California

It is finally here. The vacation I have planned since February starts tomorrow. Tony and I are going to California. The itinerary is to start in Solvang (the land of the movie Sideways), drive up the coast to Sonoma and end in San Francisco. Tony will be going to the Laguna Seca motorcycle race on Sunday. I, luckily, have a cousin who lives in San Francisco who will enjoy keeping company with Tony at the race while I am tooling around town with his lovely wife. I have never been to the west coast except for business and that wasn't much fun. Tony hasn't at all. The kids, oh yeah, they will be home alone. Honestly, it doesn't worry me that they are home. It worries me more that both my husband and I are traveling together. A feeling of danger came over me this week. My organizational skills kicked in. I'm flying to the land of fires, mudslides and earthquakes. What if I don't come back. I quickly pulled out my will. OMG, it hasn't been updated since 1997 when Anthony was 11! This will not do. Even if I am not around, I can't be leaving this planet without a plan. I know this is morbid but I am a realist and need to have things in order. I called the lawyer and asked to have the will updated before Tuesday. He said not to worry, most deaths occur within five miles from one's home. Very comforting, very lawyerlike. I typed up a While We Are Away sheet of things the kids should know about the house (empty dehumidifier every day, when the garbage is collected, where the electric panel is and what it does, who to contact for what). I have an emergency contact sheet that is hung up on the cork board in the laundry room. It once included the phone numbers of the nearest relatives, schools and doctors. It now includes my lawyer, accountant and financial adviser. I'm hoping they won't have to use it but just in case they should know I was thinking about them. I would have loved to have taken them along but schedules between 3 kids and 2 adults gets impossible to coordinate. Last year, I planned a week in Newport thinking the kids would join us. They didn't. It's okay, I get it now. I'm thinking they wouldn't want to go to the places in CA that we would be going to anyway (maybe). I'm packing tonight. My husband always tells me I overpack. Well what do you expect when I read that the temperature is 88 degrees during the day and 55 at night. The Mark Twain expression "the coldest winter I ever spent was the summer in San Francisco" keeps popping into my head. I like to be prepared clothingwise for anything. Doesn't everyone take 6 pairs of shoes? When we come back, we will have some new pictures, some good wine and hopefully, we will all be safe. We're California Dreaming, on such a summer's day.