Darkfoxx 75: Travel At Last

[darkfoxx]

This challenge cycle will mostly be spent traveling in the US. Still not sure how I feel about that, aside from being excited about consumerist shit, but I’ve cast that lot and it’s happening regardless. 

 

 As such, this challenge can’t just be SSDD on coast mode. Which is probably a good thing, tbh. 

 

Here’s my plan to cope with “vacation”:

 

Managing Anxiety

 

I’m sure crowd, travel and people pandemic-ing wrong anxiety will be a thing, and not jumping into reflexive judgey bitch mode to cope with said anxiety is going to be a definite issue. Timelines, time zones & travel time already all have my anxiety at 11.

 

Management: Deep yoga breaths, and reminding myself to get a grip. Not my monkeys, not my business. Also stocking up on hand sanitizer & antibac wipes if I feel I need more control over the situation. We’ve also got disposable masks for that 12+hour plane ride & will have our normal masks on us as well. 

 

My general abhorrence of feeling trapped always rears it’s head when forced into social situations I don’t want to be in. 

 

Management: Staying in Air BnBs, having a rental car at all times, planning things to do that aren’t just sitting on the couch at a relatives house staring at their damn eyeballs. 

 

Family dumbassery. Talking to some family members over the phone is exhausting; seeing them in person is going to be more so. I’m also not interested in 3 weeks of continual bitching about COVID from everygoddamnbody I see. It’s exhausting. 

 

Management: Tell said family member(s) that I don’t have the damn bandwidth for this conversation. Change the subject. Leave early if necessary. Hubby and I need to settle on a ‘get me tf out of here before I start screaming’ code. Too damn bad we don’t still smoke. 

 

Trying to fit everything and everyone in limited time - especially when everyone only wants to meet up when it’s convenient for them. 

 

Management: Not doing that, and not feeling guilty for doing so. Giving people clear guidelines of when I have available slots and when I do not. This I always do, but it’s still always a shit show. I generally don’t feel bad about it, but i inevitably still end up anxious.

 

Those should be the biggies, but I’m sure more will pop up. 

 

Nutrition 

 

Whelp, this one is going to be a curveball. Body was on a less carb trajectory - aaaand then the stress of planning this trip hit. 

 

A few ground rules to help myself not feel quite so bloated and terrible by week 2 of travel:

 

1. Don’t finish the fries.
2. Start with the main, eat half of it, and then go in for bites of the sides. Don’t eat all sides one by one and then tackle the high dollar item. 
3. Eat slower and take stock of when you are full. You’ve already paid for the meal; you’re on vacation - wasting $ is to be expected. 
4. Remember that the clean plate club is not a thing.
5. Don’t eat shit I know is going to kill me. If family members are drenching everything in cheese, either just eat sides or pick around the cheese. I don’t need to leave full. 
6. Remember that even though we’ll be hitting up some favorites and going in for some primo meals (on top of straight garbage), I’ve had good food before and will have good food again. I don’t need to gorge myself to enjoy the meal. 
7. Drink what you damn want but attempt to not go for 2 days in a row & limit shit that’s going to lead to a hangover.

 

Body Care

 

Realistically, I won’t be hitting any yoga classes in the 3 weeks we will be gone, and pressuring myself to do a hotel-style daily workout before leaving each day is not conducive to good mental health for me. I know I don’t sleep for shit while traveling, and often have to get up too early. 

 

Do what I can, when I think of it. If I’m bored and feeling trapped, suggest a walk around the neighborhood instead of trying to hide in my phone with DH. It’ll be hot and I’ll be in the ‘burbs, but it may still be doable. 

 

Pull up some simple bodyweight routines that can be done whenever - and keep them in the forefront of my mind so maybe that actually happens. 

 

 

And that’s it for this Cycle. Or at least most of it. I will reassess once I’m back and settled. Yoga will definitely return. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Good plan for travel.  Hopefully there won't be too much eyeball staring.

[Big_Show]

I'll finish your fries instead if you want

[Rurik Harrgath]

I feel like domestic travel could be a good opportunity for some urban rucking videos  

[Scaly Freak]

For silent LGTFO signal, fidgeting with an earring works very well for me. I always fidget anyway, so fidgeting with that specific thing isn't obvious to others, and the earring isn't the sort of thing I do on accident without realizing I'm doing it. Twisting the wedding band repeatedly is more obvious to observant family members but works for someone not wearing earrings.

[darkfoxx]

18 hours ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

I feel like domestic travel could be a good opportunity for some urban rucking videos  

Would that I could - I’ll have some sort of pursey convertible pack on me, but totally can’t do any good kind of weight any more - I can, however, take my pack full o’ electronics on a walk in the ‘burbs! With my phone! 
 

We shall see 

 

13 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

For silent LGTFO signal, fidgeting with an earring works very well for me. I always fidget anyway, so fidgeting with that specific thing isn't obvious to others, and the earring isn't the sort of thing I do on accident without realizing I'm doing it. Twisting the wedding band repeatedly is more obvious to observant family members but works for someone not wearing earrings.

We’ll give it a ponder. I fidget with my rings constantly anyways, so maybe a less-than-common leg cross variation? 

18 hours ago, Big_Show said:

I'll finish your fries instead if you want

Yes! 

23 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Good plan for travel.  Hopefully there won't be too much eyeball staring.

Man, I hope so. 

[darkfoxx]

Monday

 

Was fine until bed, when I woke up eleventy times - the worst and first of which was out of a dream where I was sitting in a skinny leg chair near a wall, slumped over staring at tiny little mini dice in near dark (a near dark of silvery blues, rusty browns and charcoals)- the dice were twitching and glitching and if they landed on some number, something nefarious would happen. 

What woke me up was the feeling of all the blood in my face rushing outward - felt like a roller coaster only forward instead of being sucked back - and that feeling you get when all your guts and lungs settle toward the front of your chest. Plus overwhelming, rushing, roiling, existential dread.

 

Aaaaaand then wake up 2 killed off Odin.

 

Brains are grand, Yo. 
 

Odin got so annoyed with me he left to curl up with his dad at 2:30. 
 

Food yesterday was decent, though half of dinner was an epic fail. Salmon burgers didn’t really work out, but the salad kit DH and I were almost giddy to see at the store (we haven’t seen salad kits in 4 years & our kinds of salad are prohibitive here) was damn good. Luckily, we over bought and will split the second on Wednesday.

 

Yoga was great - vinyasa with a hard teacher who had us doing all sorts of novel shit I couldn’t do but was game to try. 
 

I think the dogs had frozen foods night. 
 

I also apparently had a smoothie for breakfast & sushi + baked chippy things for lunch 

[Scaly Freak]

11 hours ago, darkfoxx said:

We’ll give it a ponder. I fidget with my rings constantly anyways, so maybe a less-than-common leg cross variation? 

 

As long as it's obvious to your target, and can't be done by accident, details are just details.  

[darkfoxx]

Tuesday

 

Caught up with my Internet Coffee Friends until 2pm and didn’t do much else. 

 

Breakfast smoothie

Lunch was a cup of Budok noodles with chili tuna 

Dinner was more of that delivery take-n-warm ramen 

 

Woke up today to DH explaining that the bathroom is flooded from his shower and he put a towel down, but the dogs are in there drinking all the water. 

 

Ummmmm ….. 

 

So he went off to work and I got up. I got the water up, using the rest of our towels and the mop - I’ve spent all day trying to dry all our shit out; that bath mat was basically floating. 

 

No clue what happened, and the maintenance guy didn’t know, either. I ended up trying to rinse my hair in the sink - which also caused the floor drain to overflow with water. 

 

For reference, all of our sinks have drains nearby in the floor - the one in the kitchen is right in front of the sink, and if you drain the sink, you can actually see the water rushing past through the grated drain. I’m assuming the bathroom drain is the same, though I’ve never actually watched that one go. 

 

I went to yoga like normal, yoga was super challenging and I felt really heavy, but it was a fun class. The walk to and from was rough - it’s 109 and the wind and dust are super challenging today. I had a raspberry espresso jelly iced coffee on the way home in ‘I don’t want to deal with Odin freaking out over the maintenance guy’ treat. 

 

As expected, Odin lost his everloving shit. The frozen Kong full of yogurt/shrimp stock helped, but the poor guy was not having a good time when the guy was in the same room. Both dogs spent the time tied to couch legs in their harnesses. 

 

For the rest of the day, I’ll be cuddling pups and watching the last of a like 6-part true crime deep dive on Bonnie & Clyde. I’ll also be playing the last live stream of God Of War tonight - 7pm my time. Dinner will be steak nibbles with the second salad mix bag we bought.

 

A salad mix which somehow includes poppy seeds. Not sure how they got poppyseeds into the country; they’re illegal. 

[darkfoxx]

The rest of yesterday was fine. Today is Self-Care Thursday; face masked only, as I’m waiting until Tuesday to dye my hair. Did a bunch of laundry - finished all the linens we owned that got wet yesterday and chucked most of what I’ll be bringing with me on vacation in the wash - suuuuuuuuuper unsurprising that I’ve got 4 items of clothing that aren’t black. Oh, wait. 5. Forgot about my fairy dress I may feel confident enough to wear in FL. Oop. 6. Forgot about the atrociously American wrap DH bought me for the 4th. 

 

Not counting grey items, I’ve got a navy dress + leggings combo I wear all the damn time and may travel in, a plum linen tee, and that hideous wrap. I may branch out with my blue wrap scarf for the plane. #justblackisn’tboring. 

 

Up for the weekend: Yoga Friday, DH is probably working all day Saturday so I may run to the mall to get the last of the snack box stuff, Sunday is PCR tests & Odin’s rabies vaccine, Monday is my last yoga & I need to run the dog pet passports by the boarding place so they have up-to-date records. More laundry. Actual packing. Writing out descriptions of the snacks & packing those boxes nicely. Live streaming on Sunday. 

 

And then we get on a plane at 1:00 am on Wednesday. So … drop the pups off, go out for a nice sit down dinner & leave for the airport at 9:30pm? Sounds doable. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

5 minutes ago, darkfoxx said:

#justblackisn’tboring. 

Agreed:

[Terra]

I hope that you can find ways to enjoy your vacation stateside!  Your plans sound pretty good, i'm doing something similar with a long weekend family thing in a week.  Its nice to spend time with family but sometimes they drive you completely bonkers!  

[darkfoxx]

Friday so far

 

Was not a great mental health day. Anxiety and lack of sleep from the howling wind (and yellow air quality in our room from the dust storm) had me bailing on yoga this morning.

 

Snuggled the pups close and watched a marathon of my new favorite true crime + makeup YouTuber. 

 

DH is home, aware of the issue, and has been supportive. It’s doggie asshole time (an hour before dinner), so that’s a fun thing I’m dealing with at the moment. 

 

Food hasn’t been the most nutritious, but I’m eating up what i can in the freezer so we lose as little as possible when it’s defrosted. 

 

I think I’m down to leftover Thanksgiving ham, lots of stock, an ice cream I haven’t touched, some grilled rice ball snacks, peas, green beans & spinach. Plus dog treats. Not too bad. 

 

 

[Terra]

Anxiety and bad air quality, sounds like my neighborhood.  Snuggling pups and a supportive DH sounds wonderful. Sending hugs! 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Bad mental health days are bad, bad air quality days are bad, but when the universe stacks them it's just plain unfair. 

[darkfoxx]

On 6/18/2021 at 4:59 PM, Terra said:

Anxiety and bad air quality, sounds like my neighborhood.  Snuggling pups and a supportive DH sounds wonderful. Sending hugs! 

 

On 6/18/2021 at 5:40 PM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Bad mental health days are bad, bad air quality days are bad, but when the universe stacks them it's just plain unfair. 

 

It was not the best combo.

 

Saturday was a bit better - I made myself get up and go as soon as DH left for work. Took an Uber to one of my favorite go-to breakfast spots (Quick Bites at the Marriott Marquis City Center - which is a solid all-day dining spot that tries at least to focus on moderately healthy foods in one of 3(ish) hotels attached to the big mall downtown) so I wouldn’t have a chance to talk myself out of going for a good breakfast.

 

Had a smoked salmon Benedict and huge Americano with soy milk. Was also recognized by the manager, and my looooooong absence was commented on. Which is weird but good, I suppose? I forget people see me and tend to remember the pink hair at least. I’m always caught off guard when they do.

 

Wandered the mall for steps and picked up 95% of the snacks for the gift boxes we’re bringing. I should take pics for y’all. We’ve got some good stuff.

 

Came home, snuggled pups & wrote out 5 sets of descriptions with addendums for those that have extras in their boxes because I know they’ll appreciate them.

 

DH came home and we ordered Tea Time for dinner. 
 

Sunday, we took Odin in for his rabies shot. Apparently, the US is banning all dog shipments for adoption or sale from Qatar for at least awhile and is now requiring a RATT (rabies titer test) for owned pets being imported like Europe and here does. This is causing a furor with the local rescues - I’m of two minds about the whole issue. I see the need for export, but I also firmly believe that importing “exotic” dogs for adoption v adopting bully breeds or the other eleventy billion dogs in kill shelters already in the US is maybe not the best thing. This from someone who owns purebred dachshunds, so take that as you will. 
 

Anyways. Need to keep the babes’ shots up. No worries. We also got him some basically tryptophan for anxiety reduction - we'll try that out and see if it helps with his anxiety issues with an eye toward exploring psych meds for a bit if that doesn’t work. Fingers crossed that it does and that we can wean him off of all drugs once his brain sees that calmer is better. 
 

Went in for our traveling PCR tests and bopped around the mall after. Bought my aunt some baller mixed dates because she loved the grocery store variety last trip home. 
 

Came home and ate too much Indian, haircuts & talked to my Dad for Father’s Day. Also ordered a Storybook book for him(?) us(?) - it’s a tear worth of questions he answers and they compile into a book to send afterward. Hopefully he’ll be into it. I’m curious. 
 

Up next: rumor has it there are two places in my neighborhood with alcohol licenses - planning on hitting one for dinner Monday because of it. Voting with our dollars and whatnot. And then packing, picking up our stamped test results. Whoo.

 

 

[darkfoxx]

The flight went as well as 23-ish hours of travel can. Picked up our ginormous rental and dinnered with the parents.

 

Our Air BnB is stinkin cute in reclaimed crackland downtown Raleigh and we are loving being able to walk to food & alcohol.

 

Shopped & lunched with parents Thursday - dinner was with DH’s favorite sister and her kids. Got drinks after with DH’s best friend from his younger days at a super cool bar/game spot/beer shop 2 blocks from our place.

 

Friday was breakfast at a food hall, annoyance that mall stores don’t open till 11, brunch with a Rando cousin, finally got to damn Target, and dinner at a cheffy diner followed by a long walk and a stop at a beer store. 
 

Food has been mitigated overall. Ish.

 

Travel day I ate a lot of things but didn’t really finish anything because I felt bloated.

 

Ive had a country ham & egg biscuit + a fried bologna & egg bagel for breakfasts.

 

Finished my Char-Grill burger but dumped half the fries in the bag before tucking in at one lunch & had half of my fried chicken/gravy/biscuit/ham concoction the other day.

 

Finished the Turkey focaccia club but didn’t touch the pasta salad side at dinner one night; our nicer dinner was family style so I picked at dishes and mostly ate meat.

 

I’m over the bloat, but am still feeling heavy and my GI system is still fairly pissed, but I’m at least managing to quasi behave myself as much as I can when we meet for meals.

 

Anxiety isn’t too bad - we are managing to spend enough time just the two of us that we both have some relief. Of course family is trying their damnedest to overbook our time, but we are solidly vague about our full breadth of plans and are not biting at that particular worm.

 

We’ve also ended up walking a good bit each day we could move, so that’s been a great help.

 

And I’ve been freezing and wrapped in a wool cardigan while locals are in booty shorts.  
 

On to Saturday.

[sarakingdom]

How is the trip going?

[darkfoxx]

On 7/8/2021 at 9:53 PM, sarakingdom said:

How is the trip going?

Woof. So. I’ve been bad at updating … 

 

The trip was fine overall. Lots of walking in Raleigh, some walking in Columbus, met up with the ever-fantastic @Heidi in 3-D, finally made it to Colonial Williamsburg, and then recuperated from it all by walking a bunch in the heat in Orlando, doing multiple parks, visiting a friend (and our house) in Jacksonville, stressing tf out over PCR test timings (and getting 5 between the 2 of us in the process), and flying back with a semi-severe head cold to languish in jet lag land for 5 or so days. 

 

Back to life. 

 

I’ve gone to 2 out of 3 yoga sessions so far this week and have only really felt human this last day or so. Jet lag with a head cold is not recommended. Makes that head full of snot & fuzzy buzzy lag feeling like 10x worse. NyQuil to sleep has been my savior a couple nights. Otherwise, my body bounces right into its own damn time zone. I was made for biphasic sleep. 

 

Food has been slowly getting back to some semblance of healthy. I’ve been making a lot of fresh fruit salads with protein for dinners this week. DH and I both were tired of food - and tired of junk - by the time we left the States. He’s been snacking a lot, but mostly because he kind of hates fruit salads and that’s all I’ve wanted. (Fruit being savory watermelon and cherry tomato salads via the Asian route). 

 

Haven’t really done much creative, though I did pick up an 18thc. Stays pattern while in the US, and Burnley & Trowbridge has a particularly interesting shirt sew along going on at the moment. We shall see what transpires there. 

 

The pups are good - ish. Poor Odin has been batttling the poops since we got back. It was rough af the first 4 days or so we were home - poor guy was up 2-3 times a night (therefore so were we). He’s on a rice & chicken diet at the moment, and at least things look a touch more solid. We may put a call in to the vet for a checkup if he doesn’t continue to improve. 

 

I’m on the fence about his Calmex (basically tryptophan) medicine. Not sure if it’s really done good, or if it’s just a pain in the ass to administer. I will say, today we had a new person in the house and he’s not been a dick about it (too much). We also have a new dog on the floor and 2 dogs they can hear in another building, so that has made for some asshole time. But, not as bad as previously remembered. So, maybe it’s doing some good? Dunno. His last dose is tomorrow; I’m not sure if we want to order more from the vet or not. Not sure if being gone for 3 weeks and being happy to be home is what’s gotten him a touch calmer or if it’s the meds. 

 

Aaaaand we may be turning around and leaving again soon - if DH can finagle it with finances. One of his work trips is going to require a 1-week hotel quarantine, he’d rather not do it alone, and it’s somewhere I like to go anyways, so I may just tag along - if we can make sense of what room service is actually going to cost, that is. If it’s usual prices, maybe not. We don’t want to *have* to have $22 sandwiches every day. Ooh. I may suggest packing aggressive snacks - it’s a short flight, and I can always go against my nature and check luggage. 

 

We shall see. 

 

As for being home, it’s weird - this place still feels like a hotel (which tbh it always does upon returning, despite having all our shit in it), and getting back to yoga has been rough af on my body. This heat + humidity is hard to deal with, and my body feels really really heavy. Which it is (for me), but that’s another story. And weak - 3 weeks off and I’m weak as a kitten and can’t do any of my locks or holds. Boo. 

 

Still finding joy in movement, though, and still working to do what I can - taking the modifications and going slow to avoid having to child’s pose for an hour. And breaking for a sip of water every time I feel a coughing fit coming on (I think my asthma is also kicking on top of the lingering head cold effects + the readjustment to the crap in the air). #funtimes 

 

 

[Scaly Freak]

Welcome back 🙂

[darkfoxx]

22 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

Welcome back 🙂

Thanks!

 

[darkfoxx]

Thursday

 

Today was planned off from yoga, food was good and veggie-filled, no real complaints & I even got back to art tutorials. I owe my little pen pal 2 drawings ASAP. Just finished a folk art style bee, and I think I’ll try to find some watercolor paper this weekend and attempt either a desert & camels or some sort of flower. Barring that, working on non-digital drawing could be fun. 

[darkfoxx]

Other than my abysmal track record of checking in, this challenge, surprisingly, went fairly well. I practiced most of my mitigation techniques during vacation, and got back into at least most of my swing of things when I recovered from jet lag upon returning. Whoo! 
 

Next cycle will be posted tomorrow - my phone is t cooperating with providing a create thread button.