Travel

On Wednesday I leave for Puerto Morelos, Mexico with three friends. I thought I had it all worked out. First step: Buy a new suitcase that is large enough to carry everything. (I like to pack everything I can think of and then make choices about what to wear when I'm at my destination.)

I first went to Macy's where there is a BIG sale and newspaper coupons to add to the sale discount. Nope. Luggage was still hundreds of dollars. Then I remembered that a friend had told me to buy luggage at places like T J Maxx or Marshall's. At T J Maxx, I found a 30-inch, HUGE, RED Samsonite suitcase for $89.00. Score! I was hoping to find red luggage so that it was conspicuous on a luggage carousel at the airport, so I'm quite happy with my find.

Second Step: I came home to pack and had thought that all of my summer clothes would be stored in one place. Nope. Would be all clean. Nope. Would be already ironed. Nope.

Rats. So now my packing is much more involved than I had expected, and I have to iron. I hate to iron.

And as a note on packing, I travelled last spring to Paris with a friend who retired from US Airways, and travelling non-rev with her means taking only carry-on luggage. Ouch. That was really, really difficult for me. But somehow I did it (wearing the same black pants every day helped) and managed to bring back a copper saucepan, two clocks made from round wooden cheese boxes, and fragile geese salt and pepper shakers. I have no idea how I managed it, but I did, and I probably should let packing so lightly teach me to do better on other trips.

Or not.

How to Quit Smoking

In today's post, Pioneer Woman discusses her earlier smoking escapades and so, in the interest of public health, I have decided to share my successful method of quitting smoking. It has a 100% success record---me! Minimal (well, none, really) research on my part has not revealed any other uses of this method, so there may well be ZILLIONS of unreported success stories out there.

I smoked for one year, my senior year of college. When I decided that I didn't want to smoke any longer, I came up with my plan:

1. I would not "bum" cigarettes from anyone else; i.e., I would give up smoking all cigarettes, not just my own cigarettes.

2. Each and every time that I wanted a cigarette, I went down to the dorm basement where the cigarette machines were. I would buy one pack, take out one cigarette, and throw the rest of the pack in the chute to the trash. These chutes led directly to a bin in the bowels of the building and there was no way I knew of to retrieve anything from the bin. I would smoke that one cigarette, and that was that. When I wanted another, I would have to buy another pack. Even at cigarette prices in the 60s, this was a very expensive way to smoke and I was a poor college student. My smoking soon came to a screeching halt.

Now, before my daughters tell on me, when we lived in Florida, another neighbor and I helped each other wallpaper rooms. We drank coffee and ate coffee cake in the mornings; we had sandwiches and soda for lunch; and if we were still papering at dinner time, we had one cigarette apiece and switched to drinking beer. A good time was had by all and the wallpaper generally looked pretty good.

To this day, I sometimes really, really crave a cigarette. I am one of those few people who enjoy second-hand smoke. But I have convinced myself that one cigarette will cause me to have a heart attack or some other dire medical emergency, and I have resisted bumming one from any smokers I might be around. On my first trip to Paris, as I was standing in line to get in the Louvre, a very nervous young woman was asking if anyone had a cigarette she could have. I told her there was plenty of smoke in the air (the French do love to smoke) but she said that was not enough.

It is for me!