But, so, yeah, vacation starts on Saturday. Two glorious weeks in Costa Rica. Despite my bathing suit anxiety, I cannot freakin' wait. By this time next week I will be drinking delicious tropical beverages in the jungle, listening to the soothing sounds of the ocean off in the distance. Sure, I'll be slathered in so much sunscreen and bug spray I won't be able to sit in a chair more for than a minute without sliding right off and under the table, but whatever. A small price to pay, I think.

I decided against the suggested malaria vaccination because where we're going, there haven't been any reported cases for the past couple of years. Plus, my mom told me that if I drink enough gin and tonics, that will ward off malaria. She said that was why she and Dad always brought Tanqueray and tonic with them on every family vacation. Apparently, there's quite a malaria problem in Disneyworld and most of Florida. Who knew? And I guess there's a risk in northeast Ohio, too, because Mom is still drinking the gin and tonics. She's very health conscious and into preventative medicine, my mom.

I'm not even remotely close to being ready for vacation, however. I haven't packed or even dragged out the suitcases yet. I have a metric shit-ton (That's the scientific term, I swear) of things to get done at work, things I absolutely must finish by Thursday. I spent much of this past weekend in the office getting ready, and I still feel like there's too much to do and not enough time. Ugh. I have to clean my room and do several loads of laundry, I have a hair appointment tomorrow, then after work I have to go to the store and get supplies for a cook-out, and I also need to go to the store and get groceries for the roommates staying behind (Well, one roommate and one houseguest, but still. And not that they can't get their own groceries, but that's my job in the house, and I don't trust anyone else to do it properly. If left to their own devices, the roommates would buy stupid things from the wrong store, and it would cause me stress just knowing what they're up to. Not that I'm a control freak when it comes to grocery shopping. Nope. Not at all. I just like certain things in certain ways, and woe unto the people who do things differently.), Wednesday is the cook-out, Thursday I've set aside to go get some decent hiking sandal thingies and any other clothing item I still need, plus I haven't gotten the 50 gallon drum of SPF 6000 sunscreen yet, nor the bug spray, nor any other toiletry/random thing I need to buy. Although that's not really a big deal anymore because I did manage to get to the bookstore to buy some books for the beach, and once they're packed, there really won't be room for much else other than a couple of pairs of underpants. (In retrospect, I might have gone a little overboard with the book buying. I probably won't actually read all 20 books, but I like to be prepared, damnit.) And on Friday, the day I took off to get prepared, the mo' is having patio furniture delivered to the house, so for a four hour block during the day, I won't be able to go out and run any errands at all. Why we had to have the patio furniture RIGHT NOW instead of waiting two or three more weeks, I do not know. The mo', he works in mysterious ways sometimes.

Oh, and at some point this week I'll probably have to drop everything and go get that damn liver ultrasound and an MRI. After geeking out for several days about that stupid letter, I finally went in to see my doctor. I'm glad I did because I'm no longer twitchy and nervous about the whole thing. She talked me out of the trees, explained that the liver enzymes are not that funky, that the ultrasound is just a precaution, that she doesn't really think there's anything to worry about, etc., so on, so forth. Turns out, talking to your doctor about health issues is better than looking up the issues online and freaking yourself out. Who knew? Well. My doctor, apparently, which is why she yelled at me for my research and said that if she ever finds out that I'm doing that again, she'll talk to my brother and have him take away my Internet access. I was properly contrite and promised never to research anything medical online ever again. (Although I totally will, goddamnit, because knowledge is power! I'll just be more subtle about it next time.)

But, so, yeah, this week is a killer, but at the end there will be a jungle and the ocean and more monkeys than you can shake a stick at (Though why anyone would want to shake a stick at a monkey is beyond me. It seems like it would annoy the monkey, and that can't be good.). I promise to take millions of pictures and post them all here, because what is more exciting than another person's vacation photos, right? Right!

At any rate, be good while I'm gone, and that means no boys in the house, no parties, no long distance phone calls, don't sass the sitter, and eat all your vegetables!

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