bending the rules

Today you get a break.

I am so tired from traveling, this is only going to be a brief note to let you know I made it to Bend yesterday morning.  It was almost a full 4 hours of traveling.

I left Manzanillo Saturday afternoon and ended up in Olympia spending the night with my friends Ken and Patti.  After about 5 hours of sleep, I was on my way to Bend the next morning.

This trip north is a dog's dinner of small things.  With Ken and Patti, we firmed up some ideas for our trip to Europe in late August.  I need to find a guide for the three of us to tour the Normandy Landing beaches.

But the list is longer than that.  I needed to recover a lens cap to replace the one I lost in Italy.  Done.

My niece, Kaitlyn, celebrated one of her early twenties birthdays with the full family.  The best part?  Playing Balderdash.  It has become one of our family traditions.  We are a group who loves to play with words.  The Humpty Dumpty gene runs thick through my relatives.  Done.

My telephone has now been replaced with an HTC One M8.  It is unavailable in Mexico, and will not be in stores there for some time. 

But I had one in my pocket the minute I rolled into town.  Amazon delivered it to my brother, and my brother charged it up for me.  All I needed to do was to drive over to T-Mobile to get a nano chip.  I even got to keep my old north of the border telephone number.  Done.

There is still a lot on my dance card.  I have a suitcase full of clothes that require dry cleaning.  If I did not have the cruise coming up in September, I would leave all of my fancy duds here.

Dry cleaning, of course, is done in Mexico.  But I was making the trip.  So, why not drop it at a dry cleaner I know?

First thing Monday morning I will stop by a post office to take care of some business necessitated only by the consequences of a little bill (FATCA) that was sponsored by the Obama administration to catch rich Americans who transfer their wealth overseas.

Of course, the wealthy do not care about such regulations.  They can afford to hire accountants and tax lawyers to legally avoid the mess.  Instead, it is the small fry who are seeing their overseas banking options closed down.  The banks may not be failing, but access is.

I will mail off a check for a fellow expatriate who has been caught in the jaws of insanity, and I will try to switch a direct deposit to another bank before all of my credit card payments balance.  And open an alternate savings account.  

On Tuesday, I will attend my former employer's 100th anniversary.  It will be an interesting experience to watch how an organization treats its employees who are in turmoil following the bizarre firing of the former CEO.  I have even been invited to a dueling event -- lunch with the fired executive.  I will be happy to share what details I can.

And, after that, I have nothing in particular planned.  But I will spend as much time as I can with friends and acquaintances.  That is always my favorite part of these trips.

Right now, I am heading to bed.  After I eat a pound or two of cherries.