Bag o' Beans

I was packing some stuff for our trip into one of our big suitcases yesterday and Beans decided to help. He spent part of his time writhing around inside the suitcase and the rest of the time hiding in a black plastic bag. At one point I peeked into the bag to see if I could see him. I couldn't, but suddenly a little black paw reached out and swatted me in the face, then disappeared into the depths of the bag again. I tried picking the bag up by its handles, but it got very angry and bit me. Mean bag.

Half a day of classes left with a Christmas celebration in the afternoon, half a day of meetings on Friday, then...one excruciatingly long trip home! Ack, you know you travel a lot when a five-hour flight seems short. We've planned well ahead this time, though, getting decent seats (as far as economy class goes, that is) and finding stuff to make the journey easier. I found waterless shampoo, allegedly the stuff astronauts use, and happily splurged on it because, let's face it-36 hours of traveling does a person's hair no favors. Now at least I can just be jet-lagged, rather than jet-lagged and icky feeling.

Saturday I bought three magazines and a book, all plastic-wrapped as is standard in Indonesia, for our trip home. I've been good and have left the magazines in their plastic but I couldn't resist the temptation of a new book, and I'm guessing I'll have it finished by tomorrow. I've even researched the in-flight movies playing on our long-haul flights across the Pacific. They look decent for the 13-hour flight, definitely better than last year's choices. (I watched Princess Diaries 2 twice last December...)

I've been checking weather.com's 10-day forecasts for the two wintry cities we'll be traveling into (Chicago and Omaha) and...knock on wood...no blizzards, just COLD. I can handle cold!

I got an email from Julie this morning and all it said was, "You're coming home this weekend!" I know!!!! Hooray!