Tuesday

My mother arrived in town last night and treated us to a lovely Indian meal. She's here to help us get ready for our trip tomorrow, and to see us off. Today, she was joined in this pursuit by Sunshine's parents, who not only brought us one last home-cooked meal, fresh from the Kentucky garden, but also brought the dishes on which it was to be served just to keep me from having to wash ours one last time. How sweet is that? Off the to do list is my mobile phone: I canceled service today, meaning that my beloved number will stop working whenever the billing cycle is up. I don't even know when that is. I changed my voice mail greeting to reflect that no messages left there will ever get to me, and will be handing the phone off to my mother when we get to the airport. During the home-cooking tonight, I removed myself from the busy dinner-making turmoil in the kitchen to discover that not everything I wanted to take with me to Ho Chi Minh City would fit in the baggage I've spared for it--not without a lot of jamming and sitting on the suitcases to make them shut at any rate. What remained fit easily into Sunshine's extra space (she's checking two bags) and my carry-on (now become entirely unwieldy, oh well). After dinner, Sunshine packed her own stuff; then we, in rapid succession, gave away everything in the kitchen, took our largest suitcases to the caravan, and drank about one-third of the remaining Pappy Van Winkle's Kentucky bourbon in several seemingly lighthearted toasts to our impending lengthy departure. No tears yet, but at four the parents return to the house and we travel, by sleepy caravan, to the airport. [Cavin]