That stay-cation went pretty much as I expected. Which was, not at all as I had hoped or planned.
I’m back to the day job this week and as I reflect on this recent time off I can honestly say, that did not go anything like I had hoped or planned. And while some of that was ok some of it was a little more difficult to deal with. I did get some of what I hoped to work on either done completely or a lot of progress made. Most of it took much longer than I anticipated. Some of it was much more involved, or I made it so. And there was an unexpected trip that needed to be made.
I had planned on taking one of my pet birds to the vet because she has been having a lot of trouble getting around. I suspected she is dealing with arthritis but wanted to make sure it wasn’t something else that was being neglected. It’s arthritis. There isn’t much I can do for her other than more comfortable perches and pain medication. Comfortable perches works for her. Pain medication not so much. She was cooperative about taking it the first two or three doses and from there she got increasingly less cooperative. She got really good at hiding from the dropper. She figured out how to bury her beak into my hand and leg and jacket so good that I had no chance of getting to it.
All the effort and struggle to give the bird her medicine was just more than I thought she could take and I didn’t want her mad at me so being the soft touch that I am when it comes to animals, after her dosing, she got proper head scratching. A process that could go on for forty-five minutes to an hour easily. I got tired before she did. Yep she’s definitely got me trained.
In addition to the vet trip, the other pet related activity on the list was a deep and thorough cleaning of the bird cages. I have two birds and three cages. I started with the empty cage thinking I’d use that as a holding pen while I cleaned one of the other cages. That didn’t work. The little bird that was getting medicine sat in a plastic hospital tub that she hated. The other bird, hated that tub so much that he insisted he was going to sit on my shoulder while I put his cage back together and dried everything off. He’s not normally a shoulder rider, so that was interesting. He’s still pissed that I cleaned his mirror though.
Major cage cleaning accomplished. I thought I was going to move on to other tasks. Like trying to get through the new study material that is a compliment to reading the official text for the test I’m taking. That was taking longer that I had expected. Though, I thought I was going to be on a good track to have some time at the end of my break, just before going back to work, to relax and not have to worry about it. And then I got a call that changed all that.
My family is fairly small and there aren’t a lot of our little nucleus left. And now there is one less. A week before I went on break I received a call that my Grandfather was in the hospital. His wife called to let me know and was really good about keeping me, and thus the rest of my family, up to date on how he was doing. After a little over a week they moved him to hospice. This was the first week while I was on break. Saturday morning after that I received the call that he had passed. So a trip back to Oklahoma was now in play. I have a sister and she and I are next in line there. My father passed five years ago and he was an only child. My Grandmother passed 15 years ago. Both his brother and sister passed a few years ago as well. He was 94. He lived a good long life and he out lived most of his family and friends. I went back for the funeral and to help with cleaning up what little bit of stuff I could. It’s not a trip you ever want to make and no matter how much we might intellectually accept something like a death is coming, I’m not sure you are ever totally prepared for it when it finally happens.
There are lots of experiences and feelings and events that can occur as a result of someone’s passing. The hospitality of a stranger was not one I was expecting. As you can imagine, staying at what had been my Grandfather’s house was going to be tight since there was other family coming in. So I was anticipating grabbing a hotel for the couple of nights I was going to be there. Except, a neighbor lady, who I had never met and had only met my Grandfather’s wife a few months ago, offered the use of her spare room with an en suite bathroom and shower. I am in admiration and appreciation of her hospitality. She was a very welcoming hostess. And quite an exceptional person with some great stories of really amazing adventures that have been her life. I am very happy to have had the chance to meet and converse with her, and again appreciative and grateful for her hospitality.
My trip to Oklahoma was short, just two 
nights, so I traveled as light as I could. I expected that I might be coming back with a few more items than I went with and I really wanted to make the return trip as easy as I could. So I did not pack a computer. A kindle yes, but not the laptop. So studying while I was there was out. Not that I would have had the time really. That meant that upon my return I was going to be spending much more of my time left studying just to make up for the time away. And I did. I have a little more to read, just one chapter, and some quizzing to work through. I’m far enough, and what’s left is more peripheral information so while I’ll still be studying this next week, I have at least made it through the bulk of the information and am a little less stressed 
about getting through the material in time for taking the test. The next step there is to schedule it. I’ve already purchased my voucher so it’s paid for, now I need to commit to a day, time, and location.
As you can tell, my stay-cation, not only wasn’t what I had hoped it would be, it turned out to not even be a stay-cation. Oh well. I will be testing soon and while you would think that would mean things would lighten up and get back to a more ‘normal’ type of routine, I know that won’t be happening. I’m not quite sure what a ‘normal’ routine looks like these days. I will still be playing music. There’s a jam coming up this next weekend and I will be there. That’s about as close to a normal routine as I get these days. I hope to have some new music related tales and pictures soon. For now I’ve included some pictures of my adventures with medicating my bird as well as some pictures of my Grandfather over the years. Yes, I’m in a couple of them with my sister. Enjoy.