I fly back tonight. At least tonight’s flight back is a little easier than my flight down. It will still be hard to say goodbye to family, but I will see them again at Christmas. It looks as if I will get back just in time for the first snow of the season. The forecast shows snow for Tuesday. It was expected to snow yesterday but it looks as if the forecast changed, and I don’t think they had any snow while I was away. Everyone tells me that this winter will be far harsher than last winter. We shall see.

Early this morning, I left on a plane heading to Alabama. When this blog piece posts, I will be at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport scrambling to catch my next flight to Charolotte before then heading to the Montgomery Airport. Once in Alabama, I’ll have time Friday and Saturday to spend with family. The visitation will be Saturday night and the funeral Sunday afternoon. Then Monday evening, I will be flying back to Vermont.

It will be a whirlwind trip and a sad one, but at least I will get to see my family and spend some time with them. I will also get to see my kitties, Edith and Lucy. I plan to get in some good food and some sweet tea while I’m there also. So while it is a sad occasion and a sad trip, there will be some pluses along the way.

My flight home Monday night began at 9:20pm. I know they expect you to sleep but my sleep was very fitful. When I finally arrived back home around 9:30am, I slept most of Tuesday.

I spent a large chunk of yesterday flying to California. Have I mentioned how much I hate to fly? A total of almost 7 hours in a plane. I hate sitting still for that long. After a few bumps along the way, and I’m not just talking about the turbulent flight, I got checked into my hotel room. I immediately took a nap because I’d been awake since 2am eastern time. 

Tomorrow, my conference begins with two workshops. I’m really looking forward to the workshops because they are supposed to train me for the next part of my job at the museum.

I have to admit that I was wrong. This visit from my mother and niece hasn’t been as bad as I thought it could have been. Yes, a few times my niece did get a little melodramatic, but it was generally about food. She just doesn’t eat right, and I blame that on my sister, who she acts just like by the way. She’s eight though, so I guess it’s excusable to an extent. The weekend has been all about her, with one or two exceptions.

We went to Parc Safari in Canada on Friday. It’s a safari park, zoo, and water park all in one. We had a blast. The crossing of the Canadian border was a lot easier this time too. The Canadian border guard was actually nice and joked and laughed with us. Last time, I had a guard that was grumpy and kept yelling questions at me. The St Albans station is much busier than the one we crossed at Rouses Point, New York. While both of the Canadian border guards were quite cute, the one at Rouses Point was so sexy because he was very nice. The US border guard at St Albans was nice, but the the one at Rouses Point was not only extremely friendly, but cute as hell too.

Saturday, we went to Ben and Jerry’s and sampled some ice cream and toured the factory. Then we went to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory. My niece loved it. Afterwards we went to Church Street in Burlington and did some shopping. My niece pointed to one store and said she wanted to go in there. It was called Good Stuff. I told her she wasn’t allowed in there and explained to my mom that it was an “adult store.”

Yesterday, we went to the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, VT. So many hands on science experiments! Needless to say, my niece had a lot of fun there too. After that we went to King Arthur Flour. I knew my mom would love the kitchen store there. Like me, my mother likes to cook and bake.

Today, I am taking them to the airport and then immediately, I will be working. Their flights were in Manchester, NH because it was so much cheaper than Burlington. It turned out that I had an interview subject that lived 15 minutes from the airport, so I scheduled the interview for after I drop them off at the airport. Getting back into the swing of work so quickly will hopefully not allow me to get too emotional over them leaving. It will be Christmas before I see them again.

I got my mother and niece to their hotel room. It was a long day. The AC in my car is out and I felt like I’d been burning up all damn day. Not really much to report except that my back isn’t much better so I went to bed early last night.

My mother is coming to spend the weekend. She and my niece are flying up this morning. This means I had to mother-proof my apartment. No “toys” can be laying around. Everything must be spic and span. I’ll close off my bedroom, so that will help, but it also means that Isabella can’t be in my bedroom during the day. I have to be emotionally prepared. Etc. etc. etc. I’m sure it will all be fine. We may not even go by my apartment. Well drive by, but we might not stop, especially if I can help it.

I have a full weekend planned. We are going up to Canada to visit a zoo on Friday. Please pray for me that it will go well. Saturday will be filled with Vermont stuff: Ben and Jerry’s, Vermont Teddy Bear a Factory, Echo Aquarium, and a few other things around Burlington. Sunday, we will have to see. There are a number of things we could go and do, and I’ve checked them all out. It will just be up to what my niece wants to do. She’s 8, so,of course this trip is really all about her.

Hopefully, it will be a fun weekend and it will be nice to see family. I’ve missed them. I may complain about my mother, but I love her dearly.

Since it was Sunday, I did sleep in a little more, but not too late.  I had things I wanted to see. I took my shower, got dressed and headed toward Old Montreal. After getting turned around a little, I finally came across a Starbucks, had an iced latte, and used their Wi-Fi. Once I got my bearings and realized that the Notre-Dame Basilica was just around the corner, I went to see the church. The church’s Gothic Revival architecture is among the most dramatic in the world: its interior is grand and colorful; the ceiling is colored deep blue and decorated with golden stars; and the rest of the sanctuary is a polychrome of blues, azures, reds, purples, silver, and gold. It is filled with hundreds of intricate wooden carvings and several religious statues. Unusual for a church, the stained glass windows along the walls of the sanctuary do not depict biblical scenes, but rather scenes from the religious history of Montreal.

After Notre-Dame, I went to Pointe-à-Callière Museum, the Museum of Archaeology and History. I came across a tent set-up that said at the top, “Museum of Archaeology and History.” So I went up to the two ladies at the tent and asked where it was and they pointed across the street to people standing in line. I immediately got in line. Sunday was Montreal Museum Day, when 36 of the 41 museums are free to enter. The line for the Museum of Archaeology and History was about 20 minutes long and then once inside there was a line for either the movie about the history of Montreal or the exhibits. The movie had a 30-60 minute wait, while the exhibits had a 10-20 minute wait, so I chose the shorter wait time and decided not to see the film.  The museum was quite interesting.  I loved how at one point they had models of the old city at various stages under glass in the floor.  It showed were you were standing in the model and the major features of the city at the time.  I really enjoyed the archaeology and history.

When I left there, I decided to go have brunch. I had the best Bloody Mary I’ve ever had and their English breakfast: fried eggs, home-style potatoes, baked beans, bacon, sausage, and blood pudding. I left the blood pudding alone and ate most of the rest. The Bloody Mary was by far the best part about brunch. Then I headed back to the hotel. I’d already decided that the museums would be too crowded, so I went back to my hotel to take a nap and get ready for my evening at the sauna. I did finally learn to navigate the Metro system, which saved my feet a lot of worry.

Oasis Sauna was nice, but I’m not sure it was for me. As you go in, you pay for a room or a locker (I got a room), and they hand you a towel and a key. I went up to my room, undressed, put on the towel, and wrapped the key around my wrist, then went to explore the place. The sauna is two stories. The second floor has rooms, a dark room, and glory holes. My room was on the second floor.  The first floor had rooms, showers, a hot tub, wet and dry sauna, and a snack bar. I walked around some, got in the hot tub and sauna, and mainly just watched. I ended up getting a lot more action from the private dance the night before. There is a possibility that I would try it again, but I’m not sure.  There were a lot of hot guys there. I think what it boils down to is that you have to be in good shape with a nice dick or you have to be fairly aggressive. I’m not in great shape nor am I very aggressive, so I didn’t get any action though I saw some people getting plenty of action.

After the sauna, I headed back to the hotel and had a late dinner there because most things were closing by the time I left the sauna. At the hotel, I had a light supper of shellfish bisque with a glass of white wine. For dessert, I had a caramel mousse that was to die for. The caramel mousse was inside a round cake that had been hollowed out. It was so delicious, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. After supper, I went up to my room and packed up so I was mostly ready to head home when I woke the next morning.