mini vacay

We've been on furloughs this year and so I maxed out my vacation time. I was told we could accrue over the maximum this year because of the furlough time we are forced to take, but it turns out that policy doesn't apply to my position and I have been losing vacation time all year. So I have had to take four days in the last couple of weeks in a "use it or lose it" situation.

Which has been surprisingly really nice. Time off being nice should not have been a surprise to me, but I have a hard time sitting still (unless I am reading or writing, and even then). These four-day weekend mini-vacations have been great. Although I did promise myself I would treat it like spring break and spend the time at the beach and lounging about reading, I have rather treated them like catch-up days, performing spring cleaning, running errands, doing laundry and the like.

Still, nice.

Especially the opportunity to sleep. I have terrible apnea and never sleep well and when I get the chance to sleep late or a lot, I love it. I used to say I loved sleep so much that I planned to spend my next vacation in a coma. Of course, my loving sleep seems to be a morning thing. I am like my mother and grandmother and am a total night owl.

Yesterday I was remarkably productive, albeit domestically, and was rewarded by a lovely three-hour walk around Golden Gate Park with my buried-in-graduate-work friend Guy and his super awesome dog/roommate Quin.

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SUCH a nice day! And so much better than working.

Come to think of it, I spent my last mini-vacation day with Guy and Quinn too, which is odd because Guy is so busy with school I pretty much hadn't spent any quality time with him in about a year. He remarked yesterday that he's seen more of me in the past two weeks than all of last semester.

Last time we were just going to make a run to Bloodbath & Beyond together just so we could share some time and catch up. We each had a laundry list of items but left with nothing we went there for. Knowing we were taking Quinn for a run/walk, I made some of the best impulse purchases of my life. For less than $8 I got a small kite and a "bubble sword."

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We had a BLAST at Crissy Field and on the beach, and spent most of the afternoon as the "coolest new friends ever" to three little kids- aged 9, 7 and 2. The mother was charming and engaging and we all had a wonderful time. It was the kids though, fearless, who first engaged. "Can I try your kite?" And when I pulled out the enormous bubble sword later, the little girl said something like "Bubbles?! Cool! I didn't know grown-ups did that!"

The mother was more to the point: "You have a kite, bubbles, and a dog. Y'all are the coolest guys at the beach." Got to love the gays.