Kipilefti

The rough draft of packing happened tonight. My father aided me and I amassed a pretty sizeable pile of things that I guess I don’t need right away and he can bring when he visits in late September/early October. The large suitcase still weighed about 45 pounds, and my hiking backpack around 30. (We are limited to a total of 80 pounds of checked baggage, no more than 50 pounds in a single bag.) Plus mandolin! Toting all of that stuff around will be interesting.

In terms of the amount of stuff I’m bringing, I am at a disadvantage because my mandolin has to be the large-sized carry-on item, so I’m stuck with a small backpack as my “personal item.” The backpack can, at most, fit my laptop, some toiletries, and a change of clothes or two. Looking at the stuff I have laid out on the bed to fit into that backpack, I can tell that it won’t all fit. Tomorrow I’ll unpack the bags we packed tonight and go through the clothes and other items, culling things I can do without for a while. I’m very lucky that my father will be able to bring things over for me.

Other things to do tomorrow: either clean the top of the enamel-topped table that I’m refinishing, or repaint it; waterproof my leather jacket; replace the fan in my laptop; play bridge. I’ve actually set an alarm for tomorrow morning, which hasn’t happened often this summer! Hopefully it will be a productive day, because after tomorrow I just have Saturday. I head up to Philly on a 10 A.M. Acela on Sunday.