So here I am in what might be described as Day 21 of the Unpacking Hostage Crisis.
Well, okay, not that bad. With the extensive and artistic help of my friend Nancy, I have managed to bring my new lodgings into not only livable, but actually quite pleasing, shape. And in record time, too. The initial phase that seemed like it was taking forever actually took less than a week. Everything after that has been a matter of refinement: sorting 13 bookcases of books into alphabetical order by author within subject, for instance. Try that on a day when you have nothing better to do.
Or, even more fun, going through the contents of a total of 17 legal-sized filing drawers, unjumbling the stuff that got jumbled in the move (obviously the movers couldn’t move the filing cases upstairs without first removing the drawers, and the drawers weren’t always replaced in the order in which they came out).
Worse than that, the move has brought to my attention how much stuff I have been storing in so jumbled a way that I didn’t know what I had or where it might be. So first I have had to draw a sketch of which file drawers contained what kind of stuff, then had to envision and sketch what kind of stuff should go where, and — the part that is leading me to buy ice cream for comfort food strictly as a matter of survival — now I am going through the files, file by file, and sorting.
Etc., etc. Break out the crying towels. He asked for it, didn’t he? Besides, I already have lots of pictures hung, I have my houseplants established, I’ve worked out where to read at what times of day, and my work area really does look like it’s going to be pleasant and productive.
And, strictly on a level of every-day practicality, there is the proximity factor. I’m loving it! When that yen — call it that survival urge — for ice cream kicked in, I had to drive all of half a mile to the nearest Kroger’s. That puts Kroger’s 12 times as close as the nearest IGA was in Nellysford, in Nelson County, and 26 times as close as the Food Lion in Lovingston.
The other day I grouched to the guys upstairs that between the month I spent packing and the three weeks (so far) I have spent unpacking, that’s “seven weeks out of my life.” They came back, “That’s one way to look at it. Another is: Seven weeks to transform your life.” (As Travis McGee once said about his friend Meyer, “Meyer is frequently unanswerable, an annoying habit.”)
No move that brings you so close to sources of ice cream and books can be all bad! Not that I ever thought it would be. So, onward and upward.
Frank –
Congratulations on your move. At least your TGU talk civilly to you. When I was distressed, over the winter, at the turn of path in my life, their response was:
“Things happen as they do for a reason.” While I was processing this, they added:
“So, suck it up and deal with it.”
I feel like Rodney Dangerfield sometimes. . .
Jim
Hah! Don’t think mine are any different. I was complaining about something once and they said, “too bad!” and proceeded to give out some more tough love. We’ll have our chance to get even with them, though; ‘s just a matter of time till we’re over there too.