I have tried about three times today to send a blog into the air or ether or cyberspace or wherever it goes, but not an ordinary message. I was trying to send a photograph. It's no big deal, I mean the picture, just a badly focussed shot of the morning glories on my balcony summer before last. (Last summer I didn't have a balcony because the exterior of the building was being renovated.) Obviously I didn't succeed. I got so far and then got stuck. I can usually follow directions but computer directions leave me stuck. So - no blog. I'll think about that tomorrow.

Yesterday I packed my advance bag and this morning I repacked it before it left me. I tried on more clothes and figured out what to wear between when I leave Toronto on the 20th of March and when I board the ship on the 23rd and catch up with the luggage that left today. In that time slot, remember, I'm having High Tea in the Tiffin Room at Raffles Hotel. Who knows, I might even progress to a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar. So I have to know what I'm wearing.

I'm going to wear old lady clothes, pretty much, because t hey are more conducive to comfortable arrangements for peeing. (I've been to China before and I remember.)

Now before I get too explicit, I have to sign off - I have 2% power left. Anon, anon.

We often make decisions that we don't realize are far-reaching. Those are the ones we look back on and see how important they were, though they may not have seemed so at the time. Today I am making decisions that will affect only the next few months of my life, as far as i know, and yet the thought makes me very nervous. Isn't that silly? As if I am going to be utterly devastated or changed if I pick the wrong tee-shirt. Nevertheless. Notwithstanding. Even although.

As anyone knows who has been following the breathless, exciting, rousing, thrilling, boring, mind-blowing blow-by-blow (blog-by-blog) account of my life, today is L-Day - finishing the Luggage that goes tomorrow, not to be seen again until I arrive in my stateroom on the Insignia on March 22. I will have time to think of last-minute items to tuck into my carry-on, but I'm reserving priority space in it for my papers, research and a new project, plus a mini-filing system for new papers I want to keep, and of course, Minnie (my iiPad mini) and Little Mac (my MacBookAir), oh, and recharger plugs and cables and things. Also a nightie and a toothbrush.

I manage to control my nerves during the day but at night, after a brief sleep, I wake up thinking of things I have to remember. Why do I do that? Why do we do that? I'm sure you do, too. I have noticed that on any trip I have ever taken, my last-minute after-thought is one of the most valuable. My bag is shut, I'm ready to go out the door, and I rush back and get a a favourite sweater, or an extra pair of socks, or a scarf, something that in the next few weeks I cannot live without and why did I wait till the last minute to think of it? Right now, I'm wondering what it's going to be?

Does anyone care?

Well, sometimes. I just had a comment from someone telling me what the related word is to the set maternal, paternal, fraternal. It's sororal. (See my blog on words.) Thank you!

Now tell me what I'm going to forget.