March Madness - March, 2007

Recognizing that not everyone is a diehard basketball fall like me, I’ll refrain from more than one simple, “Oh, my God, we beat Duke and are going to the Final Four,” to cover my beloved Rutgers women’s basketball team and instead devote this space to my other March Madness – my trip to Cancun.

It all begins with the packing, and I come from a long line of over-packers. One year my parents were headed to the Catskills for a week of R&R. I saw my mother piling clothes on top of an already impossible to close suitcase and asked if she was finished packing. No, she replied, noting that my father’s things would still have to be added. When I questioned how she planned to put them in, she studied the suitcase, looked back at me and replied, “I’ll rearrange the shoes.”

Clearly, Mom set the example for me in packing. The day before I left, I did a “dry fit” of the carry-on – the CARRY-ON! – which had to hold two cameras (photo and video, to cover the wedding I was attending), a change of clothes, bathing suit and sweater (in case the luggage is lost you still have to be able to hit the beach, and it could be cold or hot), multiple books (in case you get stranded in the airport you must be prepared to read for days), and a full week’s supply of medication, each in its original bottle lest there be doubt that the drugs are all mine and all prescribed. Then, I carefully laid out the clothing I had selected for the six days I would be away, as well as extra clothing in case travel arrangements were changed and I was forced to stay longer – like a week longer, for example.

By the time I was finished laying out the outfits (and mind you, this was a beach wedding, so flowered shirts, shorts and flip-flops were the order of the day), my bedroom looked like the dressing room at Loehman’s after a clearance sale, clothing strewn everywhere, some with tags still attached (we women like to evaluate our purchases, just in case we find something else we like better, and we keep the tags on until the last minute, just in case we want to take the original choice back; it’s the joy of the hunt, you know).

Surprisingly, everything made it into the suitcase, and I congratulated myself for the sudden spurt of packing efficiency. Of course, I couldn’t get the suitcase down the stairs, but it was packed neatly and efficiently.

But how was the trip, you wonder (unless by now you really don’t care)? And, more importantly, did you wear everything (what do you think?)? The trip was great. I used my 12 years of forgotten Spanish every day to say “Hola” to the waiters and hotel staff, all of whom speak English much better than I speak Spanish. Besides, when I cleverly asked for directions in what must have sounded like flawless Spanish, I got them back – in Spanish, of course – and I couldn’t understand them. The universal signals for left and right as well as, ”I’ll take the check, please,” came in handy, as they always do. The weather was beautiful, the accommodations excellent, the food tasty and plentiful, and the wedding – with the beach in the background – truly memorable. I gave my retirement gift from Johnson & Johnson – my new Nikon camera – a workout, shooting hundreds of photos of sunrises and sunsets, sand and water (since I missed my photography class, I figured I better have something to show for my absence). So, except for the fact that the straws at the swim-up bar were not bendable and were so long that I had to raise myself out of the water even briefly to sip my frozen drink with fruit and umbrella, the conditions were more than just a bit tolerable.

Repacking was easy (you know EVERYTHING is going into the suitcase on the way back) and the return home comfortable and relatively quick. I was asleep before the plane took off. But arriving home and getting that suitcase back upstairs – THAT, my friends, was March Madness.

PS – Since Rutgers made it to the Final Four, I will be packing again and heading to Cleveland to cheer on the team. Let’s see how much I can cram into that carry-on. Packing should be easy – least I know that everything I wear will be red.