We’ll be calling a cab for the airport at 5am, and then we’ll be out of your hair for a couple of weeks, so kisses to you all in the meantime. It’s been a funny day—in a frenzy of efficiency earlier this week I packed up most of the contents of my study into one big box and sealed it. Today I realized I had sealed my passport inside it as well. Typical. So I sliced open the tape, carefully unpacked everything to retrieve it, carefully repacked everything, resealed the box, and an hour later remembered the photocopies of my passport and green card I’d been meaning to bring for emergencies had been safely ensconced inside the same folder.

The box is now standing wide open in my room, not to be sealed again until moments before we leave this area code for good. Good thing too, because a little bit ago I also needed some rubber bands and sticky tac from inside it. Actually, I’m beginning to suspect that if I tape it up again I just might discover it contains the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Getting things done, saying goodbyes. Giving all my words away for cash. Readying my skin for the salt of Caribbean waters.

That’s Asher, the baby whose hair stood up on end and who amused me with pooping phone calls and dazzled the internerd* with his eyes and comforted me before I had surgery.

Three!

Sheesh!

Happy Birthday, Big Foot. I love you.

*Estee, did I get “internerd” from you? Now I have noticed a few of my Flickr friends are using it. I find this highly amusing.

Goodness, the insane mandrill incessantly built on account of that concomitant porcupine.

Things in our house that have found new homes in the past two days: 2 tiki torches, 30 records I bought on a whim from the Garment District last year, a set of watercolor supplies, a box full of books, one tall wooden bookcase, one yellow mountain bike, and 40 wine glasses. Put ‘em all together and you’d have one heck of an art project.

Things I have somehow acquired since I promised myself there would be no unnecessary purchases until we moved, nosirreebob, especially but especially not camera equipment: 2 Polaroid cameras and 13 packs of film.

I worked all day today, with a break to have leftover tandoori chicken and goat saag with naan for lunch. Ross cleaned like a madman (the counter-top by our sink is actually white again!). We rewarded ourselves with a beer at the Swan, a bar that is 3 minutes away from our house by foot but that we have never before entered. It’s adorable, so we kicked ourselves a bit over that. Finally, a cheeky Mexican movie and apple pie with ice cream to finish, and the Friday is done. Ben, given the content of the film you probably called while someone or other was having sex. It really would have been inappropriate to answer the phone, don’t you think?

Later, lovelies.

Two twenty-something women sitting near each other decide to exchange magazines as they disembark: one has copies of Glamour and Jane, one has Us and something else I couldn’t catch. An older lady watches the transaction curiously.

Older Lady: “Excuse me, this Jane magazine—who writes it?”

Jane Giver: “Jane… it’s sort of a neo-feminist magazine. It doesn’t have, like, bad body image pictures. It still has how to put your makeup on and stuff, but it’s like, ‘How To Not Look Like a Whore When You Put Your Makeup On.’”

Jane Receiver: “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

Me: “Please, kill me now.”