Moving Day

Well...not REALLY moving day, since we moved in last week to our stately home at 5135 Kensington Avenue, where gentle breezes carrying the sound of children's laughter sway the tall, majestic trees.

By day.

By night, the stifling, putrid air carries the sound of either firecrackers or gunfire (we haven't quite decided yet), the rumble of city busses (as our house lies on the temporary bus route), and the shouts and catcalls of the drunk, high, and indigent - or as Jet calls them, "the colorful foot traffic".

They say it will get better. Soon. The people next door say it's already unrecognizable from when they moved in four years ago. Floozy Flingland's boyfriend C-Lo has a friend here who says much quicker than five years. But Jet and I have had a hard week, so we're having trouble accentuating the positive right now.

How hard? Not, like, death and destruction hard, just inconvenient hard really. Which is bad enough when coupled with a last-ditch but futile effort to not even move away in the first place, and the constant struggle to force one's mind to believe that this will all probably look really good in hindsight.

So, to summarize:

July 8: We pack up in the morning with the help of our dear friends, choking back tears all the while, and once the dear friends left us alone we cried and cried. And cried. Well, Jet mostly, as I'm stoic and believe that feelings are like treasures, to be buried. We wasted no time in getting on the road once we were packed, as we had already rented back from the new owners for two days, and had promised faithfully to be out by sundown.

Another neighbor reported that Pedro and Inez, the new owners, descended on the house like a swarm of locusts once they knew we were gone. To rid it of our evil, I'd imagine.

We stayed the night in Swampscent, North Carolina, and had to take a smoking room as that was the only way they would let us bring Dino and Frito Joe.

July 9: We continued the drive to Bremerhaven, where Jet will soon assume his glorious new position (I may have failed to mention that, in the interim between getting hired and starting to work, Jet has already been promoted to a position of some authority by his new boss, Johnny Depp.) The drive was arduous, especially for Jet, who was driving the moving van with our girly pickup truck in tow. At least I had the complete works of David Sedaris on CD to keep me company. Of course, I DID have Dino and Frito Joe, who need constant attention and talking-to in baby language, so I reserve my right to whine a little.

We arrived at sundown at the Marriott Residence Inn, which I can HIGHLY recommend for anyone who may be traveling in the near future. It does cost a little more, naturally, but as a wise charwoman once told me after I complained about the bathtub ring in my room at the Dollar Inn in Jeffersonville, Ohio; "You get what you pay for".

I will now insert an interesting anecdote, that being that Jet once found Nancy Marriott's wallet in a practice room down at the college, and turned it in, and did not get a reward, even though Nancy Marriott could buy and sell us all.

July 10: We sat around all day, as the closing was delayed by 24 hours, through no fault of our own.

July 11: We dragged poor Dino and Frito Joe all over the town, to lots and lots of places that they weren't allowed into. We were hopeful that we would be able to unload a few of our precious belongings before the closing, but naturally that would have been logical and simple, so it wasn't meant to be. Finally, at sundown, we were handed the keys and started to unload.

Now the house, viewed in isolation, really is lovely to behold. A two-story frame vernacular built in 1909, all the original woodwork throughout the house has been restored. There are three bedroom, two updated baths, and a room downstairs which we can teach from. Even an upstairs walk-out balcony, of which I've always dreamed.

But the neighborhood. I mean, we KNEW we were buying into a transitional area. I guess we just thought it would be a little further up the scale than it actually is.

Our neighbors, Skipper and Prison Doctor (who are separated but still live together, we think, or not - it's hard to tell and you KNOW how we hate to pry) told us that we should leave nothing on the front porch that we didn't want to see stolen. Even though we have a latchable gate and several hundred watts of motion-sensitive security lights. "Surely," we thought, "no one would be foolish enough to try and steal our giant fifty-pound statue of Buddha. It will certainly be all right here on the front porch."

Well, it WAS all right, for nearly a week, until said security lighting was actually installed and activated.

But here's the thing - why would anyone who doesn't care about the teachings of Buddha want to have a Buddha statue?

And anyone who DOES care about Buddha's teachings wouldn't steal, right? Especially not steal something that weighs fifty pounds and is awkward to carry and will not be easy to make a quick getaway with, after setting off motion-activated lights...

...and yet the thoughtful thief, perhaps in an effort to balance out his or her karma, took the time to close and re-latch the gate behind them.

Anyway, back to our story.

July 12: Mother Rubble, Code Dependent, and Nephew Ratched arrived to help us finish unloading the truck. Which is a lucky thing, as without their help our piano would still be sitting out in the street - or, perhaps, being wheeled down the street with a Buddha statue perched on top.

Mother Rubble actually didn't do much lifting, but once the air conditioning broke down she was happy as a clam, and she loves the hot.

Yes, I said the air conditioning broke down.

The day we moved in.

July 13-17: A blur, really, as the air conditioning was still broken, and the hot makes me woozy. Evidently, we moved some things around, and unpacked some boxes, and set up some bookshelves and such. I DO recall going to church, as Jet laid twenty bucks in the collection plate, leading me to think that's things would surely get better after such a generous tithe.

Well, the air conditioning is working now. But then Buddha got stolen. So I don't know what to think.