Rachael

that I hate moving?

Only a few minutes to grab, but I’ll tell you this. I started moving yesterday in earnest. I’d moved all the big things (all four of them) the day before with sister Christy and my friend Tara. Yesterday I got up at 6:30 (after sleeping for the first time in the new, blessedly quiet house), went to the old place and started working on the bathroom. By 7:30, I was so overwhelmed by the very thought of having nowhere to put anything in the new place (only one large closet in the whole place – where to keep toilet paper? The vacuum? The luggage (I’m seriously, horribly addicted to luggage)?) that I went to Wal-Mart instead. I know it’s the antichrist and all, but they’re open early. Spent an hour there, got overwhelmed, bought nothing. Went to Home Depot, where I stood for another hour, then loaded a huge dolly up with incredibly heavy boxes containing bookcases, got to the front counter, and decided not only would they not fit in my car, even with the top down, but that the guys in line in front of me were probably right – Ikea would be cheaper, and have more selection. So I left Home Depot with nothing.

Got into the car and cried. All by 10:30 in the morning of the first official moving day.

Sensibly, I called the little mama, who said “go get boxes.” So in order to get boxes, I went to a liquor store near where Christy works so I could get a hug. I slowly figured out that there were no Extra Special Moving Brownie Points for moving in grocery bags. I had a vision in mind that I would put the things I own into Safeway plastic, drive them to the new house and put them away. One: No way in hell. Two: Why did I think that was somehow cool?

Boxes rock. I AM trying to put away everything as I go, as much as I can. But boxes help with the brain process, no? And wonderful friend Marama spent SIX hours (or maybe more, we lost track) buying Ikea bookcases and various other contraptions and then helping me put them together! How’s that for friendship? I mean, it’s awful enough to go shopping (although she says she likes that part). But to put that screwy Scandinavian furniture together? She gets all the Extra Special Moving Brownie Points for the day.

Oh, and I love my new place. Pictures soon, as soon as I get it more together…. You NEED to see my red walls.

No time. Moving sucks, but it will be soooo worth it. Someday.
Right?

All I leave you with today are a few lines from the FABULOUS new Indigo Girls album, All That We Let In. From the title song,

One day those toughies will be withered up and bent,
The father, son, the holy warriors, and the President,
With glory days of put-up dukes for all world to see,
Beaten into submission in the name of the free.

(all right, that’s a little rough on paper. But it sounds GOOD with them singin’ it. But this is what I was going for:)

We’re in evolution, I have heard it said.
Everyone’s so busy now, but do we move ahead?
Planets hurling, atoms splitting,
And a sweater for your love you sit there knitting.

Good god. Isn’t that great? An anti-Bush message shortly followed by a knitting-as-meditation reference? I hold myself squarely responsible for this song. Don’t you? (Course words and music are by Emily. And the song was written a year before I met them. And said meeting was fleeting. AND I only talked knitting with Amy. But hell. On the freeway, singing it loudly, I go with the dream.)

(And I wonder what the planets are hurling. And what’s a toughie? The IGals have never been grammar avengers. But sexy and smart, yeah. Okay. That was more than I meant to write. Cheers to you, and if I owe you an email, please be patient with me for a while….)

https://rachaelherron.com/no_time_moving_/

Digit got out of his box at the vet, and the limp went away. Completely. I was relieved and irritated at the same time. The vet said it always happens like that. Adrenaline makes the weak strong. (For such a terror, he’s sure a sweet thing at the animal hospital, pushing his head into my stomach, tolerating the nail clipping….) Vet didn’t think anything was broken, just a strain, and thought I had done the right thing, waiting and seeing.

Right as rain, now he is. Right as all the rain that’s been pounding us in the last few days…..

Painting this morning. I found the red/orange that I want on the book jacket of my beloved Milton. (I know he was a misogynistic old guy, but I love the fella. Adore him. He’s my boyfriend. My blind, bitter boyfriend….) I’m a gonna carry that book in and say, “I want THIS.” Wait. Can I do that? Thank god my painterly friend is helping me.

Then tonight I’m making a quick (4 hour) drive down the coast to leave the babies (who aren’t limping, neither of them) at the little mama’s for the week while I move. Back tomorrow morning to really start it. Last night, I pretended to myself I was staying in my little place forever, sat on the couch, got a little more done on the second Cromarty sleeve (now at the saddle shaping), drank a little wine, watched HBO (Iron Jawed Angels? Anyone else think it insipid? I’m a little disappointed in myself – maybe I just didn’t Feel the Emotion I should have. But I was WAY more into the re-run of Sex and the City that followed. Carrie should choose New York. Okay?). Soon, I tell myself, I’ll be home again. In my home, of my making. A couple of weeks of chaos will be worth it.

Mwah, darlings.
(psst: It’s Bethany’s birthday tomorrow.)

Hey, if you want to join us for breakfast and/or lunch on Friday, drop me an email (writerach406 at yahoo dot com) and I’ll fill you in on the plan!

I think little Digit’s paw is broken. Not badly, because I can touch it and move it a little. There aren’t any abrasions, it’s not hot, no cuts. He just holds it up when he’s sitting and limps when he’s walking and every once in a while, when he forgets about it, he puts weight on it and falls THUMP over. Of course, this happened Friday night, so I’ve been waiting to see if he’d heal over the weekend. Don’t think I’m a bad mama, please. This boy has been known to heal in twenty-four hours after gonzilla fights, after he drags himself in, barely able to stand, grumbling things about card-parties and fast kittens and bad catnip. He pops up after a day’s sleep, good as gold. But it’s Monday, and while he doesn’t seem in pain, he’s still not using the limb. I’ve asked my friend Nichole to cover my shift this afternoon so we can go see The Man Cats Hate. Poor baby.

And Digit’s mama has a leftover headache. Yep, I’ve figured out the damn trigger for these migraines. I thought it was a combo of PMS and the weather. No, it’s just the weather, damn it. Following in my mother’s migrained footsteps. A prolonged low pressure before a storm starts the sinus headache, which then moves into migraine territory. Yesterday at work I had all the accompanying symptoms, too, nausea and vertigo and dizziness. Bleach. Feeling better now (and the Imitrex did really help), but I still can’t touch the right side of my face – too sensitive. (Oh, and Imitrex is FUN to take. Doesn’t make me sleepy or unable to focus at work (although I wouldn’t take it if I had to be on the police radio). But it makes me sharply giddy. A focused, intense grin kind of feeling. Odd.) Daisy-Winifred, you predicted this, didn’t you?

Been up for the last two hours, two hours way too early. Heavy rain pouring down, lying in bed thinking about moving. Okay, now I’m getting a little stressed. And it’s mostly about the cats. I need to ship them out (hopefully to the little mama’s house – who is feeling MUCH better for those of you keeping score) and do the move without indulging in this “got a month to do it” crap. Then I can bring them back and hopefully, with a six-hundred mile drive between their old home and their new home half a mile away, they’ll lose their way and won’t think to go looking for the auld sod. And I’d like the apartment to be mostly ready by the time I get them back. Less stress on them AND me.

The problem is this (and it ain’t really a problem in my book, more of something I have to work with): I’m going to ask a friend for his truck and his help to move the four heavy things I own. Another friend is helping me paint. The rest of it I want to do by myself. I’m not being a martyr here. I’m being a helpless control freak, that’s all. I want to know where everything is in my new home. I want things to pass through my hands only. I don’t want anyone else to see the dust behind my bookshelves at my present home. You know? So I have to work quickly, accurately, and with some semblance of balance or humor, or it’ll be a head against the boxes sobbing moment. But I mean it. ALONE. That’s how I want to do it. Wish me luck and godspeed – I may not be posting a lot the next week or so…..

https://rachaelherron.com/i_think_little_/

Lemme tell you how a day with Greta goes. You get up. You think about doing something, but you talk instead. You go to breakfast and talk until the coffee’s cold. You look at the clock, and it’s two, not eleven like you thought. A very little while later, it’s suddenly six pm, and you don’t know how that happened. I have experienced the Time Flies syndome many times in my happy leetle life. But yesterday was ridiculous. I wanted to dig my heels in and drag. It was going TOO quickly.

And Greta? Everything you would think, everything you would guess. She makes me want to talk more slowly, to feel the words in my mouth more fully. She makes me appreciate color. She smiles as much as I do. And she is the BEST storyteller, giving me goosebumps no less than six times yesterday. She brought me the most thoughtful handmade gift that I won’t even ATTEMPT to describe right now, but I’ll show it to you later, after we do our next photo shoot.

Oh, we had a good time. Here we are on the way to the City. We had been going to take the ferry, but it was a little cool yesterday and threatening rain, so we hopped BART after a FABULOUS breakfast, eggs brady with smoked salmon for Greta, eggs benedict for me, and wonderful looking pancakes for daughter-bird.

Once we trundled under the Bay, we arose into the lovely light rain and grabbed a cable car up and over the hills. It kinda broke down at the top (we didn’t ask) and they let us off right at Lombard.

This is for Em:

Daughter-bird wanted to eat lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. G and I were still full from breakfast, so we decided to do dessert and drinks instead. Yes, we had drinks:

Oh, my merciful lord, their dessert nachos are insane. Seriously. Like to have killed me.

And darling Greta got a shortcake sundae.

When we left the restaurant, this is what we saw (I’m convinced the City put on its Special Sparkles for the return of one of its favorite daughters):

We went to Longs, to the BIG one, the 24 hour one, the one that when asked to swear an oath, I swear by. (That doesn’t happen too often, actually….) In the process of looking for a pencil, we found a bean bag that will be PERFECT in my new place (this Longs sells clothes and furniture and plants and even has a yarn section!). This is NOT an attractive photo, but it cracks me up, so hard.

Oh, and she spotted a rug, too. The problem arises, with my small car: How do we fit us and all the stuff in? (We had to put the top down to get all their luggage in when I met them at the train on Thursday night, driving the highway at two in the morning, wind in our hair.) But hey. Shopping with Greta goes like this:

Daughter-bird is IN that car, I’ll have you know. She’s a trooper, just like her mama.

Now, they’re off again, and I’m back at work. I feel horribly let down, after such an eventful (and extended) weekend, to be back at work. Deep sigh. But Stitches next weekend will help with that feeling, I’m sure. And I’m going to paint my new place! Orange! Or rust! But I’ll leave the living room yellow, ’cause I love that. Happy weekend to you.

(Oh, that Guestmap is fun, but it’s eating people. If you’ve been gobbled off the map, I apologize. But I know where you are, and I love ya. Mwah!)