EWR...all alone.

This morning I took Speedy to Newark Airport (EWR) so she could catch a flight to El Salvador via Houston. She is spending a week down there doing a veterinary outreach & education campaign, teaching local vets how to do spay & neuter surgery. Some may remember that two years ago we went to Mexico to assist with a campaign that actually does intensive free spay/neuter programs for a weekend every month in various towns.  The drawback to that program is that the the infrastructure is sorely lacking (Speedy was spaying in a converted classroom) and the effects are insignificant-- the number of dog and cat spays performed over those weekends cannot begin to put a dent in the number of stray/unaltered animals running around and reproducing.  And the local vets, with whom Speedy was doing surgery, often displayed a shocking lack of technical skills (i.e., keep dirty sleeves out of open cavities.)

So this time she is taking a different tack on the same problem, and joining a program that runs seminars to educate local vets on how to do these surgeries safely and effectively.

And I am staying home, washing itty-bitty baby clothes and organizing the nursery some more. (Getting there!  And I promise I will post pics when I am done.  Don't be looking for any Pottery Barn style; think second-hand clothes, crib and decorations, Ikea shelves, and the Container Store drawers and you'll have a better idea of what we're working with.)

Yesterday I thought she might not go; she was felled by a hideous migraine that kept her in bed all day long, except for torturous trips to the bathroom.  She used to get lots of migraines, but this was the first in a long time.  It was brought on, no doubt, by the stress of the impending arrival of Speetus, a trip to a country where she speaks the language only minimally, and various other related and unrelated things.  When she gets back, her first assignment is to get a prescription for migraine medication.  Advil is no good to anyone if you can't keep it down!  She made a miraculous recovery by 9 last night and we spent the rest of the evening packing and organizing for the trip. 

I don't mind time alone: sleeping diagonally in the bed, eating crackers for dinner, reading in bed... But with the growing belly and my increasingly limited energy this week will be a challenge.  We have a dog walker coming every weekday morning so at least I don't have to worry about that.  But I have come to rely on Speedy for so many tangible and intangible things: suddenly I will have to make my own lunches (the horror!) and there is no set schedule or timeline that I have ticking in the back of my mind for the day's events.  It is 1:20.  I have to do laundry, walk the dogs, go to the gym.  No set order, no real parameters.  It feels a little funny, a little...drifty.

Meanwhile, let's keep Speetus on the inside-- no surprises while Speedy is out of the country! And I'll just drift along here... thank goodness I have NaBloPoMo to keep me occupied!