I miss you already, I miss you always

come down now, they'll say

Best random obstacle on a trail: these stairs encountered on Sunday, during my last hike pre-Peru. This sucker was much steeper than it might look, and I had to climb down it, which somehow caused more unsteadiness than ascending the rungs.

Best IM received about my trip to Peru, and possibly best IM ever:

Do me a favor- when you get to the top of the mountain, take a deep deep breath and then whisper some cool poem about fate, death and the wind. I'll hear it in some future lifetime, I think, and it will be very cool.

Yes, b*tches, if there remained any doubt about how lucky a girl I am, the above excerpt should settle it.

Best e-mailed words of comfort about my trip to Peru, from Maisnon, who has made the leap from commenter to blogger:

I will give you the advice my parents passed on to me: when you're travelling, as long as you have your passport, a toothbrush, and access to money - you're good to go. The rest are just details.

Does she not rock?

Best work blunder witnessed: I was called into an executive meeting and a senior director was talking about meetings being repetitive and called them "duplicitous." Technically, I know this is not completely incorrect, but it still caused a ripple of suppressed giggles at the meeting.

Best sense of empowerment: the head of my department tried to pull a Lumbergh Ummm... yeah, I'm gonna need you to go ahead and work on..., and I shot back with a flatly delivered, "Yeah, I'm on vacation starting tomorrow." And walked out of the meeting. Will I have a job upon my return? Tune in.

Best item I'm bringing with me to Peru: since my journal is a bit large, and precious to me (i.e. I don't want it to be destroyed or rained upon or thrown out of my backpack in a fit of trying to reduce the weight of my daypack), I made a 12-page journal yesterday. It's important to note here that I have no skills in this regard. I remember making books this way when I was in second grade- you fold a stack of papers in half, then stitch it down the middle. Next, you glue each of the end pages onto cardboard. After that, you join the two cardboard pieces with binding tape. Finally, you cover it all up with fabric or a makeshift booksleeve. Even then, I was rather verbose, and as a result, my book turned into a tome that was very difficult to assemble. For some reason, in second grade, I thought a book about a friendly alien invasion was the way to go. Don't ask. Anyway, I think the one I made in second grade was of superior quality compared to the one I made for Machu Pichu. But I still lurve it.

So... all the BEST while I'm away. If I can manage access points, I will try to pull off a post or two during my trip. If I don't post by July, you should all assume I met Gael Garcia Bernal at the precipice and ran off with him... or that I am in a coma. Go with the former though, it's a much prettier explanation.