Pre-Trip Count Down: 36 hours

I'm 36 hours away from getting on the airporter and going to Japan.

My to-do list is long - but finite. My energy is low but steady - amazing, especially since I've had 5 hrs sleep per night for the last 4 or 5 nights, now. I've lost count. It's a little like having a baby in the house, but instead of losing shut eye for the sake of a crying newborn, I'm up at all hours to appease my own sense of needing to be prepared for a journey.

When we go on long car trips, my husband packs flares and spare gasoline and whatever manly tools he thinks one might need in the event of a problem. I don't think in those concrete terms, but really, I do same thing before a big trip in terms of mental preparation.

One of the symptoms of the difference between us, though, is that he seems unconcerned by what is being left behind. He doesn't worry about letters to teachers, permission slips and paperwork that needs to be put in order, while I can't be bothered to think about how much air is in the tires or what the turbulence might be like over the Pacific.

I've cleaned out most of the drawers and closets in the house. I still need to complete the list of contact names and numbers, the how-to-use the funky dishwasher instructions, to clean out the dog's pen, pay the bills, yadda yadda yadda. There are a few business details still to sort out too: a list the contacts we'll be meeting and their titles (I have their cards from previous trips), a map out their offices and facilities and the trade show we'll be visiting.

The young woman who is watching our kids (with help from her fiance) will have copious lists of instructions and directions. I warned her about this, and she was actually grateful. (Or at least, she said she was.) With her last gig like this, the parents went to Jamaica for a week, and she ended up having to rely on the 4 year old (the oldest of the 3 kids she was watching) to tell her where Mommy kept everything.

Anyway, I'll probably be up until midnight again, but maybe in some twisted way, that's good. I think I'm getting used to the change in the time zone. Right now it's noon in Tokyo.

I will do what I can to post to this blog while traveling. Maybe I'll even figure out a way to post pictures.

But I guess know about as much Japanese as I'm going to know by Sunday.