Beginning goodbyes

Yep, this captures us pretty much perfectly.

This is my family. I'm pretty sure that picture says just about everything you could possibly need to know about them. That blond lump attempting to eat my head is my brother Adam, with whom I spent yesterday, because he is a very nice Munchkin and came home from college for the weekend to see me before I leave (yeah, yeah, and to see his friends and girlfriend-type-person, whatever, I'm totally more important.) Since my parents have abandoned me on my last weekend in the country to have a romantic weekend away in Vermont (the indignity!), we decided to spend yesterday revisiting our childhood and making the trek down to Mystic Aquarium for the first time since we were approximately six and ten years old, respectively. And it was awesome for the following reasons:

• Awesome thing the first: discount passes from the public library. Yay libraries! Also fighting with the boy because libraries scare him and when I was a kid I wanted to take a sleeping bag and move into one of the shelves. Kind of still do. One of the many reasons I'm convinced we somehow inherited completely mutually exclusive genes.

• Awesome thing the second: Adam's running musical commentary throughout the entire hour-long ride down and back, including an impressive impromptu musical ode to Lenny and Joe's fish restaurant, a moderately disturbing rendition of that rap song with the "Call me Mr. Flintstone, Imma make your bed rock" line, a stunningly accurate sing-along to "As Long as You Love Me" by the Backstreet Boys (?), and, of course, an extended techno version of "Baby Beluga." Speaking of which,

•  Awesome thing tatu (which means three in Swahili, which, sidenote, I definitely only remember because I have 3 tattoos): Belugas. I essentially had the exact same reaction as the four year old standing next to us, which was to babble "Whaley whaley whaley!" in their general direction. I am pathetic but they were amazing and did all kinds of tricks, and seeing animals in general got me all geared up for Safari time in Tanzania. Although now I might be disappointed if they don't do tricks. Or make farting noises on command, like the belugas. Now that's talent.
 

That's all I've got, really, just a nice day with the munchkin before I run away to the other side of the world. It's been nice living at home with the family for the last few months, fights have been rare and generally sub-nuclear, and since I've booked my tickets the pointed comments about boomerang kids have leveled off significantly. My parents far, far surpass graceful empty-nesters - no, they are giddy with excitement at the idea of having the house to themselves again, and while it's been fun, I'm happy to oblige.

Indeed, I'm really looking forward to feeling settled again - I know it won't be for a while, since Tanzania is really a fairly short stopover at four months. I don't know, though, this is the work that I want to do, and if grad school doesn't pan out for next year, which is my assumption at this point (I'm only applying to LSE and essentially as a practice run, I expect to be out at least two years before returning to school), this seems like the kind of work I could happily return to for another year. And who knows, maybe after proving myself someone might even pay me to do it - WILL WORK FOR ROOF, MOSQUITO NET, AND FOOD. ROOF NEGOTIABLE. Stranger things have happened!

ALSO, I've begun packing, which is pretty thrilling. So far only the tools I bought myself have arrived, and I don't know exactly what else is coming yet - it appears that approximately one third of my luggage space will be taken up with tools and supplies, one third by stuff (medicines, toiletries, electronic converters, sleeping bag, sheets, rain gear, etc), leaving a third for clothes. I've got my short-list of clothes laundered and ready to be whittled down as soon as I have the rest of the jewelry supplies here and packed and can see how much space I have remaining. It might be kind of brutal. That said, I'm bringing my Kindle, so that takes one item off of my list, which usually looks like this: 1) Books, 2) Jewelry and supplies, 3) Everything else. Seriously, the purchase was worth it for this trip alone - the number of books I would have needed to survive 4 months would have basically left me with room for a single t shirt and MAYBE a pair of pants, if I was lucky. And I'm not sure how my hosts would feel about Bekka: The Pantsless Wonder. I'm already concerned about cleavagification, as my, erm, shape tends to make everything but turtlenecks look somewhat risque, which is apparently a no-no in Tanzania. So I have to restrain my mouth AND my chest, which will be a full time job before I've even started, you know, that work stuff I'm technically there to do. Whatever happens, it will certainly be an adventure. Someone should probably warn the poor country now.


UPDATE: And then today this happened. This is the kind of entertainment value we're talking about, here. Ridiculous, and also awesome. A little scary to think we share genetic material, though.