Hope you don’t need a drive

I have to admit, coming back to work from vacation last week was tough.

Especially since it got off to a delayed start.

Officially our vacations “start” on Mondays, but when people leave the office Friday at 5 p.m. it’s considered that their vacations are underway.

But I still had so much work to finish that not only did I work all weekend and a full day on Monday, Aug. 20 – the “first” day of my vacation – but I didn’t finish all of my work until noon the following day.

I did tack on an extra day at the end of my two weeks off to make up for the false start. So where did I go?

Not far. I’m usually always a stay-cation type of person and this time I really stayed close to home. My husband and I gave our front veranda space a muchneeded update and I spent most of my vacation plunked there. So what did I do?

I read. You might think, considering that I deal with words every single day, that on vacation I’d want to take a break from words. But I find reading incredibly relaxing. So much so that I read 10 books during my two weeks off.

Not that I was having much luck going anywhere, anyway. On Day 3 of my vacation my 2011 Edge, on which I’ve logged more than 250,000 km, up and died on me and had to go in for repairs. My parents lent me their car for the first part of my vacation.

The first thing that struck me was how their car still has it’s ‘new car’ smell, because since it seems like they’ve had it for two years. The next thing that struck me was trying to figure out all of the controls. Because it was so humid I didn’t drive anywhere without air conditioning. But for the first few days I couldn’t figure out how to turn down the fan. I must have looked like I was in a permanent photo shoot with my hair constantly blowing in the wind.

Then one night the front windshield suddenly fogged up. I tuned the radio to five channels, adjusted the temperature six times, and finally figured out how to decrease the fan speed before finally finding and hitting the right button to defog the windshield.

Eventually my parents needed their car back but because my car repair had involved ordering parts, I was still car-less. So my husband let me use his truck.

In case you’ve never seen me in person, I’m vertically challenged. There’s hardly a time when I go to the grocery store where I don’t have to seek out a tall employee or customer to reach something on the top shelf for me.

When we got married 24 years ago, at the reception my husband stood up in front of everyone and said, “I’m going to keep my speech short . . . just like the Comeaus.”

While it’s not as high as other trucks I’ve seen, my husband’s truck does have a lift. Which means I basically have to channel my inner mountain goat when I climb inside of it. Sometimes I have to lift my leg so high my knee is practically touching my chin. Fortunately there are things to grab onto when I hoist myself inside in a clumsy twohop maneuver I’ve concocted.

Then to get out it sometimes feels like I should strap a parachute to my back to jump out. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but in all honestly, not wanting to jump out for fear of screwing up my knee, I’ve mastered this odd type of sliding motion to “gracefully” (and I use that term loosely) get myself back on the ground without having to go to physio the next day.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great truck and once I’m inside it’s a smooth and comfortable ride.

But during my vacation I was very anxious to get my car back, especially since I was putting off a lot of errands since getting in and out of the truck is a chore in itself.

After a few days, it did get easier to get in and out.

Perhaps during my vacation I experienced a growth spurt . . . at the age of 49.

Yeah, that must be what happened.