Month: May 2015

Oh What Fun!

Now that Mitch is in Seattle permanently and I am home working on getting the house ready to sell, our schedule and routine has changed dramatically. The dogs are still trying to adjust and figure out what is happening. Before I would get up at 2:15 in the morning, feed the dogs and take them outside for a quick outing in the yard, then take them for a walk after I took Mitch to work. Now I have the alarm set at 3:30 in the morning, a whole hour and fifteen minutes more sleep, yay. I get up feed the dogs but instead of going outside, I take them for a walk then come back eat breakfast and get ready for work. Not a big change, but enough to throw the dogs off.

Since it is just me now I come home at lunch and take them for another walk, then head back to work. After work I come home let them out for a quick pee, the entire time Orso is running around like a lunatic barking at me and letting the world know he is alive and feels great. Big Doofus. Then I take them back inside feed them, change my clothes and take them for a long walk to burn off some pent up energy. Of course now that Mitch is not here they devote all of their attention on me and what I’m doing. They follow me from room to room constantly under foot, making sure I don’t get away.

Last night after a long day, I didn’t get to bed until after 9pm and of course was over tired so I couldn’t fall asleep right away and then it was a restless sleep. Orso decided he wanted to sleep with me, something he doesn’t normally do, so I let him. About 1am I woke up to a chirping noise, great the battery on the smoke alarm was going dead. Why is it that the smoke alarm batteries always go dead in the middle of the night? Is it some conspiracy by the manufacturers to make us crazy? Do they plan it that way to force us to get out of bed and run around the house searching for the chirp just to make us change the batteries on a timely basis?

I just stuck a finger in my ear and pulled the covers over my head and hoped that I could fall back asleep for a couple more hours. Orso was not so inclined. The chirping was upsetting him. For all he knew it was some strange alien running around searching for dogs to eat. He started making weird noises and moved closer to me, causing me to pull my pillow farther away from him. That didn’t make him happy so he stood up walked over and stood on top of my head. I had to find the lamp turn it on and get Orso off the bed. He stood there looking at me like I was feeding him to sharks, but finally lay down. I turned the light off and tried to go back to sleep. Just about the time I dozed off Charlie decided he needed to get into bed and away from the chirping alien and Orso. That was about 2:15. One hour and fifteen minutes left to sleep that was all I could think about. How quickly could I get back to sleep, how much of the hour and fifteen minutes could I squeak in?

Evidently not much, because Orso was back panting in my face at 2:50 letting me know that the alien was stalking him and he wanted it to go away. This morning my day got to start at 2:50am. The world was working against me.

On The Road Finally

By the time I finally got Mitch loaded up and in the car it was 11:30am. We discussed the route and decided to take I-29 north to I-90 in South Dakota and head west straight through to Washington. The drive was pretty boring until we crossed the state line into South Dakota. The people in South Dakota know how to keep drivers entertained.

We passed many road signs touting the many sights to stop and see along the way. One road sign in particular was really entertaining. The sign read, “24 hour toe service” for a tow truck company. We laughed long and hard over that one. The other phenomenon we were really surprised at was the amount of pheasants walking along the side of the highway or in the grassy area between the east and west bound lanes. We saw quite a few along the side of the road as road kill. As pheasant hunters, we wished we could have this problem when we’re out in the field hunting.

Because of the late start, we didn’t get as far as I wanted. We stopped in Wall, South Dakota to spend the night. Friday night we went to sleep with temperatures in the seventies and woke up Saturday morning to a cold rain and temperatures around forty degrees. Huge shocker! I didn’t bring anything heavier to wear than a light jacket. Mitch loaned me one of his sweater vests to wear under my jacket for added layers

Mitch turned on the weather channel and got even better news, a winter (oops spring) snow storm with a forecast of five to eight inches on Saturday and another foot forecast for Sunday. So much for sightseeing, the firebird is made for the beach, sunny skies and the top down, not snow skiing. Time to load up and head west. The weather map made it look like we should drive out of it in Wyoming. Guess what? They got it wrong, we didn’t drive out of the snow until we got to Montana. I could not believe how hard it was snowing and in May!

It could only happen to us.

This is it!

Friday morning we got up around 4:30am normal for a day off. I know, normal? This was it, the big day. This was the day we load up the firebird with as much stuff as we could cram in, stuff that Mitch will need for the short term and head west. Mitch was to have all of his clothes washed and packed. But as is always the case, Mitch was behind. Thursday afternoon he was to pack and load the car. Didn’t happen. Friends and family realizing that Thursday was his last day here for real and not “just fooling” came by to say good bye. He spent a large part of his afternoon catching up and saying good bye to longtime friends, friends he grew up with, friends he made along the way.

Friday morning Mitch “The Snail” poked along, finishing up laundry, ironing and deciding what to take. He was able to fit two totes in the back seat of the car (with the seat back down). He filled the totes with of his uniforms. He filled one of our largest suitcases with street clothes; slacks, shirts, underwear and socks. I filled a milk crate with all of his vitamins, four bags of Milky Way candy bars and cappuccino mix. What is more balanced than vitamins, candy bars and cappuccino mix? Of course all of these were absolute essentials because everyone knows Seattle is some remote little dinky town without benefit of Walmart or a grocery store. Yes I know I was going overboard, but what else could I do, it’s my job to take care of him.

About 10:00am I could see the signs, Mitch was poking, the longer it took him to get loaded up, the longer he could forestall the inevitable. If I let him, he would stand in one spot and not move all day. Of course this was making me crazy. I had wanted to be on the road by about 8:00am, not that I wanted to be rid of him but this was also my vacation and I wanted to spend part of the trip sightseeing. Once again a case of the whirlwind crashing into the brick wall. I walked up to him and said something really hokey.

I put my hands on his arms and said, “The journey starts with a step.” Pretty lame, huh?

That’s when he looked at me and said, “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go and leave you here with all of this.”

I told him that it would be fine and that this was going to be an adventure. This was something we’ve talked about doing, not Washington, per se, but going somewhere else. We just hadn’t pulled the trigger. Change is hard and taking that first step is the hardest. I guess fate decided we needed a nudge.

Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven Days Left

One week gone and one week to go, the Mitch List has two items completed, new tires and an oil change for the station wagon, but I don’t have much hope for the other items getting done. I don’t know how to sharpen the mower blade so I guess I’ll just keep whacking the grass, not that we have a showcase lawn anyway, more like a poster child ad showing why you should go with a bulldozer and start over. On the inside of the house, we have one last wall in the kitchen that needed a decision, sheetrock or wood planks. Sheetrock won out because we thought it would be quicker. Mitch got the sheetrock hung and started on the mudding, but has not had an opportunity to start sanding, so I guess I will learn a new skill or maybe I’ll just leave it bare, splatter paint on it and call it art.

Knowing Mitch as well as I do, I know he always waits until the last minute to start anything whether it is a project or even get ready to go somewhere. He just moves at a slower pace than me and it makes me insane. In order to shorten my list I started a hundred different projects at once and ended up with a hundred different messes and nothing completed. I started sorting through some of the accumulation of decades of stuff dividing it up into three piles, the toss pile for trash items, the goodwill pile for salvageable stuff for someone to take, and the keep pile to pack away so I can unpack in the future and go through this again. The toss piles are easy, as soon as I get a good size pile I throw it in the trash can. The goodwill pile is a little tougher. I have multiple goodwill piles ready to go to some charity, I just need to call the charity to come and get it and I haven’t had a chance to do that. I need to add “call charity” to my “To Do” list.

Poor Mitch, I feel so sorry for him. He walks from room to room looking at the chaos I’ve created with a shell shot look on his face. I think he’s gone around the bend and is in overload mode. I’m pretty sure that nothing more on the Mitch List is going to get done and I’m almost to the point where I’m ready to sell the house lock, stock and barrel as is for a fire sale price. I’d even be happy if a hurricane came along and blew it away. I’m just not really sure a hurricane can make it to the Midwest. Oh well, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

The Countdown Begins

As soon as we found out that Seattle would be our new home and we only had two weeks to get him out there, panic set in. The first thing I did was to start making lists, one list for all of the projects that Mitch would need to get done before he left, one list for all of the stuff that Mitch needed to take with him and one list for me, listing all of the things I needed to get done before I can put the house on the market and sell it. Needless to say, my list is much longer than his.

We decided that Mitch would take the firebird with him and I would keep the station wagon (for the dogs) and the truck. Because of the limited space in the car, I couldn’t send all of the really important things you need when you move, dishes, silverware, a bed, etc. His idea was to only take his uniforms and necessary toiletries.

You should have seen the look on his face, when I set out a pillow for him. He asked why he needed a pillow. I told him that when he finds an apartment and is not staying in a motel, he’ll be glad he has a pillow. He looked at me with a blank look on his face for a moment then the light came on. Oh, yeah, that will come in handy. You can sleep on the floor for a couple of days if necessary, but a pillow comes in very handy. Men, they don’t think like women at all. I’m thinking of all of the stuff he’ll need for the short term and what will fit in the car until I get the house sold and move out there. Mitch is only thinking of his very immediate needs, clothes, how to get to work and what he has to do to get up to speed at work.

As each day ended, marking the countdown to loading up the car and heading west, I could see that the Mitch list projects were not going to get done. That means I’m going to have to learn how to do some things I’ve never done before. Good thing I have a whole bunch of power tools to learn on. I just hope the house survives.

What’s the worst thing that can happen?

Waxing Poetic for Friday

Vampire Eyes

She lies on the bed looking up at him above her
Her pale blue eyes open wide glowing in the dark
Sexual desire and hunger fill the gap between them
She draws him near locking their eyes.

Lost in the depths of her gaze his desire builds
Knowing that death awaits still he draws closer
She arches her back to meet his thrusts
As the crescendo of desire builds
Their bodies move faster fighting against each other.

She moves her body upward pulling him to her
Turning her head her mouth open
Kissing him hard and long, staring into his eyes
She smiles for the first time
Knowing he’s hers forever.