Summertime and the living is....

...regimented.

Summer is my least favorite season.

This is not historically true. When my kids were in school it was a break in the routine and we always managed a week or so away with various shorter trips thrown in for good measure. When I was college age, it was time for ROAD TRIPS! We would pick up and go at the last minute because two of us had the same days off. Didn't matter where we went, we just went. When I was a kid summer was SUMMER!! No school! no schedules!

Now with Maggie's ever increasing nursing needs, a week away is impossible and short trips are unwieldy, there are never two days off in a row. Ever. It's Oh NO, it's summer! no school and no schedule. What in the world are we gong to do to fill the time?

This reality hit home Sunday. Eddie and Grace were in Monterey with Grace's parents and Tim told us Saturday he wanted us to head down there (The boys haven't seen each other since before Christmas.)  Monterey is about 2.5 hours from here so it's doable as a day trip. Long day, but doable.

Not doable for Maggie, though. It's too much. Too much for her. Too much for me. There was a nurse scheduled to work for 8 hours, but that wasn't enough to get there and back and have any kind of visit. Steve offered to stay with Maggie so I could go, and if it were the school year I would have jumped at that. But not in the summer. I would be wrecked for Monday and I have to be ON for Miss Maggie. It was easier to just stay home.

Steve and Tim went to Monterey.
Maggie and I hit the museum.
Again.

Sunday night my sister Joan called saying she unexpectedly had Thursday and Friday off and was making an impromptu trip to Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is Summer to me. We spent every summer there when I was a kid and my parents had a house up there that we used regularly until they sold it in 1999. My sister Ellen and my brother Pat have been posting fantastic pictures of hikes they are taking together and separately in the Tahoe area. I have been drooling over those pictures.

Joan asked, Did I want to join her? A road trip? To TAHOE? Why yes! Yes I do! With every fiber of my being. The San Francisco fog is particularly thick this year and the thought of sun on my face is almost intoxicating. But...I can't. There are 8 hours in each day that don't have nursing coverage and Steve is working and Tim can't do the nursing procedures. Besides, Tim started his new job on Monday.

 So I had to pass.

I don't mean to whine, really I don't. I feel very lucky that we have so much nursing support because that's the only way Maggie can stay at home. It's the irony that summer, when most people get to enjoy a little freedom, I am the most stuck.

And what about Maggie? I worry about Maggie getting too bored. We do the same things all the time. We listen to her music. We go to the mall. We go to the museum. We go to Safeway. we go to the park. Today we are going to Best Buy AND Safeway, just to keep things interesting. Maggie needs to break up the routine as well. Camp was a great diversion, but that's done now. Of course Maggie has the uncanny ability to revel in the present. She is delighted to be wherever she is.
And she's with me.

Today is July 30. School starts August 19. It will be the Maggie and Mom show for the next 21 days.

Let us know if you need anything at the mall.