Miscellany: Eight Days

I promised myself I wouldn’t post a freak-out post. These things are best done in private, I think, but it seems like my mind is becoming an increasingly jumbled mess these days.

There are only eight days left until we leave for Ethiopia and that kitten up there has absolutely nothing to do with this. He just happened to be the first thing that caught my eye on Flickr this morning.

I have no idea where the past two months have gone, but gone they are.

I’ve recently realized that I know absolutely nothing about international travel.

Little things like what in the world one wears on a sixteen hour plane ride and how much to pack. I really, really — no, really — much prefer to travel with carry-on luggage only — that happens after you’ve had your baggage lost a time or two — but worry about having “enough”. Which is rather ironic given we’ll be meeting with people who live on far less per day than we’re accustomed to paying for one coffee.

I always forget, between one trip and the next, how much making sure all loose ends are tied up here is really the hardest part of leaving. I’m fortunate in that The Man is wholly competent and completely capable of surviving — even thriving — without me. (We just won’t tell him that.) But there is still a lot of compulsive list making going on. More for my sanity than his, I suppose.

Which reminds me: Last night, while reading Karen’s gear-packing post, I realized I don’t have a telephoto lens with which to capture close-up photos of lions. As I was lamenting this to him, he looked at me with a straight face and said, “You can too get up-close pictures of lions. Just get closer to the lions; your life insurance is paid up, I made sure of it.”

He’s super supportive, ya’ll.

And with that, I think I’m going to go make another list. The “If You Have to Cash In My Life Insurance” one. It’ll contain things like, “If You Ever Remarry I’ll Haunt You.” and “Actually, I’ll Probably Just Haunt You Anyway.”

I’ll be traveling to Ethiopia as an expense-paid guest of the ONE Campaign to report on how American-supported programs are improving and saving lives. ONE is a non-partisan organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease by pressing political leaders to support smart programs that do just that. They’re also launching a new initiative to focus specifically on Agriculture, which is where I’m most excited to join in. ONE doesn’t ask for your money, just your voice. It’s something I can get behind and I hope you can, too.