Almost Ready to Go

I always love having a snow day off from work — it’s the only thing that makes giant winter storms worthwhile, as I far as I am concerned. And today’s was even more welcome, since I had a lot of stuff to get done before I leave on my trip.

Because I was snowed in for the better part of the weekend, there was no excuse for not being productive. I did a ton of laundry, cleaned the apartment pretty thoroughly, worked on my Christmas letter, bought some presents online, and started packing for my trip to Egypt. I hit a few snags along the way — like discovering that the dress I had finally settled on for the wedding needed an emergency trip to the dry cleaner and realizing that two days without mail service means my stamps might not arrive in time to mail my letters — but otherwise, things went along swimmingly.

Of course, I now need to squeeze two days of office wrap-up into one, which is no small feat given the size of my to-do list. Fortunately, nearly all of my colleagues take a decent chunk of time off for the holidays, so many of them won’t be in the office long enough to get mad at me if I don’t get everything finished.

I’m officially on vacation starting Wednesday, having planned a day off for last-minute appointments and prep before I knew I’d be off today. Given the weather over the weekend, I’m feeling very lucky that I opted to schedule everything on a weekday  — I’d have never been able to get Saturday appointments re-scheduled before I left town. Of course, I now get to figure out how, exactly, one walks home from a pedicure when there is two feet of snow on the ground. Flip-flops are out, I’m thinking…

When Geeks Plan a Vacation

Sometimes they do really geeky things, like build out an entire Google map of their trip, with lots of cool sites listed, and with a bunch of useful Wikipedia links to make it nice and informative.

But then, sometimes, WordPress decides to be a complete pain in the ass, not embed the map properly, and then not have a solution in their forums that actually works.

And finally, sometimes, the geeky traveler/blogger gets tired and gives the hell up on impressing everyone with an awesome embedded map.

If that sometime were now, and that geeky person was me, I’d recommend clicking on the link below. It is, apparently, the only way you’re going to get to see the damn map.

Grr.

My Egypt Trip Map

And the Panic Sets In

Somehow, when I was busy doing other things, the year got away from me. Completely. Now, things that seemed very far in the future — say, both Christmas and my trip to Egypt — are less than two weeks away and I am not ready. At all. Even if I discount my work to-do list (which, alas, I cannot) the amount of things I need to accomplish by December 25 has me a bit daunted. Among the things on my list:

• Decorate my apartment for Christmas, at least a little. It feels a little bleak without a tree or lights or other seasonal stuff.
• Write, print, and mail my Christmas letters. Enough on its own, this also entails buying stamps and fixing my printer, since changing the ink cartridges seems to have broken it.
• Clean my apartment thoroughly enough that people can stay here while I’m gone. (My friends Julia & Michael are in the midst of a months-long home renovation and may stay here for a few days  in order to experience such luxuries as a kitchen and regular hot water.)
• Buy Christmas presents for my nephews. (I think just them, anyway. I’m pretty sure we adults have decided not to exchange gifts this year. If I’m wrong, someone please speak up.)
• Get my hair trimmed & colored, and get a pedicure.
• Go to four Christmas parties.
• Figure out what I’m going to wear for the wedding, determine what I need to buy to make it work, and then shop. (Fortunately, I bought a beautiful Pakistani shalwar kemise for Farin’s henna ceremony, so I only have to deal with one more fancy outfit.)
• Determine what else I need to bring on the trip, what — in addition to all the wedding stuff — needs to be carried on (in case my checked luggage goes astray), and then solve the problem of my woefully inadequate luggage.

That’s just a start, really. There’s plenty of errand running and other, smaller stuff that needs to happen, too. And thus, panic.

See why I baked so many cookies over the weekend? I was stalling. Denial, after all, ain’t just a river in, ahem, Egypt.