We are headed for the lakes and mountains of the Adirondacks, starting with a quick drive up to my mom’s house. Originally, our plan did not include visiting my mom. I’d vaguely wanted to visit her some time this summer, during that amorphous mass of free time that I thought I would have in July.

Well, you know what kind of July I had: packed with OT appointments, and in between doing the garden, digging the weeds, and next thing I knew, BAM! It’s August. Tricky August. With camp this week for the girls, I could hardly make a trip to visit my mom. It doesn’t make sense to pay for day camp and then interrupt it to go visit my mom, especially when I have a ton to do this week.

So, when she begged, wheedled, whined, and generally made it clear that she really, really, really wanted us to visit, Drob and I decided we’d leave Friday, stay over my mom’s house, and then head for the Adirondacks just after lunch. At first, when I told my mom this plan, she seemed elated. She was glad we were coming to visit, glad we’d stay over one night, and glad we’d stay through lunch. It seemed No Fuss, No Muss, to me. Short visits are nice. You don’t have time to have fights. Or clog up the toilet (except, famously, on Thanksgiving).

Then today she said something that (like many-a-thing my mom says) bothered me but I couldn’t put my finger on why right away. She asked me why we didn’t stay two nights at her house, and go up to the Adirondacks on Sunday instead. After all, she said, you’re going to have two weeks with them, so what’s one day less, anyway? You could spend more time visiting me, instead.

I balked. I don’t want to spend more time visiting her. God help me, but I feel like a few hours Friday night, and a few hours on Saturday are a nice visit. I am really itching after that, to get going on my vacation. Yes, it’s true that my vacation is a long one.

But then again, this is from my mom, who just spent 3 weeks on her vacation in Italy. How would she have felt if I’d insisted that she cut her trip short by a couple days. After all, why plan such a long vacation somewhere else besides with your daughter?

Of course I’d never make such an argument: I don’t want her to come visit me for a long visit anyway. And it’s silly to think of asking someone to cut their vacation short by a day, at the last minute, and act as if they are being unreasonable for not wanting to change the dates of their trip.

I’ve been looking forward to this vacation. It’s a relaxing, quiet, fun place, surrounded by nature. Cooler weather, wildlife, lakes, mountains. Why should I have to justify why I want to go on vacation? With my family. And yes, with my husband’s parents, too. After all, it is their pleasure to rent a house for their vacation that is big enough to share with my family. They love to have their grandchildren, their son and myself with them for this annual vacation. It’s become a tradition, and they generously foot the bill for the rental house, and much of the other expenses as well.

My mom is insanely jealous of my in-laws. But hey, if she wanted me and the girls (at least) to go to Italy with her, she could have certainly offered us plane tickets, etc., and we could have spent a week or two with her in Italy, for example. She has plenty of money, though she’s quite tight fisted with it.

But no, instead, she wants me to shorten my vacation, and hang out with her instead. And she tells me this the day before I am planning to come to her house. For a quick visit, that wasn’t even on my agenda until she asked me to do it.

PUSHY, much???

Well, I just balked. I was rather put off. I think it was unfair of her to manipulate me like that. But in spite of my initial awkwardness about her request, I managed to sputter out a refusal. “No, I don’t think we’re going to do that. We want to get on with our plans, and we’ll be travelling on Saturday after lunch.”

Ok, now as for the thing with PACKING for this trip? Well, I can say I’ve done a huge mountain of laundry. Batteries of my camera are dead so I didn’t do a before-and-after photo but I wish I had. It was a very tall mountain of laundry. Now it’s been reduced to mere foothills.

I wish I was not so, so, so tired. At least it is a pleasantly cool evening. Going to stop writing now to try to finish a bit more laundry, and then I’ll start organizing piles of clothes in earnest. It’s so weird to be packing warm clothes in August, in Philly, where it’s normally quite hot and humid. But the Adirondacks are quite cool, especially early in the morning and at night, so I need to find and pack a variety of layers for each of us. Oh, but I do despise packing!!!

PS I harvested three bell peppers, three sweet italian peppers, a handful of purple green beans, two jalapeno peppers, a long skinny purple eggplant, one lonely golden sun cherry tomato, and a big bunch of basil from my garden. It is so sad to leave town just as my garden is getting productive! There are many biggish, very green tomatoes on the vines right now, though. And at least one little husk of a tomatillo! It is my sincere hope to return to find tomatoes and tomatillos waiting to be harvested. Saddest of all: this year’s watermelons were a sad loss. Absolutely nothing happening there. Boo Hoo!

…place your head between your knees… *

For about the fifth or sixth time today, I am finding it necessary to stop and BREATHE. This morning, we met with the accountant who is handling our taxes and the city’s lawsuit against us. He was reassuring in that he’s certain we will not have to appear in court on Monday morning. That was the good news. The bad news is that we screwed up our taxes big time. Apparently in ‘05 we really underestimated how much we owed the city; now we’ll have to pay the amount owed along with penalties and interest and all that great stuff.

I keep repeating to myself my (insane?) mantra: It’s only money. It’s only money. We’ll make more, we’ll use more, we’ll lose more, we’ll not starve, we’ll not be put out of our home. It’s. Only. Money. It is not our health. It is not our art. It is not something that cannot be replaced. It. Is. Only. Money.

This is maybe not the best mantra for someone running a business. Now, back to reconciling accounts.

*
(… and kiss your ass goodbye.)

I’ve been a little reluctant to post a new post after that sweet, sweet letter that D wrote me. I just kept coming back to my blog and re-reading it. I know that I am loved. I will be fine. We’ll get through, it, whatever it may be.

Yet life and its insecurities rage on. I don’t know if it’s safe to write about using illegal drugs on one’s blog, no matter how anonymous it is (and this one’s not all that successful at anonymity!) So I am only going to say this: that if I were to be the sort of gal who enjoys a puff or two of a relaxing kind of smoke from time to time when the kiddos are safely put away on their shelves, then now would be a pretty good time to seek such relaxation.

In fact, D and I are both pretty anxious right now. I hadn’t mentioned this before (probably because of denial, shame, or whatever) but we’re being sued by the lovely city of brotherly love. It’s because apparently our accountant made a mistake on our 2001, or maybe it was our 2002, tax returns. It seems that our city taxes were not filed, or not filed properly.

Since I’m someone whose eyes glaze over and ears seemed stuffed with fluff whenever taxes are discussed, I honestly don’t fully get what happened, or when, or why. I just know that our tax situation requires that a (new) professional accountant deal with it. In order to avoid the $5000 fine and being required to appear at a hearing, the city requires that we file (or re-file, if it was filed) no later than three days before the hearing. If we do, the hearing’s cancelled, the $5000 fine is avoided.

The hearing is August 11. When we’re in upstate NY on vacation. Talking to the accountant’s office today, he said they’d get right to it and work on our taxes. Um… please hurry the fuck up, ok? I mentioned to the clerk I spoke with that there’s this little $5000 fine we’re trying to avoid, and the little lawsuit we’re trying to have dropped… and the best he could say is that they’re going to get started on it right away.

Anxiety much? Now you can understand why I might just be interested in something that might take the edge off. Ease the freak-out a little.

I am also anxious about packing for our vacation (remember my little problem with packing for a ONE NIGHT STAY recently? Well how’s about a two week trip to the middle of nowhere NY where you have to drive 30 miles to get anywhere civilized?) I am perhaps equally anxious about preparing for next year and working as the after school teacher at this wonderful little school. It’s like being pregnant in a way. You get to this point where you suddenly remember OH SHIT! I’M GOING TO GIVE BIRTH! AM I READY FOR THIS?

The fact is I am NOT ready. I am far from ready. I also am not feeling ready for the simple daily life functions of getting my kids up daily, dressed, fed and out the door to go to school on time each day. I am not ready to pay my business bills, either. I really need to do much more, or else face serious consequences.

It’s also 11:52 AM and I am not ready to feed my kids their lunch today. I didn’t get them an adequate breakfast, yet, either, though they both ate something.

And here I am just lolling in anxiety to the point where I wonder if it would be a good idea to take part in some kind of relaxing herbal refreshment (what my pals and I sometimes called it when we were teens).

I need to get my shit together. Perhaps the first thing to do is get dressed and go buy some food. I’ll need some snacks later on if I go with the whole herbal refreshment plan, anyway.