Prep Day

I'm hoping that a trip preparation day works kind of like a dress rehearsal, where a bad one means the actual event will go well. Not that it's been bad so far, just more eventful than I might like.

First, there was the attack of paranoia in the middle of the night last night, when, for some odd reason, I got it into my head that I'd bought my plane tickets or made my hotel reservations for the wrong day, that my flight was actually today instead of Tuesday or that my hotel reservation started a day late. I'd started thinking about how it would be a scramble, but I could have managed to leave today. This was so consuming my mind that I couldn't sleep, so I got up, went up to my office, found my airline receipt and my hotel confirmation, then made sure that everything was as it should be. I don't know why I get paranoid about that kind of stuff because I've never made that kind of mistake, but I have known people who did.

And then this morning I was running all my pre-trip errands. One of those was to drop off my recycling at the drop-off center in the Home Depot parking lot, where I almost got run down by the getaway driver from a group of teenagers who'd apparently shoplifted the Home Depot garden center. I'd noticed that they were running to the car and jumping in a lot faster than you'd usually expect from someone just having bought a few gardening items, so I sensed that they were going to tear out of there and got out of the way. Then I saw the clerk running out after them, describing the incident on the phone, and I realized what must have happened. I'm afraid I'd be a terrible witness to a crime because I couldn't have described them or their car. I was focusing more on how I was reacting and feeling because I thought it could be useful in writing.

My big achievement for the weekend was finally getting the new computer set up and the files transferred, for the most part. I loaded the Office software, got my e-mail contacts and critical folders transferred, then transferred my photos, iTunes stuff and documents. Now I can take the new computer with me and have access to everything I might need. I'll still probably do most of my writing on the old computer because it's not connected to the Internet, but this should give me some flexibility. It's only been more than five months since I bought that computer. I have no idea why I procrastinated this long. I guess because I didn't need it before now.

Now I just have a few little things to take care of (like putting the trained attack nosy neighbor on the alert) and a few big things (like packing!), and then I'll be ready, so I hope I can relax and sleep tonight. I even have stuff ready for meals when I get home. The 12-ounce bottles of milk from Target have really long lifespans -- the expiration date on the ones I bought today was in October. They're more expensive than regular milk, but not having to go grocery shopping the day or the day after getting home from a trip is priceless. And I have some frozen entrees handy in the freezer, so I can get home and throw dinner in the microwave.

I'll have the computer with me, so I'll be reporting from the convention.