Wednesday, 3/2

For the time being, I'm not allowed to leave the country.

Now, I will admit, part of me wants to stop writing right now. Part of me just wants to leave that statement hanging. Part of me just wants you to wonder just why the heck I'm unable to leave the country.

Thankfully, though, that's just a small part of me. After all, I'm not that cruel.

Why am I not allowed to leave the country for the time being, you ask? Well, I answer, I can't leave the country because I don't have a passport at the moment.

Kind of anti-climactic when you consider most of the reasons for which I'd be forbidden to leave the country, right?

8-)

My passport expires near the end of next year (2023), and since I've had absolutely no use for it the past two years I figured now is as good of a time as any to renew it. After all, you're not supposed to travel on it within six months of its expiration date, and since six months before the date would be next spring, when there's a slight (very slight) possibility it might actually get used, I figured I might as well do it now.

Of course, that means I can't leave the country for the next three to six months, while I'm waiting for the new one, but the way the world is today, I'm not sure I'd WANT to leave the country for the next three to six months.

Both Loraine and I get people asking when we'll be resuming our travels, and we both have to say we have no idea. There are so many things at play, everything from having to take Covid tests to get into other countries (or back into the US) and then having to deal with a possible negative result, to whether or not there will be a peaceful Europe to visit, that we're just hanging back for the time being. We actually do know what our first trip back will be—probably to Leipzig for a soccer match, a trip to a place we know, a place where we wouldn't be visiting multiple areas or have to rent a car—but the “ when” is sometime in the future. At the moment, the Bundesliga isn't even allowed to have full stadiums, so even if everything else were a go, that isn't.

So we'll be going back. We know that much. We just have no idea when, other than the fact that it won't be in the next three to six months.

Because, you know, in that time I'm not allowed to leave the US.

(jim@wmqt.com)