What It’s Like Being Married to Me

A Zugventure story: SEA ✈️ BWI 🚕 D.C.

Hi, it’s me.

Bryan and I are currently planning a family trip to New York. It’s a trip we wanted to take the summer of 2023, but plans were thwarted by Bryan’s cancer diagnosis and treatment that year, and again the following year when he got laid off. So, fingers crossed, we’ll be heading there this fall.🤞

Our daughter, Rue, is graduating from university this June. Our son is making plans to move in with a friend this summer. And I’m over here quietly considering that this could possibly be our last Zugventure together as a family.

No pressure, but it better be amazing.

This month, however, plans were in danger of thwartation by me, who is easily paralyzed by time-sensitive decision details that involve complicated dependencies, varying prices points, and calendar jenga. If I were have your people call my people rich, I would definitely have my people book airline flights for me.

To be honest, I think the last time I booked a flight was back in 2015 when we took a family trip to Washington D.C.—I was in charge of flights, and Bryan was in charge of lodging.

When I entered "Seattle to Washington D.C." into Expedia, it churned out 42,000 combinations of airlines, departure times, and connection cities in a grid formation. I was instantly paralyzed, not unlike what happens when facing a wall of toothpaste at my local Walgreens, a drugstore whose tagline is, “At the intersection of happy and healthy!” which completely disregards the mental health crisis triggered by the 42,000 options of toothpaste they offer.

Regular fluoride…maximum strength with extra fluoride…complete whitening…extra fresh…cavity protection…nonstop or connecting?...Delta or Alaska Air?...Tuesday or Saturday departure? Which airline do we have a mileage plan on again?

The room was spinning–my palms sweating–and then I saw it, the all-caps blinking red text:

"ONLY 4 LEFT AT THIS PRICE!"

And this is how I ended up panic-booking a flight into Baltimore, which isn’t D.C., but D.C.ish.

Having grown up visiting my cousins outside of Baltimore, I was vaguely aware of the two cities’ proximity. I remember taking a train from Baltimore to D.C. and back again, no big whoop!

It will be fine, I said to myself, allowing magical thinking to be the boss of me.

Enjoying the view from our flight before chaos ensued upon landing (August 2015).

And truly, it might have been fine had I remembered for even one second that we were landing in a different city than our actual destination! We could have planned for this! But I did not. It never even crossed my mind.

So when I broke the news to Bryan in baggage claim that I didn’t exactly know where we were in relation to D.C., nor did I know what our options were for getting there, his face froze.

A fun fact about Bryan is that he thinks extremely fast on his feet, so I instantly recognized the blank stare as his struggle to not betray a deep and abiding love for me by unleashing a crushing blow of unedited thoughts–the effort producing sweat beads on his forehead.

Finally, he located a string of neutral words in the database of his mind: "Were flights into D.C. out of our budget?"

An innocent question on paper! An excellent place to start the conversation! It leads with curiosity and doesn’t make assumptions! Good job, babe!

But you know how it is when you know someone, like really know them. I was Ray Ramano to his Debra ("Idiot...."). I was Liz Lemon to his Jack Donaghy, getting rescued once again from a disaster of my own making.

I squeaked out a response I can’t remember, and he found us an Uber for $42,000, and everything was indeed fine in the end.

Anyway, this is what it's like being married to me: Endless opportunities to remember that it was my spunk and drama that drew him to me 24 years ago!

So yeah, Bryan booked our flights to New York this week, drama free! 🥳

A few shots from our 2015 trip to Washington DC when the kids were 10 and 12 years old: Vietnam Memorial, outside the White House after our private tour of the Obama-era West Wing, the White House press room (the only time photos inside were allowed), on the National Mall with the Capitol Building in the background. Special thanks to our friend, Marina, for arranging the West Wing tour!

What about you? Making any summer travel plans? Anything you’re looking forward to in these crazy, upside down times? Let me know in the comments.

Until next time,

Jen

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What’s Happening In My Garden This Week

In a Classic Jen Move, I started two yellow zucchini seeds and two spaghetti squash seeds in the same pot, forgot that I did that, and now I can’t tell which is which. 🤣

I can’t just wing it, either, because one sprawls out on a vine and the other is more compact, so I can’t transplant them until I figure it out because they have different space needs. 🤷‍♀️

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