Road Trip

Today Ruby and I drove up to Boulder Creek to visit Laila & Co. I think a little Levi therapy will do me good.

The drive wasn't easy. It's hard to sit still for five hours with my thoughts and emotions. For one thing, I've been having trouble finding music that I can listen to, which is a must-have for driving. At one point or another over the last nine years, I think I've sung just about every love song I've ever heard to Millie. Everything from the Weepies' "Gotta Have You" to Jay-Z's "Show Me What You Got." I'm not sure I'll ever be able to listen to G. Love's "Gimme Some Lovin'" again. So love songs, those about having it or losing it, are off limits. So are happy songs or silly songs of all sorts. What does that leave me with? It has to be vaguely angry and bitter, but there must be no explicit explanation.

What's worse, Millie and I took a lot of road trips together. Road trips were at the top of both lists: times I enjoyed Millie the most, and times she annoyed me the most. She was a bizarre freak in the car. Above about 40mph, she was passed out asleep, usually in my lap. As a world champion cuddler, she curled up in my lap and rested her head in the crook of my left arm. Occasionally I would glance down at her squishy little face. As dangerous as it probably was, it was prime cuddling time. But slow the car down, put on the turn signal, or do anything suggesting you might stop soon, and all hell would break loose. This would unleash all the anxious fury Millie's 20lb body could muster, which was quite a lot. I'll never really know where all that car anxiety came from. She and I would spend almost all of a road trip cuddling, her gazing up at me so sweetly, but after the stoplights and turns in the final 15 minutes of a road trip, I would always arrive at home just about ready to throw her out the window.

Ruby did very well in the car.