The blog to nowhere
If you’re following this blog, you, you may have missed the turn it made year a half ago to an entirely new address: http://eelcreekwordpress.com. Hope to see you there, because the blog you’re following is going to remain parked where it is.
Please adjust your bookmarks…
Oikos mou has relocated to a new home with a new name. Please join us at Eel Creek Chronicles.
From my last plugged-in hour in Tacoma…
Seth and Autumn will drive the U-Haul tomorrow, towing Vic’s truck, while we drive my car. I will miss our friends so much, especially after just getting to know some of their kids; and at the same time, I look forward to cresting the leeward side of the Cascade and entering the rain shadow. It was so cold and rainy as we loaded for departure from Tacoma… and a warm church family also awaits us on the other side.
Well, this is not ergo at all. My computer is set up on a nightstand not at all designed for this purpose, and I am leaning forward into the mic at a painful angle in a slumpy lawnchair. My next post will be an announcement of the link to my new blog, as soon as time and technology permit. I look forward to chronicling the next phase of the journey.
Toward moving and moving toward…
We’ve noted some interesting trends during the progress of our transition from urban Tacoma to rural Asotin County. I had almost despaired that Clear/Clearwire was actually itself the Internet Kill Switch. I reached this conclusion after a week of my husband’s discussions with various lollipop-licking account reps who just wanted everyone to be happy and have a good time, and had no real inkling at all of how to provide the service the corporation is in the business of providing, much less how and where it does or does not work. After 283 cell phone minutes in two days, and a few hours of online chats, Clear/Clearwire demonstrated what we already knew: that you can represent something without having a clue about anything to do with what it is.
The short of it is, we returned the 4G modem that works in Tacoma but not in Clarkston, but which we were told would work in Tacoma and in Clarkston; and have secured a 3G modem that we are told will work in Clarkston, but were also told would work in Tacoma but does not. The good news is that someone without a lollipop in her mouth actually researched the question and assured us that the 3G modem would not work in Tacoma but would work in Clarkston. It does not work in Tacoma, and we will see this weekend whether it works in Clarkston. We’re running out of options at this point, because Cable One, the only other local Internet provider with credible speed, neither answers their phone nor their e-mail. And, since I am not able to use public Internet facilities because I require voice recognition software, life as we know it kind of hangs in the balance.
But I am confident that this, too, will go well, as has everything else. I cleaned my refrigerator today with only one minor injury. I survived errands to Target and Office Depot. Our closing papers on the Clarkston house, sent yesterday via overnight FedEx, arrived and were declared by our Clarkston title officer to be in great order. I have to wonder what she expected, but I imagine her expectations have been dunked with experience, just as mine have with Clear/Clearwire.
We are packed to the point that I sometimes dip into a box for something I still need. I have only the pantry shelves and closet shelves left to wipe down, and I plan to finish this before our loading day, so that any women who show up to help me can just hang out and help me believe it’s all really happening.
I’m so very grateful to have been given the strength to pull all this off! A year ago, I was certain I would never be able to move again. The nerves in my hands were so fried from an RSI that became chronic, that I could not have grasped or wrapped anything; and while it still takes a lather of Tiger Balm at the end of the day, I’ve been pacing myself for six weeks at the packing and final primping of the house, and it’s really so very nearly done! I can only think that God has affirmed that our desires are agreeable to his will, and that we are being moved by his own gracious momentum, just as surely as if we had hired professional packers to rob us of the joy of this phase of our journey.
God willing, and Clearwire coming through, I should be able to give you the link to my new blog and show off some adorable moving and house pictures as soon as we can unwrap my computer and the famous Clearwire 3G modem — but first, there will be miles to go before we sleep, in the beautiful Valley we already find ourselves calling home.
Oikos mou: The Sequel
“Oikos mou” means, “my house,” and my blog has been my locus operandi, as well as a forum and chronicle, for lo these past four years. I have chronicled everything from the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell, to Addison’s disease, to the sights and sounds of urban Tacoma, from my usual vantage: my house.
In a week, Vic and I and Coolidge will relocate our household to a very new and very different and very lovely place, and I will continue from there to chronicle the people, places, and things that move me to write. Out of some kind of deference to the magnitude of the change, I have decided to continue Oikos mou at a new location, one reflective of the new place — specifically, of course, my house in that new place. I am a wandering homebody at heart.
As soon as I settle in and complete its construction, I will provide the link to my new blog in a grandly triumphant announcement here at Oikos mou. The best way to follow the adventure and see the first post and pictures at the new site, is to subscribe to this blog using the handy button on the right. This way, you will receive all future posts on this blog — which may only be the announcement of the new blog — in your e-mail. You may also, if you wish, subscribe to the new blog once you are there. That way, new posts, including pictures, will show up in your e-mail as soon as they are posted, and you will know everything I know, for what that’s worth. No salesman will call, and WordPress will never write you, I promise. I subscribe to several blogs, and I have never received a single e-mail through any of them; I receive only the posts, and I find it very convenient. For the feed-savvy among you, well, I don’t need to explain anything; nor could I. :-)
Writing, and especially my blog, is the primary means by which I organize my mind and maintain accountability to my God, to myself, and to my world; and in many cases, for better or worse, my blog is the means by which I maintain contact with many people. I have readers who have become friends, and friends who have become readers; you all are dearly important to me. I heartily invite you to continue what I hope you have found to be an enjoyable visit. I’m working on virtual refreshments. Û>
But who would we be if this weren’t hard?
By the time we were near the end of the call, Verna was sobbing and wheezing. I had called to thank her for the card she sent to wish us well in our new home. She remembered our moving date and every detail with precision. Some of my friends 60 years her junior don’t keep track nearly as well; but of course, they have more on their minds. At 96, Verna fixes on a very few things, and I am as much honored as I am baffled that I am one of these things. And at 96, Verna began to cry, because she knew we might never see each other again.
“Till glory, Verna,” I said, trying to be reassuring but wondering whether this was a stupid thing to say to someone her age. Glory, after all, couldn’t be far off. But her sobbing persisted, and I sensed the worst. “Verna! We will see each other in glory, and we will know each other!” She sobbed harder. The Lord rebuke you, Satan! How dare you mess with her mind this way right now? “Verna! Our Savior has never lost one from the palm of his hand! You know that! Do you hear me? You can never be lost! You will see Jesus, and you will see me, in glory.” I drew some thoughts from my pastor’s sermon of only two days ago on the perseverance of the saints. I assured Verna, or tried to assure her, that it didn’t matter if she didn’t feel saved right then, that her salvation was a fact that Christ would never change. But I also knew it was unlikely that Verna would suddenly become a Calvinist at that moment, and I could only pray for her comfort. What a dreadful trap it is on which her brand of faith has hinged. It must indeed be a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a fickle God.
It was very hard. “Verna,” I said, “It’s all right. Who would we be if this didn’t tear our hearts out?” “Okay, Honey,” she said. And, still choking and wheezing, she said goodbye.
Parting from old friends on the earthly plane — and that is where I live — doesn’t become easier with practice; and anyway, I don’t get much practice. It’s just hard. It’s hard, like a lot of other things that make us who we are.
Most brilliant travel/moving tip ever!
Always, always pack your travel mug first. This way, you will not be able to find it when you set out on your journey, and you will have two innovative options: you can buy another mug, or leave home without coffee. Buying coffee is a cop-out. The whole idea is to drink the last cup of coffee you made at your old home on your way to your new home.
I am finding this tip particularly useful because I have been packing in advance of our 350-mile road trip/move for more than a month, so that I will not have to do crash-and-burn packing the final week. My travel mug is important, so of course I packed it early — with other things I thought I wouldn’t miss for 4 to 6 weeks. Why am I bringing things at all if I won’t miss them for 4 to 6 weeks? Let’s just say that I’ve missed my travel mug twice, and my German dictionary once; and that isn’t too bad for 60 boxes so far.
Janet, would you save me one of your Starbucks lids? Do you think it would fit one of my Fiesta mugs?
If I had any enterprise…
I would market this bumper sticker.
Serious airtime in the old ‘hood
After hitting the floor leaping and bounding and cheering my realtor’s 7:07 AM e-mail announcing that appraisal and lender were copacetic and the buyers of our house are clear to close, I took care of a few details pursuant to our move, burning more phone minutes than I would in a normal two-week period. I spoke with six utilities providers and a postmaster. In between, I exchanged several e-mails with two realtors and two title companies. I checked off the task of address changes with banks, including former banks, to make sure we receive our 1099s. We are on the move.
After years of dreading a jury summons — we all have our little peculiar phobias — and experiencing palpable relief every day that one was not delivered, I enjoyed the cosmic joke of receiving one today. The futile summons requires me to appear exactly one month after I will have become a resident of another county. I have received three jury summonses in my life. The first was from Montana and forwarded to me in Washington, right after I moved. The second was a summons to serve on a Federal court jury, and I was perfunctorily dismissed, not because I was an attorney, but because I had an attitude about the defendant, the VA. And now, another escape for want of jurisdiction. Somehow, the prospect of being summoned in the future to serve on a jury in my new small-town county courthouse is not terrifying. I think the phobia was place-specific. I am also afraid of parking garages, and I think those will be avoidable, if indeed such things exist at all in Clarkston.
A police-attended incident in our neighborhood yesterday did little to rouse any remnants of regret in my heart over our departure. The put-upon fellow (“subject” in police report parlance), normally a decent neighbor, apparently had every right to be annoyed, but someone evidently objected to the extreme volume, or rageful tone, or deplorable choice of language, or all of the above, of his cell phone conversation, which was taking place in the street. Between epithets to his interlocutor, he screamed to everyone else within earshot — likely several miles — that his business wasn’t anybody else’s business. My husband and I were just returning home from an errand when all of this was going on. I greeted one of the cops as we walked to our door from the car, mentioning how little these things would cause me to miss the old neighborhood. He asked pleasantly whether we were really moving, and I pointed to the sold sign in front of our house. He beamed and congratulated me. The Tacoma police always amaze me, the way they can be warm and jocular with a peaceable person, and coolly assertive but always congenial with a “subject.” They also meet deadly force with deadly force, and they take a lot of flak for it. They talked my neighbor down with firmness and understanding, patiently explaining how a neighbor might have thought violence was possible, and that he should not blame anyone for calling the police. The officer I greeted said ours is a quiet neighborhood normally, and I agreed, with the proviso that it was becoming somewhat transitional, which he acknowledged with a sympathetic nod. I’ve no doubt he would rather be called to our neighborhood than to Crip Central, two miles away.
We will soon be 350 miles away. And onward has never looked better.
We have lift-off… and some advice for selling your home
The appraisal of our home engaged by our buyers’ lender came through without conditions; the final contingency is now dislodged, and the sale of our home can now advance toward closing. The flow of God’s bountiful mercies has been unceasing in this entire process. When I look back at my calendar and see how rapidly events have transpired since we listed our home August 2, I can only marvel at my impatience.
A friend of mine asked me recently for tips on how to sell her home. I knew that she would not be receptive to a candid response. For those who are, my advice would be: First: jettison any and all remnants of a price concept you retain in your mind. Second: hire a young agent who is not encumbered with your sentimentality of previous markets. It’s not his fault you didn’t decide to sell your house three years ago, so get over it. Do not retain a broker who is an old friend, unless he or she will put you into a cold, unfeeling vise grip of reality. Do these things, if you really want to sell your home.
Oikos mou 