Day’s are not nearly long enough anymore. Perhaps this is because I have been keeping myself busy by piling many monotonous projects on my plate at the same time, but part of the reason could be that over the past 2 months I have seemed to have lost any and every organizational skill that I previously possessed. I would hit the ground running at 8AM in the morning and be lucky if I was climbing into bed before 4AM the next morning. My days are more jumbled, and while there is not so much free time, there is a lot of wasted time due to disorganization and bad planning on my part.
Those who truly know me know how odd this is, which is why shopping for a long list of items on the week of my sisters wedding added an extra stress factor to an equation that was looking more and more like an impossible calculus problem. I got the camera, the index cards, the baseballs, the bases and 30 stuffed animals and checked each item off the list one by one.
Sunday night I finally had time to pack, putting my clothing in one bag and the rest of the inventory in another duffel bag. All I have to say is thank goodness that Brazil is one of three countries in the world, along with Japan and the ever so popular travel destination Ethiopia, which allows up to 70lbs per bag. Packing the clothing was easy, and it all fit in one large “heavy duty” green duffel bag. The other items would prove to be a little more difficult.
Taking a poor quality blue duffel bag, that made the large green one look as though it suffered from dwarfism, from the storage area in the attic, I made my way to the living room where plastic bags full of recently purchased or donated items awaited me. I tried to distribute the weight of the bag wisely and balance it as best I could, while putting the more solid items toward the side that had the wheels on it. After about thirty minutes of arranging and re-arranging the belongings, I realized that this task was going to be about as daunting as a Rubik’s Cube.
I brought some items to the green bag and stuffed them in any free space that I could find. Seeing as five additional people were going to be arriving with me, I figured there would be a shortage of pillows at the house on Lobster Road, so my goal was to have enough space to squeeze a pillow into. I had just finished packing the bag, with only a few smaller items to be added the next day, and decided to have a trial run with the pillow. It seemed as if it was going to just fit, but I decided to zipper the bag up to be sure. As the zipper rolled along its track around the bend of the bag, I saw the nylon fabric begin to tear.
I pulled the fabric taught hoping to get an extra inch or so of slack for the zipper to move along, but as the teeth became interlocked, more of the blue material tore leaving a six inch gash parallel to the zipper. Worried more about having to solve the packing puzzle all over again than about the ripped luggage, I decided that I would simply tape the bag together the next day after the final few items were added. It was the wee hours of the morning at this point, and having already made arrangements to meet with Dave Dalfino and Mike for breakfast, I decided to call it a night and head to bed.
The events of the next stay went by as planned. Breakfast with the boys gave way to a few hours at the office to get some final things wrapped up. I ran a few last minute errands and got home in time to finish packing and complete a few chores. I needed to leave my room tidy for Jill and Shad when they returned from the Bahamas, which wound up taking more time than I thought. I got my mail, sorted it, and was happy to find the Bible that I had ordered had arrived. I finished packing my bags, and with the help of my mom, we wrapped a third of the blue bag with close to a half a roll of packing tape. No sooner had I cut the tape, than we heard a thud on the porch.
We looked at each other, both wondering what that could be. Mom asked if I had ordered a package, and I said no. She went to the porch and retrieved a box with my name on it. It was at that time that I remembered the medical device that I needed to bring with me. Both bags were packed beyond capacity, and the extra few inches of space in my carry on bag would not be useful for such a large package. Inside the box was a brand new sleep apnea machine.
As I opened the package and unwrapped its contents, so the Brazilian authorities would think it was mine, my memory was brought back nearly a year to a Californian hotel room that I shared with Mike and his Uncle Dan when we were attending Jeremy’s wedding. The image of Uncle Dan’s older sleep apnea machine equip with a hose that resembled a Snuffalupagus trunk flashed in my mind. I remembered using the pump as a personal air conditioner when we believed the room’s AC unit was broken. I remembered Mike and I teasing Dan about his rather awkward machine, and him informing us in a serious tone how important it was. I had awoken at night and saw him lie in bed looking like a patient on life support with the hose attached to a mask that lined the perimeter of his mouth. Uncle Dan is fun to tease, and while neither Michael nor I disputed the importance of the machine, it was still fun to watch him get flustered as we would mildly poke fun at him.
Thankfully the device delivered to my porch had a sleek and stylish carry case that perfectly matched the visible material of the blue duffel bag. Seeing as it weighed less than 2 pounds, I decided to use this as a second carry on item. We left the house a few minutes later for the airport, trying to beat the thunderstorms that were rapidly approaching. The sky was dark, and looked similar to what I had seen in movies like Twister or The Wizard of Oz. With Fenway on my lap we left Melrose and headed to Logan Airport. After unloading my bags and bidding farewell to my mother and her puppy, I approached the ticket counter. As I handed the ticket attendant my ticket and passport, he motioned me to place the bags on the scale. The blue one weighed in at 68lbs and the green one was just over 60. As close as the luggage weight was to the limit, I was still missing one item. I just hope I don’t need that pillow…
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