Almost There

Just a little more than 24 hours until I board a plane and head off for my man in Marrakesh. I am so freakin' excited and yet so incredibly, ridiculously stressed out (yes, that's why I am here, instead of dealing with anything from the following list). Between now and 6 a.m. Saturday, I have to

• Figure out what I want to pack
• Pack said stuff once I figure it out
  
• Clean house
• Get The Dog's stuff sorted
• Cancel the mail
• Return some shoes (30-day return policy, and Hooray! I will be gone for more than 30 days)
• Maybe find some time to tweeze the "eyebrow" and paint the toenails (I hear it is sandal weather over there.)
  
• And, worst of all, get through three more chapters of this:

Our life is based on not reconciliation with the situation. Our life is not based on the innocence with the life. Our life, life is not based to be simple straight and smiling, our life is based on action and reaction. In the oriental science of mind it’s called ‘Karma’ if things are right, you respond right. If things are not right you will respond not right. Your preference is in life to balance out one way or the other. Where it comes from?

Really?? Really. It just makes my head hurt.

And honestly, this is one of the more coherent paragraphs. Oy! It's been a heck of a long month and a half slogging through 30 chapters of this. (Just one reason that I've been so quiet around here.) So I say, bring on the coffee and chocolate! Or, better yet, perhaps a strong shot of whiskey, as that might help me better comprehend what the bejesus he is trying to say.

Wish me luck ... please!!!!

Stuck in Vegas, Baby

I have the worst luck with this annoying airport, with it's blinking blaring jackpot machines and people all so happy to be in this weird, wacky place.

I am now on hour 3 of my extended layover, with at least 2 more to go, thanks to some kind of air traffic control delay or something. Perfect weather outside everywhere I look on the USA Today map. Gorgeous sunset lingering on for hours outside the airport windows. So why the delay??

Why?

I just want to get home to my Mr. J, my The Dog, my bed. Vacations are wonderful, but I swear I am going to need three days to recover from the 12+-hour jaunt from one home to the other.

It doesn't help that my head is completely congested from a week and a half of air-conditioned air. My poor little sinuses are not used to all this forced air.

Can I gripe a little more?

Ya sure, you betcha ...

After shelling out $20 for a mediocre airport dinner of enchildas verdes and a corona, I asked the bartender to fill my water bottle with water. His reply, "We can't do that." I am mystified as to why this is. I've been wracking my brains to figure out why, and then decided that it probably isn't worth the effort. Nor was it worth the effort to fume and steam and stamp around the airport while I searched for a soda fountain machine where I could just fill it up myself (which I did find ... and no one complained ... apparently the water from a measly soda fountain is not as precious as the water from the bartender's little area of the world). Grrrr.

So now I'm looking for bright sides.

The sunset was gorgeous and it did last for quite a long time. And now the lights of Burger King, Sbarro, and Starbucks are reflecting in the glass, blending with the bright lights of Vegas, continuing a sunset of sorts.

So there's that.

Oh, and I get a chance to catch up on my blog. Aren't you just so thrilled to read this cheery post?

And I get to charge my iPod, though, truthfully, I could do that on the plane just as easily.

Oh, and in one of those weird quirks of air travel, during dinner, I ended up sitting next to the same woman I sat next to on the plane, and we had a lovely conversation that helped while (wile?) away the first hour of my 5-hour layover. It was an absolute pleasure and the highlight of my day.

I'm trying to come up with some kind of lesson learned or something ... the art of being patient, perhaps? But I really am having no luck. So, no words of wisdom from me. Just words of whining.

Random Thoughts

Random Thought 1: I hate bad renters.

I think I have mentioned how much I love our little house here in Boise. I mean, it even has a white picket fence. How All-American of us.

Our House; Their House (I'll let you guess which is which.)

What I don't love is our oddball renter neighbors. Their house is a small box, probably a former miner's home built in the early 1900s. It has the potential to be a charming little box, but it is owned by some old crotchety man and his even older brother. They rent it out dirt cheap and seem to think that maintenance is some kind of new-fangled idea that doesn't apply to old, historic homes. The roof is in serious disrepair, and we know from the former renter that the walls literally crumbled from rot when she tried to repair some tiles in the shower. She (the quiet, well-intentioned renter) moved out as soon as she could get out of her $500-a-month lease.

Now it's rented to God knows how many 20-somethings (though I think maybe they aren't even 20). They parked a school bus, which probably has more square footage than the actual house, in the backyard. And they loaded the house with all sorts of instruments, including an organ and an old upright piano (the latter of which I am seriously coveting, even though it is ridiculously out of tune). I would call the gang of kids grunge, but I don't think that's the right term. I actually think Circus Carney is more appropriate, especially as the music we hear most often coming from the house and bus sounds an awful lot like a cross between Big Top music and the horrid music played by the ice cream truck. Wonderful.

And last night, I looked out my bedroom window (as I adjusted the fan for maximum coolness as well as maximum noise-deadening) to see two lanky, white, scrawny guys dressed in bras and undies, one with a black fishnet dress, the other with high heels. I'm really not sure what this was about. Some kind of theme party perhaps? Maybe it's their band costumes? Maybe they were heading out to The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Or maybe it's just the norm over there. I don't know.

At least it's never boring.

*******

Random Thought 2: There's something I hate more than my neighbors.

So, confession time: My skin hates me. I actually sometimes think I am allergic to myself. My scalp has this condition called sebborheic dermatitis, which can result in scaly, dandruff-like ickiness, especially if I am not totally diligent about washing it every day (as can happen after 6 days on a river trip). I have a tendency to get cold sores if I spend too much time in the sun (as can happen after 6 days on a river trip). I get rashes under my arms, along my belly button, beneath my bra line whenever I get too hot and sweaty or dirty (as can happen after 6 days on a river trip). Oh, did I mention I just got back from a fantastic 6-day river trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon? Well, I did. And it was a great trip with a wonderful group of people. But now we are home, and I am paying the price.

River Self-Portrait

Friday night, I realized there was still this one little patch of scaliness on my scalp, in a place where it often gets scaly. I thought it was because it was right where my visor sat all week, so it was persistent and wouldn't go away. But by Saturday morning, it was actually tender and sore. I tried to scrub it with shampoo, but I hate inflicting pain on myself, so I stopped. Then it occurred to me that I better get Mr. J to take a look, just in case it wasn't a scale. He picked at it and pulled it out, as I often do with the icky scaliness. Then he stepped away and told me calmly that it was a tick.

I immediately proceeded to completely and utterly freak out (in the shower, mind you). So very grown-up of me.

All I can say is, thank God this happened Saturday a.m., as an hour later, I was dropping off Mr. J at the airport for a 10-day trip to the Netherlands. And there is no way in Hades that I would have ever been able to remove that stupid thing on my own. I would have ended up in a puddle of tears, naked and wet in the shower, too freaked out to do a damned thing.