They packed me, they moved me. The truck was here in a day! I signed the lease while the truck stood outside waiting. They hauled all the boxes in. They don't unpack me. :(  Actually, I need an exhausted, fatigued, crying emoticon to express this. Today, I hired a couple of people and paid them to come unpack with me, since its complicated merging and purging stuff accumulated and stored from 1) The Michigan House, 2) My old offices and 3) The 2 apartments I lived in while in Cali for the past few years. Time did fly, and I got stuff. Today we all patiently deboxed everything (except a few remaining boxes in the garage that I'll get to soon enough). Then after the unpacking crew left, I slowly tried to make sense of each room just a little. I think my master bedroom and the living room are the closest in an almost photo opp kind of way.  The 2nd bedroom will be a converti office/guest space, so i have to seriously hang out and make friends with someone at the Container Store, so I can figure out shelves, cubes, boxes, baskets and other nice organizational tools for the huge mess I have on my hands. I also have sizable Goodwill piles on the floors of each room, since this makes me feel like I am doing something good for my self, my home and someone else. Don't worry, I will make the call and get the truck over to pick it all up.

 

Its going to take me a bit longer to make the place livable. I almost spent the night there on Thursday night. It was really beautiful and I think it might have almost been a full moon or something. But I left and went back to Mercer Island because I was lazy and didn't want to unpack the bedding. Almost slept on the plain uncovered mattress, but it didn't seem fair to the poor bed. So, as I said... a few more days and it will be livable.

 

Then, believe it or not, I plan to go back to moving my temp place stuff, by Miata. :) Baby cars rule!

So, dear readers... If you have been keeping up with my cross-cultural banter, the reading lists and the crazy devotion to my new nephew, then you will remember when I wrote about How Not to Move iWith a Miata. After struggling back and forth with the top down and everything I could stuff into the baby car, then I updated the blog with the 2 convertible moving story, when my very generous and driven friend Tammy rescued me by adding her Beamer converti to our pool of moving "trucks". Just a couple of trips, two very determined Gemini women and Tammy's super PMing skills and I was all tucked away safely in Sunnyvale. I know what you're thinking... have I not heard of UHaul? I have, but sometimes, the pleasure of the ridiculous outweights the intelligence of logic. N'est-ce pas?

 

Fast forward to tonight. I am hanging at a hotel I used to chill in the lobby of, when friends from Redmond visited (there was that time that we all snuck into the hot tub at night once) and preparing for Microsoft's top relo vendors to come pack my little apt and move everything from there and from storage all the way to my new home. That's right.. for the first time, I am moving, and there are NO convertibles to stuff and move. I will dearly miss the one arm over the back to hold down the computer and some bags as I fly across 237. I will not have rock music blasting as my legs tan in the sunshine while I drive back and forth down 101 with load after load of stuff. I will probably have some nice pack and move tales to tell though, so stay tuned. What happened to my converti, you ask?

 

My sweet little Mizzie got a nice truck too that loaded her up and she was delivered to mommy (me) last week up north.  She's dent-free, sparkly and happy to be moving to am attached garage again soon. After so many years and all this hybrid hype, she's a trooper who still gives me great gas mileage. And I am happy to save her the pain of trying to be a moving truck again. We all deserve a little dignity after all.

 

Diya

 

P. S. I can't wait until Chotu can go in the baby car. I still have piccy's of Akshi when she was little, pretending to drive it.

P.S. 2 -  I want to thank Tammy so much for making me feel at home in Cali, filling my home with great furniture and home electronics (TV too!) and for being my co-mover back in the day. We'll always get to remember that... as well as the adventures of Tammy's shades. :)

P.S. 3 - I am going to miss Barb and Barb. And Kat. But Kat and Kat will be up north, so I will get to hang with them. Confused? Name your kids Sundaralakshmi and Yashodhara, and everyone will know who's who. Sorry, Indian joke. LOL.