Thursday, Aug. 19, just a slow day. Worked on the truck a bit, and used most of my time trying to get stuff organized in the packing department. Damn! but packing goes slowly when you've got wa-a-ay too much stuff! Kept plodding on, though, between bouts of waves of almost crippling anxiety... sometimes I just had to lie down for a half hour and get some rest and wait for the worst of the gut-burning feelings to go away. Other times, I could use some visualization to get past it, when I remembered to do it. That's the trick when you know how to re-visualize... sometimes you just gotta remember you can do it!
Overall, though, it looks like I'm not going to be ready for move-out by next Monday... better call U-Haul tomorrow AM and re-sched the pickup date for the tow-dolly trailer.
On the morning of Friday, Aug. 20, I ran some errands around town... dropping off non-refundable recycling at the Mall Depot, dropping off the paying refundables at Beverly Bottle Depot, pick up a newspaper for the crossword, and decided to treat myself to an honest-to-god eggs'n'bacon breakfast at Jay Bee's restaurant. It's been months since I've had bacon & eggs for breakfast, & it was a good chance to unwind a bit, do the crossword, enjoy a slow breakfast.... all the goodies we're supposed to take time to enjoy.
Jay Bees' B&E breakfasts include a pile of potato hash browns, with finely chopped green onions added. Quite a nice addition to the flavour palette. The coffee comes with a full cup and a pot on the side to refill from. The toast was perfect. I sidled into this breakfast nice and easy, doing the crossword as I went.
Breakfast took an hour. Enjoyed every minute.
After getting home, I slowly got back to the business at hand. Packing. It went slowly.
Called U-Haul and re-scheduled the tow-dolly pick-up date from next Monday to Wednesday. that should give me enough time to get everything done, packed and ready. I hope.
By the time you reach my age, you realize that everything you pick up has a place it should be. Sadly, it is invariably NOT in that place, and needs to be set aside to be put in another box that has been set aside for that kind of item. Unfortunately, that box is usually at the other end of the apartment.
So, the decisions start to boil down to: do I run each item to its appointed box at every discovery, or try to set them aside and make one pass to the boxes located throughout the apartment that are awaiting their specific item types. With my usual steely decisiveness, I waver.... sometimes running out for each item if it's of some relative importance, and other times just trying to keep track of which of each item is going to go to each "zone" for packing. Either way, it's messy.... either too much running about (and occasionally getting further distracted by discovery of yet another item that should be going over there!), or losing track of numerous items that were supposed to go into assigned boxes, but only half of which can be found.
As you can imagine, this style of packing leads to a great deal of delay and slow progress. I've always been a bit of a fan of the last-minute-grab-whatever's-close-and-just-ram-it-into-the-nearest-box technique, because it is fast, relatively effective and panic-driven.... but is hell when it comes time to actually figure out where everything actually IS once you've reached your destination and the unpacking begins.
Anyway, I've continued to plod along in this manner, as it does show progress, however slowly. The downside is that nagging, acid-soaked churning in the gut that rarely goes away, as the reality of the impending deadline hangs like a toxic psychic cloud over me.
Went to sleep this evening just trying to ignore the burning stomach.....
Woke on Saturday Aug. 21 to much the same kind of day as yesterday, sans errands. Instead, answered some emails early in the morning, fielded a few phone calls throughout the day, and otherwise, maintained my scattershot methodology of packing.
Y'know, if I could just get this one last mass of paperwork in the middle of the living room, I'd be able to movve the recliner chair out of the way. Then, I could move the boxes out of the way that are blocking the ability to clear out the middle bedroom by bringing those boxes out onto the floorspace currently occupied by the confusion of existing boxes. But, I can't do that until something else is moved, and that can't be done until something ELSE is moved... etc., etc.
However, it does get slowly done.
In the late afternoon/early evening, I nipped out to Safeway to get the margarine I forgot to get on yesterday's jaunt to Sobeys. All dreadfully boring, so far, I'm afraid.
Today, Aug. 22, has been something of a turn-the-corner experience.... got some floorspace in the living room (by getting a logjam of crap finally sorted and moved), and boxes from other rooms are getting stacked there now. It's going together good so far.
Once the space cleared up, there was room to move in stuff from the other rooms, and start collecting it all in one spot for a co-ordinated move-out on the appointed day.
Mid-day I went out to get some paint for the divider wall that's ready to go into the truck... I need a wall between the cab and the rest of the open cube so that stuff has something to stack up against. I was also further goaded to create a wall when I envisioned driving down the road and then having to make a sudden, unexpected stop... and having a ton of boxes and stuff sliding forward into the cab.
Not a pretty visualization....
Got a mistint for two bucks of bright blue from a Glidden paint store by Manning Crossing.
Got the wall, door insert, and the secondary piece above the wall all painted. It's gonna look nice, I think.
Started cleaning out the rest of the truck in preparation for starting to move the furniture and boxes into it.
Onward. Ever onward. Slog forward. Head down, eyes out... keep moving...
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