I'm a list-making kind of gal, a planner and backup planer. I like structure. I like routine. I like having a map even when I don't get to use it. I just spent almost two weeks in turmoil, flying by the seat of my pants.
It started with an earthquake.
Not that it was as bad here as it was in Central Virginia, but this California girl didn't much like feeling her house shake
while she was standing over a basement. I've been through two 7-pointers (and above) and I have to tell you, this was the scariest one yet because I was
standing over a giant hole.
Then Irene slammed into us. A tree fell onto a power line, so we went black around 2am, and the Big Lug and I took turns watching the pump hole for rising water. Yes, we have a generator for that purpose, but since we'd never used it before we didn't know we had it too far from its current ground, and so we need to sink a new one closer to the manual transfer switch. Helpful hint - don't find this out
during a hurricane. (All turned out well, though, because we've done so much terraforming we had nothing but a trickle of water come in, and
that we hand-bailed only twice in the 18 hours we had no power. Yay!)
Then we went on vacation, and it almost finished me off.
The Big Lug didn't like that I had a list of 50 possible things to see, and three hotels that centered them all already all-but-booked (a loose plan, but a plan nonetheless). He'd been organized and structured and overscheduled to
death at work, and I was pure shake-and-bake from the natural disasters (and the accompanying cancellations of students, and extra, unlooked-for work - our fridge blew during the power surge that knocked out the electricity). He wanted no plan, no framework, no list.
He wanted to point the car and just ... go. I wanted to make him happy. So (trembling a bit) we just ... went.
From Fallingwater in Western PA (on my Bucket List so the only place I insisted on) to back home (a day early thanks to the Noah-like Flood we're still experiencing), we had no motel reservations more than a couple of hours in advance, no restaurant call-aheads
at all, and almost no major highway drives. We went back road to state highway to (once) someone's driveway. We had no cell signal for most of the trip. We hit every antique mall he could find on the GPS (though one day I got my consignment and thrift fix). We ate at places my gut is still trying to shake. We talked,
a lot, and we slept not-so-well at night.
And though mostly I found few things that were great deals (in a thousand miles) I did find a couple:
For the most part I spent too much on things worth not much simply because I had to buy
something from the truly fun people we met. These, however, were the cheapest ($6.40 total for all three) and yet all are 14K (the heart looked better before I tried my hand at knocking out the CZs). Both pendants were on steel or plated chains, and neither were marked clearly, if at all (looked like "+K" on the back of the pearl ... and diamond) but the earrings are marked well, and sharply (just
tiny). Not a haul to brag about, but no small shakes, either, especially since the Hunt wasn't the purpose of the trip. I lived by the seat of my pants and lived to tell the tale.
Yes, I'd become entrenched, and needed to trust myself and others. Yes, things went wrong, and yes, we found unexpected gems along the way. Yes, I wanted to throw up many times from nerves or punch something in frustration. Yes, we had a
boatload of fun.
And, no, I will never do it again.
Not without a
little bit of planning, anyway.
