antsy | ˈan(t)sē | adjective informal, mainly North American English; agitated, impatient, or restless: he was too antsy to stay in one place for long. ORIGIN 1950s: probably from the phrase, have ants in one’s pants. (New Oxford American Dictionary)
The first few weeks were wonderful — being home after our glorious travels to Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Canada was rich with everyday activities. We spent time catching up with friends (lots of restaurant meals), puttering in the yard (me), baking to replenish cookies and banana bread (I baked, John ate), went to doctor appointments (eyes, dermatology, urologist), took lots of bike rides and a few hikes, thoroughly enjoyed a mid-week trip to Indianapolis (Indy Fringe and the Dali immersive), helping a friend post-op by picking up her child after school for two weeks, relearning to sew while making a simple shift dress (I had a lot of expert help from Emily), and happily knocking on doors and phone banking for Kamala and Tim.
Two household maintenance issues made us aware of the responsibility of home ownership: our 26 year old refrigerator–a true Whirlpool workhorse–began to fail, requiring that we purchase a spiffy new fridge, and the flooring in our dining alcove had to be replaced because of fairly extensive water damage due to years of sloppy plant watering (all me). We were reminded of our lack of DIY skills; don’t laugh, but we did not know where the water shut off to the house was located (the installers were surprised to say the least!) and of course we figured it out just in the nick of time, and since the dining alcove floor turned out to be sloping, that required the installers to pull off baseboard molding leaving gaping bare spots on the walls, which then needed to be painted. For a minute John and I thought painting might be fun as it was a small project but thankfully, I remembered that painting is actually zero fun. We have always been grateful for folks possessing skillsets and tools that we do not, and we are blessed to be able to pay them to, in this case, install a new fridge and repaint the wainscot walls.
As we began to anticipate our upcoming trip to some of our favorite places on earth — Moab, Arches, Capital Reef, Ouray, Telluride, Durango — we got antsy. We have been wanting to get back in Vanda and back on the road for the past 2-3 weeks! We are not bored as much as we just want to … GO! (my dearest friend Melissa says that only boring people get bored!) I have been questioning how long is too long to be home between trips, and I think six weeks is too long. This Utah/Colorado trip will be 25 days long, our next trip for a fall color experience will follow 3 weeks later and last for 3+ weeks, and we have 2 car trips planned, one to Florida to see my fam for Thanksgiving the other to Massachusetts and New York for the winter holiday. Both of those car trips will be 2+ weeks long but more importantly, both trips begin within 2 weeks of being home from the previous trip. Is that too little time to be home? We shall see…
Side note: When we lived in NorCal, we used to go to Moab to mountain bike–those were days when I was younger, before my back became a consideration, and before I went OTB (over the bars, as in handlebars!) too many times. For a contrast to today’s bike photo at the bottom, here is one of me in my hardcore days, from Moab.
And as a final share in this blog post, a love-nugget: John gave me “sag” support today for a longer bike ride so I would not be out there on my own. He was not riding with me as he is recovering from a repeat prostate biopsy earlier this week. I haven’t written about this previously–John was diagnosed with a low-risk prostate cancer in March, 2023 and has chosen to work with the urologist on “active surveillance”. It is not a secret, as our family and friends know, and at this point the cancer is not life-threatening, but the diagnosis was an important milestone, inviting us to embrace the next phase of our lives. We decided that while we are not getting younger and since we are still quite able-bodied, still eager, and still energetic, that John would retire sooner than he had anticipated as opposed to the vague notion of working into his 70s. We bought Vanda a few months after his diagnosis, and he tendered his resignation with the Veteran’s Administration, working his last day on December 29th.
Anyhow, he has been able to run since the biopsy (lest you worry that he is not exercising!) but a long ride in the heat on a stiff bike seat was not in the cards, yet. We do this long loop nearly every Sunday, and by long I mean 20 miles (which for some of you is a warm up ride!). I cannot change a flat tire myself and was not eager to be on quiet roads by myself, so he followed me for the entirety of the loop! He frequently stopped to take photos of me (it’s not that romantic, he was trying out his new lens!), he intentionally tripped the two stoplights at which the wait for a change to green is typically interminable (bikes are not enough of a presence to trigger that on their own), and basically he just kept a loving eye out for my safety. My heart was full of joy and gratitude for this fine man. When I share with him how lucky I am that he loves me, he always responds with, “I’m the lucky one”. I think it is evident however who is the lucky one in our relationship…
