My Blogging Hiatus

Posts around here will be thin for a while until mid-August. I'm taking a forced blogcation. As I write this, I'm on the road with Mr. M, headed to the mountains for a long vacation. To a no-man's land with no internet access.
Luckily, Mr. M and I managed to fit in the car this morning. It is literally filled to the gills. Just who, I'd like to know, said women over-pack?
Because it's so not true. My husband packed up the car with all of his stuff, leaving us virtually no room. And then he called me no less than four times last night asking for more stuff (don't forget my knapsack, and my camera case and my . . . ). And he's FLYING, meeting us there, and bringing more bags yet!
So this week I tied up loose ends and tried to stave off pre-trip anxiety, by trying to find our wills, paying in advance all the bills. I even lined up a lovely pet/house sitter. And notwithstanding the pack-rat-husband-car-packed situation, we would have been all set if . . . if . . . err, the pool man hadn't fired us on the eve of our trip.
I kid you not. We were terminated. With no warning. From out of the clear blue. Leaving us with a not-so-blue pool. In this economy.
It wasn't a show-down or anything like that. No, on the day he was supposed to clean the pool, the pool man quietly dropped the key to the gate into our mail box instead. The little blue card he usually leaves behind, showing what he did, is blank. Since you probably can't make it out, under work done, it says "returning key 4 gate." And he's drawn his customary smiley face at the end. Gee, thanks, pool man. And we were so nice to you! Maybe it was our charming, ancient sand filter?
Despite these set-backs, still we plodded on, preparing for the long journey. Here are a few of the books and CDs I packed for the big road trip. We will be book-reading and book-listening fools if I have anything to say about it. Of course, with no internet access, we'll have little choice. This Hampton Inn, where I'm writing from tonight, may be my last connection with mankind for days.
No doubt, I will suffer deep withdrawal from sites like Drudgereport, Althouse, MISH's Global Economic Trends, the New York Times, my google reader . . . well, you get the horrific picture.
But blogging withdrawal will probably be the hardest to endure. I won't be able to post much, much less read and leave comments on other blogs.
If I get really inspired, I suppose I can tap out something soul-searching on my blackberry, without any pictures, as I've done in the past. But I imagine my inspiration will just be to grab some quiet, low-tech solitude.
Maybe when I get back I'll turn to the commercial mortgage default tsunami that's right around the corner. Or rising treasury yields -- because they will rise at some point. Surely the controversy surrounding the dapper Professor Gates' arrest will long have blown over by then. Hopefully, anyway.
In the meantime, I'll try to post a few photographs here and there, send a few proofs of life. At the moment, the exuberant Mr. M is full of it -- as you can see here -- jumping up and down on the hotel bed.
XOXO.

Labels: Random