Sunday, July 19, 2009

Separation With a Little Less Anxiety

When you know you're leaving home for a week, is it crazy to seriously be considering a web cam for your garden?

I'm just askin'. Just kidding, but also just askin'. :)

We can't be in two places at once. Sometimes situations call for us to be away from our jobs or other responsibilities. This is why we have sick days, personal leave, vacation days, substitute teachers, and wonderful neighbors who water our gardens and promise to panic if they see a U-haul parked in our driveways.

You do all you can in order to be prepared to be absent for a span. Even if it's just one day, you clear off your desk, lay a writing utensil and paper pad at the ready, roll up the water hose, and store the fertilizer and gloves. So you may just happen to leave a cup of soapy water around the okra just in case a Japanese beetle roams by and decides to go for a swim. No one's begrudging you of that, but no matter your preparations to leave your garden, it still feels worse than dropping your dog off at the vet.

I'm not as gently neurotic as I was the first time I left the corner yard for the wedding in St. Louis. Then, things were new to me and I wasn't as secure in my garden. However, this time everything has fallen into place garden wise. The plan to have the high maintenance crops out of the garden by our trip has worked perfectly. The only things now producing are the tomatoes and peppers with a few melons lying around. The butternut squash and the bush beans may flower while we're gone, but everything else is in the seedling stage and those that do bloom can wait until we're home to harvest.

This trip, however, is different. We're going to California to visit my grandmother. She hasn't seen the children since the girl was three months old, and it's been-done time to go. I'm ecstatic, I'm thrilled, I'm giddy, I'm apprehensive, I'm nervous, I'm terrified.

It's a five hour plane ride. With a 5 and 2 yr old.

You can release that quick intake of breath you just took. Be grateful you're not sitting next to us.

Things will be the way they'll be. We'll get there. We'll get back. I'm not above a small shot of benadryl; I've bought suckers to stop up the mouths of the youngin's and chocolate to sooth the demeanors of our fellow passengers.

Yes, we'll get there. We've needed to get there for some time now.

See y'all in about a week. Sweet gardening dreams.

10 comments:

  1. Oh have fun! I'm glad your garden is able to be on auto-pilot for a while too. It's not so bad with the kids; we flew across country over Christmas with our 3 yo... it could've been worse. ;^) Portable movie players are the best kid crack, kept her busy for hours. Snacks are good too. Hope you have a grand ol time!

    ReplyDelete
  2. We've got one of those. I also got them 20 dollar MP3 players (I don't have one, but they do now) for their music. They've got silly puddy which they've never seen before, hunt for pictures books, their leapsters, coloring books, and the boy's got sight word and math flash cards which he asked for and the girl's got finger puppets. Him, I'm not worried about. She's a different story. I envision a lot of walking up and down the aisles going to Rainbow Rock, Coney Island, or wherever else Dora goes. I'm sure we'll be passing out that chocolate within the first 30 minutes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oooh... Comin to my end of the world, eh? It's been HOT! Hit 108 on the thermometer on the kitchen window today. But we have a deserty microclimate here, so I'm sure the rest of Cali is sittin' pretty.

    Chocolate and lolly's are a good idea ;-). When we flew out here, we were fortunate to have TV's in each of the seatback's, so our then 6yo watched more TV than he ever had in one sitting!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, Ribbit...you have a safe and wonderful trip! Does Grandma have an internet connection? Can you blog while you're gone? If not, we're gonna miss you a lot. I wouldn't worry about the kids. If they are half as funny as you make them out to be, the passengers will have a ball! Funny/curious kids don't have problems on the airlines, it's the criers that drive everyone batty.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Have a safe and wonderful trip. I imagine there will be some interesting blog stories to tell upon your return... as it's always an adventure traveling... even more so with two little ones!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Have a great trip!

    I don't know if they're old enough yet, but Dramamine is pretty nice too. Long, long ago when stepson was 6 or 7 (and sister was 10 or 11), on a multi-state drive, I'll admit, they boy got a dramamine (which was better than the smack in the head I probably wanted to give him at the moment).

    Ahh, sometimes I'm glad they're all grown up now!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ooooo.....I see a REALLY interesting post when you're back.
    Best of luck. And HAVE FUN!!! The garden will be fine, the kids will be fine, ENJOY!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Momma_S, we're headded to the Laguna Woods area. Seems like it's in the 80's there. We're looking forward to it!

    Granny, no, no computer for my granny. I'll have to slate an hour or so to catch up on all y'all's posts I will have missed!

    Thanks, Amy, Sue and KitsapFG, I think things will be okay. I'm working on the whole positive thinking plan. I'll take notes while we're gone to blog about later. :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. We recently went to CO for vacation and leaving the garden...well it took some trust and hope! Trust that someone would at least water it and hope that it would survive without me! It survived, but the water...well, it was a bit dry!

    My 3 YO's were two differnt stories on the plane...one was happy the entire time with a brand new toy. They other couldn't be quiet or keep her little feet off the seat in front of her...makes ya never want to fly again! They did much better when they were age 2 flying. I had to make dd apoligize to the elderly lady in front of her and it made a huge difference in her attitude! (both dd and the lady!) Hope it goes well!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Have a great safe trip out west! The kids will do great and most folks have headphones or earplugs anyway on a plane! I do a half move on Monday- I had to give up my garden until CR. Also, I AM coming your way in September- get ready!

    ReplyDelete