Bill and Melissa in Cairo بل و ميليسا في القاهرة

This weekend we accomplished quite a bit of preparations for Egypt. There's a list somewhere, probably buried in our catch-all desk drawer, of everything we need to do before boarding that plane. It includes things like try to sell/give away/pay someone to take our mattress that makes one feel they are sleeping at a pleasant 45 degree angle. We also need to get rid of some clothes (don't think we have room for that torn, plaid "mountain man" shirt, honey), and I suppose we should pay our taxes here pretty soon in case they come looking for us in Cairo.

One thing I thought I didn't have to do was get a new passport. Several months ago, I checked the expiration date, and breathed a sigh of relief that I was good through May 2011. My passport that I got in high school before leaving for my first overseas trip, Romania, was full of memorable stamps and had a typical, embarrassing post adolescent picture on the first page. I carefully tucked it away and moved on to other, more important things. And then... last week, it hit me. In the past 9 years since it was issued, I had gotten married. Well, I don't forget that very often. I'm only referring to the very few times I've signed my maiden name on something! And so, that passport had the wrong name. And had we both forgotten that little fact, I'm not sure how I would have ever gotten to Egypt. Since our layover is in Abu Dhabi, would that be the first place where I'd have to show my passport? We're taking our marriage certificate along, so maybe they would have been gracious. Maybe I would have been deported. Or at the very least, stuck in the airport for much longer than our already long 15 hour layover. I have no idea what would have happened, not being a seasoned world traveler. (obviously!)

But, thankfully, we won't have to find out. On Friday we mailed in our applications and hope it will be closer to 4 weeks than 6 weeks to get them back. We leave in 7 weeks. We also got Red up to date on her shots and found her a temporary home (thanks, Mom! And don't worry, she only roots out chocolate and eats it in gargantus quantities if you leave her out of her crate while you're gone. She's a real angel the rest of the time, I'm serious), did some shopping, and scribbled some numbers on paper. It was a good weekend. It was also a happy Easter.

Off to Royals opening day!