Shopping for One

Daleen and Colin left me yesterday, and now I am all alone....

As many of you know, Daleen is an alien, living among us (a legal alien that is). She is actually a citizen of the Republic of South Africa. Her mom, dad, and family are there and while we try and get back there as often as we can, she goes for long periods of time without seeing them. As you can imagine, there are times when she gets extremely homesick, sometimes to the point where I just wish she would buy a plane ticket and go home. Going home however, is an expensive proposition. So when South African Airways ran a special, basically cutting the airfare in half, her parents decided to buy us all tickets to come and visit. Unfortunately, by the time I was able to get my work situation straight, the tickets for the special had ran out. Luckily, Daleen and Colin both got tickets and left yesterday for a four-week vacation.

They're spending a few days at Daleen's sister's house in a town called Centurion, which is a suburb, half-way between Johannesburg and the capitol city of Pretoria. Then they're going on holiday for a week at a golf resort in the Drakensberg mountains, followed by a couple of weeks at her parents house in the town of Tzaneen (pronounced "Zaneen"), which is in the northeast tip of the country. It's summertime there now (southern hemisphere), which means it will be "Africa-Hot" when she gets to her parents place.

Packing for such a trip really takes us a long time. Now, the South Africans basically have all the stuff we do in America. They have shopping malls, bad traffic, urban sprawl, regular grocery stores, etc. It really is more like the U.S. than any other place outside of the U.S. However, there are a few small things you can't get there and that's why packing our bags takes so long. When it comes time to go, we basically turn into overladen human pack animals. Here are just a few things we usually take with us besides clothes: Duncan Hines Cake Mix, Folgers Coffee, Vidalia Onion Salad Dressing, Russell Stover Chocolates, Crime Novels, Grated Parmesan Cheese (I am not kidding), CD's, DVD's, etc... Basically, we pack all of our clothes into one suitcase and we finish filling that one and a whole other suitcase with non-clothing items. They payoff is, when we come back from visiting, we use all that space to mule back everything we like but can't get here. Those items include: wine, mayonnaise (this is Daleen's, I think personally it is the nastiest stuff I have ever tasted), household cleaner, chocolate, more chocolate, Indian curry spice, Peach Chutney (Mrs. Balls brand... it's to die for) , salad dressing, and all the handicrafts we end up buying while we're there. Let's put it this way, we use a scale when packing and go right to the limit of our weight allowance.

Yesterday, I drove Daleen and Colin to Dulles Airport to catch their flight. Daleen seemed really upbeat and we had a cheerful goodbye. Although I didn't envy her sitting on the nonstop 15 hour flight with a fidgety two-year old. We finally said our goodbyes and I waited till they cleared security.

I now have four weeks completely to myself. A vacation you ask? Hardly. I sat down the other night and tried to plan out all that I want to do while they are away. I have found there just isn't going to be enough time to do it all. Four weeks, I feel, is going to slip by quickly and it already feels like they are going to be returning tomorrow. I should take the opportunity to relax, but when I'm alone, I like to work and run around like a crazy person. It's just how I'm wired.

I know some of you are worried about me actually cooking and keeping up my house while Daleen is away. I can assure you that I will be quite fine with this. I lived for quite some time on my own and can find my away around the kitchen. I even know how our vacuum cleaner works. I've also already started cleaning the house from top to bottom. Luckily for me, we have a new Trader Joe's in town. We had one where I used to live, and I like the fact that they sell awesome foods in single-person sized packages. Shopping for one? No problem.

I just got off the phone with Daleen. They had a great flight and Colin was perfectly fine. After take off, they watched Finding Nemo and WALL-E and then Colin lay down and slept until breakfast was served, two hours before the plane landed. They made it to her sister's place and as we were talking, my brother-in-law and niece just arrived home from getting dinner. They got McDonalds for my niece and Nandos for everyone else. Nandos is like Chik-Fil-A, except its about ten times better. She said it was nice and warm there, and from hill my sister-in-laws house sits on, they could see the clouds carrying a lightning storm roll across the savanna.

Wish I was there....