Mornin’ all. About an hour post-dawn as I start this missive. A bit of cirrus in an otherwise blue sky with ol’ man Sol doing his damnedest to blind anyone out driving. Or tryin’ to balconate. NWS sez 69/21 (honorary swampy snerk) on the way to 82/28.
Caffinatin’ is goin well and I’ve got the biiig cup with the big ol’ Saddleback swine on it while Her Ladyship yet slumbers.
First off, thanks to all for the kind words for Daughter. She knows and appreciates that she’s got a widely scattered fan club.
Tres cool graffiti. Except for the overly long arms/front legs, that’s pretty much a Rattus rattus. In other words, a rodent of unusual size. Shoe would be proud of the artist.
Cabbage with a side of cabbage. Hmm. Why am I suddenly thinking of Vikings singing the Spam song but about cabbage instead? Cabbage! Wonderful Cabbage!
I Imagine one would also have musical innards later. Sounds tasty & fun. All that and leftovers for tomorrow. Hooray!
Yes, yes, marital bliss and all that. I get it, I truly do. I’m dealing with a bunch of new redlines too. But.
I posted just yesterday about the time I crunched a rental car. It wasn’t easy. In fact it was far more costly / hassle-ish than if I’d crunched my own car. So that concern is a red herring. As Taters said.
Given the relative risk of local / city driving (dangerous) and highway driving (safe), you putting 600 miles on the car to/from Phoenix is safer than the same 600 miles around town. Once somebody gets to the point of seeing each driving mile as a significant incremental risk (“Is this trip really necessary??” from WW-II rationing posters), housebound agoraphobia is just around the corner.
I feel your pain; I truly do. I/we don’t have this particular issue, but there are others …
Kinda like our OfficeDepotMax. There are two nearby restaurant sites near here that have been so many different incarnations in the almost 10 years I’ve been here that you can’t even say the whole portmanteau before you’ve been served.
Otherwise, congrats on a day about to be well-spent. Again. You certainly know how to live in ease.
/signed/ Your Eager Disciple.
But at least IIRC that triggered mostly (entirely?) cleaning out the guest room. Or was that more for MIL possibly moving in? I get confused easy. In either case you gained that.
Yeah; plenty of ways for even welcome houseguests to ruffle your fur. One of the many advantages of being an anti-social shit with a small and physically distant extended family is not having to deal with that crap hardly ever. No friends, no family = no irritants. Can sometimes be kinda lonely though.
As to flights, the smart person waits until after the flight should have actually taken off (say scheduled departure plus 30 minutes) then checks the airline website to confirm it’s airborne with an ETA. if not, wait awhile and try again. Once in the air, arrival time is real reliable unless weather at the destination is (or turns to) crap. Before actually airborne, arrival times are pious hopes at best.
But once armed with a reliable ETA, one can plan the rest of their drive to arrive timely, early, or late as is their wont.
Yaay for Tobias the LaundryDude. I bet there are some cute pix to be had.
And a darn fine familial weekend it will be. Lots to do and see this time of year.
I think you’ll really enjoy not having to mess with that every time; probably more than you think right now.
Back when I traveled, I made sure to have dupes of everything I needed at home and on the road. Lots less forgetting and lots less flail at each departure or arrival. Each world was complete and self-sufficient. The money for dupes is a one-time expense that pays you back every time you change locations.
Here’s hoping today’s delivery is timely so your workday is easy.
Responding to several folks …
Overall, I’m a happy heathen who can comfortably attend concerts, weddings, and funerals in churches, but otherwise just shake my head at the whole phenomenon. I totally get the fellowship and good deeds parts; totally admirable as far as they go.
The rest? I’m like “Why? You took two good ideas, fellowship and good deeds, then pretty thoroughly wrecked them.” Admittedly some faiths or denominations thereof took the wrecking a lot farther than some others.
Good luck to all on this mostly soggy day all the way from England to the US Pacific Northwest.
A whole hour having been poured into this post, it’s now time for mo’ caffinatin’ and mo’ postin’ in other threads. Yes my dear fellow MMPers, there are other threads. 
Cheers all!!