Barbara J. Hamby

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Crunch Time

It’s crunch time. No matter how organized I think I am and how soon I start to get ready for a vacation trip, there are always scads of last minute things to put me under pressure. Today I called to get the newspaper stopped. I also ordered a prescription I’ll need to pick up tomorrow so I won’t run out in Maui. I started packing and gathering all the things that would be easy to forget and putting them in plain sight.

Of course, in order to be in as good shape as possible for my age and physique, I need to work my swim/exercise session in each day.

Tomorrow I pick up all the dry cleaning and pressing and finish packing. My son-in-law will be over in the morning to help me with a printer glitch and, if I can work it in, I’ll go to my critique group at Noon.

I also hope to have time for a haircut and maybe I’ll even splurge for a manicure; we’ll see. By the time we leave in mid-morning on Wednesday, I should be tired enough to sleep away at least an hour or two of the ones we’ll spend on the plane over the Pacific. My fingers are crossed that we won’t experience serious delays either going or returning. Fortunately, the flights are direct, but it’s never fun to arrive hours later than planned and struggle with a rental car and getting checked in to the condo, etc.

Since we are scheduled to arrive back in Portland at 11:30 p.m., it would be the pits to get in later than that. We will have to pick up our car at the warehouse on North Columbia Blvd. and drive home from there.

This morning I planned to write a diatribe for my blog against grocers’ marketing gimmicks. Stay tuned. I’ll get around to that sooner or later.