled to arrive. To a house full of dirty laundry and confusion.

And no wine.

Sense my stress level, please.

On Monday morning, with construction workers taking a sledge hammer to my bathroom floor and cats running around, belly to the floor, in search of a hiding place, the packers knocked on our front door. Husband, Ethan and the contractor were at Home Depot picking out shiny pretty things for our new bathroom and I was in desperate need of a paper bag to breathe into.

Which reminds me of my therapist and how she said she didn't think I needed to be medicated because everything I am feeling is completely normal and within the range of acceptable anxiety given the circumstances. Whatever, voice of reason! I want some drugs!! I know she's right. I know it. Even though I am a strong believer in therapy and taking medication when truly warranted, I don't really want to numb my life's experiences just because they aren't 100% pleasurable 100% of the time. Really. But when the sledge hammer upstairs is making the recessed lighting in your newly renovated kitchen vibrate and there are three big men in your living room expecting you to boss them around, the pressure's a bit much. A little Xanax would really have come in handy.

Fortunately Husband was my Xanax in human form and returned shortly, handing me the child and relieving me of my "Um, I don't know; just pack everything," duties and I scurried from the house in much the same fashion as the cat's hand bolted for the basement--without looking where I was going and letting instinct take me away from the loud noises and scary men.

Since then, I've only been to the house once or twice, to drop Husband off or to pick him up and to spend a few moments with the kitties who are living in the basement until tomorrow morning when we bring them to the hotel with us. I can't quite bring myself to look around the house, as it is such a shell of it's former self. Just like I can't look at an open-casket funeral, I have a hard time with empty houses--the overwhelming "devoid of life" feeling hurts, especially if it was a life I was attached to (or in the case of the empty house, MY life). So I stay outside and keep Ethan in his car seat.

The one time I did bring Ethan to the house, we spent most of our time fielding the panicky "Where's the toys??" question that broke our hearts into eleventy billion pieces. "Going to California!" did not seem to be a favorable answer, so we've decided to keep E away from the house now.

I am currently sitting in my darkened hotel room while Ethan naps next to me, wondering how I'm going to fit play-group, a follow-up visit to the vet's, checking out of one hotel and into another near the airport, a trip to the dayspa, and dinner w/ the inlaws and some of our best friends into one day. I'm not sure it's possible, so I guess it'll be my eyebrows that pay the price in that scenario, because nothing else can give. At this point, I am almost looking forward to the five and half hours on the plane because then, no one can ask me to do anything or say goodbye to anyone else. I can just be.