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My Year of Meaningful (2011)

"Quality takes you out of yourself, makes you aware of the world around you." - R.M. Pirsig


Day 16: only 4 days to go!

I have nothing really good to supplement this with today, mainly because the weekend was filled with nothing but PACKING. AAAGHH! It's so hard! But, we are professionals and managed to get an 8-room house all packed up (except necesary dishes, food, and our bed & clothes) in just under 2 days. Rock and ROLL, Team Cornpone!

Saturday night, to make things pleasant after a long day boxing up and standing on our feetsies, we went out for a nice steak at our local. We sat next to a table of people from Alabama/Kentucky. Ahhh evesdropping on that crowd was so nostalgic. I think I've gotten over my post-holiday depression by now (what with all the big excitement and moving and self-betterment and what not) but I still find myself thinking of Virginia a lot and wondering when my next chance of seeing my friends are, and hearing more voices shouting out "WELL BLESS YOUR HEART!!!" It doesn't help that P. is leaving for Cape Town this week and won't be back til 10 March, at which point she will have a mere 7 days before leaving me forever!! Follow that on by 2 wks and then The Mr. loses his BFF, Gerrit, as well. It's alllllllll happening...

Anyway notwithstanding any of that, it was a great weekend and I'm happy with our packing progress. Now to just figure out how to live comfortably in a house with a bed, a couch, a tv and a few dishes for the next 5 days. It's like cricket & tumbleweed grand central in there, yo.

Otherwise:
- highlighter was brought homw
- Podgey = written

For Today:
* Climb K-hill
* Call Frank
* Download TAL
* Write Podgey

there. i think i can do that.

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10th time in L-town's the charm?

Well here we are, back in what used to be my most dreaded village of BW.

But this time I'm pretty happy. Me and the Mr. had a good morning at work - he's being uber productive this week and maintaining a positive, optimistic, easy-going attitude (I know! What did I do to deserve this? Is my good karma practice working???) and coping with our hectic overworked office life very well. We left town around lunchtime and the Honda decided to give us some schtick before we even left the city limits, so we turned around and had Eric bring us the truck instead. Major environmental disaster to have to take that big ass yank tank all the way out here, but hey, better than risking getting stranded in the middle of the trans kalahari highway. Anyway we lost almost an hour on that little exercise, but the Mr. STILL kept his head and didn't short circut. WOW. So it was an extremely pleasant ride up all 2000000 hours of it, and I was so happy.

Stopped for diesel and driver swap in Palapye and a few hours later pulled in here to L-town at sunset. Checked in at Granny's lodge and had a lovely if not greasy dinner at Granny's kitchen. Nothing on any of the 4 channels on tv though, so I'm getting some good laptop/study/Word Twist/email/recreational reading done before bed. AND there's A/C in this particular place so again... how could I ever complain!?! Well, ask me that tomorrow after I've been trudging around dense Acacia scrublands in the swealtering 45-50 degree (C) heat with my jeans and workboots on, with some geologist who isn't gonna be very happy to escort me all over tarnation.

Plan is to blow this popsickle stand in the afternoon and maybe even drop by the gym as we pull back into G-City. We'll see.

OK now just for comic value: HOW HARD ASS ARE WE AMERICANS?!?! I mean JEEEZ my honey boy J. (who's south african) just wants to come over for xmas and new years. a little xmas in Tennessee with other friends, a little New Orleans with us for NYE, a little road trip back up to DC, etc. 3 weeks max holiday and what does he get? A big fat "SORRY YOU NEED A VISA" from the ol' US State Dept. And how does one south african boy living in Glasgow obtain such a visa? By having to FLY DOWN TO LONDON for a friggin INTERVIEW at the US Embassy (on his own nickel, of course). The kicker is the greeting from the embassy.... I laughed so hard: http://www.usembassy.org.uk/cons_new/visa/index.html (gotta love the part about "even in inclament weather")

UN BELIEVABLE. When he queried what, prey tell, must he do with his cell phone if it's not allowed on embassy property, they kindly advised him to simply "leave it at Heathrow Airport in a locker". Niiiiiiiiiiice.

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