Cruising....

I just wasted 5 minutes attempting to confirm the lyrics to the song running through my head. You know the one I mean.  It's a male vocalist but the searches come up with other songs that aren't what I'm thinking of.  Oh well.  I tried.

I always plan to be super organized about packing and preparing for a vacation trip - and it always ends up in a mad-dash, crazed 24 hours.  I'm totally itchy this morning and I feel stressed out to the max.  We finally realized we were planning an 8AM departure for Long Beach today to do what?  Sit in a hotel room tonight?  So we've ratcheted back our departure to 'whenever' 'cuz the hotel room will be waiting for us when we get there.

I think it's also harder to pack for this trip 'cuz we've never cruised before - and I do feel compelled to have 'leisure clothes' for the beach and pool and then some other outfits for dinner.  There's no fancy dress requirement on this cruise (or we wouldn't be going) but I still like to 'dress' for dinner.  After a day of time by the sea or the pool, it's nice to get showered and cleaned up before heading out to eat and then a show or whatever else we do in the evenings on the ship.  It's complicated and requires way more room in a suitcase than usual.  They say there's no room in the 'mini-suite' we booked to have suitcases out and about - so you unpack and then stash your bags (hopefully) under the bed. If not, 'your room steward may be able to stash your empty suitcases in his storage closet'.  Heh.  We have a room steward.

It's 8:30AM now and I just made my second cup of coffee and J.'s first.

We're leaving H. alone and given the drama of recent weeks (which I've stayed silent on), it's very stressful to leave him here.  Not wanting him to drive and having no way to enforce that - and he will have to drive to Modesto this week on his own for a doctor's appointment.  We are logging the mileage on his car this morning and have Map Quested the route to the doctor and that's what we expect to be added to the car when we return.  He should be able to hitch rides to school with friends and if he can't, he is OK to drive to/from school ONLY.  But there's no way for us to ensure that's what's happening - and that's just the way it is.  Really no different than when we are here, actually. He says one thing and does something completely different all the time.

But when we're here, we keep all the car keys somewhere he can't find them - and we won't be able to do that when we're gone.  (And he does have to get to school and the doctor so...).  I'm hoping this doesn't end with yet another infraction to deal with.

I also had a busy, hectic week feeling like I was getting a months worth of work done in a week. Got several HUGE projects off my list and out to the masses who needed them and my boss seemed impressed.  I just felt relieved - until I looked at the (ever) long list of stuff still to do.  There's always high priority stuff on the list and it will just have to keep until we return home in a week.

We watched a bunch of You Tube cruise hint videos which sent me back out to pick up things like small clips (to secure your towel to your chaise), etc. .  After taking 1.5 hours to do that errand, gas up my car and also get the nose pads on my glasses replaced at Costco, he mentioned something else he heard we needed - and I truly could have killed him.  I said 'I'm not going out again'.

In my defense, my sinuses are a wreck and I've been on antibiotics again for...wait for it....you know what's coming....ear infection.  I think I feel better but my head gets super stuffy and the only thing that works is Claritin D which makes me feel so 'hazy', I just can't take it everyday.  I went to the bank yesterday to get our trip money and was so dazed, I asked the clerk to run the cash through the counting machine and give me the ticket to confirm the amount 'cuz I just couldn't keep up with manually counting it.

And coincidentally, the casino I frequent north of Sacramento just sent us another 'cruise event' invite so we'll be trekking up there again on April 9th to secure another discount on our next cruise.  If we don't like our first cruise, we won't go - but if we do?  We'll snap up another offer and start planning for the next one.

Time to hit the shower and finish madly packing.  Wish us luck in getting everything in two suitcases and one carry on - OH - because as if it's not challenging enough, turns out they collect your suitcases the night before you disembark so you have to have a bag that will hold what you need for the morning -

Bon Voyage to us and wishing you a nice week.  We will have Internet and I hope to blog about the voyage when possible.