PVSD-Post Vacation Stress Disorder

(Note: This was written before the last post. There isn't a linear bone in Priest'sWife's body.)
So much for vacation! Towards the end of our beach time we got a call that my mother's house had sold--Yea!! Good news!!---And it needed to be completely emptied very soon--Boo! Not a fun job. AND this happened to converge with BabyGirl's move from apartment to house in the same city.
But first, there was Jackson.
We drove into town and headed straight to drinks at the Yacht Club with EG, our former next door neighbor. EG and I share a birthday as do my oldest and her youngest daughters. She was the first to welcome us to Jackson back in 1992. We were there for a weekend working on the house before moving in. She showed up on a Sunday evening with pimiento cheese sandwiches and box wine, grousing all the same because The Dean hadn't given her fair warning to get us anything better. They tasted great! And that marked the beginning of a true friendship. Through the years we had some lovely times with EG. FarmerBoy called her gatherings "cheese straw and sprite" parties. Children were always welcome and present, but most of the fare was more "adult". BrideGirl chose EG to be her substitute Grandparent on Granparents' Day. She also interviewed her for a biography writing assignment.
 EG and`I share a similar view of life. When the travel invitation comes, we accept with pleasure! She is maybe a half generation older than I---not my mother's age, but also not my contemporary. Widowed early, she raised two amazing daughters with grace and style. Like me, she has had various and sundry careers, one bleeding into another. One of the belles of Belzonia, she has an accent from heaven. I mean the south. Same thing, right? Her charming lilting drawl makes me happy .I've been known to save her voice messages for months. She is a shining example to me of the Way to Live. We swapped stories sitting out over the Reservoir while sailboats "raced"??? by. She will be at the wedding in October. Meet her, if for no other reason than to hear her speak.
Next we headed to la D's house. Her husband had to be out of town, but she stuck to her generous offer of dinner (always delicious from la D's kitchen) and housing. We gathered with two other couples, our dearest friends for all these years, for dinner on la D's beautiful plant laden deck. Conversation went from the continued troublesome issues of race relations and desegregation in our schools to, well, wallabies. It was just plain fun. We've always had fun with this group. 4 couples, 30 plus years of marriage each of us.
But all good things, in my experience,blend into the next episode of life. We headed to Memphis on Thursday morning, and began what BBG called our Glass Castle episode. If you haven't read the book, it begins with the author describing an experience of seeing someone digging through a dumpster as the author is on her way to a "respectable" event. The dumpster diver is her mother. Now we didn't do any dumpster diving, and my mother most certainly did not, but we did sleep on the floor in my mother's partially empty house for four nights while we had yard sales, sifted through old papers, ( I found all of my old grades, SAT scores, etc. Gladly, trashed them until I realized they had social security numbers on them. Moved to the shredder pile.) It seemed to have no end. At the yard sale,  a woman asked how much for the TV stand. "$10," we replied. "But you have to take the TV, too." "Oh, my," she said."This is unlike any sale I've ever been to." I was just so happy for things to be used. I could have sent it all to the dump in one fell swoop, but that just goes against everything in my being.  My siblings all had very legitimate reasons for not being there, but it was a difficult and lonely task. PriestHusband won in-law of the century award (sorry sisters-in-law, tis  true). If not for PH, BBG and my niece who came one afternoon before heading to some LONG work hours at new job, I think I'd be in the Looney Bin right now. And in between getting rid of Mama's stuff, we were loading up and moving BBG's stuff to her new digs. I am currently curled up on her bed while her DADDY is putting in a dishwasher and garbage disposal. Lordamercy. When was that vacation? I do feel better now, but I can't remember when I hurt this much and and was this tired.
Time for a new episode. Home for a day, on to a wedding of one of FarmerBoy's very best friends from middle/high school  days. Fun times ahead.