BootsnAll Travel Network
Add this blog to: MyYahoo, Google, Bloglines, RSS


Archive for June, 2006

« Home

Sleepless nights

Wednesday, June 28th, 2006

I thought I’d be able to sleep tonight since I’m so tired from our non-stop preparations. But I woke up at 2:30am, tossed and turned until 3:15am and finally gave up to my insomnia and came out to the computer. I’d really like to do more packing or cleaning up, but I wouldn’t want to wake up D. I imagine I’ll putz around on the computer for a few hours, being completely unproductive, and then crash again around 7am – that’s what I did last Sunday morning when I couldn’t sleep.

We’ve been getting rain of biblical proportions for the last two days and the news reported that flash flood warnings would continue until Wednesday morning. So far, it hasn’t hampered our leaving preparations too much, but it certainly has made me think that I need to get out of here! It is a tad bit apocolyptic and I don’t want to be here when the plagues start coming.

-s

Posted in Planning Stage | 1 Comment »

Agent Cooper’s cell phone

Thursday, June 15th, 2006

These ringtones from David Lynch are the only reason I wish I had a mobile phone constructed in this century. I wish I had “What The” and I wish it would go off during a George Bush news conference.

Posted in Travel | No Comments »

Colonialism with a grande soy latte…

Thursday, June 15th, 2006

I haven’t read the book but but I love the phrase ”colonialism with a thesaurus.” 

‘The Places in Between,’ by Rory Stewart
A Walk Across Afghanistan
Review by TOM BISSELL
Published: June 11, 2006

“PITY the contemporary travel writer: routinely viewed as a kind of overstuffed guidebook author, struggling to explain exactly what he or she does. Specialists pounce on the tiniest “mistakes,” and ideologues condemn the whole enterprise as colonialism with a thesaurus…”

Posted in Travel | 1 Comment »

My box

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

As many of you know, part of the appeal of our trip has been the notion that we’ll be getting rid of all our personal belongings, save one box for each of us. The size of the box was undetermined and the only “rule” was that if it could fit in the box it could be kept. Well, I finished packing my one box on Friday night.

After going through most of our possessions, I’ve gotten pretty good at sorting into piles of box-worthy and trash/Goodwill/yard sale-worthy items. At first it was difficult to determine whether my old Mineralogy exam was box-worthy or trash-worthy, but as the box filled up my attitude changed. Items that seemed pretty important, such as my vast rock collection (they are so pretty! and they are from Alaska!), are no longer difficult to part with (although I’d rather give them to a deserving soul than to leave them in my landlord’s garden, so if you’d like some rocks, speak up now!).

So, what did I determine to be box-worthy? Well, pretty much what you’d probably save as mementos of your own life. My box includes:

::Summer kimono, obi, and geta – a going-away present from friends in Japan.

::”Appetite for Life,” the biography of Julia Child. You think you know who Julia Child was? Did you know that she didn’t start cooking until her late thirties, after she had traveled in Asia during World War II? She’s amazing…

::A tattered, disintegrating copy of my Dad’s leather-bound college geography textbook.

::Childhood Christmas ornaments – how can you get rid of this stuff?

::Wedding program and sign-in book

::2002 – 2003 daily planner from Japan – I love looking back at my schedule filled with days of yoga, jogging, and having long lunches with friends…teehee. Life sure was good then!

::Love letters from D, 1990 – 1997

::Korean traditional dress my friend Sung Youn’s mother made for me

::Hand-embroidered cloth for a bread bowl my mother made for us

::Wooden shoe-polishing box which belonged to my dad (and belonged to my grandfather?)

The contents of my box

So, that’s pretty much everything in my box. Pretty good, eh?

Oh, and did I neglect to mention the four boxes full of photos, yearbooks, newspaper clippings, and Buffy DVDs which I packed up and left with my in-laws? Technically, I don’t think those boxes don’t count in “my box,” since there is no way I could have ever parted with that stuff.

– s

Turbo closes up the box

Posted in Planning Stage | 1 Comment »