Staycation at Abby’s house.

Having escaped the warmth and humidity of Orlando, I am now experiencing the warmth and extreme dryness of Phoenix. While in Orlando I learned that I am no longer a theme-park person. (More on that below.) Also learned that four adults in a rather small hotel room is a recipe for anxiety; so was the need to schedule daily activities. By contrast, visiting my daughter is like a staycation, albeit at someone else’s house.

Eating whatever and whenever I choose. Reading until late at night and getting up when I feel like it, rather than rising when park activities (or other people’s getting-ups) decide.

Coming and going as I please, when I please. Sitting around and catching up for hours, with Netflix or Hulu on in the background. Doing small chores to give her a break, including helping tidy up the place and prepare snacks for a game night. (Why is it always easier and even fun to clean other people’s houses?)

A staycation, in other words.

It’s not that I won’t ever leave the house. We plan to browse the Savers thrift shop on Monday (half-price day) for a big glass bowl or Pyrex dish, as she wants to start making yogurt. We  plan to hit Bobby Q’s for ribs and sides. I hope to hang out with Sonya Ann, a regular reader from the MSN Money days. And on Friday, we’ll go to see “Die Hard: A Christmas Story,” presented by the All Puppet Players. (Yep: A plush John McClain shouting, “Yippee-cai-yay, mofos!”)

Mostly, though, it’s like any other visit to my daughter: hanging out. 

Right now she’s working on a post for her blog, and I’m guiltily working on this one. It’s been far too long since I last put anything up.

Some cities are for running around to See All The Sights. But when I’m in Phoenix, I mostly want to see my daughter, plus maybe a friend or two.

Vacations that take us

Orlando, a theme-park mecca, is one of those go-go-go cities. It was absolutely designed made for running around in from dawn until dark (when the fireworks begin, and the clubs open). As noted earlier, I’ve learned that this isn’t my bag.

To be clear: I really enjoyed seeing my siblings and my niece, who works for Universal Orlando. Some of the sights were great fun in terms of attention to detail; for example, the buildings in Harry Potter’s realm made you think you were really there (insofar as a make-believe place can feel real). The horror makeup show was also very funny and very entertaining.

However, most of the rides and shows had wait times of 30 to 45 minutes, which no longer seems worth it. Stand in line for ages in order to enjoy a fairly short attraction? Nah, I’m good.

More to the point, I recently had a serious bout of vertigo. It was the bad kind, i.e., “DF, the world is whirling! I’m falling out of my chair! Please get me to the bed that’s just a half-dozen steps away because I can’t do it alone – and please get me a barf bucket before that!”

I was afraid the vertigo might be triggered by a ride whose entire reason for existing is to make the world whirl. Even some of the static VR attractions, such as “Jimmy Kimmel’s Race Through New York” and “The Bourne Stuntacular,” were so herky-jerky that I spent most of them with my eyes closed.

Staycation = personal space

Finally, there were just too many people, in the hotel room as well as the park. Either I’ve become an extroverted introvert or it was simply way too much togetherness. The house in which DF and I live is somewhat small, but there are ways of not being in each other’s faces 24/7. He’ll play the piano while I work in the office, or one of us will run errands or do small garden chores in order to get/give a little space.

Big as it was, the theme park felt claustrophobic because there were just soooo many visitors. This isn’t a particularly busy time of year for Universal, but it sure felt that way to me.

And while the hotel room had everything we needed, including a small dinette area that let us economize on some* meals, it was just so tiny. For someone who’s accustomed to quiet, mostly solitary workdays, it was a bit jarring to have three other adults breathing the same air. There was nowhere I could go to get away from the enforced closeness.

Perhaps this makes me sound like a horrible person: Here I was, seeing my family for the first time in years, and I kept looking for the exits.

For the past three years my brother has visited Universal near his birthday, and invited us to join him. My sister combines it with an annual visit to the East Coast to see old friends. So I suggested that next year I visit the two of them while they’re both in New Jersey, before they head to Florida. The home in which my brother and sister-in-law live isn’t a McMansion, but there are places to slip away to in order to (a) give the homeowners a little breathing room and (b) give myself the gift of temporary solitude.

I can get all of the quiet I need here at Abby’s. While she’s working from home, I can take walks (she lives just steps away from a park with a walking path), pet the cat, do minor household chores, take naps, cook if I feel like it, graze if I don’t, and read read read. Staycations mean doing whatever you want.

Once her workday ends, we can catch up with each other’s lives. Sometimes that’s while watching TV programs she thinks I might like (“The Sandman” is gorgeously eerie and often very sad), and sometimes not. Yesterday she discussed some memories of growing up with an abusive dad, and how she’s worked to get past that. It left me tearful, but also extremely grateful that she felt she could share that.

Probably not the kind of conversation we could have had on a tour bus, or while standing in line at a theme park. Or, for that matter, at “Die Hard: A Christmas Story” – so for that one, we’ll just laugh at the puppets.

*One of the restaurants we visited was Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’, where I got the fried chicken and doughnuts. You would have done the same.