The Six

Six things about me you probably don't know:

1. I have OCD. I went to get medication for it and the doctor told me it was all in my head. I don't like to step on lines, all of the nutritional labels on my boxes of food have to face me when I open the pantry, I like even numbers of objects unless it is divisible by three, I don't get in the bed unless it's completely made, I fold clothes without wrinkles in them, I don't like for my food to touch or I don't eat it, I like straight lines i.e. pictures can't be crooked or the TV has to be in a straight line with the table, yada yada yada. There are more to list but it would take over the six things you don't know about me.

2. I don't like Christmas that much. It's too commercialized for my taste. It should be about Jesus' birthday and being a gift to others; not how much you spent or how much you can't spend because of the economy.

3. I sang in Carnegie Hall, twice. Small, unimportant fact about me, especially considering that there were 500 other people my age singing with me both performances.

4. I have this strange ability to remember most actors' names and filmographies, including some movies I haven't seen, after seeing them in just a few movies.

5. Along the same lines, I have another strange ability to be able to remember the words to most songs; the ability is even stronger for songs that I really hate!

6. I have a fear of drains. That's embarrassing to admit, but you never knew it about me did you? I'm not only afraid of the drains in pools but I'm afraid of the drain in tubs and sinks. I prefer my sinks come with garbage disposals so I don't have to get any additional bits of food out of the drain...wraeahgh! My skin is crawling thinking about it!

The Great Move

So, as far as I'm concerned, the actual moving of inanimate objects is completed pertaining to Mission Palisades 2008. Hallelujah!

I never want to move again. I really want to leave it at that. I've told you a little of what happened during the move but I really don't have enough medication to relive it again to tell you the story. Ha ha! Just joking! I really don't want to re-tell my account of our move on Saturday and Sunday because I don't want to say anything I'll come to regret later. I hope you'll understand.

Just understand that I am so thankful to have everything under one roof again, including Lucy, whom missed two nights of sleep with me! My poor baby! In fact, she was so ready to go home, she packed herself up for us!

I want to apologize for all the whining I've done about this move. It's not your fault, I should keep my mouth shut. I just think it makes for good story telling. But my attitude has been shit during this move and I don't think I should think like that. I like to try to be the happy, positive one. The one who always sees the coffee cup half full. I like feeling productive, animated and efficacious.

That being said, I am actually looking forward to the unpacking/organizing as a therapeutic lagniappe to myself. I will have all items unpacked by Friday. I WILL have all items unpacked by Friday!

Plus, Wednesday is our Thanksgiving dinner at the dealership. I'm going to make - I mean Trey is going to make sweet potatoe casserole with marshmellows on top! I love sweet potatoe casserole! Plus I/he gets to use the mixer Mum gave me a few years ago. I've never had anything to use it for and now I do - mean Trey does! OK, so I'm "helping" him make it. But don't tell anyone because no one will eat my cooking after I set the kitchen on fire the second time. But I like learning to cook, being in the kitchen has it's own therapeutic touch.

And tomorrow, I promise, I'm getting back in the gym. I swear my attitude will be higher than the mountains after I run off some of this stress!!

Commit me. No. Commit Trey.

Moving is evidence that the human species is a hair away from insanity.

It should be against the law to move with your spouse as your help. Movers should come with pack it up and unpack it specials. I should be able to close my eyes and SURPRISE! I'm moved!
Yesterday was extremely long. I never thought I was going to get in the bed. It kept threatening to rain, we were running behind schedule. Trey had a meeting in the middle of the day! But that wasn't what ran us late.

I wanted to be out of the house and moving by 8. We didn't get moving until 8:30. Then we couldn't find the box with the shower stuff in it so Trey could get ready for his meeting. Then it took forever at the bank. Plus, I hadn't eaten and there was so much excitement, my blood sugar was getting kind of low so I had to stop to eat something. Well by that time, everybody had quit serving breakfast, too!

Well, we get the first load to the apartment. Both of our trucks were packed full. All of the kitchen - I think, I'm still not sure! Ha! - got moved, I thought all of the bathroom, and a few things that I had told Trey not to worry about until later so we could get important things like the kitchen and bathrooms done and make another trip for some clothes. I had thought we were staying in Northport for the night until the night before and we had already - excuse me, Trey had already decided that he wanted to get the bed.

Well, our trucks aren't big enough so we got a bigger one from the dealership and got the mattresses.

Well, it wasn't big enough so for our THIRD trip of the day, we had to get the bed frame.

Here's where my therapist would have upped my Lexapro.

First. If you've seen my office or my kitchen or my - OK if you've met me, you know how much I don't like things out of order. I was already having my personal organizational issues with changing our moving plans while we're actually moving and putting kitchen paraphernalia in it's new home. I hadn't even tackled unpacking the bathroom at this point.

My goal for the day was like I said, move the boxes for the kitchen and bathroom and clothes and unpack. Grab furniture and unimportant boxes on Saturday. But as this story is going, and as you should know about Trey by now, that's not how my plans went.

So when Trey said, "Let's just get the sofa and the TV, too. The cable man's coming today," I started to feel the senselessness coming. Hello, Bryce? I need a padded room for one, please?

"OK, how about just the TV and more boxes. And clothes," I begged. "I need clothes for tomorrow."

Trey just had this puppy dog face in his eyes. I hate it when does that. It's the kind of I want it really bad though and it would really make my day and I know I'm asking a lot out of you but I want it anyway face. His eyes look like that cartoon cat that Warner Brother's draws. You know, the one with the big doe-eyes and they twinkle? The kind you can't say "no" to?

"We can just get one section of the sofa and the bed frame and it'll fit!" He had the excitement of a five-year-old. He's evidence that I already have a kid - a 32-year-old named Trey!

"And we don't have a rope, baby," I rationalized, "What are we going to tie it down with?" I put my hands on the tailgate hoping this would bring him back down from wherever he was.

"I've got an extension cord!"

Shit! Why can't I have those doe-eyes like his?

Defeated, I agreed. I agreed to ONE section of our sofa. One. Well...my Einstein decided we could get the other section on there, too.

Let me clarify something: I have the heaviest two-piece sofa. Putting the first section on the truck was challenge enough. Putting the second section on top was enough to qualify me for the strong man competition.

Once we had the sofa on the truck, we had to squeeze the bed frame into the bed of the truck. I was getting madder and more frustrated by the minute but Trey has less patience than I do and was already giving me his opinions -- even though this was his idea. We worked out getting the metal bed frame squeezed between the side of the truck and the sofa and then began tying the extension cord around the sofa.

Moving tip #476. Never use an extension cord to tie your sofa onto the truck. Ever.

It took us several passes with the extremely long cord but we got it tied around the sofa. But did you know that it doesn't stay tight as a rope? Yeah. Us,either.

I followed Trey with several car lengths between us because I was watching the rope slowly but surely slide down the end side of my sofa. I wanted to cry. And when he went over the railroad tracks, the sofa sections literally bounced on top of each other like the top section was on a trampoline! It was my worst nightmare. My beautiful tan and leather sofa bouncing into the highway for a large truck to demolish. It was halfway to the apartment that I realized Trey did this on purpose - because he wants a new sofa! Fortunately, for his sake, the sofa made it to the apartments in its original state. Now we just had to get it up the stairs...

We untied the extension cord. It took half the time it took tying up the sofa since it had gotten so loose on the trip to the apartment. Miraculously, though, despite all the bouncing, the top section of the sofa was still in its original position. We slid the elephant weight off of the truck and headed to the stairs. How do movers do this every day?

Trey started up the stairs and I was right behind him. We got about halfway when my hands just let go. I was so sweaty already not to mention tired, irritable, aggravated, pissed off, frustrated, PMSy and ready to quit. But I kept trying. I'll refrain from the other details but this scene is the reason why married couples should never move houses together by themselves. Ever.

Once the sofa was up the stairs, we had to rest. We were exhausted. Fortunately for us, in more ways than one, the cable man showed up to install everything. This man, Sean, he has this best timing in the world!

Sean was a huge, tough-looking man. His hands were probably bigger than my face. He was very nice and personable and was moving as quickly as he could to get our cable, internet and phone hooked up. It was a nice break from moving objects up the stairs. While Sean was fixing us up, Trey leaned over and said, "We'll get the other half of the sofa when he leaves."

I wanted to cry. My body was screaming enough! at this point. "I can't help you with the sofa. Let me call Kinley. It's almost 5:30, he'll be getting off work soon and can help you. I don't have anything left in me to get this sofa up the stairs."

"Don't call Kinley." He sounded very firm about that, "You can help me. I'll let you go up the stairs first."

"Trey, it's not a good idea. I'm just going to go call Kinley, maybe Jason will let him come over here now and help you." I begged. All of me was aching. I was thirsty, tired, I felt like I'd been beaten up. I know he had of felt the same. We'd been moving all day...up and down those stairs...I wondered why he didn't listen to me to begin with when I told him moving the sofa was a bad idea...

We stopped discussing it for a minute and began joking around with each other. I picked up the phone to call Kinley even though Trey begged me again not to. Meanwhile, Sean had overheard our debate.

"Man, let me help you."

I hung up the phone. When a 7 foot tall man built to be a linebacker volunteers, he's hired! Trey accepted his offer and we waited for him to finish, unaware of the time or the cloud coverage.

I started to unpack more of the kitchen and finally paused to watch a bit of the TV for a second. It was the first glimpse of the world around me I'd had all day. Trey was flipping the channels and paused on FRIENDS for a second when I began to hear an all too familiar relaxing sound lightly tapping the window.

"Trey, is that rain?" I asked, praying that I was hearing things.

"Oh no!" The clouds that had been so ominous all day were finally making good on their promise. We both sprinted outside to see the rain not just coming down but pouring down - on our sofa. We ran to the truck and pulled the sofa into the breezeway. For that moment, that section of sofa was as light as a feather! Upon inspecting the damage, we realized that the section was s.o.a.k.e.d.

"What do we do?" Trey demanded like I knew all the answers. But I didn't have all the answers. All of our towels were still in Northport. I didn't pack my handy shop vac into my back pocket that morning, either! I didn't know what to do.

"I brought my hair dryer?"

"Great," he answered disparagingly, "Go get it!"

"Well we have two towels, Trey! What do you want me to do?" I felt like I didn't deserve his sarcasm. But apparently he felt I did because he walked upstairs to the apartment without saying a word and disappeared. I thought Now I know he didn't leave me out here. I can't get back up to the apartment and it's raining! I hope the cable man gets done soon. I knew that if we could get the sofa inside, it would eventually dry and everything would be fine. I just wanted to try to soak up as much of the water as I could before it made it into the apartment.

Trey then re-appeared with to the towels I had used to pack. We laid them on top of the cushions and sat down, bouncing like children jumping on the bed.

I look back at this moment and laugh at us now. It was something out of a sitcom. However, we were burning mad; we were tired, irritable, sick of this move and now bouncing on a sofa. It was one of those quiet moments where you reflect on the day and think, "Did all this shit really happen?"

He talked me into trying to get the sofa up the stairs. I was headed up the stairs first this time, fortunately. It made it a little bit easier heading up first and Trey was given the opportunity to realize how difficult it was for me to push up the stairs with the first sofa section.

"Oh hey, let me help you with that!" It was the voice of salvation, the voice of Sean, the Cable Guy! Hallelujah! He was finally finished - again, with his impeccable timing.

"Sure! Tell me when you've got it and I'm letting go!" His hands were already in the place of mine and I dashed up the stairs out of the way. As I imagined, this sofa was light weight for this guy. He should be in the moving business! The piece was up the stairs and in the living room in no time.

Wet - but in place.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful that Stephen helped Trey with the rest of the heavy furniture and not me.

Boxes are everywhere. Kitchen items everywhere. Only 1/4 of my kitchen is boxed, the dishes, pots, pans utensils - everywhere. Bathroom is boxed up with empty cartons and trash everywhere. Left over items that won't fit in the current boxes and don't fill another box yet E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E.

I AM IN ORGANIZATIONAL HELL.

I have a 1000 piece puzzle and the table's too small

I need shelving space. I'm going to run out of room. I'm thinking I'm going to store my dishes in the cabinets and then my dry goods. I'll store my appliances in the utility closet and then see what I need to do about my pots and pans.

Anybody got any better ideas?

Since this was Trey's idea, moving and all, I decided I would let him do all the moving, all the packing, all the planning, all the work. I am so bad about following through with that. However, he has packed a few boxes. He didn't tell me until last night that we weren't moving furniture until Saturday, which did me absolutely NO GOOD considering the help I had aquired was only available on Friday. So that's been changed due to what is essentially a lack of communication. I hate moving. I just want you to know that.

Bottom line, as much as I love my husband, I don't trust him to organize my kitchen correctly.

And I can't even cook!