Mary Bellamy

Ugh. Travel commences tonight. I don't normally mind traveling, but buying a last-minute ticket means taking whatever The Man has to dish out. In other words, it's the middle seat for me. I've got a total of 6 flights on this trip, with one aisle seat and only one precious window. I think I hate everyone else on those planes who had the luxury of planning ahead for their trips.

10 days on the East Coast. I've told my father that the only reason I'm actually coming home is to go shopping. And I will certainly do some of that. But for those of you who don't know, I am going home because he is sick. Hence my lack of recent posting. Dear Papa has three aortic aneurysms in his heart, one of which requires immediate attention. He'll be playing the part of a guinea pig, as he's going to try an experimental procedure first. Open heart surgery is the last resort.

But rather than stress him out, I'm going to list some things that will have fellow Alaskans green with envy.

• Target
• Sushi
• Real cheese
• TJ Maxx
• Malls
• Indian food
• Indian grocery stores
• Pirated Bollywood movies for $2 at Indian grocery stores
• 90 degrees
• Beaches

Don't hate. I plan on a complicated dance of luggage on the way back. I've got 8 hours in Seattle, so I'm only going to check my luggage through to that point, then pick it up and pay to store it. I will then hop a bus downtown, hopefully meet up with Heather at some point for dinner or a drink or just a chat, and (more importantly) hit the stores for some food shopping. I don't want to take the chance that any cheese in my carry-on will be confiscated, so I'll put it all in my checked bag and recheck it when I check in for my Seattle-Fairbanks flight. You'd think cheese would be fine, but in Auckland they confiscated my hummus. Damn racial profiling....