My summer vacation

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I can’t decide whether to look forward to this year’s summer or to dread it.

That ambivalence has one source: vacation.

Kathleen, Hunter and I are going to Guatemala. Kathleen and a friend, Launie, are flying down in a week or so, and Hunter and I will follow them in about a month. Kathleen’s going to an intensive-study, Spanish-language school. Hunter and I are going down in July as tourists. We’re looking forward to climbing a volcano, seeing some ruins, hearing howler monkeys.

I’m a little nervous because I’m not much of a world traveler, and while information about Guatemala can be gotten from the Internet and guide books, it’s a little harder to get a real flavor of what the society’s like down there. I’ll muddle through, particularly because Kathleen’s going to have all that experience before I get there. But what about here at home? While Kathleen has made the occasional weekend trip over the last 10 years, I’ve never been a single dad for an entire month. And, probably needless to say, Kathleen is the engine of our household (the brains, too). When do I pay what to whom? She has some scheduling techniques that were always generally mysterious to me. Think I can’t screw up the household finances in a month? You don’t know my skills at mayhem. Hunter has already said he’s unwilling to eat pancakes at IHOP every evening. I guess single dads do it all over the country, and somehow I’ll get through it.

Kathleen is experiencing some trepidation as well. Luckily, Launie has spent a good amount of time in foreign countries, and Kathleen seems more excited than nervous. But you know she’s got to be worried about whether her lemon basil is going to get enough water or if I’ll forget to pick up the boy from the Y.

Hunter, as usual, is somewhat hard to read. Last night, I thought he gave me a bit of a clue: “Do they have bot flies in Guatemala?”