Adventure Time — Part 3
Times of Living and Learning
Author’s Note: This is the third of a series of posts about when two baby boomers decide that a life adventure is in order, so they buy a house, sell a house and move to a new town in exactly two months’ time. Importantly, it’s about life and its lessons as well as trying to be one’s best self during the strangest of times. Read the first two installments here and here.
Time was ticking. While technically we had a month to get packed and moved, it was clear to us that we needed to close on both houses as soon as possible and get the deed done (excuse the pun). Now whether that was an unmitigated desire to get ourselves into that new house, trim the number of days of hard labor, or avoid house issues, who knows. It was probably a powerful cocktail of all three.
Our first priority was to find new homes for the bulk of our mid-century modern furniture and a good portion of our household possessions, as we were moving into a fully-furnished home. Fortunately, we had discovered an angel of a human being, very early in the purging process, all because we didn’t want to throw away a basketball hoop.
We simply wanted to find a good home for this portable glass basketball hoop — a tall beast of metal — which had entertained our youngest daughter and friends for many a year. We were very willing to give it away, but sadly social media failed to offer any (truly) interested parties. Finally, a dear friend put our desperate post on her Facebook page, and we got a taker named Bonnie. This angel of a human was not only willing to take the basketball hoop, but anything and everything we wanted to give away.
“Anything?” we asked.
“Anything!” she responded emphatically.
She was not kidding. In the course of a few weeks, she took three big truckloads of everything we could think of — furniture, mattresses, towels and clothes, wood leftover from house projects, cement blocks. Why? Because she helps the people in some of the poorest areas of metro Detroit, working with the Detroit police and local churches. Imagine folks who have lost all of their possessions in a fire, or parents struggling to find clothing and furniture for their kids. That’s what she does — after her full-time job. Read more about her efforts here:
When she sent us a picture of two young fellows playing hoops on the recently-installed basketball hoop, we cried happy tears.
We also were able to secure homes for some of our special belongings with family and friends. It was so satisfying to see Oma’s corner buffet in the new apartment of eldest daughter and her husband. A dear friend sent a picture of her cat enjoying my favorite TV-watching chair. Friends of youngest daughter landed a couch and three mid-century modern tables. “We will have these forever,” one said. We culled down an abundance of plants to a more manageable amount, thanks to a post on our neighborhood Facebook page. The plant fans came out in force.
Soon, the always-full house began to empty of furniture and fill with boxes. We engaged a moving service, arranged for cleaning support, and scheduled both closings for Jan. 29, one in person and one electronically. Things were moving swiftly and smoothly.
But life doesn’t always work that way, now does it? Instead of heading to the first closing on Monday morning the 29th, we found ourselves at the vet’s office with a very sick dog. When one’s beloved dog won’t eat, things are bad — at least that is our experience. We had no idea what might be the problem. Over the course of the morning, she was diagnosed with a bleeding mass on her spleen, and sent to an emergency vet. While she was being assessed, we were able to get to the first closing, before spending an hour on the floor with our beloved dog, with both girls Facetiming, to wish her well before emergency surgery. We were warned she might not survive.
But the surgery went well, and in two long days, we were able to bring her home. Soon thereafter, we had to face the diagnosis of an aggressive cancer, but we could expect several weeks of “normal” in the meantime. We would take that.
We managed to get the second closing completed, and now it was time to schedule the move. We tentatively selected Feb. 6 and 7, but in working through all the schedules, it was moved to Feb. 9 and 10. And that turned out to be a really good thing.
For on Monday night, in one of the weirdest neighborhood happenings ever, a manhole at a major intersection caught fire, and took out all of the power infrastructure for our area. In other words, the power went out. Dear tired husband got up and unearthed the generator in the garage and powered it up. “We needed to get the gas out of it anyway,” he rationalized.
The next morning, I awoke to the sound of no generator. A sense of foreboding came over me because it was darn cold in the house. For you see, we have had an Achilles’ heel of great proportions with this old house of ours: A basement prone to flooding. As my husband cheerfully states: “If you look up flooded basements in the dictionary, you will find a picture of our house.”
And while we have all sorts of protections in place, when the power is out, sump pumps don’t work. I urgently sought out my husband and insisted that he check the basement; my intuition that something was wrong down there was over the top. He was having none of it, but grudgingly stalked to the basement (he would tell this story similarly, so I am not exaggerating). Much to his surprise and chagrin, there was water in the basement. He fell on his sword quickly, on his way to get more gas for the generator and to call for expert support.
To cut a long, wet story short, each of our wet basement excursions has been something new and different, and this one was no exception. Our furnace humidifier and a blocked back-up pump were the culprits this time, and quickly and efficiently, we got the water mopped up and the issues fixed. It was almost as if the house wanted to play a little joke on us. “This is what you get for leaving me,” it chortled. At least in my mind it did.
Bottomline, if we had moved when we wanted to move, that water would have had its evil ways in our basement for who knows how long. We were really, really lucky.
On a beautiful balmy Thursday morning, Feb. 9, a huge moving truck pulled up in front of our house. It was moving day.
Lessons Learned:
— Things happen. I can’t put it any plainer than that. They just do. Because of that basic tenet of life, it’s all about how one handles the ups and downs along the way. While I don’t want our old basement to puff up with pride, it really is about going with the flow.
— Priorities make themselves known. In urgent situations, many decisions become crystal clear. I will never in my life forget the time we spent on the floor with our dog, with both girls on Facetime. Never.
— Intuition is a thing — a very helpful and powerful one at that. And when one gets a blast of intuition, one should pay attention. A little light reading on the topic of intuition and reasoning: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-rely-on-our-intuition/.
Next time: We move, we unpack and we explore a brand new world.
