Ready or Not

It's been 10 days since my last post.  I didn't actually pack last weekend--what was I thinking.?

I did host a music party for about 6 friends last Saturday.  It's a monthly jamming / pot luck evening that I hold once a month and it's loads of fun.  My contribution this time was prime rib and although I underestimated the cooking by a couple of hours (!!!), my guests didn't seem overly concerned and compensated for my lack of culinary timing by starting in with the other tasty dishes.  Fortunately with a music party, the playing music part is often more important than the food part and so the fact that the main course wasn't on time didn't seem as big a problem as it would have been in some of the non-music parties I've been at.

Then I got my house ready to host a banjo workshop this past Wednesday.  There were 27 banjo players, two instructors and two classes going on simultaneously.  In the banjo world the workshop instructors, Alan Munde and Bill Evans are big names, but unless you follow bluegrass banjo, which I know is the overwhelming majority of you out there, you've probably lived your life very happily to this point without knowing they existed.  It was a great workshop and I think people enjoyed it a lot although it made me understand how far that banjo goal post is for me.  And a big shout out to my sister Sylvia.  If she hadn't volunteered (really she did!) to help me set up and organize making the coffee and tea, the participants wouldn't have had any refreshments during the break.  And a thank you to my son Cameron who helped me get the rooms set up even though it got slightly in the way of his smart phone use...

And I did try and get everything I wanted to get done at work, but I don't think that's ever possible.  You're constantly waiting for information to come in, problems to get resolved, and some issues take longer to explain and negotiate.  So hopefully I don't burden my colleagues too much, they already have full workloads and then have to step up to manage my files.  My last day at work was today as I'm leaving tomorrow and I won't be back in the office until March 2nd.  I've never been away this long before; in fact the longest I've ever been away for is two weeks -- except when I was on mat leave - but that's different because both times I came back to a different job.

Admittedly, I'm feeling a bit apprehensive about the length of time I'll be away.  It's more guilt ridden in terms of work and being away from family and friends.  But there's also a bit of sadness knowing that I won't be playing any musical instruments for a whole month.  Work, family, friends and music all important to me in their own way, so while I'm stoked about this trip, I know I'll be looking forward to the day I come back.

I'm just about packed.  Who knows if I've over packed or under packed.  I have the essentials:  Passport, ticket and camera.  If anything, I'm probably on the light side and may regret it, but I'll deal with that when the time comes.  There are a few more things I'd like to get -- I don't have enough of those organizer bags that you can compartmentalize your suitcase with.  I think they're a great way to organize my 4 weeks of suitcase living.

I have decided to bring a carry on and will have some clothes and personal items with me in case my main suitcase becomes wayward.  It's never happened to me but I think you have to prepare for that scenario.

For some unknown reason (it's probably operator error...) I'm not receiving any of your comments so if you're planning to comment you'll need to do that via another method other than this page.  I will be purchasing an international plan for my cell phone so I'll still be able to receive emails, texts and phone calls.

Calgary tomorrow morning.  Woohoo!

Getting Ready

This is a bit of a test.  I have been asked (nicely) if I could post some updates about my trip to India so I thought I'd try this via a blog application.  I've had a couple of friends create blogs:  Nancy who blogged about her kitchen reno and Catherine who blogged about her travels to Mexico.  I enjoyed them both so I thought I'd try out this format to keep you in the loop.

I'm almost ready to go; have passport, visa, tour and flights booked and vaccinations are up to date.  I've arranged for my friend Sandy to hang at the house to keep Cameron company and to give him a lift to school.  Now I just have to pack (which I'll do this weekend), fill some prescription and OTC meds (azithromycin, malarone and imodium)

But before I go, I have a long list of things I need to get done at work.  That's always the case.  If you're involved with people's money they generally expect it to be done yesterday.  Coupled with me contracting some ailment that has flu like symptoms that had me down since Sunday, it's now crunch time.  I've gone to work, but have crashed for about 12+ hours every night -- more than twice as much than I normally get.   But tonight as I write this, I feel better than I did yesterday so I know I'm on the mend.

I'm going to India with my friend Judith Hamilton.  I worked with Judith in Toronto around 1990-91. There were 4 of us that used to hang together, Deborah, Susan, Judith and I, working for the Inspection Department for the TD Bank on the 21st floor of the TD Tower.  The others are now retired and enjoying not working for money but they're all busy with their volunteer activities.  Deborah lives in Milford, Ontario, Susan in Vancouver and Judith in Mississauga.  We reconnected (thank goodness for the internet!) a few years back and have had sporadic contact since.  I haven't really seen them since I left Toronto 26 years ago (Deborah and her spouse David visited Vancouver when I lived there and stopped by for a visit once around 1995).  Early last year Judith asked me if I would be interested in going to India.  I said I would under two conditions:  she would have to plan it for 2015 because I already had travel plans in place that I took last year and she would have to do the bulk of the planning (who doesn't like to be surprised?).  She had asked her standard travel partner, Susan, to go on this trip but since Susan wasn't interested, I think I was choice number 2.  Truthfully, it doesn't matter whether I was choice number 102, I'm confident she will enjoy traveling with me as I will enjoy traveling with her.

My travel plans involve flying out Saturday Jan 31st to Calgary and spend a day there to visit my sister-in-law Margo and her spouse Doug.  I don't visit them enough, but really, who wants to go to Calgary?  Then it's off to Toronto where I'll spend a full day with Judith organizing what we're taking and such. Then the real trip begins.  More on that later.