Well  ...  here we go again with the *Vacation Countdown.*

Making long lists of Stuff To Pack/Stuff To Buy/Stuff To Do. Picking up the good suit and the beige blouse from the dry cleaners. Monitoring the weather in TicTac. Notifying the landlord that we're going to be gone. Emptying the refrigerator. Buying extra film and stamps and razors and People Magazine and those little plastic travel containers for our toothbrushes.

Switching from Alaska "Maintenance Is Optional" Airlines, to the slightly-less-convenient (but infinitely-less-likely-to plummet-nosefirst into-the-ocean) Southwest Airlines.

Drawing a detailed map of my office so the temp will know where to find Franz' baseball tickets/cough drops/mattress invoice next week.

Etc. etc. etc.

I just this minute finished making our hotel reservations, using the spiffy new credit card.  Sadly: no hot tub rooms available this time around. But we'll have air conditioning and cable, neither of which we currently *enjoy* here at The Castle, so these will seem like small luxuries to sweaty, VH1-deprived SecraTerri and Ю僱êrvØ¡.

Tonight after work I'll drag the suitcase out of the bedroom, lay it open on the sofa, and spend the next two days filling it with David's socks and my super-size bottle of extra-strength St. John's Wort and our ABBA CDs. By Saturday morning we should be completely packed and ready to go to the airport.

And lest the non-fans in the audience point out that I've got a helluva lot of nerve bragging about/complaining about/writing about my second major getaway in less than a month ... let me assure you that this trip to TicTac is NOT exactly a vacation.

Not completely, anyway.

I'd probably break it down something like this:

• 47% Fun Stuff:  Watching my lovely firstborn Tot receive her high school diploma. Flying over Mt. St. Helens. Taco Time. Buying shoes for Son # Only. Visiting the Pike Place Market with David and the Tots. Holding my one-year-old nephew. Mt. Rainier. Combing Daughter #2's waist-length hair. Darigold. KNDD-FM. Value Village. The Seattle Times. Groovy photo opps. Hotel shampoo. Six blissful, Franz-free days.
  
• 38% Not-Quite-So-Fun Stuff: Sitting in a damp outdoor bleacher seat next to my boyfriend, my ex-husband ... and my former in-laws (who doubtless still watch for me to be profiled on 'America's Most Wanted' every Saturday night).
  
• 8% Just-Shoot-Me-Now Time:  Introducing my boyfriend to the ex-hub and the former in-laws.
  
• 6% Obligatory Stuff I Could Live Without (But Will Graciously Endure Because I Am A Grown-up Now):  Second-hand cigarette smoke. Turbulence. Southcenter Mall. Dogs. Baggage claim. Sore feet. Hotel coffee. Smiling until my smile muscles hurt.
• .5%: Sex.
• .5%: Sleep.

Does that look like a vacation to you? I mean, seriously?

It DOES?

Well, then ... maybe I'll have to send postcards, after all!  Do I have your mailing address?