Boredom

It's Friday, and I'm bored at work. Most people work a 9/80 schedule, which means they work 80 hours in 9 days instead of 10 (9 hours a day), and take the 10th day off. The day off is every other Friday, and this is one of those Fridays. I'm not on that schedule because the thought of spending an extra hour here every day makes me want to shoot myself. But it's pretty quiet because a lot of people are off, so I don't have a lot to do and I don't have a lot of motivation to do it. I'm just impatient for the weekend to start.

We're camping in Southern Mass with my parents this weekend. We'll be sharing a camping spot and going to Sturbridge Village tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to it - we went there when I was in high school and I've always wanted to go back. It's a living museum of an 18th century village. It should be a lot of fun, although it should be pretty darn hot.

It'll be interesting to go camping with my parents. They're old pros at it so they're bringing all the kitchen supplies and a screen tent to put over the picnic table, and all we have to bring is our own tent and clothes and things. But it's still a lot of stuff! We're bringing our Coleman tent, our lanterns and a flashlight (it's nice to have plenty of lights when camping), pillows, sheets and duvet, air mattress, pump to inflate said air mattress, backpacks of clothes, a campstove (my parents asked us to bring it so we'll have two at the campsite, should make cooking dinner easier), towels, and some food. My parents will be making dinner tonight, and we're providing dinner tomorrow. I made slow cooker pulled pork earlier this week and froze it, and we got yummy brioche buns and baked beans at the store yesterday.

So there's still a lot for us to pack! We didn't get started digging our camping stuff out of the basement until late last night, so we didn't get to bed until 1 am. Then we were scrambling around this morning with last minute stuff, and James had to get to work for a meeting so I stayed behind and packed the car.

And then Lucy got out! She darted out the door and across the lawn and around the side of the house. I chased her and called her name but I lost sight of her when she ran around a pine tree. I searched all over for her and didn't see her anywhere and was starting to panic so I called James and said "Lucy got out and I can't find her! - Oh wait, I see her now!" And I hung up on him. I had heard my neighbor Shirley calling my name from the front yard and turned and saw Lucy coming from the front yard toward me. Shirley saw Lucy escape and me chasing her (our neighborhood watch, she must be watching what we're doing all the time!) and said Lucy had been on the porch trying to get in the front door. Lucy was wide-eyed and making weird low meowing noises like she was really upset. She wouldn't let me get near her. She ran all over the front yard and across the street and I thought I was going to lose her. I had Shirley stationed at the front door to let Lucy back in, and I had to run back and forth, corralling Lucy and herding her toward the porch. Eventually she went in. Shirley invited me over for coffee, the peach. But I told her I had to go to work so I thanked her for her help and got back to finishing loading up the car. I found one very freaked out Lulu hiding under our bed, so I called James back to let him know she was okay. What a crazy morning!