Getting Ready

How do you get ready to go on a trip?

We are leaving tomorrow to drive to Santa Barbara for Walt's sister's step-daughter's wedding, which will take place on Saturday. Walt is going to stay in Santa Barbara longer than I am. I have to return to Davis on Sunday because I have jury duty on Monday afternoon.

The wedding is going to be unusual, I think. Jocelyn and David are part of a kind of charismatic church group and are both really lovely, loving people. They have chosen the Figueroa Mountain Farmhouse as the place where they will be married. It looks like a beautiful setting and the wedding will be outdoors.

I understand it's going to be hot on Saturday, but hey--I lived through Florence, I can live through a little heat for the wedding!

Walt has gone back to work part time (he's been volunteering for about a year, but with the stimulus money freed up for various flood control projects, they have enough money to pay him for part of his time), but he came home early this afternoon so he could do laundry and get ready to leave tomorrow morning.

I guess this is the way normal people get ready for a trip of some length (even one that will only last a few days).

How am I getting ready? Well, first of all, I spent most of the morning setting up shell entries for this journal. It means that if necessary all I have to do is write an entry in HTML code in notepad and then do a cut and paste into the shell. But since the trip takes place over the end of one month and the start of the next, doing shell entries (which I always do anyway) involves redoing the page design for the month of August. Easy to do, just time consuming.

Then I partially cleaned off my desk, which has been heaped high with stuff since before I left for Europe (oh heck--since before Christmas. Of 2007.). Ashley moves in here when we are gone and this gives her elbow room if she wants to use my computer. I also needed to find my jury summons, which was buried somewhere in the piles, so that I had the information I needed to call ahead and find out if I'm still supposed to show up for the trial on Monday (I can check on Friday night).

And I couldn't leave town without writing letters to each of the three Compassion children because I try to write to them every Tuesday or Wednesday. Two of them I sent actual letters on paper and one I sent e-mail, because the envelope with the letters would be too heavy if I included a third letter, along with some stickers or something like I usually include.

The other thing I have to do is make some corrections to Dr. G's web page. Lemme tell you, doing this web page is a real experience. Not for the faint of heart. Or the squeamish. I may have explained this before, but Dr. G does "pelvic aesthetics," which involves making women's genital area look better, whether just because a woman is not happy with her appearance or because of some problem that developed as a result of surgery or childbirth or something. (This, incidentally, is a field that he added to his practice after I left the office.)

So his web page is filled with before and after pictures, which I try to make as clinical looking as possible to avoid weirdos spending much time on his site. It involves reducing the photos to the smallest size I can where you can still see the surgical work that has been done. I also add a copyright watermark, with his MD showing prominently.

But when I open my e-mail from Dr. G, it is NOT uncommon to be hit with a full screen, larger than life size photo of somebody's cootchiesnorcher in all of its hairy glory.

As I said, it is not for the faint of heart or the squeamish. I hope I succeed in making these women as anonymous as possible and, truly, unless you've actually been there yourself, there's no way you can tell one from the other. I don't think.

I did call up the page one time at Cousins Day because Peach and Kathy thought surely I must be kidding. They could only look at the page for a split second before shuddering in horror and turning away. Good thing they don't have my job!!! (I must admit I have a clinical fascination with the whole thing and don't understand how hoards of people can stand rapturously staring at Michelangelo's David and yet feel nauseated by one of Dr. G's photos, which is as far from being anything "sexy" as you can possibly imagine -- especially after I get finished with it!)

But anyway, once the journal shells have been uploaded and the desk cleared and the letters written to the kids and Dr. G's web site changed, then maybe I'll have time to think about getting ready to leave for Santa Barbara tomorrow. But first I have to take Barkley to the thrift shop, where he will be picked up and taken in to be neutered.