I feel like I have a hangover. Not that I would really know what that feels like. And not that I was doing anything that would bring on a hangover the old fashioned way. I just feel run over and headachey and residually drugged.
We’d been meaning to go back to Modesto for weeks now. When we rented the truck we stupidly followed the rental companies suggestions for the size of truck we needed and ended up way short. Apparently Penske trucks doesn’t understand that a crafter owns a little more stuff than the average person. We had to stash a bunch of our junk in our friends Coyotehunter and the Shutterbug’s* garage on the condition that we’d pick it up within the month.
Then life intervened, we had one crisis after another, and we finally got around to going back just this past weekend in part to claim our leftover stuff, and partly because Coyotehunter and the Shutterbug were blessing their new baby.
We left Friday night and drove to Bear’s parents house to spend the night and to pick up their Nissan Xterra to house all our boxes. We took off from there Saturday morning at about 11, and as we were pulling out of the driveway, Bear’s dad mentions that his air conditioner doesn’t work. By that point we didn’t have much of a choice, it was the only vehicle we could use that was big enough to carry all the stuff we had, and it was too late to rent something, so we figured we’d take a chance. It’s March after all, how bad could it get?
Driving through the desert at 1 in the afternoon, even in March, was absolutely awful. There were four accidents on the way out of LA, and by the time we got to Bakersfield we were melted sacks with sticky backs. We rolled down both windows until we were somewhat cool, and then we rolled the windows up to watch 24 on the DVD player until we couldn’t stand the heat anymore. Even a great show like 24 loses a little of the suspense when it’s only watched in 20 minute increments.
We finally got to Modesto, sunburnt, overheated and windblown, at 5:40. A drive that normally takes us 4 1/2 hours took us 6 1/2 hours. With no air. We realized that there was absolutely no way we could repeat this trip the next day. The baby blessing was at 9am, which would mean we wouldn’t leave before 11, and then we’d be right back where we were, driving through the desert in the hottest part of the day. So we decided to miss the baby blessing, scratch the time with our friends, and climb back in the car for a return trip that same night.
The other half of this hellish trip was the fact that my sciatica nerve was acting up. Ever since I got pregnant it flares up now and then. And before we even left I was hurting. Bear’s dad gave me a couple slow release pain pills to make it through the trip without clawing off the roof of the car.
By the time we got there, we only had 10 minutes with Canadian girl before she had to go to work, we stopped by the hardware store to visit Canadian boy while he was working, we had about an hour with Coyotehunter and the Shutterbug, and then we had a late dessert with another set of friends before we got back on the road to make the return trip. We got back to Bear’s parents house at about two in the morning, and by that time I was on my third pain pill. They weren’t doing much for me.
The next morning we woke to find Bear’s parents violently ill with the stomach flu, so we ended up taking care of them and running errands for them all day, including dealing with a guy who came to buy the car they’ve had in their driveway collecting spiders for three years. It was then, as I was running around town buying Bear new pants to replace the ones that got soaked in bleach unloading the car and picking up medications and diet coke, that my pain pills finally decided to kick in. All at once. I got shakey and nauseous, and I had to find a way back to the inlaws before driving another two hours to my house, while my sciatica is still throbbing and now so is my head and my stomach.
We finally crawled up the stairs to our house at 9 last night. Completely sick and spent and exhausted and headachy and bitter that we got so little time with the people we love.
*I really suck at the making up of internet handles. This girl deserves a way better name that “the shutterbug,” but I like how it sounds with her husbands nickname. Doesn’t Coyotehunter and the Shutterbug sound like a couple of morning ride DJ’s? I think a revision is pending for this nickname.