Thursday, July 15, 2010

Tiga, Dua, Satu: Bali, here we come!

Bali flowers, photo credit: Abe Christensen

Opened my eyes this morning and thought, Finally, finally, finally, it's the day we're leaving to Bali - youpie!  We were up late last night, didn't start packing until after 8pm.  Trixie and Josh stopped by and made the process even more fun than usual, laughing at our faux-bickers about whether we were going to share suitcase space (no chance) and how to fit our enormous fins + yoga mats in our bags.   [I'm using the larger suitcase, into which I can fit both mats and both sets of dive-gear, then my belongings.  But this won't work on the way back, since I plan on heartily supporting the Balinese economy!]

I'm pretty delighted that I did in fact manage not to stress myself into the red zone yesterday, despite having been given many opportunities to do so.  Work was a complete and utter shit-show -- I am feeling grateful to have been reminded in such a sharp way of all of the reasons why I need a change. Just when I thought it couldn't get more ridiculous, it did!  But now it's over and done with for two weeks and 4 days.  Yay on that.

Everything about vacation is wonderful.  I am particularly delighted to be traveling with Joe, remembering how much fun we had when we drove to Tahoe together in March.  After all of the drama of 2009, I think we'd forgotten how sweet it is just to be together for long stretches of time, talking, planning, dreaming and mostly laughing.  A 14-hour flight (SFO-Hong Kong), followed by a 5-hour flight (HK-Denpasar, Bali), will be great, the two of us together in the plane, Joe with his compression socks on (oh yes) and me with my stacks of books, my notebook, my Learn Indonesian podcasts.

A note on the compression socks: the last two times Joe flew (Oaxaca, France), his ankles were comically enormous for the two days following.  We're hoping that the addition of the uber-attractive compression socks will make a difference.  I regret that he has decided to wear long pants, since the sight of those tall black socks with shorts would have been a delight.  But there is to be no mirth from this direction.

So up and at 'em!  I'm heading out to walk Jasper in the woods, make some last phone calls (credit card company, wireless company), find my dive card, show The Kid one last time what I need him to hand-water in the yard, and then boom, before I know it, we'll be in the car heading to the airport and the big adventure that awaits.

Sampai jumpa lagi!

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