Terry Flanagan: Can I Go Home Now?

I must have started on this blog entry at least half a dozen times and been interrupted by one thing or another that needs immediate attention. Things always seem to be a little more hectic when we get back from a trip.

I guess it’s payback for getting away, because with vacations, like other criminal activity, you never really get away with the crime. Eventually you must return to face the consequences of your folly—thinking that you can actually take a break from your routine and not suffer for your insolence.

We returned from our trip very late Sunday evening. Opening the door, we were greeted by our two cats and the dulcet sounds of a sump pump in its death throes.

The pump was probably overworked by the deluge we missed earlier in the day when we were still hundreds of miles from home. Fortunately, the backup pump was working, and I avoided what would certainly have been a futile attempt to find a replacement pump at that late hour on a holiday weekend. I unplugged the main pump, ending the deafening racket that I was pretty sure must be keeping the neighbors awake, and collapsed into bed, exhausted from driving all day and half the night to get home.

The next day, , we awoke early to get to the before Dorothy had to line up for the parade. Having finally made it to the breakfast for the first time last year, we weren’t about to end the streak at one even though neither of us felt like getting out of bed. But it was a beautiful day for both the breakfast and the parade, unlike last year when the Memorial Day ceremony was cut short by a drenching rain.

The breakfast is a great place to mingle and catch up on what’s happening in town. After the and ceremony, we went home to prepare for our traditional holiday cookout. But first we had to set up the patio furniture which would have been done already if the weather had been a bit more cooperative before we left on vacation.

After dinner, my son and I took a look at the sump pump and discovered that a piece of plastic had mysteriously worked its way into the sump pit. We removed it, plugged in the main pump, and voila, things were working again. We figured that the plastic might have interfered with the pump intake.

Things were finally starting to look up. We still had to unpack, but we would get that done in the evening and get to bed early and get some sleep before getting back to work and our normal routine.

Going back to work after a vacation can be frustrating. I have this perhaps naïve expectation that if you leave instructions for dealing with problems while you are out of the office then the problems will be handled accordingly while you are away.

I’m often disappointed in that respect. It’s far more likely that will write an op-ed insisting that municipal and county employees get a 50 percent across-the-board pay increase than I will return to work to find everything has been running smoothly in my absence. So instead of easing back into the office routine, I find myself dealing with a problem that has reached the crisis stage due to neglect.

On the home front, the vegetation is about to swallow up our house like the enchanted forest did Sleeping Beauty’s castle. I fear the weed whacker may not be up to the job and I might need a machete at this point. We don’t employ a landscaping service, so there’s usually a lot of yard work to catch up on when we get back from a trip. And to our surprise it turns out that the neighborhood garage sale we wanted to participate in is this Friday and Saturday. I don’t know if we’ll be ready.

I’m beginning to think that getting away is really overrated. What am I getting away from anyway? And why do I want to go through the stress of trying to make up for lost time when I get back? Besides, I really like being in Geneva and as I grow older I have less desire to travel and see other places.

here’s always plenty to do here, and we usually miss out on something when we leave town. This time it was the History Center benefit at the Geneva Underground Playhouse. I miss the people here when we’re gone. I miss the restaurants we go to in town. And I even miss our two cats, although they can be annoying at times.

I guess I’m not cut out to be a world traveler. It seems to take longer to recover from a trip and I worry about stuff going wrong back home all the time we’re away. I start looking forward to returning home almost as soon as we leave. I guess I would just rather be at home than in any of the exotic, faraway places I used to dream of visiting.

I’ve reached a point in my life where I prefer the simple comforts of home to whatever luxuries I might find in the grandest of the grand hotels. What is wrong with me?