Charlie was up till 3.30am Friday night but as he wasn't shoveling in scores of frozen French fries as on the previous two nights, and was cheerful as I half-in-sleep offered positive verbiage, it was actually a rather pleasant time as these things go He's been anticipating a visit with long-time friends from Minnesota this weekend for months and there's been some happy anxiety, perhaps signaled when he nervously brought two suitcases downstairs amid a long Wednesday night.
We were all also in a bit of an extra-cheery mood because on Thursday the neurologist's office called to say their new office in North Jersey is open so we scheduled an appointment next month there, winning a reprieve from a totally unfun and deleterious two-hour there and back ride on a treeless, shoulder-less section of the New Jersey Turnpike on a Friday afternoon. I was so giddy about not having to make the trip (when we got home after the last one, Charlie ran from the car and threw himself on the neighbor's lawn) I mentioned this to my Latin students, who offered shudders thinking of that stretch of the Turnpike.
In other words, there's happy anxiety and anxiety anxiety, and Turnpike anxiety, as a subcategory of the latter. And grandparents anxiety, end of school anxiety, start of school anxiety, vacation anxiety, dadless Wednesday anxiety -- it is quite the list!
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