I am still up, and - NO! I am not finished packing.... I am on my way to being finished, though. I had a load of chores to finish today, including:

1. Pick up contacts at Costco

2. Pick up dog medication at Banfield (call first to make sure it was in stock)

3. Buy travel sizes of saline solution, hair stuff, etc.

4. COLOR hair!

5. Stop mail from being delivered for 2 weeks

6. E-mail contact information and agenda to my mom, sister, brother-in-law, and cousin (who would be taking my dad to the airport in Houston)

7. Find someone in the neighborhood to push garbage bin back out of sight after it has been collected tomorrow.

8. Get dog food, medication, and other things together to take to mom's place -she's dog-sitting.

9. Go to the one place in town (in Midtown) that sells Roger & Gallet soaps to buy them as hostess gifts.

10. Did I mention PACK?

I got right on the communication of our flight info and agenda to the pertinent people - and a good thing, too! Not an hour after I sent this info out, specifying HOBBY Airport in Houston as my dad's point of departure, did my cousin call. Seems Dad (and any unwitting person looking at the e-ticket info) thought the the HOU meant Houston Intercontinental Airport. Well, it didn't, and Hobby is about 75 miles from where my cousin lives.

So, I called my bestest friend, who lives conveniently closer to Hobby, and she agreed to take in my father, and even to take him to the airport in the morning, and to store his huge new van.

The only problem was - my father was incommunicado. He does not have a cell phone. But, eventually he made it to my cousins place, where he made the decision to stay put, drive to my friend's house in the morning, from whence she will deposit him at the beknighted HOBBY!

This is not the first time there has been a Hobby/Intercontinental misunderstanding...

...but we won't go into that. I will just keep my fingers crossed that it will all work out, and my DAD will safely meet us at the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. From there, we will depart ensemble for Mexico City.

And Hurricane Claudette had better have gotten her jollies over with by then, too!

So, with my husband's help, we ran our errands, and even devised an ingenious way to avoid putting our trash bin out tomorrow: we packed up our garbage and dumped it in an office park dumpster. (Do not judge me - it was an emergency!) Now we don't have to entreat a total stranger to take care of these things for now. The only risk is that some of our plants might die.

So, I am going to wrap this up, because I still have to PACK - did I mention I haven't packed yet? And we will wake up early tomorrow morning, and load up the car with luggage, pooch and pooch supplies, and a loaner laptop for my mother. We will be going earlier than we had planned to set up the laptop that will tide her over until her Mac gets out of the shop!