A Third of the Way There

Sunday, October 9, 2005
Los Angeles International Airport

Finally, time to start blogging again. The last three or four weeks have been simply amazing. Amazing in terms of how much I’ve gotten accomplished, amazing in terms of what I have learned, amazing in terms of actually getting the household furnishings packed and stored away.

I had lofty goals. I was going to chronicle, down to the most boring minutae, what goes in to preparing for an international move of indeterminate length. What happened, in reality, was that life got in the way.

Instead of blogging, I completed two sizable freelance projects.

I took Part 3 of the IRS Enrolled Agent Exam. Again.

I spent a week in Iowa visiting Mom and Jerry when I should have been packing.

I visited just about every doctor in town, checking out any body part that could bad over the next year or so.

Took Tanaka to the vet for the same treatment. Then fretted over whether or not his “authenticated” health certificate – his entry to the Philippines – would make it back from the Philippine Embassy in time for us to leave.

Tried to convince Tanaka that, yes, he actually did want to spend a bunch of time in his Sherpa bag, practicing for the trip.

Sorted, packed, sorted some more, packed some more, unpacked a bunch of it, then sorted it all again.

Worked with the property manager to prepare the house for rental. Keep your fingers crossed.

Tried to get forwarding addresses to anyone we do business with. (I know I have failed at this task, but I can no longer keep track of who I updated and who I didn’t update.)

As I said, I had lofty goals.

This past week has been the most trying. I worked my last day on Tuesday, to spend at least part of the day with my successor at the hospital. The movers were due to show up Thursday to pack and Friday to take everything to storage, so everything I needed to get done had to be done by Wednesday evening. Easier said than done, when you add in a four-foot by four-foot pile of mulch that didn’t quite make it as far as the garden and, therefore, needed to be moved manually by the only laborer left at home. (Mom said last fall we should have pruned more of the low-hanging around our driveway. Having had two rather large trucks in our driveway in the span of two days, I now concede that she was probably correct.)

Vivian has been a great help, and a great neighbor, over these past few days, too. I’ve stored a few odds and ends in her attic, she has fed me when I’ve been too busy eat, and she gave me a place to sleep when I realized all the rooms in town have taken up by the Seagull Century bicycle ride. She said “that’s what good neighbors are for.” Well, she is a good neighbor, and all three of us are going to miss her while we’re gone. Thanks, Vivian!

Tanaka has been a great traveler so far, aside from making me dig him out from inside the bed at the Red Roof Inn last night. Roughly a third of the way to Manila, I’ve only heard three brief, loud meows from him, and that was as we sat on the tarmac at Washington National Airport. When the plane started moving again, he stopped meowing, perhaps thinking his complaint about our delay had been heard. At this point, he’s sitting, apparently quite contentedly, on a desk next to me, watching me type, fondly recalling the days he could roam freely, prying the keys off my computer’s keyboard.

The longest leg of our trip is starting soon. If I’m lucky, I’ll get some sleep and can begin recovering from this nasty cold I picked up somewhere over the past few days.