Pack, unpack and repeat

It seems that’s all I have been doing lately. I pack my bags, leave town, return, unpack them and then a few days later I am packing again. Of course, I also get to do laundry in between. At this point, after 6 weeks of this I am really ready to have an extended period of time where I don’t have to pack a suitcase. I doubt that will be possible for more than two weeks though. Anyway, last weekend I drove up to Atlantic City for a good friend, they were having a memorial of sorts for her Grandfather who passed away earlier this year. And since I am such a good friend and I got to spend a lot of time with her grandpa during my trips to Florida I felt like it was the right thing to do. I also had never been to AC, so I had to see what all the fuss was about.

 

I left last Friday around 1pm and arrived close to 5 pm. The drive was not bad but the hotel was an absolute dump. As you would expect of a summer weekend in the Northeast most hotels rooms were booked as people leave the cities for the beach. On Friday night we headed out to dinner and checked out the Casinos with my friend and her sister. The casinos were alright, though a big disappointment compared to Vegas. But, what really compares to Vegas? That is actually a pretty unfair comparison so I will overlook it, both Friday and Saturday night we did manage to have a good time at the places we went and I even won some money. Granted it wasn’t a lot but winning is always a lot better than losing. That and getting absolutely wasted on Saturday night after the memorial service Saturday afternoon. My friend and I basically drank all day, so I was a mess when I finally sat down at the tables around 10 to play; I am a bit shocked that I won at all. And after a long day of drinking that did not end until at least 4 am I decided it would be a good idea to leave AC to head back home at 8 am.

 

I made it back home around noon on Sunday and was able to settle into my house for a few days before having to pack up again. And that is where I sit now, getting ready to leave town tomorrow for Minnesota. I am both looking forward to it and dreading it, which is what happens with the bittersweet times I go to Minnesota.  This time we are going for my Grandmas unveiling, last summer it was for her funeral, before that it was my Grandpas unveiling and before that his funeral. So, on the one hand the occasion is somber but on the other I enjoy seeing my family and spending time with them. After this weekend I hope the next occasion we get together will be for a strictly happy one. I have actually spent this entire week in a bit of a funk because of the prospects of this weekend with this nagging feeling of regret that I never got to know my grandparents well enough. I have found myself looking for books to answer all the questions I never asked about their holocaust experiences that they never volunteered to me. I am sure I could have had 100 years with them and still felt there was more I wanted to know and that is something that the living will always have to harbor about the dead. So, we move on and live our lives, we try to honor their memory and I can not help but feeling that somewhere, somehow they really do watch over us. Unfortunately, all they get to see me doing lately is packing or unpacking my suitcase.