GeeCee's Not-Entirely-Original Miscellany

My goal last year was to use all my PTO and not carry any over, but that failed miserably. I have something close to four weeks of vacation and personal time this year that I'd like to use up, even after using the week that I carried over. I'm not sure that this year's going to go much better thanks to combinations of (lack of) money and deadlines, but I'm planning to give it a shot. To try and stave off my imminent mental breakdown thanks to a particularly stressful situation going on, I've been daydreaming about how I'd like to burn those vacation days assuming time and finances allowed. In no particular order:

• If I thought I'd actually get stuff done, I'd take a week off to clean out/up my house.


• Volunteering for a week at Best Friends animal sanctuary in Utah. Since I can't have a dog of my own, this would be a fabulous way to get my doggie fix (and kitties, and bunnies, and horses, and goats, and pigs, and birds) while also lending a hand to one of my favorite organizations.


• A vipassana retreat at the Insight Meditation Society. Can I survive a week of noble silence?


• A road trip, using Roadside America as a guidebook. Cheesy roadside attractions, woohoo!


• Festival season! Bumbershoot, Edmonton, Calgary (Chumbawamba acoustic, Great Big Sea, Neko Case, Leo Kottke, Ollabelle, Sarah Slean, Rufus Wainwright, Hawksley Workman), Cambridge (Oysterband, Bruce Cockburn), Blacksun Festival/ProjektFest, Folks Festival (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Peter Himmelman, The Ditty Bops, Catie Curtis, Guggenheim Grotto), Falcon Ridge (Dar Williams, Eddie from Ohio, John Gorka, Lowen & Navarro, Marshall Crenshaw), 50 Years of Stax benefit, FloydFest (DeVotchKa, North Mississippi All-Stars, Donna the Buffalo, The Duhks, Scythian), Tønder Festival (Levellers, Great Big Sea, Solas, Karan Casey Band), Nordic Roots Festival
  


• A week in London. Ditto Paris/Rome/Florence/Kyoto/Tokyo/St. Petersburg. And Cuba, if it wouldn't net me a big fine and a lot more hassle than I want to deal with.


• My long-delayed (we're talking like three years) trip to LA to meet folks.


• Portland, OR. If I can make myself leave Powell's, I'd offer to buy pdx42 a drink.


• A cruise (Alaska or Mediterranean). If I'm dreaming, I might as well go for a transatlantic crossing on the QE2.