Month: May 2018

Pretending to be normal

Okay I know that Frank and I pretend to be normal most days but things have now reached their illogical conclusion.  We have spent what seems like months packing – okay Frank has – but we kept trying to pretend that we were just living in our house like normal.  All that went out the window today.  We are now T-3 days until closing and we can’t just box up the stuff we don’t feel like using over the next few days.  It’s time to get serious.

And serious is where we are.  The bathrooms have been packed and cleaned out.  One bed is in parts and another is slated for disassembly tomorrow. The final files have been placed in a box and my desk is also ready to be taken apart. After spending all day in the most miserable heat on Saturday and Sunday  wrapping and taping and running to the Uhaul store for more boxes so we could wrap and tape some more, we had a brief respite yesterday that came in the guise of a cookout with friends.  It was a lovely break where we pretended everything was normal – even if we did spend way more time trying to explain Wegmans than could ever be considered normal for KC! Even on departure, we said “See you later” rather than “Goodbye” cuz it felt more normal and delayed the tears at least for a short time.

So now we are out of social engagements, out of time, and out of excuses.  Today the kitchen had to be packed.  Still trying to use up as much food as possible, we started with a homemade quiche Lorraine (cuz that’s normal!) and then as another impossibly hot day began in earnest, we did a trial run for the drive to NY and packed up the cars exactly as it will be when we pull out of the driveway for the last time:  suitcases for vacation, air bed, kitchen necessities, dog crate and bedding, and an inordinate number of boxes of booze. Hmmm….

Then everything that was left in the house got packed.  Well mostly.  I can’t believe how much stuff was hidden in the kitchen cupboards!  Frank had packed a great deal of it already but left out dishes and glasses and pans and appliances we are still using.  All of it had to find it’s way into some kind of container.  It’s time to stop pretending that we live here and that we’ll actually cook anything.  (Foreshadowing:  the grill isn’t packed yet.  🙂 )

Away went the bread machine, Kitchenaid mixer, toaster oven, frying pans, cookie sheets, bundt pans (really, who makes bundt cakes anymore!), knives, cutlery, plates, bowls, mugs, and anything that was hidden in a nook or cranny in the kitchen.  When that got boring, we’d wander into the living room and take apart lamps and clocks.  At one point Frank noted that by packing all the lamps, we would now have no light in the living room.  I looked around at the bare walls, stacks of boxes, and huddles of misplaced furniture and pointed out that the room wasn’t usable anyway.  After hours of packing, we were still reflexively trying to be normal and act like we would actually use that room again.

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All our kitchen “necessities” less the plastic wine glasses already in use.

Six hours and close to a dozen boxes later, we called it a day and rescued the cargo from the steaming hot cars.  Our dry run netted us the realization that you never have as many boxes as you need and there are always things that suddenly appear after the last box is closed.  I have officially designated one of the rubbermaid tubs from the garage the “flotsam and jetsam” box for the plethora of misplaced items which will suddenly appear when the movers arrive.  We are now squatters in what will be someone else’s house in 3 days with only the bare necessities for eating the inevitable take out. For one last night though we’ll pretend just a little and cook our KC strips on the grill. And eat them off of paper plates.  That seems almost normal.

And the fortnight of chaos begins

It’s official – we have two weeks left in Kansas City.  We’ve moved past the first of the “lasts” and are now well into the last of the “lasts” – last symphony, last visit to XXX restaurant, last haircut, etc.  And we’ve started saying goodbyes which is painful and a bit surreal.  The farewell open house was last Saturday and about 50 people stopped by to drink with us and help us deplete the “can’t fit this booze in the car with us” stash.  In several instances, we won’t have a chance to see them again before we go because our schedule over the next 12 days is crazy.  Wanna hear more?  Of course you do!

After spending weeks gathering moving estimates, we decided to use PODS and do a fair amount of the work ourselves.  The University is giving me a very reasonable moving budget which would be sufficient to cover the move if we were going straight from point A to point B but of course we are not. The closing date on the current house is 3 weeks earlier than the new house which means we have to find some where to store our stuff.  The full service moving companies wanted anywhere from $2K – $6K for storage!  That doesn’t work for my frugal sensibilities or our budget so we decided to go the PODS route since storage is built in to the price there.  That means coordinating all the services separately:  people to help load the PODS here in KC and people to help unload the PODS there in Fairport.  Then there’s the packing.  We had people come in and pack for us last time which was great but not efficient:  we had no incentive to actually sort through things and pack them in a way that made sense to us.  Months after we arrived, we were still finding boxes with two cup hooks and a screw wrapped securely in paper and loaded in a moving box.  The packers had no way of knowing if those things were important or not so they got packed with the same care as our glassware and china.  We want to be much more selective in how we pack this time so we need to have someone who actually knows what is important and what isn’t.  Which means that Frank is doing (nearly) all the packing.  And the sorting. And the shredding.  And the dumping. We are being far more ruthless this time than last time.  We are not keeping my father’s bronzed baby booties that were in a box with my dead parent’s tax returns from the late 90s.  Nor are we continuing to keep motorcycle parts for the bike Frank crashed on Leap Day 1996.  Or bank statements from our first joint bank account in 1988.  We’ve nearly killed the shredder trying to get rid of all these things. (Not the bronze booties – they just went straight into the trash.  Hate mail about keeping family heirlooms can be sent to dontcare@gmail.com)

For weeks we have been weeding and sorting and packing.  (And by we, I mean Frank.) Now we are getting down to the challenge of continuing to make progress in packing things up while we are still trying to live in the house.  I have 8 more days in the office and I suspect that I will be wearing the same outfit for most of them because everything else needs to be packed.  In fact, we will actually need to take apart our bed and pack up the last of the kitchen items before we are actually out of the house.  This will be interesting!

The timing of the next few weeks is slightly insane. We had a fair amount of last minute negotiations and angst over some details of the sale of our current dwelling which I will not yet detail because things could still go sideways and I don’t want to tempt fate!  But we are now scheduled to close on the current house on May 31st and the buyer will take possession on June 2nd.  Why?  Because he needs a May closing date to avoid some June bills (we think his rate lock is expiring) and we have the movers coming in on May 31 so can’t actually be out of the house on that day.  So the PODS get delivered on May 30th.  The movers come to load the PODS on May 31st and late that afternoon, we sign all the papers.  Since the PODS are loaded but not yet picked up, we are staying in the house the night of the 31st.  And all our belongings will be in the big white boxes in the driveway. So it’s an air mattress and suitcases for our last night on Dartmouth Road.  Then on June 1 the PODS get picked up, I finish retiring from the Bank, the dog goes to the vet to be boarded, the Mercedes goes to a friends garage for storage, and we head to a hotel by the airport.  Why?  Because on June 2, we get on a plane to Iceland!!!

Yes, in the midst of all this, we are going on vacation.  A real vacation and not 3 days in Kentucky where I watch Frank drink bourbon.  If we have to be homeless, we might as well do it in style!  So keep your eyes on the travel blog because that’s where we’ll be.  Five days in an AirBnB in Reykjavik before we hop back on a plane and head to Scotland.  We get the weekend in Troon visiting my side of the family (Are you ready Barghs?) before heading to Bannockburn for a full week in a cottage that is stumbling distance from the family homestead.  Jesse will be joining us for that week – Evelyn isn’t able to make it though so we’ll be a little sad.  We get a full week of visiting family and friends, lots of cups of tea and pints of cider and the odd box of curry thrown in for old times sake.

Then Frank spends father’s day on the plane back to KC where we have one more night in the airport hotel before preparing for the transition road trip. We’ll pick up the convertible and drop it off with a neighbor who is helping make sure it gets on the transporter.  Unlike other moving details, we can’t nail down the exact time that our third car gets picked up because we need to wait for a car transporter that is headed toward NY to come through KC.  It will be some time in a 5 day window but we don’t have 5 days to hang around and wait.  So we are leaving it in good hands, picking up the houseplants from the next door neighbor and the dog from the vet and then we are off.  Two cars full of vacation clothes, house plants, important booze, the dog, and a box of “stuff we need to live in the new house before the furniture arrives.” Current plan is to stop in Bloomington the first night to visit friends there (ready Pearl?).  Second night is Cleveland because it’s there.  Then we get to Fairport two days before our tentative closing date.

Tentative?  Yes, the real estate process in NY is such that we are required to allow for 60 days before closing but we cannot get a firm date because it is dependent on “attorney availability” which isn’t confirmed until 3-5 days before hand.  Yes, even with more than 2 months notice, we still aren’t sure exactly when we are closing on the house and therefore can’t schedule our furniture to be delivered yet.  Grrrr.  So we *think* we are closing on June 22 but we won’t know until a few days prior so the furniture is getting delivered on June 25.  So we might have 3 days in the house with nothing but the air mattress and coffee pot.  And the clothes we took to hike in Iceland and visit Scotland which will of course be appropriate for summer in the Finger Lakes.  But that will give us time to stock the fridge (hello Wegmans!), plan for where the furniture is going, and possibly even paint the one bedroom with the unbearable pink and brown walls – which has been dubbed the “Baskin Robbins” room!

So keep your eyes here for moving info and on the Cannon Family Travel site for vacation stuff.  There’s plenty more adventure to be had!