Our Pacific Coast Procrastination

How does a Type A, list-making, ubër-organized, and overly methodical middle-aged woman successfully procrastinate the massive amounts of cleaning and purging still necessary in order to successfully facilitate a summer move without suffering from massive amounts of self-immolating guilt?

By taking off for Alaska, of course.

There is method to the madness.

You see, here's my theory.

If I travel far enough away from the mounds of still-to-be-completed tasks on my to-do list, I can happily reside in a fantasy world of my own creation whereupon my return, the packing faeries and rainbow-coloured relocation unicorns will have magically occupied the house and taken over all remaining tasks in anticipation of our August deadline. It may sound immature and irresponsible, but please indulge my world of make-believe. It is all that seems to be holding me together right now.

And so....

Tomorrow we embark on our latest adventure, or as I have taken to calling it, "Our Pacific Coast Procrastination." The bags are packed, the camera is charged, and the anti-emetics are safely within reach. (This trip will see us board a myriad of planes, automobiles, ferries, buses, cruise ships, and possibly a train or tram. I place the odds of projectile vomiting at even-money.) We will be travelling through a variety of temperatures and frankly I feel I deserve high props for not escaping to the safety and coziness of tropical climes. Ok. It won't be sub-Arctic, but it is June and I am going to a land of rapidly-melting glaciers. (This space does not tolerate climate change deniers, so keep your dismissive comments to yourselves, please.) Can you say "Deviating from the comfort zone?"

And...once again I will be chronicling our exploits in this space. I hope that maybe one or two of you might follow along if for no other reason than it would be nice to know that I have an audience approximately the size of a minyan. My ego is in sorry need of some stoking.

It is a funny and slightly ironic thing, but as we have been continuing the plodding process of cleaning and disposal, I came across this.

Apparently it has always been my modis operandi to record travel experiences. This particular "blog" was a 1980 high school music department trip to the UK. Leafing through it made me wince just a bit at the juvenile language structure and the horrendous penmanship, but the memories it inspired are priceless. My parents, also in the throes of their own move, have come across several cassette recordings The L'il Bro and I made documenting some of our family vacations. Journalling and me, we go way back. I find comfort in archiving my experiences. Memory is a fleeting thing. These records bring them flooding back. Social media has made the process so much easier, but the daily exercise of transferring my emotions into words helps me keep the experiences alive forever.

So off we go. Now if somebody could contact the packing faeries and rainbow-coloured relocation unicorns to inform them the coast is clear, I would be eternally grateful.