Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Will you still need me when I'm 64?

Not that it makes a heck of a lot of difference but, today is my Birthday ... the 62nd. I could retire and start taking Social Security but, as Candy pointed out this morning as we listened to the cats trying to get into the bathroom cabinets ... bump, bump ... bump, bump, bump ... it wouldn't be enough.

She's right. It wouldn't. Not by a long shot!

The packers arrived yesterday morning at about 9am and began the mindless business of boxing everything that we own. I say "mindless" without malice or negative judgment. In one who packs other's belongings, it's a virtue. We could never pack as efficiently or effectively. We would continually be figuring out what should go with what. It would be an agonizing, thought-filled process that would go on forever. On the other hand, the packers were well beyond that. If it moved and it fit, it went into the box they were working on at the time. End of story.

They were done by 1pm. Our month of packing yielded some twenty or twenty five boxes neatly stacked in the garage. Their three or so hours, excluding frequent cigarette breaks, left piles of boxes as tall as a man, impeding transit throughout the house.

I made a couple trips between houses yesterday afternoon, trying to move a few essential things. The idea was to spend the night n our new place. The two cats made the journey without slipping into insanity. However, it took them until abut 9pm to come out of hiding and start exploring.

While I was dealing with the packers, Candy was trying to deal with the phone guy who's object seemed to burn as much time as possible on the assignment and the Sears delivery guys, who installed the new 50/50, solid black refrigerator with interior water dispenser without incident. (I have a thing about refrigerators that have crap on the outside door. I much prefer clean lines.) The refrigerator looks for all the world like the monolith from Kubrick's movie "2001".

I'd sorta planned to watch part one of the three part "Warriors of God" series on the tube but, when it came right down to it, I couldn't bring myself to sit there in front of the TV, listening and watching more depressing things done in the name of the deity. Instead, I spent a couple delightful hours on the phone, listening to the Cox Communications automated telephone answering menus, trying to reach and actual human being so I could get at least one of the damned computers up and running. Though I eventually went to bed in defeat, leaving the cable modem and the wireless router in a room together overnight seems to have done the trick. It appears they have reached an accommodation and, now they are conversing with one another again.

Of course, in moving the "essentials" yesterday afternoon, it seems I omitted my toothbrush and my morning regimen of blood pressure and anti-cholesterol pills. I'm considering going out for bacon and eggs to ease the pain of that discovery.

A cigar in the back yard at dawn went a long way to soothe the savage beast. By comparison to the street noise of the old place - ass end hard pressed against Houghton Road and virtually every bit of commuter traffic on the far east side of Tucson - the almost silence of the new place is soul refreshing in the extreme. We're in gated community, about a half mile from the nearest boom box on wheels. Just considering the prospect almost makes me giddy. There are places in our small (though at least three times the size of the yard we're leaving) where you an almost pretend you're not in the city limits.

I think I'm going to like it here. I think I'm going to like it here for a long time.

Well, at least until I'm 64.

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