Chaos at the Starting Gate!

Three more sleeps!

Longjohns and a bathing suit.... the packing is getting serious now, and if you think one room with a queen-sized surface and surrounding floor is enuf for the organizing required for a trip that spans 0-30 degrees celcius, you must know two zennier dames than the likes of us! There are the many layers of the layered-look, the looking out for every contingency (snow-wear, bug-wear, meet the polar bear-on-a-hike-wear, whale-boat-wear, sleep-in-a-tent-not-in-the-buff-wear, visit-one's-son's-office-and not-have him-die-of-embarrassment-wear....) the gifts that we feel the poor-said-son needs because he's so far from consumerdom, way "up there!" Suffice to say that the big bulkily-cabled woolly sweater that has kept me warm many-a-winter day here, is taking up 2/3 of my suitcase!

We consulted our expert..... toes in the Arctic Ocean, but no need for bathing suits... Could he be intimating that the more flesh exposed, the more area for the kamikaze bug hordes? But he did say one t-shirt. Where one t-shirt goes another one has to follow, right? It's the law of "no-laundromats-on-holidays."

Then, there's the medicine chest to unload....our adventurous host has been known to have people fall off his snowmobile in full flight. How much do band-aids cost where a potato costs $5? Lanacaine or After-Bite - we guess both. With the absence of nighttime, we'll need to grab lots of spf 30, right? But we just got the news it's been raining steadily up there for days. So what kind of hat - the woolly variety smells funky in the rain, but frostbitten ears turn black and fall off, don't they?

This is just a phase. Good thing we didn't start packing last week! In the end, the zipper will have to close, and we'll thank god we won't have any custom-guy mussing up the unmentionables. And now we have to unburden said queen-sized surface as three sleeps become two. Oy!

Anon,
Deb