Testy

I know it is only because I am away from home.
I know it is because I feel the need to play perfect house guest and cook and clean.
I know that it will all get better when the power comes back on and we can go back to our own messy cluttered overgrown home.
I know I do not need la miracle pill du jour.

But GAWD. I am just not doing well. I feel like a guitar string that is wrapped so tightly and the slightest little thing...*PLUCK* The tension reverberates through my body. I am going to have a heart attack by 30, I swear.

I feel like I am on this long, overdrawn, overdone vacation. My soul is sunburned and tired of the gritty sand and just wants to get out of here. I am starting to hate everything I used to love about this place. I also hate shelling out massive amounts of money for a place where we can't even currently live. Bastards.

Family. School. Work. Bills. Responsibilities. Chores. Obligations. I just don't think Calgon is going to cut it. Someone FedEx me some glittery red slippers.

*Click* *Click* *Click*
There's no place like home...
There's no place like home...
There's no place like home...

Bits

• My bits are currently very wobbly. I couldn't tell you how much I weigh as I am still away from my home and my scale. Not so bad really, but I do feel guilty for the copious amounts of ice cream, cheese curls, and soda I have consumed in the past week. You know, I think there might be a reason it is called junk food. Gustav made me do it.
  
• We have been staying at my parents' house as they have power and we do not. And power in the South is necessary. The crisp bite to the air some of you feel? Apple time? Doesn't exist here. Muggy and hot. Tomorrow is school and work and we still do not have power and have to commute an extra half an hour and wake up earlier and isn't hurricane season a bitch?
• You know how being away from your own home just makes you tired? Like exhausted tired? I am a 4-5 day vacation kind of girl and miss my house. I miss my lumpy bed even though my parent's spare room bed is technically more comfortable. I miss walking on my floors, even though my parent's floors are not coated with the child produced debris that is found in Our House. (Well, they weren't when we showed up. Now their status is a bit more questionable.) And even though, despite my best cleaning efforts, (read: clothes washing, dinner cooking, vacuuming) we are becoming like the proverbial smelly fish guests. I miss my own house. I do not have to worry so much about the mess there, you know.
• Damn you Cable Bill. And Electric Bill. I don't frocking want to pay you since you DON'T CURRENTLY EXIST IN MY HOUSE.
• Jelly Bean misses Our House, too, I think. He is not sleeping as well as he usually does, you know. Being dragged to and fro across the country and sitting in hours of traffic to sleep in the same damn collapsible playpen thing is simply not restful to nearly two-year-olds. Just today, Jelly was fussing because he wanted to eat his grilled cheese simultaneously at the table AND on the tray in the living room. So he would take a bite in one location, get up and go to the next location, and whine for his food to be brought there so he could take another bite and get up and repeat the whole process. Honey was getting a *little* perturbed. He looks over at my sandwich frying self (isn't it weird to fry sandwiches?) and says, "Don't you wish Jelly Bean was strong with The Force?" And I think he is saying this because then the baby will be able to move his own damn sandwich telekinetically or whatever those Star War people do. But no, Honey then says, "Because if he was, we could have sent him off to Jedi training by now." Hmmm.
  
• I haven't been able to do any homework and feel slightly panicky about this. Cross your fingers that the world goes back to normal soon, eh? Cuz I need an A.
  

On Location!

So, here I am, on an impromptu-hurricane-generated vacation in Memphis. Oh, Elvis. You and Hurricanes just seem to go together. Why, our relationship started during Andrew and carried through to Katrina. And now, Gustav. I am positively smitten with your come-hither smile and barbeque ribs.

I shan't talk about the 10 hour drive or contraflow.
I shan't discuss how much I hate eating junk food all day or that the Bean screamed for the first 2 hours of the trip. Solid.

I shall only talk about scoring this swanky suite at a steal. Complete with KITCHEN and SOFA and SEPARATE BEDROOM. And how we are going to the zoo and dive into some delicious sauce sometime today. Or how, really, overall, the kids did fabulously on the supposed-to-be-5-hour-but-really-10 hour trip. We are fine. I am thinking the house is fine. Keep your fingers crossed for the contents of my chest freezer! We are hoping to be able to head home tomorrow.

Everyone, wherever you are. Be safe.