Dressing the Part~A Moment of Complete Frivolity

I've been really stressed out.  I'm having trouble deciding about a couple of medications that some people think are necessary while other experts think they are not worth the money it costs to take them.

Add to this the daily to-do lists that include dozens of little tasks like buying adapters, making copies of important paperwork, telling my insurance guy someone else is looking after the house and my blood pressure gets pretty darn worked up....blah blah blah.

Today I decided to cross off one of the most anxious-making tasks on my to-do list: packing.  I learned on my last long journey that all my stuff becomes heavier and heavier with each consecutive leg of the trip.  I ended up buying a smaller suitcase within the first three weeks, sent some stuff home with my mom a week later, and spent a small fortune shipping two large packages home to myself.  I discovered that, contrary to my normal everyday pack rat tendencies, when I travel, I need to travel LIGHT.

So today I went through the whittling process and came up with a plan that includes a very limited wardrobe of five shirts, two skirts, a slip (with security pockets), one pair of pants, pjs, a "wrap", one pair of sandals, one pair of sneaks, a squashable hat and, of course, some undergarments.

To finalize my choices I started with tops, which had to be paired one at a time with each available "bottom".  At one point I had on a shirt and skirt that I really liked together so I decided to make sure my sandals looked as cute as I thought they would.  Then I had to try out wearing my hair in braids(a la Julie Christie in Heat and Dust.)  I topped it all off with my floppy straw hat.

Suddenly, I was standing in my hallway dressed for a steamy day of sight seeing in Mumbai while the furnace hummed downstairs, cold rain splashed on the windows, wind howled in the trees and I felt both awesome and delightfully ridiculous all at the same time.