An update on the backpack.

You may remember the backpack's future was in question.

I ended up folding it up and bringing it with me in case I hopped a train to Munich on the weekend. (Didn't end up happening - coworker from the area took us around sightseeing)

On the flight back, hit a stickler at the check-in counter

*with shock and dismay* "Your suitcase is too heavy ma'am! What are we going to do?!"

um... let it go like the guy on the flight over? :p

"It's a 25 euro charge! You're lucky it's not over 35 kilos or we couldn't even take it!"

and I thought *I* was melodramatic. Especially since the stinking thing was like, 28 kilos.

"Do you have an extra bag?"

I suddenly remember my beloved backpack. Folding up in the front pouch of my suitcase. I repack a bunch of stuff into it. Grab my extra locks and lock its zippers together. (BRILLIANT move bringing the extra locks. At its advanced age, there's no way the zipper would've stayed closed during the treacherous journey so typical of checked luggage). Check it. (Slightly worried. My poor baby has never been checked before. Fear it will forever be lost to Singapore.)

Avoid the surcharge. Airline checkin man is noticeably calmer. Fly home. Retrieve both original (and now lighter) suitcase and beloved backpack (YAY!). Swing my new brown laptop bag over one should and my beloved backpack over the other. Sophisticated woman early in her career. Dreamer loving to cram a backpack full of clothes and hop on a bus. Grownup and young. Far too complex to be pigeon-holed.

Both bags required.

Who do you want to be? The one in charge of crepes.

There is one section in the newspaper paper I receive that is called I.D. and its tagline is "Who do you want to be?"

While it's probably meant to be inspiring and inviting and dream-inducing and reflective, I find it sad. While I suppose it could be meaning to encourage you to be the best you possible, to me, it always smacks of "Be something other than you are! You're not happy as you! Be something else! Dream of being something other than you!" and I find it sad that people are being encouraged to be someone other than who they really are.

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I love to travel. I purchased 1000 Things to See Before you Die. I know other travellers who have. I highlight places I've visited. I read through the book. It's full of fancy schmancy hotels you should check out. I would never travel to a new destination and waste time checking out a hotel. I rethink these types of lists.

Got my CAA magazine tonight. Saw an ad for a similar book (Trips to take before you die, or something). I was curious and yet, again, it made me cringe a bit.

They're meant to provide information and inspiration. The problem? You're living your life to someone else's list. Instead of your own. Yes, they can be used to help you add to your personal list. But it's almost too contrived. I think I prefer inspiration to seep in from a random source, plant a seed and grow, until the desire becomes so strong you have to place the destination at the top of your own list. Like watching the Eco-Challenge years ago and falling in love with the romance of the name Atlas Mountains, without even realizing it. So that, years later, when I've (seemingly out of nowhere) decided to go to Morocco, I don't even remember the true inspiration for the trip until we are actually driving through the Atlas Mountains (which lived up to their promise). So while I still highlight, just to keep track, I don't use the book for decision making. And no longer pay attention to these types of lists. I have enough of my own list to still work through that I'll be busy for quite some time.

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Cousin's bridal shower. Mother helping organize it. "If it were you, would you want to be responsible for champagne and fruit punch, or dessert?"

Champagne cuz we need to be drunk to get through it, or dessert to symbolize the lifetime of sweetness ahead of them?

Tough call.

And then, not really.

Dessert. Because dessert is always a truly happy time. And I would opt to be responsible for spreading that happiness.

Packing avoidance

So I've cut the grass.

And now I'm eating dinner.

And having a beer.

I never sit down and have a beer, but tonight, I decided I should sit down and have a beer.

Also? For the last year and a half? I'm supposed to have been looking for a car to buy. Figuring out what I want. Going for test drives. Been out twice. In a year and half.

Tonight? When I should be cleaning and packing? I've decided on a kind of car I might want and have decided to look on autotrader for one.

Because, you know, I should do it NOW.

Avoiding packing is almost like avoiding studying. Or maybe moreso.

Finally a grownup?

Like many youth, when I started university I bought a backpack from my school. If I was a snail, then that backpack was the shell on my back. I carried everything in it. Textbooks during the week. Changes of clothing on the weekend. Aside from regular school and life duty, it also became my official carryon for all travel. Any trip I've taken since the fall of 1995 (with the exception of Australia/NZ where I took just a backpack and so needed a bigger one), whether 2 days or 2 weeks long, that backpack was with me. Stashed into overhead compartments of countless planes and buses, shoved under seats of trains, through in the back of an endless number of cars, that bag has been everywhere I have.

Tomorrow I leave on a business trip. Unlike the last one, this time I need to bring a laptop. So I got a new big bag that has a laptop slot, is tailored so it's businessy enough but is brown leather with bright pink stitching so it's still fun and funky. I'm excited about my new bag. But the bitter part of the bittersweet hit tonight. I won't be taking my backpack. It has to be traded in for this briefcase like thing. And then I wondered how frequently the bag would have to be traded in on future trips. And the grownup bag would have to appear more often. The beginning of the end of an era.

One small change of bag. One giant change in life.

People who know you way too well.

I'm leaving on a trip tomorrow. I abhor packing. My typical routine is to put off packing as long as possible until it's absolutely time to pack. Then I start calling people to tell them how much I hate packing. My parents stopped listening. So I needed new victims. I thought I'd only called this one friend once or twice. Apparently not.

Me: "I'm going to Germany"

Her: "When?"

Me: "Saturday"

Her: "I'll expect a call from you Friday night then.


I'm on the phone with my sister tonight, mentioning that I haven't started packing and that I still need to cut my grass and clean my house (which I've had one year and 6 days).

Her: "You're going to have a maid in 5 years at the latest. More likely three."

Me: "Actually, I've already thought about. Is that bad? P knows a woman."

Her: "Hahahahaha! I knew it."


I need to find people who don't know me. :p