Getaway Week

Today marks the beginning of getaway week, a week spent preparing for Maine by disentangling yourself from the thickets of your life. Leaving that life for three weeks is no small feat, as it involves a clipboard full of check list items that run the gamut from lawn care to a compliance-approved away message on your business phone. Here’s just a few of the items I have so far...

-get prescriptions filled

Ok, this one irritates me since it used to not be a thing. Now that I’m 60 and in a more advanced state of physical decrepitude, making sure you don’t run out of cholesterol medicine while you’re gone is of crucial importance. One more example of the ignominy of ageing.

-meet with dog sitter

This trip to Maine is to a house that is not dog friendly, which means that Becca, the dog whisperer, must be dealt with. She recently stayed with Lucy while we were in Nashville and did a great job, so we were lucky enough to get her to do the job for this trip. She already knows Lucy, understands her idiosyncrasies and seems charmed by them. But since this is a three week gig, she will have more stuff to do...like water the grass, protecting my tomato plants from critters, etc... 

-inspect and inventory floats

Without question, this is my most crucial assignment of the week. Making sure that we have six fully operational floats is essential for a successful Maine vacation. I will need to get them out of storage, make sure they are cleaned, identitify any leaks or potential leaks, and above all else, make absolutely certain that we have an ample supply of D batteries for the inflation machine. Any failure in this protocol will result in great tumult and lamentation by the women in my family. A defective float is an unthinkable contingency too horrible to even imagine. Why, the mere possibility of a float failure is one of the things that haunts me during getaway week. When four o’clock in the afternoon arrives and it’s time for the group cocktail float, the last thing you want is to be the man responsible for a float failure. That’s why this particular list item is written in ALL CAPS and red ink.

-study route

This may seem like a strange item since this will be at least the thirtieth time I have made this drive. One would think that I would have the route memorized by now. No..no, this drive is a two day, white knuckled, bowel churning, spittle-flying nightmare where you make one mistake and you’ll find yourself in the middle of Brooklyn in a driving rainstorm during rush hour. In addition, in recent years we have gone to great lengths to avoid I-95, crafting an entirely new western route which takes us through western Pennsylvania. Miss your exit out there and the worst thing that can happen might be getting caught behind an Amish couple out for a joyride. So, yes...I will be poring over the Apple Map directions with excruciating care.

-wrap up loose ends at work

By “loose ends” I mean get everything I’m working on to a point where I can leave for three weeks without returning to a hot mess. This isn’t easy, but it’s made infinitely easier by my intrepid assistant who communicates with me via email and the occasionally snarky text, to keep me up to speed on developments while I am away. So far, no catastrophic geopolitical event has taken place while I’ve been in Maine, no freakish stock market free fall, or client death. (RAP,RAP, RAP,TAP,TAP,TAP...)- that’s me knocking on wood!!

Ok...let getaway week activities commence!