Almost ready to go

Alright!Wahoot!The plane to London (then Bahrain then Nepal) takes off in 48 hoursish!Let’s go!Let’s get that 23 hour trip started!

The living room floor is covered in backpacks, stacks of clothes, and stuff we’re going to stash in the attic to make room for the subletter.There are two massive bags of clothes that a local charity for street kids in Kathmandu dropped off that we are going to try and cram into our backpacks.Oh, I need to run my $11 check from the United States Treasury for my 2010 tax return over to the bank…and hope they don’t laugh at the fact that I am bringing in a bona fide piece of 20th century technology: a paper check.For $11.Maybe better to keep is as a souvenir?It’s such pretty multicolored paper…

I just went to the gym for the last time before leaving, and it was like a little going away party.The muscle men were chirping at each other like prairie dogs, and an honor guard was in full peacock mode, strutting about for my departure ceremony.I love those guys.Our species takes itself so seriously!

And then there was the blond cougar with the tattoos and tights, who wanted to do her lunges right behind the bench I was using, then lay down to do some sort of stretching that involved a lot of crotch thrusting.She was moving around to different machines, and at one point I followed her over to a quieter area so I could use one and she looked a little uncomfortable and took off.It quickly became apparent that the prowling tattoo cougar had just ripped a giant fart.

Sorry Cougar, see you in September!Good luck on the hunt, there are some tasty prairie dogs around!

Then tomorrow we’ll race up to the border with the Netherlands to visit K’s shiny new niece, who has reportedly begun to smile, which we are of course looking forward to.I confess I am also looking forward to the candy.It is a tradition in Belgium that when you have a baby you prepare little boxes of candies to give out to everyone who comes to visit.Called doopsuiker or suikerbonen which means “sugar beans”, they are kind of like giant M&Ms with harder shells, or maybe Jordan Almonds without the almonds.

No one seems sure where the tradition comes from, or if there is symbolism, but it seems plausible to me that it was started by a couple who loved the candy, but when they brought their new baby home they realized what a perfect choking hazard the little disks are, so they started giving them away to everyone who came by.“Please help us get these out of here before she can crawl!” was met with “oh, you guys are so considerate!We should do this too…”

Our fridge is nearly empty, and my just-completed lunch included an only lightly discolored bell pepper, the frozen chicken patty on the last and only slightly stale bread roll (close enough to a bun) with mostly unspoiled pesto and a reasonably reassuring-looking roasted red pepper (from the jar with the peeling label), the dregs of the tortilla chips that were still big enough to pick up without tweezers, and the flat soda I accidentally pushed to the back of the fridge a couple weeks ago.Pretty tasty combo, I must say.I wonder if I could have chucked those last few capers on there too?

Now I just need to eat the rest of my Ben & Jerry’s chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, because I like the subletter well enough, but she ain’t getting my fudge brownie Ben & Jerry’s, man.She can have the capers.