Time to Decompress - In the Poconos For the First Time in 2014

2013 Ended with deaths in the family, my mother in law and my cousin's wife.

2014 started with deaths among my coworkers and their families, especially that of one of my detectives. I spoke at her memorial last Friday and went to the wake of the sister of another of my detectives the Monday prior.

Intermingled between was the death of the family dog, who was suffering long term from an enlarged heart and short term from seizures that started right after the initial deaths in 2013 and was finally put to sleep shortly after we placed my detective in her final resting place.

Did I mention the upheaval at work? The Night of the Long Knives where every boss but one at my location of the rank of Inspector or higher was transferred in an effort to bring in new blood? Or the recent fun of running two units, as another sgt was out sick for three weeks? Or the pile of shit that landed friday afternoon and waits for me when I return on tuesday?

In the meantime, I'm away from all of that. It's the first time that my wife has gone to my parents' place in the Poconos without the family dog. She wasn't ready before, and in truth, I don't think we've had a free weekend that wasn't otherwise spoken for in the last six months. We used to make the trip every three or four weekends.

Besides the usual family stuff of driving around and hitting yard sales on a holiday weekend, I plan to run my wife's first RPG session using Scarlet Heroes, do some RPG related reading and upon returning home early monday afternoon, head to the privately run post office affiliate near home and finally ship out the last two things I've had packed and ready to go for a while.

It feels strange to slow down. Must be related to being a New Yorker. Best sleep I've had in six months was last night (shortly after the 3 1/2 hr drive after work to get up here), and my wife is currently napping on the couch in the front room.

Guess I'm not the only one decompressing ;)