The Rabbit Hole of My Mind

After 4 weeks of chaos, life is mostly back to normal. And by normal, I mean Neal has added 30 minutes each way to his commute, Blue cries every morning about not wanting to go to school and I have managed to navigate the busiest Costco I've ever seen. And we haven't even ventured into Los Angeles proper yet.

We miss Pennsylvania and we miss our friends. That's not to say we aren't finding our way out here, but it is just so so so different, in almost every way imaginable. So, while I price shop the 4 major grocery stores and 4863927 different farmer's markets and plan out our summer activities, I'm also going to get caught up on the blog. I have some posts about the move, a few about our trip out here and then I'll get started with what we've done here so far. I've miss y'all and I couldn't be happier to be back!

So...this happened the day the packers came:

A team of 6 women showed up at our door step at 8 AM on the dot and proceeded to work, y'all. They took one 15-minute break and one lunch break. They packed our entire house in one day. IN ONE DAY. That has never happened. NEEEEVVVVVEEEERRRRR. Naturally, I was a little concerned about the state of everything after being packed that quickly and then moved into storage and out of storage. But I'm here to tell you, I've unpacked the entire kitchen, both bedrooms and the living room and the only thing that busted was a plastic bin from the Dollar Tree, which was probably living on borrowed time anyway. Not a single chip in the fine china, not a crack in the crystal, every piece is just as it was in Pennsylvania and all is accounted for. If you hire a packing crew and you get these ladies,

welcome them warmly and just sit back. They totally got this. Oh...and maybe feed them lunch. They like deli sandwiches, chips, fresh fruit and chocolate chip cookies. Had I known their mad packing skills, I would have let them take the antique Cosco stool instead of hand-carrying it in our RV for 3800 miles.

But then...2 days later, the men showed up. Now, to be fair, I gave them all (including the driver) a hard time from the get-go about marking furniture as damaged when it isn't...yet...and getting stickers on everything that wasn't packed in box. The driver, an older gentleman who was probably used to dealing with high strung military spouses, took most of it in stride. He probably rolled his eyes behind my back but to my face he was courteous and patient. His crew (and one gentleman in particular), didn't care for me much and had no problem letting me know. I got so flustered that at one point during the day I muttered, "I'm doing the best I can. I got no male back-up right now", which meant that Neal was gone to California while I was getting the house packed out. Except I didn't intend for anyone to know that, especially a group of 20-something, burly, men who carried incredibly heavy furniture down a flight of stairs on their backs. No, I didn't mean to say that at all. They were going to make mincemeat of me.

So, even though I tried to be much nicer the rest of the afternoon and I tipped them all once the truck was loaded, as they headed out of the neighborhood my constant thought was, "Crap. They are going to come back in the middle of the night and murder me on my RV mattress."

So, I got Blue off the bus and hung out with the neighbors until bath time. We brushed teeth and read stories and then I double-checked every door and window in the house. But that house didn't have an alarm system so then I decided that I would have to nap until about 2 AM. Because if I was hatching a plan to murder someone for being obnoxious, I would do it at the bars downtown until closing time. And then I would head out with my buddies and a baseball bat around 1:45 AM. 

I didn't have to set an alarm. I tossed and turned and dozed until 1:50. Then I played on Pinterest and listened for any sound of intrusion...until 4:30. Because 4:30 is basically 5, which is basically morning and nothing really bad happens at 5 AM. However, as my mother always says, nothing good happens after midnight. So I napped from 5-7 AM, when Blue woke up and we started our day. Neal was coming home that night so I would actually get to sleep that evening.

Even to this day, a month later, this was a totally logical way to approach the situation, which explains a lot about what Neal has had to live with for the past 13 years. I had no escape plan for if they did decide to attack, but I guess I would have been awake for it and that was going to be enough?

Thank you, moving crew, for not hatching a plan to return and murder me. Ending up on Dateline is not how I want to go out.