beanside | The blood, the blood, the blood of the lamb is worth two lions but here I am.

T-minus 24 hours til we leave for vacation! *vibrates silently in place*.

I was mistaken. What it took to feel real was to get a call from the concierge on the Koningsdam checking to see when we are planning to get to port. She was very lovely and sweet, and they were having a drill while we were speaking, and I heard the captain's voice in the background and it was very surreal. We discussed our arrival, and she assured me that all we need to do was find a Holland America employee and say the magic words of "Pinnacle Suite," and they'd take care of us from there. We told them 11am, so the person who will escort us onto the ship will be waiting for us. I totally had a "technology is so awesome," moment when I realized that she was calling from a ship in the inside passage of the pacific ocean. But yeah, I hung up and it felt suddenly real and imminent.

Earlier, I had emailed our cruise consultant to check if the escort was something they were still doing, because I know that skips some of the walking, which might be good for my sister. He quickly replied, and assured me that they did, and then took it a step further and added a note to our cruise portfolio, so they will minimize our standing and walking. Which was awesome, but still felt like something that would happen in a while, not three days away.

I was productive yesterday. I made Yoda's food, and worked, and on lunch break, I picked up my prescriptions and got gas. Then afterwards, we had some cuddle time, and loved on the puppy, storing up for the long stay at sleepaway camp. I'm going to miss that stupid little dog. Hopefully, he has fun and will be very excited when we pick him up.

Today, I shall work, and at lunch I will go to the bank to request some small bills for drink tips. Hopefully, I can accomplish that in 40 minutes. I'm not going to stress on it too much, though. If I'm 5 minutes late, they'll deal. I don't think either bank I'd go to will be a problem. After work, I shall pack my headset, and silently vibrate with excitement until it's time to go to bed. I'll pack my final thing tomorrow, which is the sound machine. In the meantime, all my other stuff has been packed. I'm going to have a lot to drag into the airport, considering my big bag, my carryon suitcase and my bento bag personal item. Once you add a laptop, that bento bag gets heavy. It's definitely going to be riding on my suitcase as much as possible. Jess is also packed, save for the Tylenol ad Ibuprofen bottles.

My big bag comes in at a whopping 43lbs. My sister outdid me at 47lbs. Jess is pulling up the rear with 32lbs. I know which suitcase all the souvenirs are going in. lol.

Of course, I'll be able to loose a good chunk of the paperwork that I have in the bento bag, so that'll open up some space.

Right now, my brain is on logistics for the morning. I'm getting up at 2am, having possibly gotten 6 hours sleep. (Maybe. I doubt it.) I'll do my journal entry which is sure to be very coherent. Alternately, I could wait and write it on the plane. Either or could work. I'll see how I feel first thing. Then, I will take the chain and deadbolt off the door for BIL to arrive at 3am.

Then, we shall all stare at each other until the car comes at 3:45am.

It's so close, and I am so unmotivated today. I just want to get through work and get my suitcase to the car. Once Jess is up, I may open the big bag and take out a pair of shoes. I don't really need two pairs of dress shoes. One is fine. I expect to wear then a few times, but the flats are fine, I don't need the half broken in Mary Janes. I do however need the very heavy slides. I swear, they're a good pound and a half on their own.

Maybe I'll give my clothes another quick look. I really feel like I overpacked a lot, so I might winnow some of it down, but I'll see. I still need to pack the rain ponchos somewhere, so that might be in Jess' suitcase, too. Fortunately, they don't weigh much. Or I might be able to fit them in my carry on suitcase.

I will have a little more room in both cases going home, because a good chunk of my stuff is disposable. Do I plan to bring the tiny fan home? Nope. Cheap binoculars? Probably not.

That's two boxes that'll be out of the luggage at the end, to be replaced by something fun.

I'm going to put the link for the google drive again, in case you want to follow along with the pictures. Photos will be found here and should show up starting Thursday afternoon. I'll probably take a bunch in Seattle, which I can upload on the drive to Vancouver.

I realized that I'm looking forward to all the options I have for swimming/soaking. First, there will be the hotel's glorious salt water pool. Then on the boat, we have a jacuzzi on the balcony and a big jacuzzi tub in our bathroom. Then, in the ship, there's two pools, though one is outside, so we'll probably stick to the indoor. And then, we have the thermal spa with it's jacuzzi with waterfall feature. (It has other things like a steam room and sauna, all of which I plan to use. I am 100% a water baby, and I need to immerse myself.

And the food. So much glorious food, starting tomorrow at Pike Place Market. I have a semi plan of attack for that. I'd like to start with Piroshki, Piroshki, work my way through Beecher's mac and cheese, and Pike Place Chowder, and maybe get some ginger beer. If I can manage it, I also want to go to Mee Sum and the Crumpet Shop, but that will be dependent on stomach capacity. Then, we shall be off to the Space Needle, so we have some time for that to digest before we get in the car for the long drive to Vancouver.

Then, more good food of the Canadian beef variety at Hy's steakhouse. I'm torn on what to get there. On one hand, I love a good dry aged ribeye, but on the other, the Steak Diane sounds amazing, too. I definitely want to do the tableside Ceasar salad. And maybe the tableside banannas foster for dessert.

The next day, Granville Market shall provide lunch, and then the Tap & Barrel shall provide dinner. Saturday, we shall be on the ship and all bets are off. SO much food. I cannot wait to try it all.

Lunch may be a Pizza or Hamburger from one of the smaller venues, since the lido buffet is bound to be bugfuck. You can preorder both, and then pick up when ready, so I plan to do that. Or, we could see if they could deliver room service. That's included, so might as well.

Dinner shall be in the special dining room for suite guests. We shall eat together the first night, and after that, aside from a few booked meals, they're on their own. If we do eat together, awesome, if we don't, that's cool, too. I have a feeling that we'll be eating together most of the time, though, but we'll see.

So all in all, yes, it's starting to feel like something that is happening, not just a nebulous thing that might happen in the future. I'm so excited! Still a little bit anxious, but that's just my natural state.

I'm still not looking forward to the 6 hour flight. It's long and boring and I probably won't be able to sleep, even with anti anxiety meds. But it's a means to an end, and it'll be worth it when we get there. Hopefully, Alaska Air is good to us. I've never flown on them before. The inflight breakfast sounds good. Parmesan eggs with home fries and bacon sound delicious. I don't care if they're rubber, I'm going to eat them, mind you. It'll be something that breaks up the monotony of the flight. I have SO many new books to read, and maybe a journal entry to write. That would certainly eat up about an hour of the flight, so I might go with that. I'm hoping for the BIL's sake that the turbulence is light. He's a bit of a nervous flyer, and his Valuim only lasted a couple of hours when he did a test run.

Seattle and Vancouver are supposed to be overcast/mostly cloudy tomorrow, but Vancouver will be sunny on Friday and Saturday, so we'll have a good sail away. The ports are still showing rain, but that'll be fine. We can get wet and still have fun.

I just want to fast forward to tomorrow. I'm going to be utterly useless at work. I have no idea what we're having for dinner. We cleaned the fridge entirely out. and I am not cooking, so it's either going to be delivery or carry out. Wherever we order, it needs to be less large portions, so we're not throwing out a ton of food. Jess is planning to take our suitcases down today and put them in the car so that we don't have to clatter them down the stairs at 3:30am. They're very considerate. I feel like I'm missing something, but I don't think I am. I have planned for this trip like Hannibal crossing the Alps.

I put the passports into the carryon bag, so that won't be forgotten. Everything else, I think it set. That will be the last thing I check for my sister and BIL. "Do you have your passport and meds?" Everything else, we can buy new if need be.

Okay, I should stop babbling now. I'm rehashing the plan again, and that's not going to help speed the day up. But wow, I have a concierge, y'all! Everyone have an amazing Wednesday!