Fun, Laura! I’ve been enjoying the Kraken on tiktok because they are basically just posting to entering booktok there. It’s pretty funny.

I am grateful for migraine meds, I did wake up at 8am today and it’s now noon and I’ve done nothing but nap, but at least I’m not in pain anymore.

More disturbingly this is the first really nice weather we’ve had this year and it has brought out more guns—I heard a looooong round of shooting last night as I was going to sleep, apparently it was about 4 blocks away. Not good.

Got to the hospital a bit early (after swinging by the French bakery) and the got us started instead of making us wait. Then our proactive nurse got permission to speed up the pump so it would be done in time with the hydration. So we’ll only be here 2 hours and out by 11:30.

Plenty of time to get to the airport for our 3:30 flight.

I got to see both Phil and Rio on this trip which helped break it up considerably. Also we got to spend more time pool side (in the shade) which is definitely the best perk of this hotel (aside from its walking distance to the hospital).

So fingers crossed we achieve a timely exit velocity.

Yay friends and poolside and agreeable nurses!

I’m hanging with my dog at the dog park—I want him to enjoy some off leash time but after an initial sniff around for the best place to pee, he mostly wants to sploot next to me.

Timelies all!

Had a visit with Mr. S yesterday. Originally we planned to take him to the Maryland Zoo, but it rained all day. So we took him to lunch(Chinese) and to the Maryland Science Center. He wasn't all that into it and we left after an hour(a fair amount of that time spent in the gift shop, because that's what he wanted.). Since the meeting in Baltimore wasn't until 7, we killed some time in a Barnes and Noble(kind of underwhelming) and a Starbucks.

I've been hearing a podcast ad recently that always makes me think of you people: a guy says something like, "I tried a muffaletta. Turns out, I like olives!" So I guess we know what AmEx thinks is the defining characteristic of a muffaletta.....

I'm in Virginia! Left at 5 this morning and just got settled into the hotel now at 11:30, so I do not have enough mathiness left to know how many hours on the road. Looking forward to seeing the fam tomorrow.

Yay friends and poolside and agreeable nurses!

Indeed. It sounds like a much smoother trip than the last one.

I want him to enjoy some off leash time but after an initial sniff around for the best place to pee, he mostly wants to sploot next to me.

I generally have to stay in motion myself to get the dog to run around. He'll run with the dogs, but if I sit so does he.

Yeah, if I'm paying over $500 for a ticket, the end of the sentence had better be "to Paris/Athens/London."

Agreed. At least the 500 something was for 2 tickets. But it will be refunded.

Everytime I hear that ad, Jesse, I think of y'all. Muffalettas, indeed.

Had a nice Mother's Day dinner with the family, including Smitten Kitchen's olive oil chocolate cake. S made ribs! So yummy.

I took Mom on a day trip into Memphis to see a planetarium show and have a fancy holiday lunch. We tried out a new-ish restaurant, Char, which I would highly recommend to anyone visiting or passing through. It may have deposed Automatic Slim's for best shrimp & grits I've ever tasted, though I'd have to try the latter's again to be sure.

Coincidentally, I picked up a half muffaletta from Elwood's Shack on our way out of the city. It wasn't as tasty as I'd anticipated, I make them better at home despite not having the authentic bread.

We also ran afoul of a bridge closing, which resulted in a little under an hour's crawl in heavy traffic to cross the old I-55 bridge everyone was being rerouted to. I'm a bit proud of how not-stressed I was through the whole situation. (To be fair, I have an easier time with unavoidable frustrations than I do with ones that are clearly the result of bureacracy or idiocy...)

My mom and stepdad are on a 2-week vacation in Colorado and Utah, because it is impossible to slow my 77-year-old mother down and there is hiking to be done. So, celebrating Mother's Day is postponed until they get back.

Instead, Tim and I had lunch with my dad and then helped Dad set up his very first smartphone (god help us all). He got an Android phone, but I'm starting to think we should have just bought him an iPhone so that when he calls for help with the phone, I can look at mine and know what he's talking about, because I have no idea how to navigate an Android.

Lunch was great, though; I had avocado toast with fresh crabmeat and pickled onions, and I want to eat that every day now. I also had some kind of tequila-based cocktail with pomegranate juice, which was very tasty.

We're home again, jiggity jig, after a delightfully as-planned weekend in LA. No curveballs at all.

And I got to see Phil the Gambler and my friend Rio.

JZ was still very exhausted by the time we got home, though and crawled into bed at 6pm, and Matilda crawled into bed with her.

Now I have roughly a dozen Important Tasks That Must Be Done to catch up with, but mostly I'm looking forward to 10 whole days of being at home.