30 September 2003

We started the day with some family news that wasn't very good but also wasn't unexpected: Mark's grandma isn't doing very well. We hope things get better soon, but we're really not sure what, specifically to hope for in terms of what treatments etc. So we'll just have to wait and see.

Usually my "wait and see" is more fun than this, though.

So. The agenda for the day: packing. I'm sorry, I should have warned you all to sit down before I gave you a shock like that. Yesterday I got some more errands taken care of and packed some stuff; today I need to get serious about packing up the kitchen. Not all of it, not yet; but a fair piece. I'll be climbing around on the kitchen stepladder, because a lot of the less-used stuff is up on the top shelves. And I still have to take down the metal shelves in the deck closet and discombobulate them for travel purposes.

And I have to figure out clothes for the next nine or ten days, which is frankly a little weird. I'd like to plan to have things in the desired order in the suitcase and also not have to rummage around for a bra that won't show through or poke around the edges of whatever shirt I'm wearing. So I feel like I should actually plan my clothes for that long, which I pretty much never do, not even when I'm traveling. It makes me feel about 12 years old, and a stereotypical 12, not a 12 I ever was.

Ah well. I finished The Lord of Castle Black last night and will be champing at the bit until Sethra Lavode comes out in April. (This book also had the side effects of getting me excited about some of the upcoming Vlad Taltos books, if they ever upcome -- Tiassa and Vallista and the like.) I started rereading The Blue Sword. And that -- that has been very strange.

It's been years since I read this book, probably a dozen years, maybe not quite that many. It's one of the children's books I never packed away, but I didn't reach for it often, either; it was comforting to have available, just in case. But now -- did you know it's got the British Empire in it, thinly disguised? Of course you knew. Because the disguise is about as tricky as wearing the wrong name badge. But when I was a kid, it just didn't compute, because the British Empire was not a factor in my little-kid brain. I don't know how I managed to read Frances Hodgson Burnett and all that without having the practical meaning of it sink in, but somehow I just didn't have any idea what Mary's or Sara's or all the other parents did in India. And Kipling! I read Kipling as a little kid! How did this not connect for me?

Ah well. My sense of wonder is entirely restored reading this book: I wonder how I missed it all. (Also, this book is pretty wonderful.)

Anyway, we've got the playoffs on the TV while I pack. I'm still overwhelmed with packing the kitchen. I found an end and pulled and managed to unravel some of the tangle, metaphorically speaking, but I've come to the end of that category ("baking dishes"), and I need a new category that's packable. Probably I'll just start in with a different cabinet, but not until I've eaten something. (Rice. That's what we have a lot of in the fridge: rice, with different spices mixed in.)

And here are our power of attorney papers. That's convenient. It gives us a sure-for-certain backup plan, in case things don't arrive in time, but it also gives me confidence that things will arrive in time, because FedEx's next-day really was next-day, and because they delivered to the apartment without a problem.

So. Robin McKinley, baseball, and packing boxes. That's my day in a nutshell. Hope yours is good.