Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-07-29 - 10:25 p.m.

Eventures

We're going on an eventure tomorrow. Eventure is a word coined my one of my girls years ago, describing essentially a road trip taken with our best friends, headed out of town to anywhere else, with motel possibilities, group baths (these are hen parties, y'know) and with luck, even a buffet. If you make it a longer trip, it's then called a becation. This time it is not a becation, due to budget constraints and Summer Calendar Bingo. But an eventure is fine with me. I been needing one.

Also, an eventure fits perfectly into my "no more than two days straight with the kids" vow, the one I made last year after our three or four day becation when the kids' heads began spinning around and they started spitting pea soup. I am hoping to be home before that point hits, this time. I will only have to keep them about 24 hours after we get home and then I can ship them up to their father and have an Adult Weekend, so this entire week is looking pretty good to ME.

The motel we are headed for has Continental Breakfast. Yess!! We love Continental Breakfast! Those little boxes of crap cereal are so Continental! You can get your very own kind, you could even get TWO kinds, and if you're lucky there will be Danish or muffins too and Mom won't make you eat too much fruit. Mom will be packing her very own coffee so she can have it right when she wakes up and won't have to walk to the lobby with her Happy Hair and drink their Maxwell House swill, so she will be happy, if you eat your Danish where she doesn't have to look at it.

My best friend likes the planning part of trips. If there's a good rate or a better place out there, she can get it for you. She likes to peruse and consider and weigh. Me, just give me a pin and a map and I'll tell you where we're going. Lodi! Lodi could be good! I just want to roll down the window and hang my head out while she drives. I'll find something to do when we get there. Let's go see what the Lodi Wal-Mart has! Hey, they have a Salvation Army Store here! And a park with swings, this is cool! So she usually does the planning, because she's not so hot on Lodi, although if that's where we end up (and his time we kind of are) that's okay with her. She's a good sport. I'm a good sport. We're good sports together.

She always does the money stuff for us, because as she says she would do it in her head anyway, she's good at that, and I'm lame and always forgetting that she paid all of something or I did and I always have less or more money in my wallet than I thought I did and she always has what she thought she had. So she does that part.

She always takes care of things if they get messed up, too. If the room turns out to be a smoking one when it wasn't supposed to be or the time in Tahoe that the water ran brown out of the tap or if they never bring the kids' dinners, she kicks into action and gets it fixed.

So, she does the driving and the money management and the planning and the crisis handling, which means I do...I do...um....just a sec, what DO I do? I'm cheerful, that's what. Cheerful as all getout. Hey, stop it, that counts too. Have you ever traveled with someone who WASN'T? All right, then. I'm cheerful, and I bring cd's, and I know how to make paper origami foxes to amuse the kids on long car trips. Yeah, that's right. I carry plastic sea animals for the bathtub, too. Not only do the kids like them, but I remember drinking daiquiris in a Jacuzzi in Las Vegas together and arguing over who got to be the shark. I know how to travel in style. Plus, I'm extremely decorative.

So. Eventure starts tomorrow, and I'm not packed. No big shock there, I guess. I'll do it in the morning, and I'll remember the cd's and the sharks and the coffee. We're going to have big fun, we are. See? I'm already cheerful.

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