In the cheese state!

We're on day three of the trip and in the cheese state, aka Wisconsin! I wanted to take a cheese picture sign but don't have a portable drive to this netbook yet. Unfortunately, cheese and myself do not have a good relationship, so it is doubtful I'll be buying and eating homemade Wisconsin cheese. I have thought about buying some for my landlord since for the past six years, he has always given me cheese at Christmas. He wouldn't get the joke, but I'd find it kind of funny.

Anyway, on Monday, we drove eight or so hours and stopped outside of Chicago at a Courtyard Marriott. I wanted to go some place else that I knew accepted pets for sure, but my dad wanted to be able to use his wife's Marriott's rewards points which only credits it by the way. And yep, they do not allow pets. This seems kind of odd to me, since they have such a cute little courtyard which would be great for pets. I was not happy with this hotel at all. It was way too hot in the room. Baxter was really uncomfortable and hadn't been able to get much exercise that day, so he was agitated. Every time I let him out, I had to be sneaky to make sure no one saw me. There was an area that was fenced and said "no trespassing, employees only," but I went anyway since it was late at night.

The next day, we drove to Wisconsin and visited a few of my dog trainer friends. A. gave me a jacket to have (she apparently has many due to living in WI) since I forgot to pack mine. We had a nice, late lunch at Olive Garden, visited their dog daycare facilities and house, drove through some pretty areas, and then drove a little further past Madison. We would have stayed with my friends, but there were a total of like 8/9? dogs, 2/3 birds, and a cat. It was only 2 of the dogs who were really loud, but I knew my dad would not have done well there.

The next stay was at the Holiday Inn Express which does allow pets, a definite relief for me. The room is a lot better too, and is probably where we will stay in MN as well. The trip, itself, had been going well except for a few hiccups. One is that my loan officer e-mailed me about an error with the disclosure I needed to sign ASAP, fax to my mom, and fax back to him. I did that yesterday, but then he sent me another one about the change in the loan amount he did not realize that again I needed to sign ASAP. I was a little peeved, honestly.

So this brings me to major incident two. I was out walking Baxter last night and decided to stop by the guest computer in the lobby and quickly print out the form to sign. Well, the printer was out of ink. I notified the desk person. She realized they did not have the correct ink cartridge and said I could e-mail the document to her to put out at the front desk. The e-mail didn't go through, so I waited. Then, she had several people checking into the hotel. Then, suddenly, I see my father come into the lobby with an angry look on his face. He saw me and whispered mean words of how selfish I was, how I have to do things my way, how I should have taken my phone, how I should have come to the room to say what I was doing, etc. He eventually went back to the room. I spoke to the desk person--she gave me a different e-mail which went through. She printed off the document, but later I realized part of the document had been cut off, so I couldn't sign it. Ugh! She said she would let me fax at no charge, but she is not there this morning. It won't do any good since I need to reprint the documents.

The rest of the night in the room, my father and I pretty much ignored each other. I ended up going to bed early since I was really tired. I just hate when he does shit like this. I agree I should have had my phone and probably went to the room to say what I was doing, but I seriously didn't think it was going to take that long as it should not have at all. I tried explaining this to him, but he just continued on about how I'm so ungrateful for what he and my mother does and how it seems like I treat them horribly compared to other people.

This is not the first time he has blown up. Actually, his trait of blowing up has happened my entire life. I just hate how one minute he is complimenting me on how he is so proud of me and the next saying what a horrible person I am. The mixed messages are tough, and there is always a conflict of emotions for me. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my parents dearly, but sometimes my dad's emotions are really hard to deal with. There's a lot more details about why he is the way he is, etc., but that's a post.for another day.

The other thing that is really annoying me is he keeps saying how I eat nothing, and this is untrue. I have eaten breakfast every day. I have eaten dinner every day. Lunch has been iffy at times, but I've snacked at appropriate times, etc. I've eaten a lot more in general than I normally do on any of these trips. Sometimes, I feel like going back to my starved ways, because that is obviously how he views me.

My only other gripe so far is that for whatever reason my skin has looked crappy now for like three weeks and my period is likely to start soon which just makes me feel edgier about everything.

:sigh: I hope the next leg of the trip goes more smoothly. Baxter's surgery is tomorrow at 7 AM. I'll post how it goes on facebook, twitter, and here in the hotel room.