Looking Out My Back Door

2011 drifted in last night and I didn't bother to stay up to meet it.  I hardly ever do...I usually flip the calendar and head for the sheets pretty early.  Must be getting old...oh wait a minute...I am old.  At least that's what the kids tell me.  I prefer to think of it as aged like a good wine or maybe just getting old but the fact is, New Years reminds me of passing days and so I have a tough time being happy about it.  It may be socially unacceptable to feel that way but the fact is, it's just a plain old hard time of year for me.

About the only good I can find in it is that it's the end of the holiday season and as such, hopefully things will return to semi-normal.  Or at least  as close to normal as it ever gets around here.
I've said before that the whole mess from about Halloween (it used to be Thanksgiving but the retailers decided we needed a longer season to shop) straight through to New Years is pretty depressing to me.  The days are too short and the nights are too long, people get strange, there's a weird expectation that all the world suddenly becomes wonderful because it's December and you're supposed to be happy dammit.  The whole thing wears me out but at least it's over for another year.  I wish it wasn't that way sometimes but there it is...

I did get up early today on 1/1/11 for some reason.  Chris was still sacked and both kids spent the night at friends houses so it was just me and the four-leggers.  It was pitch dark off the porch but I threw the pooches out anyway and nuked some of yesterdays coffee while they made the rounds of the back yard.  I like getting up and around in the zero-dark-thirty hour unless I've been out working all night and see it from the other side.  It's usually peaceful and watching the light creep in from the east clears my head for the day.

It actually was pretty warm out there this morning considering it's now January so the dogs weren't in a big rush to get back to the door and my toes didn't freeze padding across the deck to unhook them from their run.  A quick poke at the fire in the basement and back to my new spot at the table in the kitchen had dawn sneaking up on me out of the fog.

I've decided one of the things I like most about our new place is my current perch by the back door.  All the years we lived in Old Drafty, I kind of hung out at the table in the big dining room with a streaky double-hung view toward the road.  Here I can see the slope of the back lawn across the deck and watch the world get brighter over the trees on the hill.  I'm farther from the highway traffic and facing due north so I don't hear much except the 'fridge kicking on and the water pipes pinging as the boiler warms up.  The cat prowls around looking for something to eat or hoping to make a break for it when the screen door opens but other than that, it's mostly very still.  In that kind of quiet, I can only hear myself thinking.  You never know where it'll go from there.

By now the morning was in full swing and my spouse appeared with an empty frying pan and a pout on her face looking for me to make an omlette.  I can do omlettes and it seemed like a good way to get the year underway.  I managed to not scramble the eggs and if I got some shell in there, she was kind enough not to mention it.  We eventually got moving and tore down the tree, gathered up the Christmas stuff from around the place and stuffed it all in bins to hide till next winter.  It's official after that...the Holidays are done.

Now it's back to watching the computer for approaching trains and planning around the crew callers but that's what I know.  It's back to the on-call grind until I have some real vacation time in April and I can turn off my cell again.  I'll make it I think.  And if sometimes I can stop for a while in the morning and look out the back door, I think I'll be alright.

So Goes '10

With tomorrow, another year comes sliding down the slope to the end.  Times they do change.  I suppose I should do the requisite retrospect but somehow it seems a little pointless.  Like the '70s, I lived through it once and shouldn't have to re-run a condensed version of the whole smash again.  Let's just say it's been, like the Chinese curse, interesting times; not completely good, not all bad, the end of some chapters, a few milestones passed; some awful, horrible days but a lot of bright blue skies to chase away the darkness.  Even when I wondered if there'd ever again be light, there came sunny days.  Another page in my timebook, a tick  of the clock and that's all she wrote.

It was above all else, life as I know it; warts and all, wonderful and terrible and so very much like so many of the other years in my five decades come and gone.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  We lived it and that's enough.

A highway once travelled can't ever be completely new again and no road can be ridden the same way twice so at the end of the day, I'm content to see this year roll away behind me like all those summertime miles on 81 South.  It'll be alright to watch it disappear under the wheels and around the bend without a fuss.  It'll be alright to know things are as they should be.

Yes, most of all...it'll be alright.

Quiet and Cold

This post started on Sunday, stretched through Tuesday and ended up on Wednesday.  Somehow these things happen...

Up and around early today.  I was wiped out last night and conked with a house full of people.  Chris covered for me and held the fort but I kept drifting off in the middle of sentences and fading in and out of conversations.  I only slept a couple of hours yesterday morning after I got home and these days I find that I just can't operate 24+ at a time without some pretty serious consequences to my disposition.  The long trips and constantly flipping from days to nights keeps me off balance and out of sync with the rest of the world and last night I had to pay the piper.  I only vaguely remember crawling into the sheets and that was that until the dogs whined at the door to go out.  The critters always get priority.

A few minutes later, coffee firmly in hand, furballs safely back in the house and eyeballs focused at last, I stepped back outside and took a pause to look up at the hill behind the new domicile.  It was one of those rare early mornings that I've always been so fond of...absolutely still and bitter cold.  No noise, no breeze, not even a bird singing yet.  I wait for times like this.  It's like the whole Earth holds its breath for just a second before it wakes up and gets on with the uproar of another day.  The sky is bright but the sun hasn't peeked over the trees yet down here on the ground and for only a little time, there's peace.

If I could catch those minutes of silence and put them in a jar like we did with lightning bugs when we were kids, I'd take off the lid and turn them loose when it gets really dark and noisy in the world.  The quiet amid the racket of our lives would be good for us all.

The Move Ongoing

I know everybody (who am I kidding?  There's only like two people who read this) is probably getting tired of hearing about our move.  Well, guess what?  We're still at it.  If I live through this, I think I might just take root and never, ever do anything like it again.  I might have to sell the old place still full at the rate we're going.  We've been trucking for a week steady and the end is not in sight.  There's a lot to be said for having a bunch of big galoots box it all up and carry it out to a truck while the homeowner supervises.  The bad part about that is...they usually want a fairly large chunk of change to provide this little service.  On top of that it just didn't seem logical to load it all in a semi, pull out of one driveway, turn into the next one and unload it all again.  Even if we could have afforded it, the ridiculously short duration of the trip and the extravagant price tag wouldn't ever have worked for me.  We tossed the idea around but elected to do the job ourselves at a more leisurely pace and save the cash.  Good thing since painting, plumbing and a few other unforeseen difficulties cropped up.

I did manage to rope a pack of my son's teenage pals into doing some heavy lifting in return for pizza and a place to crash in the new digs.  They helped drag the big stuff around and saved me from probable hospitalization had I done it alone.  Some of it just barely fit in the pickup bed and the rain was a real plus until it turned to sleet and snow halfway through the job.  Did I mention that we had several inches of rain and flash floods in the midst of all this?  I think I did but just let me say again...it flat out poured like you read about.  I was beginning to think bad Karma but it could have just been crummy timing as opposed to actual divine retribution.  The outcome was about the same.

Yes, it's been kind of a lot of hauling and a lot of stuff with a tiny truck but at least most of the things I can't lift alone are finally in.  Now it's a matter of finding a spot for everything as it comes out of the boxes and then locating it again when you want to use it.  Case in point:  When I got home the other night, I looked all over the place for a wine glass as I thought they were already here and put away.  Not so fast and not that easy...I searched every cupboard; in the dishwasher, all the drawers, through the pantry twice and orbited the kitchen to the point of just tipping the bottle in frustration.  In the end, I finally wound up fishing one out of...guess what?  A box.  I shoulda known.

We still have to get to the attic in Old Drafty and sort that mess out, along with the minor disaster that is the rest of the place.  My old office alone may require earth moving equipment to dig out once I chew into that project.  God forbid that anyone show up to look at the place right now because they'd most likely laugh themselves unconscious before they got two rooms into it.  We might get an offer of about six bucks for the whole thing the way it looks today, if we got an offer at all.  I seriously doubt it.

I know we'll get through it all eventually but it's for sure been a handful and a headache.  The new place is at least starting to feel like home and the critters have found new places to lounge so it'll be OK.  But it's been an awfully long hundred yard trip from one life to another.

Are We Moved Yet?

Spent all day at the new place again yesterday and more to follow today.  This is getting a little depressing trying to haul all this junk.  It sort of seems like a lost cause to box it all up and move it across the driveway, un-box it and try to find a spot for it.  It's not like moving a couple states away where you put everything in a truck and don't see it again for a week.  Some of it doesn't even make it to a box at all, just the back of my pickup and right off again.  The stuff doesn't even have a chance to get cool.  We just haul the empty boxes back and reload.  I grow weary of cardboard.
I've at least got my tools where I can locate them in the garage (wow...a garage) which is good because there seems to be quite a lot of things that require tools.  Chris and her crew have painted damn near everything from one end to the other and in the meantime, I've been tinkering on assorted revelations that have come to light in their wake.  A variety of water leaks, wiring oddities and a non-whirling whirlpool promise to keep me in projects for the foreseeable near future.  I knew there was some stuff but...

Well, chalk it up to not moving for 20 years.  We'll get through it eventually but for now the rain is pouring down and the heavy lifting is just getting started.  Wonder if we'll ever make it to Christmas?

Thanksgiving Day...One For The Record Books

Gaaa...moving (still, endlessly, repeatedly).  It's Thanksgiving Day and it's going to be boxes from one house to another for a good share of it.  I'll mostly be thankful for getting through this.  You'd never know it but we have moved and packed an awful lot of stuff.  Where did we get all this junk?  The living room looks like a minor plane crash and we haven't even packed a lot of it yet.

We decided against doing the usual big bird and trimmings this time around because quite frankly, we can't find the kitchen easily or anything much to cook with once we locate it.  Everything is half packed and partly moved so to try the turkey route is pretty much out of the question.  We're ok with it though...we've never been too much of a traditional bunch around here.  With me coming and going all the time, it's sometimes pretty doubtful that I'll be present for the big meal at any particular hour most years so we just have the holiday when we can.  Last year for example, I worked outbound Wednesday night and didn't make it back until about 4pm on Thursday.  I just barely remember dinner and was probably lucky not to fall asleep and face-plant in my apple pie.  We've learned to adapt to stuff like that (mostly) and it's more important to me to be home with my brood than to do the feast anyway.  Good thing because this year, it's one-pan lasagna with packing on the side.

I know this too shall pass and once we actually get moved, things will settle down.  Until then, it's mayhem and madness, stress and worries mixed with relief and anticipation, a little fun and a new view from the kitchen window...a fine recipe for Thanksgiving no matter how you slice it.

Rolling With It

Short and fast again.  We've been moving like mad and now it's off to the races for another 'round trip.  Will we ever get this stuff all moved?  Will we ever do this again?  Why did we wait this long?

Stay tuned.