Where'd That Week Go?

I'm shocked. Absolutely shocked. There hasn't been a post put up in over a week. What's wrong with this? Snap to it.

OK, OK. I give in. I feel like Dorothy in the tornado. Things are spinning around and happening too fast.

Sometime this last week, by daughter had her last day of high-school classes. I haven't seen much of her since.

I rented a big truck, loaded it up with stuff I should have gotten rid of twenty years ago and spent an enormous sum to drive it all 150 miles north and put it in rented storage lockers. Then I spent two days moving stuff out of my Mom's old place - stuff they should have gotten rid of twenty years ago and either moving to one of my siblings houses, putting it in rented storage lockers, or bringing it 150 south again when I came home (no, I did not keep it. I foisted it off on a nephew and his wife to keep twenty years longer than they should and to move it unnecessarily over and over). Like passing the baton in a stupid human relay race.

Every morning I would wake up and feel like that truck had driven over me instead of me driving it. Actually, driving that truck could explain some of my pain. I thought my car had a firm suspension. That truck would shake me in places I didn't even know I had - like jowls.

Over all, it was a successful start to a marathon move that will occur in bits and pieces all summer long. Every time I go north now, I will fill the station wagon up with boxes and drop them off at my homes-away-from-home, the storage lockers, as I watch the transformation of the house up there into the vision that now is just ink on paper and mind dreams.

I saw, for example, what an excavator can do to a patch of woods in about twenty minutes. Boy, would I like to play with that. Wooeee.

The next step is to take receipt of the new roof trusses and tear off the old roof to begin the transformation. Oh, there is also the foundation and slab that needs to be poured for the addition. I have posted pictures of the excavator over on my picassa web album site here.

Meanwhile back at our other life, school is ending and the season of graduation parties has begun. For the next month, no kid will eat at home (or their home anyway) unless it is their turn to have their party. Parents too get to roam around, seeing how everyone else is handling their party. You can tell the pros. The ones on their third or fourth go around. Me? I have one in two weeks and the panic is starting to settle in. I am definitely in the minor leagues here. I was at one yesterday where they carved the name of the graduate in the front lawn through creative mowing. Shit, the best I will be able to do is arrange some weeds in the side forty.

Then there are the ones that are catered with uniformed servers and stuff. I am planning on making the food myself, thereby guaranteeing a faster turnover of guests and no hanger's-on at the end.

Then the dilemma of whether to offer alcohol in some form for the adults. Personally, I don't see how I'm going to make it without. Perhaps a locked room somewhere, like a key club, where only the special few gain entrance. I don't know. Send me your stories and advice.

And in closing, remember the deer story of last week? The critter above showed up the next day, thereby perhaps explaining the odd aggressive behavior of the doe.