I am attempting to pack to go away on a 4-day trip to a warm location. This necessitated a 3 hour trip to Talbots to choose casual clothing that can be worn among co-workers without embarrassment at the style, condition or seasonality of the attire. Now I am into the "outfit coordination" phase of packing - organizing the various wardrobe components into viable combinations. Next will come the "outfit selection" step, which entails matching the ensembles to actual activities (breakfasts, business meetings, jungle excursions, dinners, flights, etc.). There is also the choice of accessories - purses, shoes, hats, jewelry - for each outfit. A review must be done to make sure that there are back-up components, in the event that one element (e.g., a t-shirt) that is used with multiple outfits is soiled and another must be substituted. The clothing to be worn on the plane must be separately evaluated for appropriateness for the climate which I am leaving (damply cold, slush on the ground, sleet in the air) and the one to which I am traveling (humid, 83 degrees, sunny). Sufficient reading material must be packed for both me and the spouse, recognizing that our tastes in fiction rarely align.

When this is all done and the nine bags have been packed, they will, of course, need to be completely unpacked and reloaded because I will have severe ansgt about pairing the salmon colored sweater with the khaki pants and I've forgotten to include my toiletry bag and the laptops won't fit anywhere. And besides, there is an extra charge if your bags weigh over 50 pounds each.

Movies: Stone Cold. TV movie starring Tom Selleck, from the novel by Robert Parker. Watching this movie painfully pointed out the deficiency that exists in my brain when it comes to retaining the content of books I've read. Although I read this novel a couple of years ago, and recognized the characters (the alcoholic cop from LA who settles in a small town in Massachusetts, the deeply twisted couple who form the serial killer duo, the police chief's friend with benefits, the teenage rape victim), I could not recall any details of the story. Selleck was appropriately laconic in this role as Jesse Stone, with none of the irritatingly cloying cuteness that has afflicted some of Parker's Spenser novels.