I woke up early today with my head swimming in things left to do before leaving. My brain woke up right before my eyes opened to look at the clock, 5:45, shit. Then the 'to-do' and 'don't forgets' started rolling like an old movie projector, boiling into shear anxiety before I even moved a muscle.

Our 90lbs lab/weineraner mix who we affectionately call 'Woodford' or 'the BBPA' (Big black pain in the ass) on his bad days, uses canine intuition to know when your body is awake and persistently and aggressively lets you know he is ready for breakfast. The cold nose and giant wet tongue in your face is just his way of making sure you didn't forget in the past second. Woodford has different wake-up times for different people. For me it's almost exactly 18 minutes before my alarm goes off at 6:20, early enough that its not light out and just enough time to NOT snooze for a few more minutes. With my wife, he tries the same routine and she pulls the sheets over her head and he resigns his fate to knowing it's not yet breakfast time in Mommies world and settles down. With our son, Woodford quietly lays in bed with him and doesn't move until Morgan is ready to get up shortly before noon. In fairness to Morgan, hes a college age kid that does copious amounts of homework, all night study sessions and differential equations. Sleep for him is a privilege, not a right. Woodford's preferred breakfast time when with Grandpa is approximately 4:30am. As you can see, Woodford's wake-up call is different for all.

Out of bed and downstairs to the kitchen where I feed and let the dogs out, it's raining great. A fresh layer of muddy dog footprints and my kitchen floor on square on top of my right foot as Woodford steps on my foot when coming back in. It's his way of adding a special 'hello' in the rainy predawn hours. I started to make a cup of Cuban Café con leche which requires a more involved process than rebuilding a Chevy small block engine. Boil 8oz of water, stir in the coffee, return to boil, strain, heat 6oz of milk, mix coffee and warm milk, dash of salt, sugar and stir. All this work rewards you with 8oz of light tan 'Hi-Test' Cuban coffee. It wakes you up and can also strip paint from 100 year old painted wood. I don't often drink caffeine but when I do, I like to do it right. And since I don't drink a lot of caffeine the result of this coffee on an empty stomach is a feeling I would equate to 'legal speed', rolling into the sunrise turbocharged! 

With the dogs fed and spinning their lay-down circles in the preferred daytime napping spots, I adjured back upstairs to the study to look at the to-do list and see what I could accomplish and perhaps knock down some of this pre-trip anxiety.  

Excerpt from Patrick's To-Do List:

Call NASA

Passport photos

Backup phone, phots & add music

 I called NASA yesterday because I always check in with them before traveling. How inconvenient would it be if you left home while there was an Earth bound asteroid plummeting into our atmosphere or worse, a back hole forming at your destination? "Hello NASA, Earth still spinning? Good, hear any good Space Force jokes this week?". I think by know you realize this is just a rouse, I have a NASA credit card and called them to make them aware of my international, multi-country trip so my credit card account won't get suspended when I charge something in Ka-ka-ka-katmandu. 'Check'
Passport photos for the Nepali visa, 'check'. I opted to print at home and not go to Walgreen's or the like because I am cheap and from multiple sources the Nepali administrators are not overly concerned with your photo for a visa to enter the country. A small photo of Big Bird and $40 USD can get you a Visa good for 30 days. The former is of less value than the latter, not many places you travel where cash in not king. That is unless you are in Malaysia, then the King is Almu'tasimu Billahi Muhibbuddin Tuanku Alhaj Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah Ibni Almarhum Sultan Badlishah. 'Check'
Lastly was the task of backing up, cleaning up and selecting music for the trip. Back up, done. Photos saved and removed from phone, done. Music. Open iTunes. I stop for a second. What is the soundtrack to a once in a lifetime three week trip around the world? That's when my brain started rolling like that old time movie projector on double speed. The wave of musical possibilities folded over itself like a breaker and I was flooded with the ocean that is my iTunes account. My brain was kicking out suggestions faster than I could drop the music into my phone, "You can play this when you land in Lukla, and there is this song to listen to in the morning to mediate to, and what about listening to this when you head home?". And of course Bog Seger's Katmandu. Wow, I guess the coffee is really kicking in. There was no shortage of music in my iTunes to pick from. Starting out with all the Napster downloads from the late 90s and early 2000s, to ripping CDs my friends lend me, iTunes music and the past years checking out CDs from the public library (thank you fellow tax payers!). In my mind I am putting together a soundtrack to a movie, a movie that has not yet been filmed but the score is the most important part. Before 'Back To The Future' was released and it was being tested in front of audiences it was not testing well. Then Alan Silvestri wrote an amazing score for the movie and as they say, the rest is history. So the music to accompany this trip is one of the most important things to 'pack'. 
So it was pure bliss to sit in a lightly lit study with my headphones on, sipping cocaine in a cup and creating a 480 hour playlist to be the soundtrack to what will be a remarkable trip. Albeit if it was before the sun came up and Woodford has long fallen back asleep and is dreaming of making me up once again for food.