It’s time for 12 of 12 again!

This is also my first ‘real’ blog post in a while – in times of stress, I tend to post infrequently, and then about stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with me so that I don’t have to relive the stress again. It’s what I do.

Anyway, this may not be the most inspired 12 of 12, but wah.

I completely forgot that today was the 12th – not that you all wanted photos of me running errands this morning I met up with my parents for breakfast — they were too busy to do something on Mother’s Day, imagine! It kind of worked out fine, since Ray’s birthday party was Saturday night and … well, let’s just say that Sunday was not one of my more active, conscious days.

I got home, with my bag of 3-fluid-ounce-or-less toiletry items for my trip tomorrow, gifts for the people we’re meeting with in Spain, my hair freshly cut, and picked up the mail to find a statement from Dollar Rent-A-Car.

You may recall that our last full day in Hawaii last month, we . We spent much of the next day unsuccessfully attempting to replace it, only to discover that the necessary tire could not be located on the island of Hawaii and would have to be flown in from Honolulu.

I have had nasty experiences with rental car agencies before. On my very first-ever business trip, to Seattle in 1997, I was basically screwed over by Alamo. On returning the car to SeaTac Airport, the guy who checked in the car barked at me as I got out, “Was this here before?” He was pointing to an area just behind the gas cap.

“Yeah, there was a dent there when I took the car out,” I said.

“No, I’m not talking about the dent, I’m talking about this,” he snapped, pointing at a one-and-a-half inch white streak that looked as if it could be removed nicely with some glass cleaner and a course towel.

Long story short, Alamo sent me a bill for $700, with the only expenses itemized as “Sonic Collision.” I asked my insurance company to follow up because I was convinced that they had repaired the dent and charged me for it. In the meantime, however, Alamo representatives called me daily wanting to know where their money was. They called me at home, and, when they discovered that it had been a business trip, started calling me at work.

My insurance company failed to follow through to my satisfaction, so I switched companies a month later, and my company paid the $700, and I resolved never to do business with Alamo Rental Car again.

So, I had braced myself for a substantial bill to arrive from Dollar, since I knew that the tire would have to be flown in and that it would be a couple of days before the car could be rented. But, when I opened the envelope, the statement was for $72.50. New tire and labor. In fact, it was less than any of the tires we looked at buying ourselves. So, kudos to Dollar.

Moving on.

I’m off to Sevilla tomorrow (the one in Spain). Well, technically I’m off to Madrid and then taking the train to Sevilla, but hopefully I will end Wednesday in Sevilla. I discovered that my bank changes currency, and does so at a competitive rate. I changed money on Friday before the dollar slides even further.

I’ve got to hand it to the European Central Bank. Their money’s prettier than ours.

And then … it was time to pack.

Mocha was, as usual, in the middle of everything. She’s not one to get nervous when the suitcases are out – Ray and I have both done our share of business travel, and she’s used to us going here and there for a few days. It’s only when she sees us both packing together that she gets upset.

I went downstairs to get some trousers from the laundry room and came back to the bedroom to find Mocha sacked out on my blazer.

Another item to pack.

It doesn’t matter how hard I try, I’ll be finding bits of her hair everywhere between here and Casablanca (which is Sunday).

While driving home on Friday, I heard a report about the guy who runs OneBag.com, and he was talking about the virtues of bundling your clothing when you pack your suitcase. I looked up the handy chart on the Web site (that’s why my laptop is on the bed) and figured I’d give it a shot.

Basically, the theory is that by wrapping your clothes around each other, they wrinkle less because there are no creases to fold into hard wrinkles like there are when you fold your clothes and stack them.

So, I put underwear, socks, the guidebook to Morocco I don’t need until next week, and a couple of travel-sized packs of laundry detergent (in a ziptop bag!) on top of my jeans …

… and wrapped them up as below:

Then you wrap your shirts around them — arms this way, then fold up the shirt tails over the top, with jacket or blazer last:

and then in the end you get a nice neat bundle that is, in theory, crease free:

I’m also bringing an iron. Momma didn’t raise no fool. I’ll let you know if this actually works!

(Update: I’ve posted the results of this little experiment here.)

So, then it was time to take out the garbage — and there’s quite a lot of it from the party over the weekend.

Mocha was very keen to help:

… and finally, another shot of Mocha:

Have a happy 12th!