I asked my son if I could borrow his vacuum packing bags, and for about ten minutes I actually believed I’d been handed a personal black hole. Suck the air out, and my “will it be cold or warm in the Baltics?” wardrobe folds down into something almost manageable. The clothes really do take up less room. What the bags also do is create a small mystery, because somewhere in there is a version of me who decided a swimsuit and a fleece belonged in the same airtight tomb, and I have zero memory of making that call. Judy gets to unpack the evidence on the cruise and reverse-engineer my packing logic like a forensic scientist of poor decisions. The answer to what I was thinking is, frankly, none of my business.

The morning after the 4th, our trash cans and the neighborhood port-a-potties were all flat on their sides, and none of them were drunk. They just lost a fight with the wind, the same wind that knocked out some power for good measure. One of our cans apparently sacrificed itself against the downspout to keep one of my roses standing, and I’ve been considering a small ceremony for it. Standing in the yard afterward, looking at the mess, I remember thinking this seemed like exactly the right week to leave the country.

Somewhere in the last week I also had to have an honest conversation with myself about cake. I’m a cookie and brownie guy, through and through. Some of the women in my life still like to bake cake, and it’s good cake, thoughtful cake, and I will eat exactly one piece and never come back for seconds. I haven’t found a way to say this out loud without sounding ungrateful, so for now the plan is something like, “This is delicious, but I’m staying loyal to my first love.” If that doesn’t land, I may just start cutting brownies into circles and calling it diplomacy.

Then there’s the cookout math. Hosting a vegetarian and not ending up with a fridge full of regret takes a real system. Don’t make excess to begin with. Freeze what’s left if you do. And if the day after you leave happens to be trash day, empty the fridge like you’re turning in a rental car, no evidence left behind. With Judy already gone a few days ahead of me and my own appetite in no hurry to expand, I’ve been running rules two and three on a case by case basis, like a one-man Supreme Court of Leftovers.

We also got the house ready for a couple staying with us one of the weekends we’re gone. We’re not running an Airbnb, so nobody’s expecting turndown service. Make sure the AC works, keep something cold and non-alcoholic in the fridge, and accept that the only bed built for two people in this house is staying off limits, no exceptions. The two downstairs beds, formerly belonging to our kids who’ve moved on to careers and bigger things, will do fine. My only real hope is that they remember to turn the thermostat back up when they leave — there’s a whole system of checks and balances built around that one, and I’ll probably forget most of it until the electric bill shows up and I gasp in three languages.

The rain and wind ganged up on the mulched trees too, undoing more of that “mulch glue” project than I want to think about. I had plans, actual plans, curved edges and everything. Then the weather rolled through and turned it into a lumpy suggestion of landscaping, and at some point there’s nothing left to do beyond the effort already spent. I said “uncle,” out loud, to nobody, and decided the mulch’s rebellion isn’t allowed to bother me again until mid-August.

Without an irrigation system, we’ve been watering constantly, and while we’re gone the job falls to the kids (my son and his wife) who live a street over. The instructions I gave them sound less like a plan and more like a riddle: if it rains plenty you can ease off, unless it’s also been brutally hot, in which case trust the ground to sort itself out anyway. Keep everything alive, don’t drown it, good luck. Explaining this out loud, I realized my only real qualification for any of it is owning a shovel.

All of that was just warm-up for the fireworks. Judy had come off a disappointing, rain-delayed show at Scissortail Park and wanted her real finale, so after watching as much of a delayed soccer game as we could stand, we went hunting for the one spot that might deliver it, fireworks pilgrims in search of the promised land. A packed grocery store parking lot looked promising, though it made no promises. We moved our sitting towel exactly once and settled for the best angle available. A drone show with patriotic shapes went first, then the fireworks started, framed nicely between two guys in lawn chairs who’d claimed the spot ahead of us. Fifteen minutes in, Judy turned and said, “This is the finale I wanted Friday night, but I got a dud instead.” Two separate fires had apparently thrown off the whole schedule that first night. When this show kept going past what felt like the ending, we took it as a gift, got up, and cleared the lot just as the real finale wrapped up behind us — no gridlock, no extended parking lot purgatory.

My relationship with fireworks comes down to one rule: if the drive home takes longer than the show, it counts against the whole evening. This time we got out early, Judy was next to me, and I called it “fine.” From me, that’s basically a standing ovation, and she knew it.

With fireworks behind us, the countdown to vacation officially starts. There are still the fake fears and the vague what-ifs that show up before every trip and never mean anything once we’re actually there. But somewhere past all that noise, there’s a good vacation waiting. Judy’s the one who keeps turning this pile of wind-flattened trash cans and rebellious mulch and questionable packing decisions into a story instead of a crisis. I just need to get out of my own way and let it happen. If I can’t manage that for myself, I’ll manage it for her.