Saved jpg: Youngest daughter painting the name on step-father’s boat. I’ve always been fond of this shot. Early 1990’s.
It’s time. Those suitcases that have been sitting here in the way for a week can now be opened. Packing can start at last. We have two days before we need to be all packed. As long as I pick up the cleaning today before noon, all else will fall into place. It begins.
- Print the list: There it sits in my computer, and what good is it in there. Hello? Is my head wood. I have two days to compare my pack by pile with my list and hope they match.
- Pack: If I have any sense, I will move some of those finished piles into my suitcase today. I’ll fill Ziplocs with all the goodies. Meds. IBS fiber. Extra socks….it’s going to rain and be wet. Do I like wet feet? No. Jewelry: I’ll wear gold earrings and bracelet and pack one each of silver. Keep it simple.
- Email: I need to stay up with the email. I didn’t cancel anything for the trip, but most of my mail comes from friends or in digest form. The goal is to not let 45-plus posts pile up in the inbox each day. This trip we will have the laptop with us and can do web-mail when we get to our destinations instead of using Yahoo or ignoring it all together. This time we will be in America….can’t you just hear that song in the background. French keyboards throw me for a loop, and I understand others are worse.
- Anticipation: You bet. I found a book on the Northwest on the library book-sale table yesterday. Somehow reading the information online isn’t the same as holding a book in hand and turning the pages hour after hour. It was like coming home to pick up that book. I’m taking one mystery and one travel book.
- Portland: No expectations. It looks as if we will arrive in the dark Tuesday the 13th, tho we are supposed to arrive at 1520 (3:20 pm). My train friend Kay says this train is often late. We will pick up the RAC and drive up to Cee’s for dinner. More than dinner and conversation if the train is on time.
The 14th all depends on when Cee and her husband have to go to work. We will leave there an go to a Hampton Inn for the night of the 14th. Dinner on the 14th, DA says, she will meet us at the Hotel. If the day is free, first thing we do is the bookstore…especially with the list of wants for granddaughter Anna in Spain, then we can take a city tour and photograph the Portland Building. We leave the 15th at noon for Seattle. - Seattle: Don writes that we can do the, “music experience, the fry museum, the henry art gallery ,sam (seattle art museum) the new sculpture garden(along the water front) etc etc etc…” Others email that we need to do SAM, the Sculpture Garden, Pikes Market, and eat lunch at the Space Needle.
I want to see Don. Yes, I also want to see the ferries, the harbor, the coastline, and take a tour of the city as well as SAM and the Sculpture Garden. We get there at 4pm the 15th. Yes also, it looks as if we could do dinner at the Space Needle as that first evening will be free then….an evening with no expectations. G really wants to do the Space Needle. The 16th with Don, and we leave the morning of the 17th. One full day, that's all.
Ah, expectations. I have baggy pants for the train and an umbrella for both cities. I expect to get wet. Ohhhhhhh………I’ll have a wet wool coat. You will be able to smell my wet, wool coat coming, I remember that smell from my childhood years. Sometimes we need to let our expectations be fractionally more fluid. Maybe we will have sunshine. - Getting ready to go: Keeping it simple. Leave a check for Marta as she will be coming while we are gone. Pick up the cleaning. Simple indeed.
The kids have our itinerary. We will carry the bags down the night before. The neighbors in front and in back are keeping an eye on our place. The paper and mail have been stopped. Lights are on timers. The refrigerator is empty of food that will spoil. Ba is picking us up at 0445 in the darkness. I can’t thank her enough. - Writing it all down like this clarifies things for me…..I like to be able to see what I am doing. Writing helps. Writing it all out forces my mush brain to see what’s happening. I have two days to figure out what I forgot. I always forget something.
Duck: We took him a warmer sweater-coat and found him actually in the activity room. I was jazzed to see him out and about.
Me: Sometimes I feel so alienated, less than, outside of and I just want to back away and isolate. I know it’s part of that ugly disease I have….a behavior that’s not ok at all, but there it is. I can’t clearly see what I do.
G: Very pleased that he’s finding small errors in the program he is working on and able to fix them before we leave. We don’t think he is going to be let go.
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