Geeks R Us

This is worse than junior high.  I’m packing to spend three nights with people I don’t know.  It’s a road trip to the coast for a few days with a close friend who was invited by a high school friend.  Everyone is bringing someone and the house will be filled with strangers.  I have a little trepidation about what I’m packing.   It’s bad enough to decide what to wear to a reunion…but to unpack my idiosyncrasies and live up close and personal?  I don’t remember having idiosyncrasies in junior high!

Oh sure, I can take the right amount of underwear and the balance between sweats and jeans with shirts for eating out or lounging in.  I have a decent sleeping back and a sleep sack, passable pj’s, etc.

But I’m quite the electronics addict.  I don’t play games (except maybe Farmville) online, but I love staying in touch with my family and friends.  I write, I text my grandchildren, I forward my home phone to my cell phone because I have…oh never mind.  Maybe I should take my IHome for my ITouch in case others will want to listen.  Will this be antisocial?

And I come from a long line of food geeks.  Maybe it’s in the blood, or maybe it’s early training, and for sure I didn’t suck it out of my thumb.  It is an honest inheritance and I claim it.

Neither my mother nor my father ever left home without food.  Dad tended to carry a half sandwich in his shirt pocket, just for emergencies on the way to the restaurant.  Mom carried a crumpled paper bag holding a wash rag, a paring knife, and whatever food she thought she might need but always including an apple and a banana.  I can plead “allergies” when I carry the genetic predisposition to infinity, but really, I think there’s more to it than that.

So I’m taking my special rice mix because it’s such a staple..breakfast with fruit…dinner with greens…  I’d better take some nuts in case I get hungry and no one else is…and a couple of Luna Bars. And soy milk.

Will I seem too geeky?  But I think I have to take my Magic Bullet so my vitamins dissolve completely (yukky when they don’t).   Okay and it might double for margaritas so that’s cool (not wierd).

Is it too bad to load up all of those little tasks that I never sit still for?  Antisocial again?  Because I could take the scrapbook I’m fixing for my grandson’s birthday.  Maybe I could take my hand mending.  Of course I have to pack my sudoku puzzles and at least 3 books.  I can always read, but shall I take real books or pander to my propensity for losing myself in early (1950’s) romance novels by British and Scottish writers?

I think I need to create a balance sheet:

Geeky                      In between                   Semi-normal (I think)                         Pretty Normal

Rice Mix              Magic Bullet                                                                                     Books

Vitamin Mix                                                  Fruits                                                      Sudoku

Kale and Chard                                             Veges                                                      Popcorn buy there

Balsamic vinegar                                          Beer Buy there if I want it                 Wine

Soy milk              Salad greens (I already have them)                                            Laptop

Dried figs

I give up.  I don’t know from normal.

I’m so conflicted.  I love being in my comfort zone.  But have I become one of those poor pitiful people who carries everything she owns, takes too much space and is always searching through bags for what she might be missing?  Will I die if I don’t eat organic for three days?  Do other people carry their own pillow across the state and across the world?  I don’t see many, but maybe they scrunch them into their suitcases.  My espresso machine is pretty heavy, but it may be worth it, and maybe everyone would enjoy it.

I need to think.

Oh, hell with that!

I’m going back to Popeye.   “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam!”

xxoo