APOLOGIES FOR THE CONFUSION OF TODAY’S POSTS

Liz, the 2005 Buick Tessara I’ve owned since 2008

I was so happy to be sending myself photos that I didn’t realize the phone thingy was also posting blank posts along with the images.

And the names got all fouled up.

And the longish post I was writing got lost.

And I am just so tired, I couldn’t even face fixing things this morning. Plus an unreasonable pain from a pinched nerve just wouldn’t go away – finally tamed it with ibuprofen and hours on a cold pack.

The cars are not going with us

My husband isn’t sentimental about cars; we sold his yesterday without much of a backward glance, even though he’s the only owner it ever had, and I don’t have a picture.

So I headed to the window, took my first picture through the screen, realized it was junk that way, took it again – and here you have the car that did the bulk of the homeschool hauling around, and all three kids learned to drive on it (and aced their parking tests!), and it has been to Pittsburgh, PA, and to Troy, NY, bunches of time (we didn’t drive to Pasadena because that was way too far), hauled more junk than I can shake a stick at, and had its seats in and out to make space.

Her name is Liz, because youngest daughter told me (I took her along and made sure she sat in every minivan on the used car dealer’s lot to make sure her older and taller siblings would fit when they visited) that if you name a car, you have to take it home.

The dealer here will take her off our hands on the day we head out of town, and the convenience of having him do the transfer paperwork right has trumped any thought of selling her privately for possibly more money. Plus we’ll keep her up to the last day, and not need a rental. Plus luggage.

I don’t ‘love’ inanimate objects, though I do anthropomorphize, but Elizabeth (Liz) gets thanked a lot when I leave this place – and make it back safely.

The packing is going, going, almost gone…

The last of the captain’s bed

and the rooms are emptying to a pile of boxes in the living room ready for the movers this week,

and this is the last of it – and will be the first boxes opened because that’s where the toothpaste is. And the antacids.

We’ve reached the point

where we’re leaving whether the sale goes through or not.

If it doesn’t, the house can stay under management, empty, fixed, and ready to sell until it does, and our lawyer said he can handle the closing. But signs are positive (all fingers crossed, now, guys), as it toodles along lackadaisically toward the new folk, and they have ‘happily’ (according to our agent) agreed to accept a few things we are leaving them because they really need them even though they don’t know that yet.

The house is another thing I will definitely miss, but oddly, because, since the staging ladies and the painter and the flooring people did their thing it hasn’t been my house, anyway.

We’ll have to remember with our memories, and the house as the backdrop of family photos, because I never got to do what I was going to do, namely clean it up for sale (but without all that newfangled staging stuff), and then take pictures. So there are birthday parties in the office, kitchen, and dining room; and Christmases in the living room; and some Thanksgiving photos’ and lots of pictures of the exterior through all the seasons.

But no photos of a tidy house of mine.

That’s all for now, folks

It may be a while before the next post, or, living in an Extended Stay America for a week, I may have so much time on my hands that it drives the words out of my head onto the page. Dunno.

There are still an awful lot of things to do and I hope I don’t forget any of the ones which are critical.

Or pack them inaccessibly. I left the pool floats where I will open them first, and kept a bathing suit out. First things first, of course.

I think I’ll leave you to ponder the existential thrill of letting go of so many things at once and with no time to ponder individual ones, nor to take photos of most of the things which are staying in NJ in the homes of friends, strangers, and the dump. I kept the photos and the digitized home movies and the music transferred to an iPod (need to make a backup of that, too).

It’s supposed to be freeing to empty it all out, to let go, finally, of project you really are never going to do (my assistant took one of them – if she does it, and sends me a picture, I’ll post it, but don’t hold your breath).

I don’t feel free yet, just empty. It does and it doesn’t help that I’ve been almost completely home-bound for many years now, leaving as infrequently as possible because of the energy it takes.

I will get back to writing, and learn a new, communal place, and move on to the next phase.

I don’t regret any of this – but it is a very strong demarcation in my life.

I’m sure you have stories from your moves – I’d love to hear. Please share.

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A jackhammer sounds like a helicopter

TIMING IS EVERYTHING IN LIFE

Homeowner problems

This is still our house, but really? Now? A month before we don’t own it any more?

Didn’t need the worry!

We have owned this house since it was built in 1981. March 5th we moved in, and it has had no other family in it. In all those years, we NEVER had a sewer problem connected to the street.

Well, just for funsies, the day AFTER the Open House, a small sink hole developed by the curb, right near the real estate sign, and we wondered whether they had nicked the water line into the house (since no markings were made on the grass and bushes, and no flags set by utility companies). So we duly reported it, the township fixed the small sink hole, and we thought that was that.

Told lawyer and real estate agent, so they wouldn’t say we didn’t inform them of potential problems (water line, sewer) that we might be required to disclose.

Then we got a message on our answering machine from the head of the Sewer Dept., stating there was a problem where our sewer pipe connected to the main – in the middle of the street (so not on our property).

When contacted, found out they would get it fixed by contractors as soon as they had enough for a day’s work for one. We thought it would be forever, but they started early this morning, did NOT (bless them!) ring our door bell until around 9am when they needed us not to send anything down the sewer line for a while (now over), and they proceeded to make a standard repair.

Which they are in the process of asphalting right this minute.

What was that sound?

The sound I heard, which was like every helicopter in every movie, was actually a man tamping down soil and gravel into the hole with a jackhammer-like device (probably called, with all due irony, a tamper), was not Black Hawks landing on our lawn.

Much more prosaic.

And over much sooner than I expected – so I am impressed by our township’s efficiency at keeping us in the loop, and the contractor’s at getting a ‘not uncommon’ problem fixed efficiently and quickly.

Yay, taxes!

Yay, First World problems.

Not our responsibility, thank goodness – no digging up the front lawn and all the way to the house – no cost.

I have never been happier to pay property taxes which include infrastructure.

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Of such is my life right now.

And y’all get such interesting but ultimately unimportant trivia because I can, courtesy of iPhone and WordPress, mail a photo snapped in a moment out my office window directly to my Media Library. Gotta love the modern world.

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