Last minute tasks

Over the last couple of months, I’ve followed Cousin Brent’s facebook page with increased interest. There is one pretty cool app he uses from runkeeper.com which somehow maps his bike route. I have no idea how this works. I haven't asked him. And I haven't used it even though I am constantly on the run, bike, and/or swim...

Brent is a guy who has a disciplined exercise capability. He can bike 672 miles, run 221 miles, and swim 396 miles, all within 2 hours… or something like that, not exactly sure since I’m not really a sports fanatic. I do aspire to be like this, but my diet of Ho-Hos and Ben & Jerry's seems to take a higher priority. So I could have used Brent’s “see where I went” map capability today as I participated in our day-before-flight-out chores.

Since I don’t have this app, I’ve improvised a little, and attempted to draw it onto an image. Keep in mind, it’s not really to scale or anything fancy.

1. 9am, Kris, Gus, and I take the SUV and head toward the bagel shop, and Kris’ 7-11 where her coveted diet coke fountain dispenser lives.
2. 9:00:24, turn around because the buyer of the Honda is an hour early, waiting in our driveway.
3. Sell the car, get back into SUV, head toward bagel shop.
4. Get bagel sandwiches.
5. Concurrently, Kris walks across street to 7-11. Returns with coveted fountain super big gulp diet coke.
6. Drive to Westy’s storage, look at 175 sq ft of storage space, get free truck, drive home.
7. Pack 30 boxes into free truck, barely making 2 rows of 5 high.
8. Interrupted by someone buying Gus’ bed and Sarah’s chest of drawers. Stop what I’m doing, help them pack their furniture into the back of their small pickup.
9. Start to lug another box when Kris asks me if I can follow her to the used car lot to sell her SUV. I lock up the truck, get the kids in the van, but my instructions change midway on where I am to go.
10. I am now to meet Kris at the bank in New Fairfield. She is getting something notarized and depositing some cash from the sale of the Honda. We wait in the parking lot in the van.
11. Kris then comes out, tells me to now to go 5 Guys in Brookfield, and she’ll take the cable boxes to Charter in Danbury. Oh boy. I’m on a scavenger hunt now?
12. I drive the kids to 5 Guys in Brookfield, we eat, we wait for Mommy to arrive.
13. We leave from 5 Guys, we follow Mommy toward the used car lot because she has GPS. On the way, Kris does a last-second-three-lane-switch from the left lane on a freeway, first in front of a barreling semi in the middle lane. She then slows down even further in front of the semi, not just to make her turn, but because she wants me to get in front of her. She believes her SUV can hold off the feathery semi whose air brakes are now smoking. Instead of my taking her queue from the left lane, and pulling a 3-lane dipsey-doo in a monster white rental van with literally 25 feet of space at 55 mph, I opt for the safer route and look for the next exit. In my more nimble years, I might have tried it. She exits from the middle lane in time. I have to back-track on back roads for another 15 minutes.
14. Now, Gina GPS winds Kris (and we are tailing) through lovely neighborhoods for another 25 minutes to get to Bethel. Gina must have had a rough night the previous night. She could have used some Advil.
15. We drive past the used car dealer.
16. We circle back to the used car dealer. I can’t fit into the parking lot in my beast, so I pull around the corner. We sell the SUV.
17. We drive as a soccer team with 10 missing players in super-van to the Danbury DMV to turn in the plates, but on the way we stop at a Brookfield Bank of America to deposit our SUV check.
18. Next, we drive to the New Fairfield town hall to turn in the DMV receipts, so that we can get a happy refund on our personal property taxes… to be delivered at some point in the future to who knows what address.
19. We all drive home. Kris and Gus exit the super-van because Gus is going to a friend’s house. Kris has committed to continue the packing of the truck because she doesn’t feel comfortable driving Sarah to her doctor’s appointment in super-van after holding off a semi with her bare hands.
20. I have 15 minutes to make it to Sarah’s doctor follow-up appointment by 3:45p (she fractured her pinky on the first day of camp 2 weeks ago, has been wearing a brace… “all is healing nicely” says doctor).
21. I drive Sarah back home, making one pit-stop at 7-11 as her reward for her quitting the glomming in the doctor’s office. As I am rounding the corner to my street, Kris calls. “Where are you? The truck has to be back in 15 minutes at 5:30! They close at 6!” I pull into the driveway to find 4 boxes that Kris seemingly had time to stack in the garage while I spent the last 90 minutes at the doctor’s office. Kris puts her 4 boxes into the truck.
22. I get into the truck and drive back to Westy’s storage to unload my highly productive day of non-box productivity. Kris has found the courage to drive super-van so that I have a way home. I get stuck 5 minutes away as the road gets shut down with emergency equipment. And, my cell phone battery is dead. Emergency equipment finally clears, I’m allowed to complete my mission. I begin to unload with 15 minutes remaining until they close. I finished at 6:02p thanks to their handy carts, and a rush of frustration adrenaline. Sarah kindly reminded me to leave the Sassy Pants behind.
23. I drive super-van home with Kris and Sarah. Jump in the shower. Sarah’s friend is delivered to the door.
24. We drive back to New Fairfield to eat a late dinner at Biscotti’s. I like Biscotti’s.
25. After a lovely dinner filled with giggles, we take Sarah’s friend home, stop off at Gus’ friend’s house to pick up Gus, humbly ask them sign our wills as witnesses, hug and kiss them good-bye.
26. We drive home as a happy family, prepare ourselves for bed so that we are fresh for driving super-van to JFK tomorrow. Kris continues whatever she does late into the morning.

Me: It seems you were able to get a lot on your list done today.

Her: Omg, drop it already! So what if we have to pay an extra hundred dollars to the movers?? Get your priorities straight and pack your last suit case.

Vans

We rented a big white van today. My wife, Kris, found it at Dollar Rental. To avoid all of the unnecessary point-to-point fees, we drove to JFK (about 2 hours one way) since this is where we will return it on Thursday. Tomorrow will be consumed with moving boxes into a different moving van, so today was our best shot at organizing this.

When Kris and I first discussed the idea, we thought we were clever. Afterall, we are lugging 8 bags, the four of us, and a dog in the maximum sized kennel allowed. He fits comfortably into it with enough room to take a running lunge at the kennel door whenever we hold a treat outside the closed gate.

After working out the paperwork at the front counter, I found my rental tucked into slot #31. It was the only one of its kind. Hard to miss. I looked it over for damage. I opened the back door and found 3 bench seats for 10 passengers in nice neat rows, and thought "this won't do." I walked toward a gate where a rounder-than-me Bronx gentleman was ready to hear just what the hell I was doing.

Me: Hi.

Him: (Silence.)

Me: So I'm bringing this back here on Thursday with my wife, two kids, 8 bags, and a dog kennel with a dog inside of it.

Him: (Silence.)

Me: I'm wondering if I can just leave two of those back seats here with you?

Him: (grunt) Nnnnnnnnnope. (Awkward pause.)

Me: You don't do that, eh?

Him: Nope. We used to. But then ass-hats would drop the van off in some other city, we had to ship or drive the seats there, and it became a whole new kinda mess.

Me: So, any thoughts on how I can get my luggage packed into it? Maybe I can stack the seats or something?

Him: Nope. No idea. (Another awkward pause.)

Me: Hm. Well, I paid for the total liability rider. Maybe I could just drive down the way and toss two of those benches out the window?

Him: You could, but then you'd be sued for negligence.

Me: I'll be in Switzerland.

Him: (grunt)

Me: So is there someone back inside that office I just came from that would take two benches and hold onto them?

Him: With all due respect, sir, I'm the highest ranking employee on this staff. If they tell you any different, I'll have to fire them.

Me: (grunt) So do they promote people here who are creative with problem-solving? Or militant about protocols?

Him: Next.

And so, I left the parking lot with 2 extra bench seats intact, locked into the back of my rental. I quickly called Kris.

Me: There's two extra bench seats in the back we don't need.

Her: What? Well what can we fit there?

Me: 9 or 10 things that have knees and butts.

Her: (Silence.)

Boxes

Today I am finishing packing for storage. This is a process I loathe. Instead, I would prefer to hire this out because they are professionals, I tend to blindly combine lightbulbs and paper weights, and I only have a fleeting sense that something like a fireplace lighter and WD-40 cannot live well together.

For years I have complained to my wife about her desire to save boxes. Years, again and again. I open a closet and stuff falls on me. I open a cabinet and things jump out at me. We have things tightly stuffed away in puzzle-piece fashion.

We receive boxes in the mail. We receive boxes on sale. We receive boxes with toys. We receive boxes that make noise. We receive boxes with lights, oh what a sight. We have boxes in stacks, racks, sacks, and fumplefacks.

My loathing of packing is only surpassed by my disdain for clutter. My desk at work has nothing on it. Colleagues are skeptical of me as though I never moved into it, like it was a temporary space. While I do have this opinion about office spaces, it is reinforced by my desire to throw everything away. Maybe this describes the following reaction.

Her: The trashman comes today. I need you to put all the trash in the garage by the curbside, and any boxes you find have to be broken down.
Me: Ok.
Her: I'm leaving now. I'll be back. I have to go get a diet coke. (We have an entire refrigerator full of diet coke, but for some reason we must spend an extra $10 per week on fountain stuff).
Me: Ok.

Ten minutes pass. I walk to the garage to start my chores... Omg. The wall is stacked with 472 small boxes that have to be broken down, and all I have to help me accomplish this is a Philips screwdriver. Everything else has been packed.

An hour passes. I'm still breaking down little boxes with a plus screwdriver. She pulls into the driveway.

Me: I hate you.
Her: What?? You hate me? After all I've done?

She throws a bagel in a sack at me. It bounces onto the garage floor as she brushes by me in a huff. Lucky for me, the bagel was still yummy.

First Swiss Photo

At first I struggled with what would be my first photo from Switzerland. There are so many to choose from: The Alps, the lake, churches, a carnival-like fair that interrupts the beauty of the architecture every couple of years, wonderful restaurants, chocolates, watches, lovely Europeans walking to and fro with their loaf of bread and a bottle of wine... so many choices!

The one I selected is also posted in my facebook photos. It is the one that seemingly shows up whenever I call Kris on her iphone. I guess it gives her a titter.

We were walking along, very quietly like polite Swiss citizens, when Kris spotted this fountain and would not stop laughing. The words that broke her silence were: "What the... ??? Is that a ... ??? Omg. Go stand next to that and let me take your picture."

How about omgswitzerland2?

So my wife wants to use MY blog to do her blogging. Like a loving husband, and always willing to share bites off of my dinner plate, I responded: "Get your own damn blog." Now I'm subjected to her blog site ideas:

- How about omgswitzerland2?
- How about kris-the-swiss-miss?
- How about what our friend Jim said: kris-does-switzerland?

How about I'm going to bed now.

Tick Tock

Roughly two and a half weeks remain before we board our flight to Zurich. In the mean time, we have to:

- Assure our visa paper work is in order with the Swiss Consulate in NYC. This is my most stressful task. My company facilitated the "permission" paperwork. It's supposed to be a snap now, but I've heard so many stories of this process not going well that my blood pressure is now through the roof on this one.
- Liquidate our belongings on craigslist. This is my wife's most stressful task. Doing this invites strangers into our home, risks danger... I will need to be around for this, which takes me away from my job responsibilities, risking the work wolves taking advantage. We feel we need to do this to reduce our storage costs.
- Pack the 1000 lbs that were so graciously allotted to us to take to Switzerland. My contract is for 1 year. We anticipate it will run longer.
- Store our belongings. On such a short contract, there is no need to move all of one's belongings to another country, thereby saving a considerable amount of money for the company, and transferring the storage expense to me. If they keep renewing for a short-term 1 year assignment, the company can avoid ever paying for such shipping costs.
- Sell or rent our house. We bought at the top of the bubble, so we will certainly lose any investment we made into the house, and likely come away owing money to our bank. Early last year, a small piece of land representing a wooded lot connected to ours went on the market because the previous owner abandoned it. The city wanted to recover back taxes on it. We bid $5K. The winner bid $7K, and we had walked away from it knowing it was useless land, couldn't build on it, just nice to have as an extension. The winner contacted our real estate agent, asked all kinds of questions, wanted to know if they or we wanted to buy this connecting property. Guess he doesn't like the extra tax and insurance he has to pay on it.
- Hope the temperature on the last day is below 85 degrees... on the last day of July. We found out that our dog can't travel with us on American Airlines if the temperature is above this, or below some freezing mark. They don't have pet-friendly travel means like other airlines. If this happens, we have a couple of options. Leave our pet with a friend, or ship him over in a pet-friendly way for an extra $5K.
- And finally, I need to shift my perspective from negative to positive. While I don't want to leave my home country, I am told again and again what a positive experience this will be for me, my wife, and especially my kids.