~O~M~G~

I am going to have to sum my trip to Washington up in as few as words as possible. I don't want anyone to cry for me or worse yet die of laughter. I just can't be responsible for the demise of my very few readers. I mean, I need all of you!

Sunday night as I was arriving in the baggage claim area I realized I left my phone on the plane. OH SHIT! Please, please let no one have picked it up. My entire social life is contained in that phone. I wouldn't even be able to call my Mom without it. I have no memory (obviously! Duh!) so I don't know anyone's phone number. Luckily after pleading and offering up my first born (he is a teenager after all, easily disposable) I was able to get the baggage claim clerk to have someone bring my phone down. Sweet relief. I can have friends still. Thank goodness.

Oh wait...I have to tell you all who was on my flight. You are never going to believe it. This dude is AWESOME!! I mean awesome, the rock star of literature. Okay enough suspense. Garrison Keeler! Yep you heard me right! He is such an idol of mine. He kills me several times a week with his column in the paper. I totally had to control myself and not be super stalker fan. So I refrained from following him into first class, sitting on his lap and whispering in his ear "Garrison I love you". That would have been bad. Right??

Oh yeah, on with the story. So we leave the airport and head the hour and forty five minutes to my Dad's house. 15 minutes in I decide I am starved and have to eat. NOW! We whip into Wendy's drive thru. Dad shuts off the truck to order and then tries (tries being the operative word here) to restart the truck. Nothing. 3 fucking AM CST I am stuck in a Wendy's parking lot. It turns out his truck has some security feature and if you try to start it in neutral it locks up for an hour. Great.

2 hours after arriving at my Dad's apartment I have to be up and out the door to go pick my Grandma up for surgery. I am going to admit right here that this moment and one other are the only things that went right on this trip. When my Grandma saw me she burst into tears and kept muttering about how I was only this high when she last saw me and she didn't think she would ever see me on this side again. It was all very sweet. We got her off to her surgery. When we were leaving the hospital I gave her a pair of mittens that I bought at Walmart for 2 for a buck. One would have thought they were made out of gold and woven by the Pope. She oohed and awww'd over those gloves. It was very sweet.

Monday afternoon and evening was a flurry of packing and trailer loading. My Dad is super human pack rat man. Barely anything was packed so we had to work on that plus loading the trailer. Everything I wanted to put in a box had to be first examined and the story behind it told. Sigh. Thank God for my uncle Dick. I couldn't have maintained my sanity without him. He is the most awesome dude I have ever met. I love, love, love him! Did I mention it rained hard and half the state was flooding out? No? Yeah.

I did get to go on Tuesday night and have dinner with my cousin Ross and his wife Brenda. I really wish we would live closer. Ross is super cool and his wife is so funny and witty and beautiful. That dinner is the other highlight of this trip. None others. Understand?

I had planned to be on the road for the trip home by noon. Yeah fucking right. 6 effing 30 we rolled out. I got super sick a few miles out. Nothing good and I can't even relive the memory for you. I think it had to be all the rain and stress.

Thursday when we hit Montana we also hit the shittiest weather ever. Blizzards, blizzards everywhere. Somewhere in Montana we hit a patch of ice, spun the truck around on the freeway a few times and slammed the trailer into the side of the truck. Oh boy that was fun. :Insert big fat eye roll here:

Friday morning on the way into South Dakota we hit another blizzard and a 10-12 car accident. We were the last ones through before they closed the interstate. Finally Friday night after 50 hours and 7 count them 7 hours of sleep since Tuesday night we arrived home. Safe but stressed, tired, bitchy and happy as hell to hug my daughters.

Oh my daughters, I forgot to mention that Tuesday night Shawn called me in a panic and asked if a fever of over 104 was bad. Yes, why? Hannah needs to go to the ER then. OMG! I am half the fucking country away and cannot do A THING about it. Thank God for my Jill. Over and over she reminds me why I love her so much. She and J jumped in her car and braved shitty weather here in Minnesota to go sit with my husband and my daughter just to make me feel better. Hannah told me the next day she was so glad to have Cat with her because it made her feel better to have a girl there. Awwww!

Saturday was a tired cranky day of unloading the trailer all damn day long. Then Sunday I had to drive 8 (I wish I could scream that) hours to Wisconsin and back to deliver my Dad to his new job.

Thank God its a new week. Shawn and I dropped the U-haul off and spent the entire day together. I missed my husband and my kids and my cat and my turtles and my dogs and my fish but most of all I missed my bed.

The end.