Wednesday, Feb. 9, 11:20 a.m. PST
Somewhere over southern California or northern Mexico
Here I am, up in the air again.
My sister Denise sits beside me here in first class. I used my Alaska Airlines mileage to upgrade us. By the time our brother Greg decided he wanted to come along for the ride, first class was full on this non-stop flight. So he is ten rows back on the other side of the partition, but I brought him a Bloody Mary, compliments of our flight attendant. We’ve never flown together on a plane, all three of us: this is a first. It will also be my sister’s first time to San Pancho, my brother’s first time to see Casa Luz de Luna.
Besides being comparatively pampered, the best thing about upgrading to first class is that you get to check two fifty pound bags for free. I’ve tried to take full advantage of that, toting a hundred pounds plus carry-on nearly every flight I’ve taken from Seattle to Puerto Vallarta. Imagine my joy this time, realizing that my sis could check a hundred more, and my brother (for a measly $40 total) a hundred more than that.
I wish you could have seen our son’s vacant former bedroom, left un-staged at my request last week, with six big suitcases ranged about, every inch of new carpet covered with piles of stuff to pack. Unfortunately, I was too obsessive/frantic to remember to take photos of any of the process.
Some of the suitcases were old, one new, and one purchased for me by Greg for $15 at Value Village (or Valoo Villazh, as we prefer to call it). It’s a hideous pink floral, but boy, is it ever roomy! And it has zippers and wheels that work, which is important for a bag destined to carry fifty pounds.
When we all checked in at the airport, with the bags all assigned and tagged and locked with TSA locks, I was a little dismayed to discover that most of the suitcases weighed closer to forty pounds than fifty and I had wasted a potential sixty pounds of baggage, but I guess our backs will be better for the omission.
I worked that room like a dervish for two and a half days. I got everything in, too. Now, sitting here on the plane, I’m trying to remember what the heck I packed.
I know I have two whole new rolls of that puffy white perforated rubbery-plastic shelf liner from Bed Bath and Beyond. It was on the top of my “Take to Mexico--Feb” list. I brought a roll down last time, and I was impressed by how well it worked on concrete shelves. It makes them all cushiony so glass and pottery things don’t bang or clank (or break) when you put them down. Plus there’s the air circulation factor. I just had to have more.
I have a brand new really fancy Mexican Train domino set that Dick bought me for my birthday. It has 91 colorful tiles and a center thingy that makes choo-choo and chicken sounds, or so the box says. I packed it unopened. It’s very heavy, so I put it in Greg’s suitcase.
I also have a couple of other games, one rather largish, and some presents, but I can’t tell you what they are yet. Some of them are heavy, too.
I have a clock. Two clocks, actually. One is a neat little blue bedside alarm with "nightime display", but the other one is a Clock.
Last week I went into TJ Maxx, a store I should avoid, looking for a suitcase. I did not find a suitcase, but I did accidentally find two pairs of shoes and a clock. I wasn’t even shopping for a clock and had no idea I wanted one until I saw it. It’s big and kind of old-fashioned looking, with an authentic round clock face with real numbers. It was only $14.95, or maybe $12.95, I can’t remember. But it was love at first sight. I could just see it hanging in the casa. It’s packed at the top of one of Denise’s suitcases. It’s so big, it just barely fits.
The other suitcase she checked (the pink floral -- she is so not a pink floral type person that I knew she just had to carry it) is filled with feathers. And stick-on roll-y eyes and brightly colored pipe cleaners and white paper sandwich bags and all kinds of other stuff for making hand puppets, which I plan to do with the San Pancho children this spring. You wouldn’t think that stuff could possibly weigh forty pounds, would you? It probably doesn’t: I must’ve stuffed other things in there, but I don’t know what. My giant plastic bag full of feather boas couldn’t have added that much weight.
Oh, yeah, I remember: tools. I found a gorgeous hundred-piece drill bit set on sale at Lowe’s that I just had to have. And a few more flashlights I found around the house. I also filled a small wood cigar box with...something heavy. What was it? Little nails? I’m not sure. I do know I have four brand new metal and plastic clamps to hold the Yamaha cargo box on to the roof of the Rav4. Dick also bought those for me for my birthday. They were not that easy to find, either. I have visions of cruising around greater Mexico filling that box up with all kinds of roadside goodies.
When the gas furnace guy came to clean and inspect the furnace, he pulled the gas stove out from the wall to change a fitting for me as a favor, and there was my favorite wooden spoon behind the stove! It’s kind of stained from spaghetti sauce which my mom (and maybe even her mom) stirred with it for many, many meals. I was so happy to see it, I added a few more favorite utensils and such to keep it company in the suitcase.
All the sidepockets of all the suitcases I stuffed with papers and flat things at the last minute. I have well-used and dripped upon recipes that will translate well into Mexican product availability. I have files of receipts, of important information, of New York Times crossword puzzles clipped out of the Sunday paper. I have my collection of Mexican watercolors, all of streets and dwellings, that I’ll frame in Mexico and hang upon Mexican walls.
Those last few days at the Seattle house were as you’d expect: nuts. I met my deadline like a crash dummy meets a brick wall. But it’s done. Everything packed, dispersed, or disposed of. The house is on the market, waiting for its new family to claim it.
As for me, I’m going to sit here on this jet, order another Bloody Mary, and prepare for a graceful landing on the runway of my new life.
✈ ✈ ✈ ☀
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