ASTRID AND DEODORANT

Moving burnout officially kicked in today. Since it's Friday I started enjoying Happy Hour at 4:30 with two beers I found in the fridge behind an egglant and some parsley. I've only had one of the beers, but I already feel tipsy, maybe because of all the Extreme Vacuuming I've been doing. When I realized yesterday that the bulk of my moving time would be spent vacuuming up fur shed by Astrid, I decided to get to the root of the problem and just vacuum Astrid. At first it seemed like a good idea, but then she tried to bite me, so I gave up.

A head cold started creeping in last night and all day today I felt sluggish and unfocused. I managed to fold three loads of clean laundry, but when it came to deciding what to put in the keep/sell/give away piles I was stymied. All the things we have to do--find a house to live in, buy plane tickets, get the pets immunized, apply for health insurance, clean the current house, sell the cars, hold a garage sale--and all the decisions we have to make seemed ridiculously insurmountable.

It looks like we'll be going to Costa Rica directly from California, rather than from Texas as planned. We'd thought going to Texas first would simplify some things, but the idea of making the trip there with the kids, the pets, and our stuff now seems like a whole other headache. Plus, it's been hot in Corpus recently--it was 110 degrees the other day--and I honestly don't know if the dogs could handle that.

We're still not sure what day we'll leave, but it can't be later than September 5th, because by the 6th it will be one year since the dogs' rabies vaccine, and they won't be able to fly. We'll probably leave towards the end of August, which I'm realizing now is five whole weeks away and enough time (I hope!) to get all the loose ends tied up. Regarding the effect of all those loose ends on my sanity, as long as I keep taking breaks I should be ok. This afternoon when I started feeling overwhelmed I switched gears and took pictures of my new deodorant crystal. It was so completely unproductive and idiotic that I felt energized afterwards, ready to tackle more laborious moving tasks. But by then it was almost 5, the end of the day, and it seemed silly to start something new, so I had one of the beers in the fridge. And then the other. And then when Joedy and Lula came home there was a blizzard of domestic activity and then suddenly it was 11 and I was falling asleep in front of the computer.