Mowing the Lawn

I'm cranky. Maybe it's because I'm in an airport for the seventh time in two weeks and I still have one more airport to go tonight. Maybe it's because I nearly missed my third flight in those same two weeks. Maybe it's because I gave myself a full two hours to make the 30-minute trek from my office to the airport, but it took me 90 minutes instead thanks to Seattle's fabulous new light rail system. Maybe it's because the lines to clear security were nine miles long and I had to be screened twice because of the mysteriously dangerous-looking fresh zucchini in my bag (which I had picked that morning from our garden). Maybe it's because I was a sweaty mess by the time I sprinted from one end of the airport to the other in just enough time to make my flight. Then again... I did make my flight afterall and that's something to be thankful for. Plus, the seat next to me was empty and I had a spectacular view of the Cascades. And we did take a flight...

Oh what do you do in the summertime, when all your family leaves? When boredom sets in? When you can't stand to look at another Kakuro puzzle or watch another minute of basic cable? When you've read the online edition of the Economist from cover to virtual cover? Well, if you're anything like me, you wonder why the packaging for the Safeway Select™ Supreme Pizza shows 13 black olives on the pizza while the actual pizza cooking in your oven right now has 44 olives on it (not counting the 17 that you already put down the garbage disposal). Or, if you're like me, you spend a few minutes while writing a blog post trying to figure out how to type the ™ symbol. It's Option-2 on a Mac keyboard in case you're wondering. Perhaps you spend countless minutes each evening positioning and repositioning the sprinklers in your yard in the hope that sprinkler configuration #429 will finally be The One that gets it just right. Or maybe you'll amuse yourself by saying sil...

It seemed like an easy enough task when I planned it yesterday.  Fly from Seattle to San Francisco before breakfast.  Spend the day in San Francisco meeting with a client.  Slip across the bay to Oakland in the late afternoon.  Fly from Oakland back to Seattle and be home just in time for reading the scriptures and family prayer.  A perfect plan for an experienced traveler familiar with the Bay Area.  Sure, it would have been easier to fly down last night, but that would have meant less time with Thelma.  Besides, Braeden and I had finally managed to get a home teaching appointment with a new couple in our ward and we didn’t want to miss the opportunity. Simple?  Yes.  Doable?  Of course.  Doomed to failure and misery?  Apparently. I should have seen it coming when my alarm went off at 4:15 this morning.  Nothing good happens before 6 AM.  Nothing enjoyable happens before 7:30.  Case in point:  at 6 AM I was staring longingly out the window next to Gate N16 as my flight to San Francisc...

(Here's my response to Thelma's moment of irrationality .) Of course it will fit.  All of it.  Every last bit, whether put there for reasons selfish or charitable, whether soft-sided or hard, whether it causes me to roll my eyes or jump for joy that we're finally getting rid of it.  It will all fit. Packing is my super power.  Superman defies the laws of gravity.  Spiderman defies the laws of good taste.  (A unitard on a grown man?  Really?)  I defy the logic of constrained spaces.  Neither trunk, nor satchel, nor man-made bin of any kind has yet to conquer me. Lest you forget, we successfully stuffed two small children with car seats, a television, expansive diaper bags and two weeks worth of essentials into a 95 Saturn for a cross-country trek. Lest you forget, that same 95 Saturn magically expanded to hold a 6-foot oak table on another occasion.  Lest you forget, I lived in London for two weeks out of half of a carry on bag so I could subsequently stuff it so full of you...