T MINUS 24 DAYS

No that is not a mistake. I am sick enough to delay the move as long as we could. Either that or drop dead. The moving company is being very nice... Orion/Verizon...lines. They had a good review and so far they were not the cheapest nor the most expensive. They had the least complaints. I feel like crap my whole body hurts from coughing. I am one step from pneumonia but if I try hard I will keep that step back! It is so hard to lie in bed and look at all that needs to be done. Much of the time I am thinking how to pack stuff with out ......the thought are leaving the brain and the coughing is coming back...but this time it is less.......

T MINUS 22.7 DAYS

I managed to salvage some of the day. I packed /finished 5 boxes. 3 small book size and just the taping of two large ones. 

What makes this move so difficult is there is no one left behind to say good-bye to. No one to miss, write post cards to on the way or send Christmas Cards to after I am moved in. No one left here in Texas but people I pay.

Mother is dead these 6 years and the only reason I have been stuck here for so long. I once had a sister. I would like to say I loved her and I miss her, but I didn’t and I don’t. She is dead as far as my life is concerned. So I pack up the brittle memories that still sting a bit and make the heart heavy. No regrets to leave except the cost of living, but it is also the cost  of living here, that is why I need to get out, to leave, to not let the door knob hit me in the butt. I was going to go through the few things left from my mother and repack them but what is the use? I will tote them to Maine and unpack them there; maybe get an old trunk to put those old things in and store it in the attic. I never had an attic before and these will make interesting things for some one 30 years from now to look through after I am gone. I will put my diaries I there, too. I look at the stuff hat still needs to be packed and it is not that much, really. I moved away in 2004 and never came back, really. I commuted back and forth to my home in Canada spent most of the time there until I got enough days to become a citizen. I left here behind long ago. I just did not know that it would be the last time I would see my mother. We talked nearly everyday, but I never saw her grow frail in the year I was away, never heard her complain about how the person who shares my DNA with Mom was treating her. The whole sordid episode is mostly behind me and I am grateful for modern medication! A broken heart and broken spirit takes a long time to mend but the scares are deep and they ache when the weather changes.

T MINUS 22 DAYS

In bed and sick. Lying down in bed is not an option since not coughing is not an option. I am cold and too warm. My brains are not foggy( not any more than the usual anyway). I am vaguely hungry but what I want to eat is not made and I may make it later (noodle pudding). It is not illness but allergies but it feel as crummy as illness. Texas is giving me a good send off... every freaking plant is blooming. And for some reason everyone has landscaped with Mountain Laurels. They are beautiful and the picture on this blog is of one of them; but they are my nemesis since I arrived in Texas many years ago. I liked Texas in the beginning. Then the weather patterns began changing in the late 1990s. More hot days, longer summers, less rain in the spring and winter. More humid, muggy suffocating days. I would get up at 4:30 am so I could go walking at the school grounds and even then it was 80 degrees and so humid the sweat would pour from my pores and I would feel ill. I would watch the sweat bead up on my head in the mirror, it was bizarre. I could feel the process and see it. Then drought came after the last big floods in 1998. The days and nights were hot, humid, and full of dust. Then there came a time that there was not cool of the day. Summer would end in October, and reappear in late January. The few months of not hot weather was OK, but the dry left everything brown and dead looking. We lost any idea of seasons. We used to have long lovely autumns. Springtime was full of wild flowers that were so colorful it hurt the eyes. I get SAD but mine always is in Summer time. I am not a hot weather person, I don't mind the glorious hot summer days to bake the cold out of my bones, but these days lasted for 9 and 10 months of the years. It is oppressive. Now the weather pattern is cold fronts and warm ups in a matter of 48 hours. Freezing temperatures at night then a few days of oppressive mugginess. There is climate change and I saw it happening in just a span of years. So I head for a cold climate and all the related expenses, but is it better to be bundled up or curled in a sweat drench fetal position of despair? I take today off from packing. I will get up and deal with the mess on the dresser every now and then. I know I can turn to and pack up the rest of the house in a day or two so I can afford this time spent in bed. Better now then laid up in a motel sick on the road!

T- MINUS 23 DAYS

Well this is just great! I am sick again. These allergies will not leave me alone, The nose is fine it is theses lungs and huge cough...I sound consumptive! I am warn out with coughing...hack, whoop-hack.....heave sigh. I am 50% packed up but these last few weeks(3) will be a nightmare if this does not go away. I need to drive 2500 miles!!!! I am feeling sad about the birds...no one to feed them or appreciate their singing! And poor possum, who loves a possum? I watched him last night eating his supper; he/she likes whole grain sweet rolls with a drizzle of honey. They are such gentle creatures; makes me cry to think that people want to harm them for no reason but nastiness. Their fur is soft to touch...we had a passing feel one night. So the great adventure will be fraught with illness and bad weather or will I recover and the weather calm down for a week or two? I will write every night so stay tuned.

T MINUS 24

In 24 Days we are having the moving company come and pack all our worldly goods in a van and head northeast. The next morning we will gather up 22 cays and pack up the pick-up truck with a camper(F-150 four door) and my Toyota Carolla and we are driving to Baton Rouge as our first stop. It will take all day just to get out of Texas. The weather is sending chills up of spine....tornadoes, severe storms are lining the way we need to travel. I can just see the swath of destruction along our way. Right now we are 50% packed sounds like a lot but there is so much we need to use during this interim time that it can not be packed too soon. I would like to toss everything and just buy again but that is silly and not cost effective since our stuff is from the days of good quality and not made cheaply in China. We are both paralyzed with the amount of work that needs to be done, his part-time work is a real nightmare! Rick Perry can collect his retirement and full working salary and so can hundreds of other people but jesuschrist heaven forbid a person who is now on 1/3 of his salary can't even work part time or risk loosing his pension! [It is the same program that Rick Perry is on that is why I mention this] The weather is a real concern. Our over all health and mental health is a concern. Driving with millions of people who know the roads that will be new to us across the country for 2500 miles is a challenge. But we need to break down the components of this whole event into smaller parts and not think about all that still need to be done. My closet is almost empty...a good thing....although there are no closets like the ones here in the new old house there! Do I have too much stuff or do I just take good care of what I have and it stays around for decades? The weather is freaking me out. One day it is cold then like today it is so muggy I can swim through the air better than walk or so it seems. And to top it off the SPring flowers are going crazy beautiful, especially the Texas Mountain Laurel, they are all over the neighborhood! They are beautiful purple bunches of clusters like grapes made of petals.... I am so allergic to them I can't breath. So this is where I am at T MINUS 24!

Getting ready.......

The camper is on. Now we are packing the stereo equipment. We have an awesome system only a recording studio can match what we have. I can play anything and it is live and better than live. No puny ear buds for me! I have chosen my travel CD the sound track from "My Name Is Khan" it reminds me on why we are leaving the deep conservative religious right wring south that is so cheap to live in and heading to the wild cold, expensive, northeast. I test drove it yesterday and it did well in traffic on the freeway. So Shah Rukh Khan thank-you for a great movie. I only wish the ending were true and we were not still in danger from the GOP who wish us in internment camps or dead & the Democrats who lost the ideals of freedom and liberty. No one running the government is capable from clerk we have had to deal with to the elected prima donnas who have no idea what it takes to grocery shop, pay the rent  and monthly bills or find a doctor who does not charge $150 for an office visit( 10 minutes or less of his time).
So the Magical America Tour leaves in a month and we are so NOT ready!

The Longest Journey Begins with.....

someone stealing a brass coupling from the man putting the camper shell on the pick-up truck and little heater for the cats. How low can a person go? We are packing the house and planing the route, looking for motels that will let our crated cats spend the night in our rooms. We ask no discounts but only a chance. We have done a good thing...we have taken in stray cats and nurtured them. All are spayed or neutered, all have their vaccinations. All eat better than we do (and when I score the nips I make sure it is the good stuff). We have done this over the years and we love those who still live, we miss those who have died. We celebrate their lives as well lived & happy.So now we need to plan a route and pack the house and see which cats crate will fit in which vehicle. We have 22 cats: Frosty*, Jedi, Sidney, Angela, Rajni*, Sherin*, Farida, K2, Tommi, K3, Jenny, Punkee, Raji, Douglas, Nelson, Fredrika (aka binty batuta)Scotsman*, Inky*, Baber*, Amber*, Scholar*,& Shaherazade*. the ones with * are from the early 1990s. So we begin our journey of 2500 miles with one step and some one put us behind 3 days by stealing a brass coupling from the shop where our camper shell is being put on( It was one of his customers! and one wonders why stealing is such a nasty crime!) And that is why we have cats!