Hawaii, Day Post-Two: CA to FL, and Home

The end of the trip at last! Many, many cat photos from the last day.

I was flying out at night, so I spent the day at my brother's; he was working, but had time to chat between calls.

The cats continued their luggage supervision tasks. What, like having a bath on top of a suitcase doesn't count?

Baths were also had on the airbed.

I spent the day on the couch, mostly, trying to lure a cat onto my lap. Not just because I like cats, but because:

Have I mentioned that my brother's house doesn't have heat? Yeah. Kind of nippy in there. (He's been trying to get it put in for a few years now, can't get a contractor to call him back.)

He gave me a space heater for overnight, and there is a room heater in the living room, seen in the background here, and it did help! But, you know, couldn't call it tropical in there.

Full of cute, though!

Half-deflated airbed, or feline trampoline? Tomayto, tomahto.

Cat on floating shelf in living room, washing.

Strike a pose.

So good at that.

Judging me.

Success! Cat napping on lap!

I was amused to see my brother has kept this memento from a long-ago game we went to. 

I just looked it up: it was in 1988! My, how time flies.

I'm not the only bookworm in my family.

Himself deigned to consider getting on my lap.

But only stayed briefly.

The chair is more comfortable, apparently.

Cats will be cats.

Later he came along and settled next to my legs. 

Then one of the littles came back for a bath and another nap on the lap.

Another floating-shelf bath.

Stretching out.

Conked out!

Nice tail curl.

"Are you still here?"

From the back, with her ears being a different color than the top of her head, she looks kind of like she's wearing a wig.

Lick.

Looking thoughtful.

The babies on the back of the desk, supervising Dad at work.

Stretching out, lap-adjacent.

A suitcase makes a nice bed.

Lap again, yay.

Enjoying a chin scritch.

"Is this still here?"

After work ended, we gathered up my things and took the bus to the Bart station, where my brother pointed me to where to go: take that escalator, it goes all the way down, and get the train that says SFO. Easy!

Getting around the airport wasn't quite so easy--it's so big, and I was so tired--but eventually, I was on the plane and heading out. Another full flight, unfortunately, and as I mentioned in the re-entry summary, I had trouble sleeping. But all things end, and eventually, we were flying in to Lauderdale as the sun was thinking about rising.

And once I was home again, Maggie conducted the final suitcase inspection of the trip.

Home!

Maggie Morning

Her highness on the lap this morning. Comfy.

Snoozing.

Paws crossed.

Oh, no, headless kitty. 

Oh, there’s her head!

Why, yes, it was hard to get up and get to work!

Hawaii, Day Post-One: HI to CA, Plus Cats

I left Hawaii on Wednesday morning, flying direct from Kona to Oakland (since that airport is much closer to my brother than SFO). Because of the destination, I was flying Southwest (I had flown United from SFO to Kona), so it was my third airline of the trip.

I'm not a huge fan of the airport in Kona--I always have trouble finding my way around (where is the agriculture inspection? could they put up a sign or something?), and because it's all outdoors, I get very hot when dressed for the chill of the plane instead of the weather outside.

Anyway. The Southwest boarding process went as smoothly as I had been told it would, and I found myself a window seat not too far back. Unfortunately, I did turn out to be behind someone who, despite having one of the few empty seats next to him, still felt he had to recline his seat into my space. Which is so rude I can't even stand it.

Anyway. Out comes the knitting!

I was a bit surprised that they don't have screens in the seatbacks. 

They let you stream shows and movies to your device, but honestly, since that assumes that you have a device (not everyone does), and that it's a size you want to watch a movie on (my phone? not a chance), and that it's charged, I don't really approve. I could have watched something on my iPad, of course--this is more a theoretical complaint than a personal one. I listened to an audiobook and went on knitting.

Goodbye, Hawaii.

Also did some reading on the iPad, while eating the snack box that they handed out to everyone.

World's smallest package of tic tacs.

After a long, long stretch of nothing but this:

Finally, land was in sight.

Container ship?

Hello, California. Nice to see the mainland again.

See the bridge, shining in the distance, like a ghost?

My brother met me at the airport, and we got my checked bag (it made it! again!) and went to the BART station, where he pointed out the sunset behind me. Quite pretty!

We took the bags to his house, where the cats were an enthusiastic welcoming committee, sniffing everything very thoroughly. (From here, it's all cat photos, if you're not in the mood for that much cute.)

The two youngest (they're almost a year) were the most into it.

But the middle child also had to see what was going on.

And the senior boy was curious too.

Not only did the suitcase smell fascinating....

But I hung my jacket over a chair, and they quickly discovered that it had dangling cords that made excellent cat toys.

Inside the bag, also full of smells!

They were all over it. Literally.

And the airbed was a surprising but fun play space!

We went out and got dinner at some point in there, but it was basically the cat show for the evening, which suited me fine.

Next up: a day of rest, and a night heading home.

At a Loss

I'm sure I have complained every year when it gets to be annual performance review time at work, and I have to BS my way through the self-assessment. But this year it is, actually, quantifiably, worse than it has been in previous years, because my company has glommed onto some more jargon this year, which shows up in the self-assessment in two ways.

First, they want me to describe how I have 'demonstrated' their 'core values,' which are (gag) curiosity, courage, and collaboration. Courage? How on earth does my editing demonstrate courage? How CAN it?

Second, they want to know how I have 'demonstrated' 'customer obsession.' Also known as 'customer centricity.'

I can usually work myself up to BSing the usual strengths and weaknesses sorry, 'areas for improvement' questions, but these? I don't know if it's the lingering trip lag, but I just keep looking at these and shaking my head.

I don't think they want me writing that I am obsessed with preventing our customers from knowing that our analysts don't always use verbs in sentences. Or that I have the courage to face the frequently poor-quality writing that is sent in.

The deadline is next week. I should be working on them. But ugh.

Post-Trip Recovery, Setbacks

It's been a rough re-entry to post-trip life so far.

I knew that I would have trouble with jet/trip lag, especially after taking the red-eye back to the east coast, which was the best of the few options for nonstop flights. So I planned to get home Friday morning, giving me Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to start recovering, and hopefully get unpacked, before going back to work.

This plan had only mixed success.

Friday: I got a couple of hours sleep on the plane; I didn't have trouble falling asleep, but I couldn't seem to find a position comfortable enough to stay asleep, so I kept popping awake again. I actually dozed off in the car on the drive home, and took a nap after I got home. Friday was about as much a write-off as I expected it to be. Very tired, not sure what time zone I was in, and everything hurt, from the combination of hauling all my luggage around* and being confined in cattle-car plane seats for so long.

*My suitcases do have wheels, but it's still a workout and on a trip this long, I was clearly not up to the task.

Saturday: I slept well Friday night, but in setback #1, I had to be a grown-up all afternoon. It was the celebration of life for my Mom's best friend who died last year, so I had to dress in real clothes and make conversation for a few hours. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to go, but the timing was unfortunate. Then we had to run up to Costco for a prescription Mom needed that day, which took what little energy I had left. I think I was asleep before 8 Saturday night.

Sunday: I woke up after 11 hours sleep, far more than I usually get, and though I wasn't exactly bouncing with energy, I was hopeful that it was going to help. I fed the cat, got my coffee, went to sit on the couch ... and setback #2, I overturned the entire large coffee. 

It. Went. Everywhere. 

What a huge mess. I had been cleaning it up for an hour when my mother got up; my sore muscles were screaming at me, and I was pretty upset. Bless her, she took over the clean-up and let me go sit and stare into space, but it definitely took every bit of energy that I had built up and more, and the rest of the day was pretty much a write-off as well.

Monday: I probably didn't feel worse than I had on Sunday, but because I had to sit at the computer and work, it seemed worse. Impossibly long day, sore, no energy, and turning the light off to go to sleep at 8:15.

Tuesday: Almost 10 hours of sleep later, I felt marginally better! Not as sore, some energy! I finished my work project and thought I might get a little unpacking done ... and in short order, though I did get a bit done, my body was all, "Whoa, whoa whoa! Dial it back, there!" and I realized that I had used up all the energy I had, and was back to "let's sit down and stare into space, occasionally picking up the phone and then putting it down again because it's so heavy." Work wasn't as busy, so I was able to spend some time just sitting, or with the lap cat, or reading, so it wasn't as bad a day as Monday, but still, not much got done, which was frustrating.

Wednesday: I had been sleeping well since I got home, but at 3-something-AM, that ran out, and I was awake for more than an hour. And a bit headachy. Overall, marginal improvement from the previous day (in spite of having to go to the dentist, ugh, but it was just normal levels of unpleasant), but not much energy, not much. Though I did notice my arms didn't hurt they way they had been, so that's good.

And now it's Thursday. I feel almost human (in spite of the building getting power-washed today, so there was a period where I could feel my skeleton reverberating in my body). And hopefully, I can get fully unpacked soon.

Still to come: photos from my trip home, including MANY of my brother's cats!