Bare-naked in Toronto and Vancouver

I am fit to be crowned Worst Packer of this great wide land. Last night I was trying to fill a suitcase with necessities for a day in Vancouver and two days in Toronto. No matter the destination, the duration of the trip, the weather or the growing limitations as to what clothes can actually accomodate my bump these days, I stand motionless in front of my closet and stare vacantly at an abyss of clothes, shoes, bags, scarves. Scott has warned me that if I keep it up, he will need to refinish the floor at my feet.

I am a clothes sorter. I am a re-folder. I am an organize-my-closet-by-garment-colour-when-the-mood-strikes-me kind of gal. I banish spring clothes to storage in the fall, and fall clothes to storage in the spring. I like this kind of system. It keeps me calm, if not obsessive compulsive.

But packing is my wardrobial tragic flaw. Shoes especially. I usually take with me more pairs of shoes than days I am away. Add two different climates to the formula (a heat wave in Toronto and the perpetual winter of '08 on the West Coast) and I've really got a calculus problem to solve. Find: the derivative of white shorts raised to the power of two heels, multiplied by a maternity top, all divided by rain. I stand. I stare. Flies fluzz by. Chestnuts roast on an open fire.

And inevitably, the morning of my departure is an exercise in haphazardly adding last minute items to my suitcase (and purging four-legged stowaways). Boots. toothpaste. pjs. Shit! pjs!!!