And the Winner Is.....

I am tired, tired, tired. For the last three days I have been running around ticking off items on my endless to do list, and if I were not so tired, tired, tired, I would pat myself on the back for completing it. Well, almost completing it. I had hoped to make myself tomorrow's lunch, a roast beef sandwich on thick crusty bread with hot peppers soaked in olive oil. But, guess what? I'm too tired. I quit. I need bed.

My plan is to get up, shower, throw any last minute items in the car, make that lunch - two really - one for me and one for my son who I will then drop off at school with a big - see you in a month— hug.

I have never left my son for a month. My husband either. The longest Chuck and I have ever been apart was after we first met and fell in love and then he left me on a farm in southern Illinois in the middle of a wild-life refuge that was surrounded by water and snakes and creeks that flooded so high you could either not get home or not leave - depending on which side of the creek you were when the rains came. He left me - there on that farm while he went off to law school in Oregon. Letters is what we had. Letters and a single Christmas break. Then, one year later I moved out to Oregon too. But it took a year. Half of 1985 and half of 1986. And that, way back then, was the longest we had ever been apart. The next longest came four years later when I took my sister to India for three weeks. Since then we've hardly ever been apart. Sure, a few days here, a week there. That's it. Twenty four years.

So this is a big deal.

But you know what? I am too tired to care.

Anyway, it's time to announce the winner of the What to Bring to the Grand Canyon game.

And the winner is ------- Eric B's husband with his suggestion that I bring sun sensitive photo paper. I did not think of that. I like that idea of taking little things - a piñon nut, an oak leaf, a scorpion, and catching it's image on that paper. It's like a permanent shadow. Unfortunately, I could not find sun sensitive photo paper. I looked, but it was a no go.  So I guess that is another thing I did not do on my list. Damn.

Anyway Erica B, email me your address, and I will send you something from the canyon. No telling what it will be, but I promise it will not bite.

To bed...

-Naseem Rakha 1/29/13