The Stay-at-Home Vacation

Our vacation got a bit detoured this year.

We'd planned last year to take our vacation Memorial Day weekend anyhow. We wanted to go to Media*West Con, which is a fan-based convention with panels and a big emphasis on fanzines and fanfiction, and had also planned to find a pet-friendly hotel (Media*West allows pets) near the Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village and go there as well.

However, a monkey-wrench got tossed into the works in February when James' two classes were postponed because the instructor was ill. It looked as if he would have his second class (the Cisco networking course) during Memorial Day week. And we were committed to taking our vacation then, anyway, because James' boss decided to shut down the store that week so everyone could have the same vacation.

About a month before vacation started, however, we found out his Cisco course wouldn't start until the first week in June, but by then it was too late to get into MediaWest. The nice thing about the con is that they keep it small, so you have to get in early.

We then decided we would do an odd thing for vacation...relax.

I usually like to go somewhere else for vacation, as I have a wanderlust most of the time that won't quit. We thought we might take a day and go up to Commerce (big outlet mall) or Chattanooga (Lookout Mountain; there's also the aquarium, which everyone talks about, but neither James nor I have ever been much on fish).

So far, though, we've stuck around home. Sunday we went down to the flea market in McDonough (arrgh, they still have a gorgeous WWII-era solid wood hutch/sideboard in the antique market there, but we have no room for it in our kitchen), and then had dinner at Red Lobster with some friends, including one who was in town from Birmingham, Alabama.

Monday we went to see Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. This was okay. As Shari, our friend from Birmingham, said, the first fifteen minutes are good and also the last half hour to forty-five minutes. Between that, however, is sort of a glorified Harlequin romance.

Yesterday we took it easy because at the movies I made the mistake of having popcorn without my usual Pepto Bismol "chaser." I love popcorn, but it tears up my stomach. Since I didn't have any trouble with it the last two times I had it, I thought the problem might have eased. It didn't. I was in the bathroom until after 3 a.m. We did get the Harry Potter DVD: CompUSA had it advertised at $10, but by the time we got there all the widescreen versions were gone. Another gentleman who wanted a widescreen version said he was going to Best Buy and ask for a price match, so we tried it as well and they honored it. Cool. Never did that before.

The one thing we did decided about our vacation is that we were going to eat out every day. So last night we went to Ryan's for steak. The Ryan's closest to our house had grill problems, so we tried the one on Canton Road.

Well, the waitress was very nice and we got our food quickly, and when James was dissatisfied with his T-bone, which was mostly gristle, they gave him another steak for free. But it wasn't until I finished eating my own steak that I noticed the bone smelled a bit "off," as if the steak had been sitting out a bit too long.

Since I wasn't nauseous or in the bathroom when I got up this morning, I thought I might have been mistaken. I did feel rather lightheaded all day, even after eating a lovely lunch at the Colonnade. As evening wore on, I developed a headache, but James had one, too. We thought it was the heat.

About eight o'clock my heart started to pound and I had heartburn and so much nausea I thought I'd have to visit the emergency room. James made me some KoolAid once I started having "loose movements" and went off to get me some cereal for something neutral to put on my tummy as well as some more Pepto Bismol. Hopefully that will be it and there's nothing worse wrong.

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:41:00 PM

Comments: Post a Comment