Day Fifty-five: Going south in two easy stages

I'm off on another road trip, this time to San Diego to the International National Lymphedema Network conference by way of Pasadena with three nights at my oldest daughter's and her husband's. She flew up to Oakland last Friday to visit a high school and college friend in from Sweden. So, the first stage will probably be the easiest as she did all the driving. Since the driver gets to select the music, or in my case the audiobook, I got to listen to Japanese Techno, German HipHop, a Canadian, who was apologetically described as more mainstream than my daughter thought when she bought this person's album, and some music with which I was more familiar, such as Queen. It's good to expand my Life after Layoff horizons. Even though I still couldn't understand the German words, I could at least hear them. In the rare times that I have happened to hear Gangster Rap, I wasn't able to do either.

My children have quite eclectic music taste. The oldest one loves opera. The middle one has been known to listen to Country. The youngest loves to make music, including with a dijeradoo(sp?), and has been known to travel great distances for jazz and bluegrass. The only music they have universally shunned has been gangsta rap, at least so they tell me.

This day started with me exercising, watering plants (and hoping that they last a week without watering), breakfast, packing, and while I was cleaning myself up, my daughter was cleaning the kitchen up. Packing also meant including all of the food that wouldn't last a week (or longer) for me to get back and prepare it. It also included our "eat on the road" food, our planned lunch. Since we finally got on the road at 11:30, lunch occurred before we got out of the Bay Area.

Not five minutes down the road I discovered at least one thing I left behind, my watch. My daughter offered to return and let me get it but if that is the only thing, I have other means to tell time: my cell phone, the car clock, ... Besides, if I have forgotten anything else, I won't know it until I get there and dig through everything I've packed.

About two hours out we stopped at a Starbucks. I had a venti decaf soy latte. I found out it has the same diuretic effect as caffeinated coffee. Of course, by the time that effect made itself apparent, we were in L.A. traffic. We didn't want to stop when we were moving and couldn't when we weren't. Thank goodness I got dibs on their bathroom when we arrived, before we unpacked. (My daughter, who had real coffee but just half the volume, was next in short order.) I must admit that I have thought of my Life after Layoff as holding on, just not this type of holding.