General Muttering Afternoon. Getting things in order. Plan is to fly out to Guangzhou Monday AM, connect to Shanghai, overnight in Shanghai Monday midnight, drop off about 50kg of extra luggage to family, then domestic air to Shen Yang midday Tuesday, then an AirB&B in NE China. The AirBnB apartment in Shen Yang looks like a cross between Zen and the Art of Oddness and Hello Kitty, and is unrealistically inexpensive, so that it may not actually exist. Then a few days there, go to the wedding, see family, then back to Shanghai see family, a few days there, then home and back to work. In preparation for this, apart from the heart attack two months ago, I caught the flu this week so have been holed up at home sneezing and snotting around in a zombie like fashion trying to work out if the zombieism relates to the lessening of the damaged pumping heart's blood supply to the old brain, or just the flu. I expect its a combination. It all augurs pretty well for our first holiday in about 3 years since coming to Melbourne and finding work, and working, and then...getting sick, working, pushing back on creditors etc. So: passport & visa, yes. Some tablets, oh yes. Some tissues, yes. Some nitrolingual spray, yes. Some spare Yuan. From time to time in life I've had PTSD/Depression/whatever and tend to agree with Mr Leonard Cohen when he said that as he got older, the connecting pathways in the brain that bring about depression tend to get burnt out. Mine have. Last night we drove into the city centre in Melbourne to pick up a Certificate for daughter noting her excellence in sound engineering in a Nepalese video, so we can deliver it to her in Shanghai. Then we had some Japanese food. The cost of the meal and the cost of parking the ute was about the same...$30 each. Nothing cheap about Melbourne. I was muttering and grumbling for sometime before realising that everything was basically okay...and, in its way, remarkable. Today I have swanned about in my Chinese winter Pyjamas and fluffy slippers all day, and drove to the bottle shop dressed that way and bought a bottle of Guinness and a packet of cigarettes. I did this to be culturally prepared for Northern China. Tomorrow, Sunday, is packing the luggage day and writing down numbers of things that may be important. Who knows? Hopefully, in the time available in Shen Yang, in the Hello Kitty AirB&B I will have a nap, transcend the usual, and become self-aware for ten minutes before getting hungry for street noodles and fried snakes on sticks. I will smoke ten Pandas for you.