I know, I make this big "I'm going back to Africa!" announcement and then disappear. Heh. I'm in a holding pattern, is all, for reasons out of my or anyone else's control. I'm going, I just don't know when, yet. It depends on all those lovely variables like who will be in Nairobi when. Good thing I'm patient (or was, until New York drove the patience screaming from my being and left me anxious and tapping my foot). Plus we've had people over to dinner the last two nights. I had to be all domestic for one of them, and the other involved multiple games of Scrabble, at which I am finally able to hold my own, in an "I operate on instinct but sometimes it works" sort of way (also I look up ridiculous, impossible words, which sometimes turn out to be real words! love that).
Meanwhile, life goes on. I have been stabbed in both arms and no longer have to fear tetanus, meningitis, or typhoid. I have purchased almost everything on my "to bring to Africa" list, and donated a large box of books and clothes to a thrift store. The basement is still chaos, but slowly evolving chaos. Every day there are a few fewer things down there, with some detritus having been packed neatly into a box for storage, or given away, or recycled. I might leave it better than when I arrived. When I pull something new out of an old box, though, I find myself saying things like, "Why didn't someone stop me YEARS ago? Mom, why did you let me keep these things?" In the store today, which we went to immediately after clearing out from the basement too many unnecessary superfluous things (I know that's redundant; bear with me, it's an inside joke), we walked around dazedly and kept saying, "All these THINGS! What is this country doing with all these things? What do people do with them all?" I want to get rid of more stuff, but it all has sentimental value and crap like that. Humph.
Before I go to bed tonight, I'm going to get out my big suitcase and start putting things in it, to get them out of the way and out of the chaos: the good hot chocolate, the contact solution, the vitamins. I'm on my way.
Meanwhile, life goes on. I have been stabbed in both arms and no longer have to fear tetanus, meningitis, or typhoid. I have purchased almost everything on my "to bring to Africa" list, and donated a large box of books and clothes to a thrift store. The basement is still chaos, but slowly evolving chaos. Every day there are a few fewer things down there, with some detritus having been packed neatly into a box for storage, or given away, or recycled. I might leave it better than when I arrived. When I pull something new out of an old box, though, I find myself saying things like, "Why didn't someone stop me YEARS ago? Mom, why did you let me keep these things?" In the store today, which we went to immediately after clearing out from the basement too many unnecessary superfluous things (I know that's redundant; bear with me, it's an inside joke), we walked around dazedly and kept saying, "All these THINGS! What is this country doing with all these things? What do people do with them all?" I want to get rid of more stuff, but it all has sentimental value and crap like that. Humph.
Before I go to bed tonight, I'm going to get out my big suitcase and start putting things in it, to get them out of the way and out of the chaos: the good hot chocolate, the contact solution, the vitamins. I'm on my way.
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