up to Oregon

OK, blog fans. Entries may be few and far between because Susan has DIAL-UP. As does Amy. And I'm not exactly the paragon of patience. Computer won't upload pictures ... will try to do so on Shutterfly. [ARGH! It won't let me add more images - so go to http://meewt.shutterfly.com for all recent pictures - I'll keep that updates.]

I'm in Oregon - safe and sound and all that. Saturday was moving all stuff - huge thanks to Pam and Michele and Sabine. A particularly amusing moment was when I woke up from a nap in Michele's bed to find that she was at the grocery store while Sabine and Jenny were swimming in her pool and Pam watching her huge TV. Go Camp Ko! Adding to the camp environment - as Jenny said, it's like being on vacation as Pam works her magic with grill and then even cleans up! Wow!

Sunday ... I was up at 6 am to go back to my apartment and finish packing. Met Jenny and Michele for a final Templo breakfast - where I realized my perfect breakfast ordering strategy - get my friends to get what I want and just eat off their plates. "I'll just have an empty plate, Yolanda," I said - and fortunately she already knew I'm insane. But apparently I'm not the only one who covets her neighbor's food.

Then a final load to storage and a final nap at Michele's. Off to Monterey!

Finally got to Ruiqi and Bruce's new home. It's very lovely - roomy and good energy flow - though I do have to laugh at the realtor's description of it as "affordable housing." A million dollar home is affordable? Not in my universe. Ruiqi made a great dinner - mostly Chinese and she remembered I like deviled eggs. Great conversation - good to see them happy! Next time I must be sure to stay a couple of days on a weekend and go play.

The next morning, up at the crack of dawn AGAIN and on to Davis to see Mahmoud. I am now officially VERY EXCITED about going to Jordan. He showed me some pictures and gave me lots of details and I'm really looking forward to it. It was a short, enjoyable couple of hours, and then I had to take off for Eugene.

Which is where I am now. With two very, very happy dogs (pictures to follow) and I finally met Susan's roommate Sivi - who is from Chennai in India where I'm going in January. It's a small world, and I get to find connections everywhere! Woo hoo.

And surprising good news about Jordan - Mahmoud will actually be there when I'm there. He'll even pick me up at the airport. And who better to visit Petra with than a Jordanian anthropologist who happens to speak incredibly good English and is very nice and interesting? How lucky am I? I am so lucky that when I was speeding on my way up here, the vehicle ahead of me that I was catching up to got pulled over - not me. Not that I want anybody to suffer misfortune, of course, but I seem to be in quite a spell of good fortune.

I have much to do while here - friends to reconnect with, and a newborn Toby to meet, and trails to hike with eager dogs, and mosquito nets to order, and packing details to finalize, and all those things. But I'm really on vacation now! Woo hoo! Everybody in this house goes to bed long before 10 pm (my hurry for getting here not too late), which is a very different sleep schedule for me.

Well, maybe I'll get some reading done while I wait for the pictures to upload on this very slow connection. I guess this is just preparing me for my travels - I had this vision of me blogging very interesting pictures regularly, but paying for this lack of speed will kill me.