My weekend and that little incident
I'm just coming off a four-day weekend and my only complaint is that it's over. I've worked a lot of hours lately and really needed some time to unplug and make a quick trip to Dallas.
I didn't have a dog sitter this weekend, so Murphy came with me, which kind of made things hectic. Heaven knows, I'm crazy about that dog. He's great on road trips, but I had to plan everything I needed to do around taking care of him. Sometimes it feels like I have a child, except without the tax benefits.
Anyways, so my plan was to have an early lunch at Katie's house and stay for about two hours, then drop Murphy off at Stef's house, run errands and get back to Stef's at about the time she got off work. That morning, I was already about 45 minutes late leaving my house, but I got on the road and was making good time...until I hit the traffic jam. I should have known something was wrong when my GPS kept trying to divert me from the interstate to some random county road several miles back.
This is where I could leave out some details, but what would be the fun in that? It was probably about 45 minutes into this traffic jam and we'd made it about 2 miles when I started needing to pee in a really desperate way. There's nothing but fields around me, not a tree in sight, and miles of cars ahead of me and behind me. I could wait.
I tried deep breathing. Mind over matter. I can do this.
The clock keeps ticking. I scroll through my phone, I check my email, anything to distract me. We haven't moved. It's getting bad...I don't know if I can make it.
Then I see an exit sign ahead, but I can't make out what it says. I wait and wait until finally, I can read the sign. It's a whole freaking mile to the next exit and according to my math, that could take about 40 minutes.
At this point, I have tears in my eyes as I weigh my options. I look out my window and see this one, single tree standing off in a field. A big, bushy cedar tree.
Look, when you've gotta go as badly as I did, that cedar tree may as well be manna from heaven. I pulled my car over to the shoulder of the road, held my head high, and made the trek out to that tree with an interstate full of drivers knowing exactly what I was doing. And I didn't even care. Apparently I lost all of my dignity in that moment because now I'm freely sharing this story with the World Wide Web.
So after that special experience, traffic eventually cleared up and I made it to Katie's around the time I'd originally planned to be leaving her house. We had lunch together while Murphy whined through her back door, and I just felt like a hot mess. But it was good to see her and sometimes you just need to show up, even if you're a hot mess.
After that, I dropped Murphy off at Stef's house and ran my errands. Since I was running two hours behind at this point, I ended up in rush hour traffic getting back to her house.
That night, we walked to a restaurant across the street from Stef's house and had a great dinner and good conversation. Then we went next door to a brewery and stayed late enough to say we did a Friday night right.
The next morning, we had coffee, shopped for a few hours, then I drove to Frisco and spent the afternoon with Adam. We went to see a movie, had dinner at a Thai restaurant, and I drove home in the rain, which was super fun.
This story is turning out longer than I'd planned, so I'll end my weekend there. Once again, I'm reminding myself how important it is to recharge from time to time.
I didn't have a dog sitter this weekend, so Murphy came with me, which kind of made things hectic. Heaven knows, I'm crazy about that dog. He's great on road trips, but I had to plan everything I needed to do around taking care of him. Sometimes it feels like I have a child, except without the tax benefits.
Anyways, so my plan was to have an early lunch at Katie's house and stay for about two hours, then drop Murphy off at Stef's house, run errands and get back to Stef's at about the time she got off work. That morning, I was already about 45 minutes late leaving my house, but I got on the road and was making good time...until I hit the traffic jam. I should have known something was wrong when my GPS kept trying to divert me from the interstate to some random county road several miles back.
This is where I could leave out some details, but what would be the fun in that? It was probably about 45 minutes into this traffic jam and we'd made it about 2 miles when I started needing to pee in a really desperate way. There's nothing but fields around me, not a tree in sight, and miles of cars ahead of me and behind me. I could wait.
I tried deep breathing. Mind over matter. I can do this.
The clock keeps ticking. I scroll through my phone, I check my email, anything to distract me. We haven't moved. It's getting bad...I don't know if I can make it.
Then I see an exit sign ahead, but I can't make out what it says. I wait and wait until finally, I can read the sign. It's a whole freaking mile to the next exit and according to my math, that could take about 40 minutes.
At this point, I have tears in my eyes as I weigh my options. I look out my window and see this one, single tree standing off in a field. A big, bushy cedar tree.
Look, when you've gotta go as badly as I did, that cedar tree may as well be manna from heaven. I pulled my car over to the shoulder of the road, held my head high, and made the trek out to that tree with an interstate full of drivers knowing exactly what I was doing. And I didn't even care. Apparently I lost all of my dignity in that moment because now I'm freely sharing this story with the World Wide Web.
So after that special experience, traffic eventually cleared up and I made it to Katie's around the time I'd originally planned to be leaving her house. We had lunch together while Murphy whined through her back door, and I just felt like a hot mess. But it was good to see her and sometimes you just need to show up, even if you're a hot mess.
After that, I dropped Murphy off at Stef's house and ran my errands. Since I was running two hours behind at this point, I ended up in rush hour traffic getting back to her house.
That night, we walked to a restaurant across the street from Stef's house and had a great dinner and good conversation. Then we went next door to a brewery and stayed late enough to say we did a Friday night right.
The next morning, we had coffee, shopped for a few hours, then I drove to Frisco and spent the afternoon with Adam. We went to see a movie, had dinner at a Thai restaurant, and I drove home in the rain, which was super fun.
This story is turning out longer than I'd planned, so I'll end my weekend there. Once again, I'm reminding myself how important it is to recharge from time to time.
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