adikos.net

A Nostos

CWs: work, food, alcohol, physical health, death mention

It's been a busy day. It's St. Patrick's Day. I am about 1/16 Irish, and mostly just "celebrate" with a Guinness nearby on a non-"school night," if at all. Tonight we got home, fairly quickly (most of the schools are on spring break), hung out a bit, the milk was delivered, and then we made dinner. I had "corn ribs" which were exactly that: cross-sections of a corn cob, made to look like ribs. They were really good, but it was more of a side than a main. We also had some veggies. My spouse had pulled pork and some macaroni salad. I did my PT exercises, then took a shower, and here I am. I don't have a whole lot of time before I have to feed the girls, but I wanted to write. I'm listening to music and well, here I am.

Work was good. I worked with my supervisors on some things I need to improve for work, and they were very encouraging and I feel a lot better about things. I get very much "in my head" and I think it can get in my way. So it's a work in progress. I called out sick yesterday; I am getting over a bad cold that my spouse picked up somewhere on the way back from our trip last week and then gave to me. It's OK. It's basically gone at this point and I feel much better today.

So we went to Florida for our niece's wedding. That was the main event, but it also was good timing, I suppose, since my father-in-law passed away in recent weeks. My spouse has been understandably upset, and processing, and really wanted to see their family, especially their sister. So we planned on staying at my sister-in-law's place. My spouse is from St. Petersburg ("St. Pete") on the Gulf, so we were staying in that area, and then the wedding was down south in the Naples/Ft. Myers area. I say "wedding," but it was actually a post-wedding celebration; our niece got married months ago formally, but set a later date for celebrating with family and friends. Totally cool.

We left early on a Thursday morning, so we had to pack the cats up on Wednesday and get them to boarding. Our flight left at about 6am, so we decided it would be easier to stay the night near the airport. Otherwise it's about an hour drive to the airport, and I would rather have 30min of extra sleep and a 5-10min drive, y'know? We had a nice evening, dinner, then crashed at our pretty affordable hotel. We set alarms for 3am, which came way quicker than expected. Our trip went from Thursday to Monday, so it was a pretty quick turnaround. I took Thursday-Friday/Monday-Tuesday off, since I like to have at least a day on either side of a trip.

I am not used to the humidity in Florida any more. I lived there for 7 years and living in dry, high-altitude Colorado has completely ruined my ability to handle humidity. It was in the 70s-80s F when we were in Florida, so it could have been much worse. We had a layover in Atlanta, and the humidity hit me as we were disembarking from the plane. We got in late in the afternoon on that Thursday, and my sister-in-law very kindly picked us up from the Tampa airport.

We had a lazy couple of days. Explored St. Pete. My spouse doesn't get a chance to show me around much, so it was cool being a tourist. I lived, and we met, elsewhere in Florida, and I hadn't spent a whole lot of time where they're from. And it is always nice to see my sister-in-law. The last time we saw her was maybe 3-4 years ago when she came to Colorado for work, and we only got to see her very briefly since again, she was here for work. One of those nights, we went to a local bookstore! I got a book for my spouse (their birthday was the 11th), and two books for myself (one book about women in medieval times, and a cool period romance novel). I loved that bookstore! We checked out a couple of breweries after that, too, which was fun!

I was definitely happy to get some fresh seafood. My sister-in-law and her partner have a favorite spot on the beach, a Mexican place which has huge portions and delicious margaritas. We had a great time there. I got a shrimp burrito and loved it. The top-shelf marg was a lateral move from the mid-shelf Hornitos one; oh well. We also hung out with my sister-in-law's partner's brother, who was staying in town for a little while; my sister-in-law's partner's mother died recently as well. It's been a weird couple of months for my family in Florida. They were happy to see us, and we them.

Going to see our niece felt like a sidequest within the trip. Or was St. Pete the sidequest? I'm not sure. It was about a 3hr drive down south, and we left about midday that Saturday; the celebration was at about 5pm. We had a delicious lunch on the way down (more excellent seafood for me), and otherwise I napped on the way down. We ended up getting a cheap hotel to stay the night, since we didn't want to drive 3hrs back later that night. The celebration was lovely. I hadn't seen the bride since my own wedding in 2015, which is wild to me, and she was very happy that both of us came for it. Got to catch up with my brother-in-law and his wife as well; they are great people and I love seeing them. He's a firefighter and she's a paramedic and they work long hours and are very busy most of the time, so we don't get to see them that often, but when we do, it's always very nice. He said something about coming out to see us again in Colorado with his RV, which would be awesome. In probably 2017/18, he, his wife, and a couple of their kids went on a summer RV trip and stopped in Colorado for a few days to see us. We had an awesome time, and it would be even better now, since we know the area far, far better after 10 years here than we did after a year.

In any case, was great to see my niece and meet her husband. They seemed very good together. Her parents, and her grandparents, all live together on a massive property kinda in the middle of nowhere in Naples. So that was interesting to finally see "the compound," if you will. It is a massive house, a lot of acreage and space to enjoy. I laughed that it reminded me of Fort Wilderness, the campground resort at Disney World, where they tend to like to stay a lot with their RV. It really was like that, but their home. We were well-plied with alcohol, mostly champagne, and the food was excellent. All around a good time. We stayed until almost 11pm, talking and catching up. My spouse, their brother, and their sister took a shot of Jack Daniels together to pour one out for their dad. I think my spouse really needed to see their family, so that was good. Bittersweet but necessary. At some point I was getting pretty tired myself, and we eventually made it back to the car and went back to the hotel. My sister-in-law's partner had rented a car for this excursion, and was driving; by that time he and I, at least, were pretty sober and good to drive. We didn't have far to go.

After we got back to St. Pete on Sunday, we didn't have a whole lot of time. We hung out for a while. Got lunch at a sort of beach-bum bar, delicious food, good drinks, filthy bathroom (per my spouse). Buffalo shrimp were divine and so were the fries I got. I missed Yuengling, my cheap beer of choice during my PhD. We went back to my sister-in-law's partner's house and played board games and tried out the bourbon he'd gotten from 3 Daughters Brewing (who knew they made hard liquor?) earlier in our trip. We also got to meet my sister-in-law's cat Opi. He's a little scrawny orange kitty and he's getting up there. He was a little skittish but it was nice to see a kitty while we were away from ours. My spouse had met him before but I hadn't, so that was cool. The cat has been living at my sister-in-law's partner's house, ever since my sister-in-law's house was damaged in a hurricane a couple of years ago, and he seems happier there.

We set it up to have an early flight on that Monday morning. Got there about 6am for an 8:30am flight. Uneventful, which is OK for flights. Made it over to pick up our kitties from boarding in late afternoon. My spouse went back to work on that Tuesday, and I had the day off and hung out with the kitties. It was a really nice trip and I'm glad we got to take it. This is my spouse's busiest time of year, so it was hard for them to get away, but obviously very important to make it, not only for our niece's wedding, but also to reunite with their family after their father's passing. It was well worth it, even though it was a quick trip. And I'm glad I was able to go with them. Normally it's hard for me to get away, and it's also spendy to board the cats for an extended period of time (this trip alone, for 5 days, was like $400 USD, just for boarding). So we can't do it often, but sometimes the stars align and it works. I'd like to be able to get away and see my family in Oregon more often, but it's hard to do it together for the same reasons. I told my spouse they should go see their family more often, with or without me, since again, it's cheaper if either of us goes alone. Having family to stay with definitely cuts down on the expenses. My parents live in Oregon, and so does my sister and her lil fam (partner and best friend), so it's easy to go to Eugene and see them. I would like my spouse to go with me, but again, we have to plan it and save up usually.

I'd like to take more trips around here where we don't have to necessarily board the cats. There is a ton of Colorado we haven't explored yet, where a long weekend would likely suffice. We have plans to go to Mt. Rushmore, or Scottsbluff in Nebraska, or elsewhere. There's places in Wyoming I'd like to check out. So we have a lot of day/long weekend trips we could do. It takes a little more planning with the EV, sorting out charging, but it's totally doable. I like road trips. We might take a day trip up to the mountains this weekend, I dunno. I just love living in a place where we can do cool stuff not only in town, but also around us, very easily. I guess you could say that about anywhere, but I dunno. It's more special when it's where you live, somehow.

I called this post "a nostos" because it was just that: a "homecoming." Not to my home, but my spouse's home, but by extension that is another "home" for me. I remember while I was working on my PhD, I would visit Oregon as much as I could; that was a long flight from Florida, but well worth it. And it always felt like a proper "homecoming" seeing my parents. In the summers I would often go and stay for a month or so with them and soak it all up. I didn't have a ton of work obligations like I do now, so it was easy to get away, and again, staying with family makes it much, much cheaper. My spouse's family lived about 3h south of where we lived, so it wasn't too hard to go see them, but I don't think they saw them as often as they would have liked, even so. We did our best. And I always enjoyed the time with my father-in-law. We would often meet up at Disney World since that was a little closer for both parties. I hadn't seen my father-in-law since our wedding in 2015, and I am sad about his passing, as I always liked him and I think he liked me. But the whole thing is bittersweet since he was ill for quite a while, and is now ideally at some kind of peace. I'm glad for the time we had and will do my best to take care of my spouse over the years, of course.

Anyways, overall the trip was bittersweet, but really nice, and I'm glad we got to do it. I really tried not to make this a minutiae-riddled post like the ones of old, so I'm working on that and just sketching things out a little more. I appreciate y'all reading this, as always. Lots of love, and talk soon. <3