Call me Ishmael and why 'Garbage Day' is the best day

Here's our lovely rental minivan, Moby Dick. So called because it is a big, white whale. How creative are we? We are allowed 5 70-lb suitcases (Eric is allowed 1 more than I am since he has many more frequent flyer miles than I) and we are definitely going to need all 5. We will also have our carry-on pieces. All that will surely be enough to fill the belly of this beast. Eric, surprisingly, loves the minivan. He has been talking of getting one someday and doing some crazy 'Pimp my Ride' nonsense in the back, like wood paneling. Maybe a sauna and a fireplace.

We are finishing packing (or more accurately, 'me' and 'cramming') our suitcases. I would say that we are 97% packed. We have 2 large suitcases finished (each weighting about 68 lb). Right now I am working on finishing filling 2 more, both currently at around 55 lb each.

I don't know what it is about cats and containers. It seems if there is an open container or a cupboard, the cat will be in there. Somehow he is able to sense if he is supposed to be there, because then, he is absolutely not interested. An open suitcase is an obvious feline temptation, even if it filled with sharp-cornered objects, as this one was. I'm nearing the point of packing where all that's left are odd bits and pieces that you don't really wish to dispose of, yet there's no logical way to pack them (as if my packing process is logical). Mostly, I suppose, is that I am nearing the end of my patience (plus I am really tired today -- we got a 1am call from Shanghai), so I don't really care about a packing system anymore.

Today was 'Maid Day' and 'Garbage Day', both holidays in my household. I am not by nature a very tidy person, nor am I a very organized person. I tend to collect odd bits of paper on which I have scribbled myself little notes (ask Eric about the receipt from the late 1990's on which I had written a list of the top recommended sports bras from some now-defunct women's health publication -- he thought it so funny, he mailed it to his mother). So, being the kind of person that I am, junk tends to accumulate. That, in addition to the movers packing, me packing, Eric packing, me painting, and a partridge in a pear tree, meant that the house looked like a Category 5 storm had passed through.

I had no idea that dust kittens proliferate like Tribbles. Without the bed to hide under, they sat there on the open floor with a seeming sneer. I am so happy to see them gone. The garbage people have just gone through the neighborhood. Lately, I've taken to peeping at them from behind the curtains to see if they'll really take all the crap we put on the curb. So far, the answer has been 'yes'. We are pretty much finished with disposing of junk. I brought a last load to Goodwill a couple of days ago and we managed to make the most of this garbage day.

I think that tomorrow will actually be a free day. No appointments, no schedules. I can't wait.

End of a very looooong week

This is all that remains of my car -- a license plate. We just sold one of the cars yesterday. The other one went today.

We got back from upstate New York on Sunday evening. Monday we spent organizing everything in the house (haphazardly). Tuesday, the movers came to pack up everything. We had been given 3 days for packing everything but the movers, once they had surveyed the house, said that they could do it in a day. As it turns out, it was a very long day. They arrived at around 9 am and didn't leave until 9:30/10:00 that evening. 12 hours. 12 looooooong hours. Even though we didn't lift any boxes ourselves, we were totally exhausted by the end of the day. We hadn't really planned well. It was 10:30 at night, we had no bed, no blankets, no pillows, and most of our clothes were gone. We sat down and called up all the nearby hotels. No vacancies! On a Tuesday night! Grrrr. We finally found a place near Eric's workplace. On the way there, I realized that I had done a brilliant thing: I had forgotten to set aside a coat and had them all put in our ocean shipment. Daytime temps are about 50-60 degrees in Shanghai (much like here in Georgia) -- in other words, I'd likely need a jacket. And since I had consigned the coat closet to the ocean shipment, I wouldn't see any of my jackets until summer. I had a gift certificate for the Gap stores, which was a surprise gift from Eric (probably a 'Thank-you' for not twisting off his head -- 'We're going to China when!?!?'), so that was added to Wednesday's to-do list.

I hurried back to the house on Wednesday morning since I had scheduled a meeting with the church across the way to take our microwave. I don't remember much else of Wednesday except that it was busy. Then it was time to pick up Eric and go home. We spent a few hours there, repacked an overnight bag, and returned to the hotel. Thursday was worse. The cat had a morning vet appointment so he could get microchipped and to get his International Health Certificate completed. Poor kitty. I had a doctor's appointment that afternoon for a persistent cough (turned out to be nothing to worry about). Friday afternoon, we picked up a rental vehicle and then sold my car. Saturday, we sold Eric's car. We spent the rest of Saturday doing odd jobs around the house. I managed to empty my vegetable bin of carrots by feeding them to the donkey next door. I don't think he'll eat olives, though. Soon, it will be time to pack up a bag again and head back to the hotel for sleep. Which, from my incessant yawning, should be soon.

Moving Day

I'm trying to keep out of the way while the movers are packing up all of our belongings. Eric is holed up in one of the upstairs rooms working from home and Mugsy is hiding under the couch. We were allotted 3 days for the movers; they say it should all be done by this evening.

Our air shipment limit is 400 lb; ocean and storage are considerably larger (though not limitless). The air shipment is supposed to arrive within 15-20 days and the ocean takes 6-8 weeks. We have to work out our visa requirements (which we can't do until we are there) so the air shipment will likely be delayed by a couple of weeks. It's weird to think that this is the last we'll be seeing some of this stuff for at least 2 years.

The empty house reminds me of our newlywed days in Albuquerque where we had barely enough stuff to fill the back of a pickup truck. We had a lot of fun then and the next couple of weeks should be an adventure, too.

Departure

We've bought our plane tickets and we are leaving the country on March 2. It feels so strange to have just written that. We're no strangers to moving, having had 7 different addresses in 3 different cities and 3 different states. This is our first international move. We are packing it all and moving to Shanghai, China.

Tomorrow the movers are coming to begin boxing up all of our worldly possessions. We are sorting things into 4 piles: checked luggage, air freight, ocean freight, and storage. Of course there are 2 more piles called 'Goodwill' and 'Trash'. I'm working now to pack a couple of suitcases for checked luggage and to get the kitchen ready for the movers. I really hate throwing out food. I may send a care package of half-used spices to my beloved mother-in-law, who volunteered to give any of that stuff a good home.

This weekend, we'll likely sell one of the cars and get a rental. We'll sell the other car soon after that. Then, it'll just be the two of us, a few suitcases, and the cat in an empty house.