Damage Report

Before I launch into tales of the move, let me tell a quick story about what happened to me Thursday morning.

So I have my clock radio alarm dialed all the way down to the lowest FM station - 87.7. Which overlaps with VHF station 6, in case you weren't aware. I don't know how it got there, but inertia keeps it tuned to that station. Anyhow. My alarm goes off that morning, and somewhere between the alarm going off and the smacking it receives by my hand flailing for the snooze button, Mr. Low-Fidelity Clock Radio shouts, "...Al Gore's murder..." and SMACK - the snooze bar shuts him up. I lay there in bed and think, what?? But before I can really process this, I'm back asleep. Nine minutes later, I hear the TV talking head say, "...suspect is considered armed and dangerous..." and SMACK again on the snooze button. What on earth is going on? So I drag my bones out of bed, brush my teeth, pull on clothes, and go downstairs to turn on the tv. All I see is traffic and weather, and one would think that if the former vice president was indeed murdered, that would have higher priority. Well, one would think. So there's nothing to be found, and so I drive to work. I don't bother listening to NPR or any other news outlet. First period is my prep period, so I walk into the copy room first thing in the morning and see Jess. I ask, "Um. Is Al Gore still alive?" She responds (disappointedly) affirmatively. Hm. So I'm puzzled by all of this. Until last night, I heard a reference to this on the news. Aaaaaaah!


Okay. So, we've moved. Mostly. At least, the majority of our stuff is now in our new house. It's going to be a long time before we've found everything...

You know how every vacation has a theme? Well, they do. For example, our summer trip to Europe (2006) had the theme "Peculiar German Things." Major life events have themes, too, and this move was no exception. I began to think the theme was becoming "Supremely Bad Decisions."

The morning began inauspiciously. First, after taking the first carload of stuff over to the new house and retrieving tools to take apart beds and bookcases, I noticed a big mamma-jamma spider on our front porch wall. I stood there, looking at it for a few minutes, wrestling internally, do I kill it, do I spare it, yadda yadda, and eventually I decided to just do away with it, because the last thing I want is to be staring at this thing *inside* my house, instead of outside. And this was no spider I'd want to come upon in a darkened alley. So, the nearest weapon is my foot. So I kick it, and it falls to the floor. And so do thirty baby spiders! Turns out big mamma-jamma spider is a mama spider. So now I've given this spider a brute-force caesarean, she's not quite dead, and now I have little baby spiderlets scurrying everywhere. And these are going to grow up to be big ol' spiders. So they get the stomping, too. So now I feel horrible, because mama's not quite dead, and she's having to witness the carnage of her children. I'm trying really hard not to think of Charlotte's Web, all right?

Supremely bad decision #2 (however involuntary) was Brian's choice of footwear. As he was carrying things out of our old place to the truck out front, his sandaled foot hits a utility meter grate and punches through it, sustaining injury involving toenails. Other people's toenails gross me out, so I'm going to stop here before I barf. The bonus is that we had a nurse practitioner there to help us move, so she did some triage and got him back up on his feet.


Things perked up after that. Cable's working, so's water, electricity, even internet. Everything has been pretty plug-n-play. So far, we've had only one wrinkle - the kitchen table set that hasn't been delivered. The rant on Kane's Furniture can come some other time.

We have all but two bathrooms and the entry hall painted, and it didn't seem like a great idea to paint the entry hall until we moved everything in. We've had a fleet of people here, doing all kinds of work - installing blinds, putting handles on cabinets, installing ceiling fans, painting, hauling, etc. It's been great. We made such progress yesterday, I suffered from some strange form of daylight savings - you know, the kind of day where you think it's gotta be about 700p, and when you look down at your watch, you're delighted to see it's 330p? Anyhow, it's certainly starting beginning to feel more like home.

Things I will miss about our old home:

• The Publix half a block away. So convenient for fresh food at a moment's notice. We have one nearby, but it's a 5-min car ride, at the very least. :(
• Stairs. My knees don't agree with me. They don't have any problem with a one-story.
• A private walled patio. We have a screened enclosure, which I love, but people can see in screens! Not like I run around outside naked or anything, but it's just different, being on a porch without walls.
• Being in the flight path of the Britain-bound 747s. We'll still get to see them take off and land, don't get me wrong, but it's not the same when they're not flying low and slow, directly overhead!
• Neighbors (mixed blessing). We're on the edge of the prairie here, on the frontier of our neighborhood, and we don't have many people around us yet at all. Another house across and down the street had a moving van outside yesterday, too, so I'll have to wander down and meet them sometime soon. I hope we can have people nearby that we like and know. I've never lived somewhere - besides growing up - where I really knew my neighbors. Maybe here.