Why yes his name is Fabulous, why do you ask?
With all due respect to all of the family and friends who we left behind, and who we will miss tremendously, the hardest part about going on this trip was leaving our cat, Fabulous. (I can say this, because said family and friends already know I am a crazy cat lady). Although we originally planned to find him a temporary home before we put any plans in motion, we ended up selling our house unexpectedly. For a while, it looked like we were going to have to fit Fabulous into our backpacks, because finding a cat lover to care for him who did not have any other cats proved to be a challenge. (True to his name, Fabulous insists upon being the only cat, as my brother-in-law could tell you. Our attempt at adopting a second cat resulted in Vivian living at Gary’s house after Fabulous terrorized and bullied her to no end. He looks innocent, I know, but he earned the occasional nickname Trouble Cat for a reason).
Luckily, Judy, our friend Tony’s mother, came to the rescue. She graciously agreed to adopt Fabulous for the year, which we appreciate so much. We know he is in good hands, but it is still hard to walk away from him as he is a constant part of our lives. Fabulous is not one of those cats who you never see except for feeding time. He is somewhat like a dog, greeting us at the door, following us around, and snuggling on the couch.
Sean did send me a link to a blog once where someone took their cat on a round the world sailboat trip. I am a crazy cat lady, but not that crazy.
REI is our new Home Depot.
Back when we were renovating the Money Pit, not a weekend went by where we did not visit Home Depot or Lowes. At least twice – and sometimes three times – each day. Now we live at the REI at South Side Works. When we discovered that there was an REI in Robinson, we got excited and went there to mix it up. (It has the same stuff as the South Side Works store, by the way). In addition to shopping at many brick and mortar stores, we received 30 packages in the mail. Because we only had a short period of time, and we are picky and indecisive (this includes Sean, who at one point was deciding between what seemed to be a million pairs of pants), we ordered tons of stuff to try. I think the UPS guy hates us, because he had to carry multiple packages up the steps for the last few weeks.
Although I suppose it would have been entirely possible just to bring stuff we already owned, nothing we owned seemed to be right for a one year, live out of your backpack trip around the world to multiple climates. Luckily many have gone before us, and have prepared extensive packing lists from which we worked. I’ll be posting about all of the stuff we are bringing, because I know many are curious about how exactly we are going to live out of a single backpack each. I am still not sure myself. We’ll see what makes the final cut tonight. One would think that we would know exactly what we are bringing, considering we leave tomorrow, but true to form, we are not yet packed.
Shaving off the pounds will be especially important, because at this point I’m not sure how I am going to carry my backpack. I hurt my knee when I attempted to begin the Couch to 5K running program earlier this month and I have been hobbling and limping around ever since (bursitis, apparently). I did not stray far from the Couch portion of the program. In fact, it was all the orthopedic surgeon could do to stifle a laugh when he inquired exactly how much running I was doing. I think he was expecting me to announce my attempt at running a marathon or something, not tell him that twice I alternated running and walking for 20 minutes on the treadmill. The Couch to 5K program does seem like a good way to ramp up for non-runners (http://www.c25k.com/) but I have come to the conclusion that running is too dangerous for a person with crappy health insurance.