Ari's Planet

I'm starting my world-tour with a few stops in the US. After discarding huge quantities of junk, including a couch I could hardly give away, I deposited my remaining possesions throughout the East Coast--in a storage facility in NC, with friends, with my parents in Massachusetts in two different cities, and with my sister and brother in law in NY. After a stop to see the folks, I moved on to NY to the Maxopolis Skybox--named after my adorable nephew and amazing view of the NYC skyline. My sister won't let me take Mr. Maxopolis himself on my world tour. Bummer.

My apartment in NC seemed reasonably sparse until I started to move. Some of the big junk went on craigslist, but my damned couch. The thing was two years old, perfect condition, $770 new, and I got down to offering to deliver it. Finally, it went to the PTA thrift shop with the help of a friend. People on craigslist have no taste. All sorts of things went to the thrift shop. Other things managed to make it to the town dump, and the rest went in several garbage bags. Many more garbage bags than I could have predicted.

Several trips, a rental truck, and a friend, got whatever I thought worth keeping crammed into a 4x8 storage room. Boy, am I getting my money's worth! The last few things went with friends or got crammed into my car for my east coast tour. I immediately swore that I would never buy anything again. Then I promptly bought more things, such as a cat house ("tower" more properly) to replace the one left in NC. Damned consumer society. My cat was disturbed but remained unimpressed. She'll have to get used to living in the cold North East.

Tomorrow I go for my first visa: for India. Then its onto a Chinese visa, expedited, should be done same day, worst case Monday--otherwise I'm hosed and will need some kind of courier service.

By the way, has anyone seen my spare car keys?