and here we go.

10:47pm. i will be on the road at 7am tomorrow. 8 hours 13 minutes. this does not feel likely. but it will happen.

maybe.

my timeliness not withstanding, it's been a good week in rochester. not what i was expecting, perhaps, but still good... linda was able to take off several days from work (thank you, mom! and tammy and everyone at work for letting her take the time off :), so we had a couple good days of mommy-daughter time. there was the fourth, and reliving my childhood with the town hall craft fair and parade and bike decorating and i kind of want to cry because it's so familiar and so distant and i feel old. (though i also wanted to cry when i got caught in the parade. which was also ridiculous as it's not like it's a complicated half-mile parade route. still frustrating.) after heated debate about where to watch fireworks (irondequoit too buggy, others too far to drive, blah blah blah.), we decided to watch the rochester fireworks from the south wedge - we used to watch from the bridge near my great uncle's house. (cut to july 1989, when 5 year old erica is irritating linda, who tells her to settle down and count to 100. i get mad, and think "i'll show them, i'll count to a THOUSAND before they notice." and i did.)



then my father and i took a very enlightening road trip to faaaaar western new york (south of buffalo), linda and i spent a day thrift store shopping, and i explored irondequoit by bike. that is, i found all the biggest hills that were IMPOSSIBLE in 5th grade, and... well, now aren't so bad. but i did get to see a lot of why irondequoit isn't such a bad place to live.

the olmsted park by the zoo

charlotte beach. SO PRETTY.

so i got caught at the drawbridge...

and had to spend a couple minutes looking up and down the river. darn.

and whenever i got home, i packed. a lot. for all that i felt like i was ridding myself of SO much stuff - i still packed the car just about to the brim. but letting go of so much has felt incredible - i'm not good at letting go of memories, let alone the physical things tied to those memories, so the process of going through *everything*, recognizing those times and places and people, and then setting it down and letting it go... it's helping to kind of make room for the experiences and memories and people yet to come. i recommend it. but be prepared for some tears.

but at least through such a draining process, i had the pleasure of this company:

jessie cat!

oscar, the dumpster cat!

it's going to be hard to leave. but at least i know i have my avacado pit friends, ava and raul, to keep me company across the miles. i named ava. linda clearly named raul. "so if this one's ava, what should the other one be called?" "how about... raul!" clearly.

may i introduce you to my traveling companions... ava and raul.

and now, to bed. tomorrow, chicago.