Christmas in January

Our shipping crate full of Ikea furniture, travel guidebooks and, crucially, all the clothes we haven't seen in over a year finally arrived at our apartment in Buenos Aires on Thursday. Between our moves to Indonesia, the U.S., Bolivia, the U.S. and Argentina -- all within the last five years -- this stuff has spent more time in shipping containers than our home. That makes the process of going through all the boxes both fun and horrifying. So far, the list of most memorable finds from our weekend of unpacking:

1. Most Disgusting: one bag of already opened turkey jerky (shouldn't it still be edible?)

2. Most Useless: La Paz Yellow Pages (Evo Morales not listed)

3. Most Embarrassing: Bill's ATM receipts marked 2:48 and 2:53 a.m. from "Turntable Entertainment" in Miami. That would be a "gentleman's club" Bill apparently visited in 2004 during a bachelor's party trip for our friend Krishna.

Finally, Dana gets special mention for the weekend's consensus pick of "Dumbest Move Yet" for vacuuming the apartment without realizing there was no bag in the vacuum cleaner. "I wondered what was causing all that dirt to fly up in my face," she said afterwards.