A belated Happy New Year

Question: Do you know any flibbertigibbets?

Well, I am still here but barely. That is, after logging onto this site for the first time in awhile, I am preparing to take off on what has become my annual winter vacation in Thailand. This time it will be only for two weeks and one city (Chiang Mai) instead of three weeks in two or more cities.

In recent months my duties as caregiver for a friend who is seriously ill with cancer has taken up a lot of time and I have not been able to focus on this site. He is slowly getting weaker, or so it seems, and is taking a lot of different medications now in addition to his chemotherapy treatments. I alternate for a week or two with his three siblings.

So now I will get to see some of my friends in Chiang Mai for the first time in several years plus one or more ex-pats from San Francisco who live there now. I am battling my mid-winter cough here however. It took last winter off but when present sounds a lot worse than it is.. The only thing that will knock it out is warmer weather which is what I am sure headed for on Monday. The problem is the 9+ hours of flight time on chilly airplanes. Hope that does not exacerbate the problem.

As I prepare for this trip I wonder how the new security regulations, if any, will impact me. I guess outbound from the U.S. won't be too much different but the return could get interesting. Just hope I will have access to the rest room during that final hour of flight. After all, when you gotta go, you gotta go.