Moving South

One morning in August of 2007 I woke up with only 1 thought on my mind: Move South. I suppose this could have meant move over to the south side of the bed and go back to sleep, or move into the south side of the house, but I took it to mean actually move south. I immediately started making plans. I inquired about a job transfer, made the calls noted the possibilities, made reservations to stay on Topsail Island, NC, took the vacation days and got in the car, alone and drove. The first week of September I spent a week, alone, in NC, stayed on Topsail and explored the surrounding area. Found a realtor, looked at many, many houses, chose a house, put a binder on it, hired a home inspector, appraiser, mortgage broker, lawyer, got the job transfer finalized, and of course walked the beach, like Cain walking the earth except me walking the beach. When the week was over I drove back to NY and started packing, rented a moving truck, and packed, transferred my bank accounts, and packed, spent time with my kids, and packed, said my good bye's, and still packed. October 24, 2007 I picked up the moving truck and started loading it with the help of my kids and a few friends. I don't remember the exact size of the truck so I will just say a BIG truck and still I left things behind. You can accumulate alot of stuff in 27 years, at the time some of the stuff I thought I couldn't do without. Some of it is still in boxes in my garage, guess I could have rented a smaller truck and left more stuff behind. Bright and early on the morning of October 25th my best friend showed up to make the drive to NC with me, I will be eternally grateful to her and for her. Dar and I drove my Blazer, packed full with stuff as well as my Rottie, Boo, my cat, Meg, and six house plants. My youngest son drove the moving truck, the BIG truck. That began the journey into my new life, which at times has felt like the twilight zone. The trip itself was pretty uneventful, except for the times we stopped at rest stops and the dog attempted to eat truckers, she was just a bit nervous and out of her element and she let anyone that came anywhere near us know that. Then there were the weigh stations for BIG trucks. The info with the moving truck said that if you saw an open weigh station you had to stop- so...we did. I saw the sign for the weigh station it said open, so to prevent from getting separated from the boy driving the BIG truck we stopped at the weigh station as well. We didn't know that once in the weigh station the only way out was over the scale. So Dar, I, Boo & Meg in a Chevy Trailblazer drove on the scale at the weigh station, by the time we got to the scale ( we obeyed all the signs, stopped and waited for the sign to tell us that our weight was ok ) we were hysterical laughing, we said if asked, we were going to say that it was our weigh in day at Weight Watchers and since we would miss it due to traveling we just wanted to get our weight. Could anyone figure it out- minus the weight of the blazer, the dog, the cat, the six house plants, the luggage and any other stuff in the blazer. Imagine what the guys at the weigh station were thinking? Look at these 2 stupid women thinking they have to stop at the weigh station in a Chevy trailblazer. So we continued on the trip to the rest of my life, until we stopped in Emporia VA and the boy was looking for no doze in the gas station, drinking Red Bull, Amp and coffee at the same time, so we got a room and stopped for the night. I went in and got the room, told them I had a dog, a big dog. They said no problem the pet friendly rooms were on the 5th floor. Now is it just me or does that make any sense? Why put the dogs on the 5th floor? This meant I was going to have to take an already confused and agitated 90 lb Rottie up in the elevator. We took the cat, in her crate, that contained a small litter box and put her on the front seat of the BIG truck. I put the leash on the dog and headed for the hotel, Dar and the boy scoped out the situation to see if innocent people would be harmed and we brought her in straight to the elevator. This is a dog that is very sweet and loving, but she does have some issues, she does not like men, at all, does not like is a weak way of phrasing her feelings towards men. She does not like people to get too close to me, she's a big believer in personal space. She is a creature of habit, does not like her situation to be changed and I was already pushing her to her limit with just the long trip and the rest stops and the weigh station, so I was scared. We got her on the elevator and just as the boy and I were saying as long as we don't stop to pick anyone else up we'll be fine, when the elevator stopped on the 3rd floor. The dog was sitting quietly between me and the boy as the doors opened and we saw it was a man about to get on the elevator, I instantly moved to put myself between the man and the dogs line of vision while at the same time shouting " Oh shit ", while my mind was going a mile a minute trying to figure out how we would get the man's body out of the elevator without being detected, if in fact he foolishly decided he would get in anyway, when the man said "I'm not getting in there with that dog " to which Dar said " good choice ". And the doors closed and we started going on up when we realized the dog hadn't even moved a muscle, hadn't made a noise and was still sitting quietly by the boy. We made it to the 5th floor and started down the hall to our room, this is where the dog did not want to be, she paced, she barked, she growled she was nervous. Didn't like the sounds, the smells, was just unhappy. I decided to bring her back and let her spend the night in the blazer, but decided to take the stairs this trip. So the boy and I took the dog out of the room, where a man was in the hall, not a man as smart as the elevator man but a man the was determined to see the pretty Rottie. As he started towards us the dog tensed up and let out a ferocious bark and the man stopped I said " She doesn't like men " to which he responded " She's still a beautiful dog " and we made a beeline for the stairs, the dog went down those stairs as fast as she could drag my weight, out the door and straight for the blazer, I opened the back she hopped up and laid right down with a big sigh, like why did we have to try that to begin with, and she slept in the car. The next morning we get up get the cat from the BIG truck and are amazed at how smelly a litter box can get in a closed truck overnight, put the cat back in the trailblazer, with the dog and the six house plants and finish the trip. We pull the BIG truck up to the new house, which we do not have the keys to because I haven't actually closed on the house yet, leave it there with the cat on the front seat and the six house plants on the front step. Dar, the boy, Boo and I pile into the trailblazer to go to the closing, where the boy, Dar and Boo drop me off and go shopping. I close on the house and have a small discussion about the keys to the house as the "seller" does not want to give me all the keys to all the doors, the " sellers" realtor finally convinces the " seller" to give up the keys. Since I was dropped off the realtor gives me a ride to the new house, where the boy, Dar and Boo are there waiting for me with the BIG truck, the cat, and the six houseplants. I unlocked the door we all looked around, I got Boo settled somewhere I felt she would feel a bit more secure, locked the cat in the bathroom, and we started the process of unloading the BIG truck. If I ever move again I will sell this house furnished and take as little as possible to wherever I go next, I do not ever want to go through that again. So when that time comes if I have anything that you want it's all yours but you have to move it! The boy, Dar and I unloaded that whole truck, all the furniture, all the big stuff, all the boxes at one point I just wanted to light the BIG truck on fire and watch it burn. We got all the stuff inside and then went out to eat. That was when I discovered I had moved from a carb light world into the world of- do you want a biscuit with your biscuit? It's all about the carbohydrate down here! We went back to the new house where the boy continued on with digging holes for the fence posts and Dar and I put my bed together. By that time we were all done couldn't do anymore, when I look back now I wonder where we all got the energy from, speaking for myself I am amazed at the level of energy I had, yes there were times that I was sweating so much and breathing so hard that I took a break and wondered if my heart would explode but I got right back up and kept going. Dar had brought an air mattress with her that she had bought at a garage sale and that she was going to leave with me, in the middle of that first night she found out it had a hole in it. The boy slept on the couch, then the living room floor. Boo stayed with me staring up at the ceiling all night because of the squirrels that ran across the roof, all night long. The next morning the boy and I took the BIG truck into town to pick up the supplies I had ordered from Lowes. We got all the fencing materials, a washer and dryer, a lawn mower, cement, storm doors, tools and anything else big before we had to bring the BIG truck back. Dar stayed at the house to wait for the cable guy to get the phone, TV and computer hooked up. She started unpacking and put away most of the kitchen before we got back. There were times that I had to call her after she went home to ask her where something was because she unpacked so much with no help from me at all, again I am grateful. She put my brand new vacuum together only to find out it was missing a piece to hold the handle on, and I bought it in NY and of course that store is no where around here. So duct tape to the rescue, to this day that handle is duct taped on. Then the boy drove the BIG truck and we followed in the trailblazer to drop the BIG truck off. We came back and the boy put the fence up around the back yard, this is a huge yard an acre of property. He put 4 foot privacy fence up, put the posts in and put all the panels on, he left the cement part for Dar and I to do, more on that later. He put the washer and dryer in place and did all the things that I know I would have had to pay someone to do, I will be eternally grateful for all of his help, he is an amazing person and not just because he is my son. Dar and I put the daybed together, that went fairly well so we were thinking- we got this- we know what we're doing, and Dar had a real bed to sleep in that second night. Day three-Dar and I took the boy to the airport so he could get back to his job and his life, so very hard for me to say good bye. When Dar and I were alone in the new house in the new town in my new life is when the adventure really began. As we were putting the dining room table together we realized that we had put the bed together with the hardware for the dining room table. We were not about to take that bed apart as we had to recruit the boy to help with that and he was gone, so we put the dining room table together with the hardware for the bed, not as easy as one might think. We had one leg we could not fit into the table top where it belonged no matter how we pushed on it, at one point I was laying across the table as Dar was pushing with her feet with her back against the wall trying to force it. We laughed so hard it wasn't budging it wouldn't go in. Finally we both got on the same side Dar on the floor with the leg between her knees and her feet against the wall and me above her both of us pulling on that leg and we got it. The table is lopsided, it's a round table and on one side it's higher than the other side, we just spun it around a few times so to us it seems less noticeable. So that is up to day three of moving south, the next few days involve many laughable moments, like the drivers license office, the " plate ", Dar's homemade " tool ", the gutters so more to come:):):)