It’s 7:45 on Wednesday night.

There’s too much to be done between now and when the movers arrive at 9am Saturday, but instead of packing feverishly, I’m on the bed in my jammies with the polar bears, the laptop screen illuminating my face and washed but unbrushed hair. Jackson Browne is on downstairs trying to motivate me but the television has sucked me in and has partially drowned him out. I’ve moved three times in the last three years and really – if The Mc is at the gym avoiding working around here, why shouldn’t I?

Oh right, OCD.

Doesn’t seem to have a hold on me tonight.

The house looks like it’s being squatted in by a team of lactating he-she crack whores. Even the bedroom is a shambles. There’s an empty box in front of the armoire, waiting for me to pack up my relocated turtles. They’re here only because I couldn’t bear to pack them away in order to show the house as part of some witness relocation program. Nevermind the man behind the curtain or the turtles behind the doors. My nightstand books are in an unclosed box next to their recently vacated home, every ounce of laundry I’ve done in the last two weeks is strewn over the chair and ottoman, the bedding from the front guest room is in a heap by the door because I didn’t have it in me to fold it when someone came to buy the bed they used to cover.

My couch and over stuffed chair – the one from another lifetime that I bought because of the hint of red in the accent pillows that perfectly matched the cranberry I’d painted the living room – gone now. Sold. Purged. Resized.

My artwork is leaned against the walls downstairs (his pieces are still hiding in various closets throughout the house – banished when I moved in), my mom’s china half packed, the stockpile of crystal vases and jars and candle holders I never use or display are on top of the hutch waiting for private transport.

Boxes, boxes, boxes are piled in every room, flagged with either neon green or neon pink sheets of paper with the abbreviations STOR or APT respectively marked on them with a big, fat, Marks-a-lot.

Saturday night we’ll go to sleep in our new cement room, in the city but still on the west siiiiiiiiide.

I’ll be able to step out my front door and run again, no cursing the hill into the neighborhood for discouraging me. I’ll be minutes from the office and minutes from friends (sadly minutes further from other key friends…) with fewer potholes and steel sheets and washboard roads between there and anywhere. I’m not going to miss not knowing my neighbors or living in a house entirely too big for two people and their cats, but I’ll miss the hummingbirds and robins and bluebirds and the wall of green behind the house and maybe – just maybe – the quiet, too. I need to write things down for the new homeowners, moving here from Seattle. Where the closest PetSmart is and the fastest way in town on backroads, and I’ll leave them paper towels and TP and garbage bags. Soon, I’ll spend less time in the car, more time with me – use less gas, reduce my carbon footprint. I’ll be living more simply and with less of my things than I have in a decade and a half. Things that have always offered me comfort and safety when I had none.

Crap. There’s the garage door – better go pretend I was being productive…

We made an offer – on a totally different house than we intended to on Friday – and now we’re waiting.

They have until Monday afternoon to accept/counter, and I’m [still] dreading the possibility of being “homeless” and finding an apartment to bridge whatever transition gap may loom.

The house we’re hoping for was one we looked at two weeks ago, a house I fell in love with immediately, and a house it took The Mc a few weeks to recognize the value of in comparison with other houses in the price range/neighborhood with similar or lesser amenities. It’s a bit more than what we originally intended to spend, but would/will be worth every cent. Better investment, better structure, less hassle on the whole. It means The Cabin plan and dates get adjusted a bit, but that’s worth the change and investment as well.

Here she is:

Regardless of what happens with the offer, we close on The Big House May 23rd and I’m starting to say goodbye. Goodbye to The Big House , the burbs, the commute, the hill up to the house that mocks me, the glow of the green in the back yard when it rains, the basement we never use and the glass shower I’ll never have to clean again. Maybe the most remarkable part is that I’m only mildly freaking out about all the logistics that await my time/energy/patience…

The one day The Mc goes out with our agent all by himself, he finds four houses he’d be willing to make an offer on.

Go figure.

I’m going to meet her this morning to question his judgment.

Think happy thoughts, and come back later. There will most assuredly be pictures.

The Big House goes on the market today after much scrubbing, dusting, washing, organizing and purging. Wish us luck and think happy thoughts.

If all goes well, I’ll buy you ice cream as thanks for your efforts.

The Mc came to me with a stern look on his face.

“Promise you won’t be mad” he said. That’s never a good start.

“Promise no matter what I tell you, you’re not going to get upset and take it out on anyone.”

I stared at him.

“Grayson was on my chair?”

A chair I’m entirely too protective of in part because the fabric is something that resembles chenille and thought of the combo of chenille and cat claws upsets me. Still, he gets on the chair when we’re asleep, I know he does because the pillows or moved or dented. I’ve accepted it.

He shakes his head.

“What?”

“Your giraffe. His ear is broken.”

I sigh.

Jerry – the giraffe – was purchased in Jamaica for $60. He’s about 4′ tall and was carved out of a single piece of wood. My friend Sarah who lives in Colorado but is currently deployed in Iraq (again) helped me with the price negotiation using skills she learned over seas. He holds special meaning.

“It’s just a piece of wood, we can have him repaired.”

On the way home from that trip, I tried to carry him on. Someone else had a guitar and he was really about the same size, so Jerry should be G2G I figured. They made me check him at the last minute and his leg was broken when I got him home and unwrapped him, which resulted in a visit to a furniture repair store (he’s wood!) and an expenditure of nearly double what he cost originally. We can rebuild him, make him faster, stronger…

“You’re taking this too well.” he says and starts backing away from me.

Last night I took pictures of the crime scene, the suspect and the witness. I also took pictures of The Mc and the interrogation, but they weren’t too flattering so I’ll leave them unpublished.

So yeah, it’s just stuff. It’s stuff I love and it’s stuff with emotional value, but it’s just stuff. Grayson? He’s a cuddle buggy vomit eating back scratching 4 am meowing face kneading mask and goatee wearing clumsy crazy little love machine.

I can forgive him.

We’re waiting for the World Series to start and I”m suffocating my wowIcouldn’tgiveashitness with a brownie and a tall glass of ironically fat free milk.

We’re snuggled on the couch in the media room with Grayson passed out on The Mc’s lap and Amber in the hall plotting to destroy us with regurgitated food piles when I smell wax. Wait. Not wax. Plastic – which triggers the memory of trying to burn down the house when I was making breakfast for my seester and I forgot about the candle I lit in my bedroom and…well..that’s not important here. What’s important is that after having melted plastic splash on my face at fifteen, it’s an odor permanently ingrained in my snout history.

I run down the hall and the stairs and swoosh into the kitchen with my plate still in hand and stand in front of the dishwasher with my nostrils flaring. I’d started it twenty minutes prior and it wasn’t making any noise (oh PS please don’t tell the drought police?) and I stood in front of it waiting for goo to spill onto the floor or a gremlin to pop out and ask what I’d like to drink or something other than the big fat nothing that was happening.

Maybe the heater is on? I open it and find that yeah it is, and there’s water in the bottom…and after two more tests and two more passes I go back up stairs and tell The Mc to listen for the dishwasher.

We bicker for a minute over my tendency to prematurely unload and he says “you know I’ve been worried about that”. I ask why and he says “because I got a recall notice, it was on my list of things to do last week”.

Like you, I was curious as to what – specifically – it was for. You know, because it might be pertinent.

“The heating coil.”

Of course it is.

Two thumbs down.