Saturday, June 4, 2011

Tidying and Packing

The past two days we have spent taking care of two aspects of this trip. One is packing, the other is preparing our place for the people who will be taking care of it while we are away.

We are comfortable with a certain level of clutter. We are also very adept at tidying the place up quickly before guests arrive when we entertain, after which we say admiringly of our sudden burst of industriousness, "Gee the place cleans up nice." In our living room we have a gimmicky novelty store plaque that says, quaintly, "Our home is tidy enough to be healthy and messy enough to be happy." Well, the people who will be in our home while we are gone deserve a higher level of tidiness so we have started working on that. We have covered a lot of details in our forward-looking planning of this trip, but just as important are the details that relate to the final destination of our trip -- home -- the foremost destination of them all.

Packing has begun in earnest now. It will be a challenge to travel light, yet prepare the right mix of clothing to cover monsoon season in Mumbai, summer in Singapore, winter across Australia, tropical conditions in Fiji and Hawai'i (with a possibility of frost on Mauna Kea), truly torrid heat in arid Arizona, hurricane season along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts and autumn leaves in New England. If we manage to get the mix right we'll let you know. It's still a work in progress.

1 comment:

Miriam said...

Why not pack like mom and take everything? Ha Ha!