Travels with Peggy, cont'd

With out of town visitors now safely home, it is time to prepare for the next adventure. In less than a month, I am leaving for Bangkok, Bhutan and Cambodia. I will be on my own in Thailand and Cambodia (probably Phnom Penh and Siem Reap/Ankor Wat), and joining a tour in Bhutan. It's the only way one can go to Bhutan at this point, connected to a guide/driver combo or a tour. My tour includes a three-day trek and a week + of touring--festivals, culture, scenery etc. I am starting to get very excited. I have a lot to figure out and of course, there is the worrying part: the long flights, the midnight arrival in Thailand, the political unrest in Bangkok, travelling with a small group for many days, tight connections on return flights, remembering how to do this.

Oh wait--that's the fun part. Putting it all together! I forgot, but just for a moment. For those of you who are not certain where Bhutan is, you are not alone. Below is a map.

It's summer in the mountains

...and the gardens are producing...big time. In addition to the farm stand across the road, my neighbors, Chris and Sculley, are out of town and I am watering their tomatoes...and eating them. I thought this made such a pretty picture I had to take one and share it with you. (The basket was given to me by Rusty and Kathy Rudy when I was in Houston for the Quilt Festival there several years back and it was filled with snacks and I get to think of them every time I use it. It has spent time in the quilt room, as a yarn basket and now for toting vegies across the road. Wow. I sound kinda like Suzy Homemaker, don't I!?)

PNewL PNewS Volume 16 Issue 2

PNewL PNewS

Volume 16 No. 2 “All the pnews that phits.” July 2008

At least my hair looks good

I confess to being a bit of a drama queen. I am inexact in the words I choose and tend to exaggerate. Now that I have moved to a new place (I am not certain that it has really sunk in that I live here now, that this is not a brief visit), I want to choose my words more carefully so I don’t frighten people, so I don’t go off sounding like I am preparing to jump off the bridge. That is not the way to make friends and influence people.

Anyway, I tend towards the dramatic and so, six days into this new life I just wanna say, what the ^#**$?! was I thinking? How did I think I could handle this? Absolutely everything is new and out of my comfort zone and beyond my abilities. It makes me wanna barf…or hide under the covers or well…I am not to the jumping part but I can imagine getting there. OK, lotsa drama there.

Here’s the scenario (in case you missed this whole extravaganza I have created for myself). I was living a perfectly fine life in a beautiful resort community in Southwest Florida and other than the fact that the summer which lasts about five months drove me mad because of the obscenely hot weather and 18 other things I won’t go into here, I have made some of the best friends I had ever had and I had a pretty good set-up. That is, of course, the time I decided I should leave. And so that is how I got to where I am today.

I guess I would say I am at one of the many really yucky parts of moving. I KNOW it is a phase but here I am: I can’t remember why I thought this was a good idea or what I am supposed to do now. I can’t seem to do anything right. I am late places when I have no schedule. I arrive without coupons or the mail I wanted to mail or the address of where I am going, the phone isn’t charged and the grocery list is nowhere to be found. Everything is kind of a mess. When I step back and look at it, I realize it’s little messes, but it still drives me bats.

Recently, I bought a computer desk from a young woman moving to LA for graduate school who needed the money, and it came with two other pieces of organizational furniture and it is surprising how satisfying and productive a little thing like that can be. I have places to put things! Then I bought three little dining room chairs which match one I got from my parents. They make me happy, and, coincidentally, the woman I bought them from spends half her time in SW Florida and is a quilter (and she probably doesn’t need the money but probably wants the space). Finally, the true organizational queen of the house: I got a “hutch” for glasses and all that stuff so things are starting to look put away. And the best part is I bought it all used on Craig’s List (my new favorite time sucking device/black hole of time/hobby) so I am not adding (too much) to the consume consume consume problem in our country. Some days actually work out pretty well.

Others, however, don’t. More often than I prefer, it is before dawn and I am on the computer because I couldn’t sleep. I have things I would like to accomplish but I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be able to sleep when I would like to be busy and that could make for bad driving and/or inappropriate snoring and/or drooling. It's frustrating.

Perhaps by the time I get to writing the next edition of the PNewS, I will be over this rambling lost in a fog of no sleep and uncertainty-about-everything phase and I will sound like my usual whiney self. Meanwhile, at least my hair looks good. (Or it did when I first started writing this but as we all know and hope, hair grows and does different things as the weather changes, but I am feeling better able to handle it, which seems like a step in the right direction.)

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Here’s my latest brilliant idea: I am going to write a How-to book about moving to the country by someone who has basically lived in the suburbs her whole life. I can include the part where I didn’t have hot water for a week thinking I was doing something wrong only to find the pilot light was out. (After brushing the four foot long snake skin away from in front of the hot water heater, I lit it all by myself.) And then there’s the part where I assumed I had to turn on the gas to the house which seemed too scary so I made coffee on the front steps on my camp stove until the neighbor came over and lit the stove on his first attempt. See? It’ll be informative, expose me as a moron and make everyone else feel like they are way ahead of my curve!

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I cut out the comic strip Lola from the paper last week. She was at an anger management class and she said, “I have issues…None of which existed prior to Bill Gates…” I thought there must be someone I could send it to. After spending several hours wrestling with MS Word, I think I will keep it for myself. Be well.

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Things I am Learning
And Other Miscellaneous Observations

• When moving/packing, I vow to put all pieces of a thing (knobs, plugs, cords, shelf brackets, etc) in the same box so I won’t think I have lost them. It’s a hassle and a drag to worry about lost bits in the tangle of packing paper only to find them a couple boxes later. (Still missing the top to a little china teapot.)
• I love the internet. For the past several days, the little Oregon Scientific clock/alarm/indoor-outdoor thermometer has been ringing bright and early. I went online and found the manual!! Yahoo. I can’t find anything specific on the internet that does something about the dogs that bark all night a couple houses down but hopefully this too shall pass.
• I am very pleased with the new quilt group I went to (with celebrity quilter Patsy Thompson, a close personal friend, ahem). Despite a lengthy discussion of nametags and font sizes which boggled the mind, I was blown away by the caliber of talent in the room. I suspect at some point I will be exposed for the fraud that I am and they will ask me to leave (with a couple others I detected were a bit out-classed) but in the meantime, I will sit in awe.
• Getting accustomed to a new house is an interesting process. There are new noises…the hot water heater seems to go on rather loudly around midnight (does it have a watch? Should I be worried?) Late one night, a moth got stuck in a little spot around a window frame and sounded like an electrical rattling thing. (I got up to check it out and Ok I squished it but it had been on its way out—one can only take so much.) The creek out back ebbs and flows and gurgles based on rainfall. Then there’s always those things that go bump in the night.
• The latest thing I am grappling with as I settle in: Do you put your favorite art/photos where you can see them when you wake up or out there where everyone who comes to visit can see them? Do tell. Inquiring minds want to hang pictures.
• I have a had a bit of a problem getting hooked up to television (be glad I didn’t tell you the whole story of wrangling with the internet—oh my!) here in the woods. So I have now watched every videotape and DVD I own. Then I moved on to the supply at the local library. Buncombe County where I now live has an extensive library system (“You are never more than five miles from a library in Buncombe County!” they proudly declare, though I think that must be as the crow flies.) Anyway, the local video section doesn’t even fill two shelves so I am finding myself limited. The night before last, I watched State Fair (1945) and lo and behold this 60th Anniversary Edition includes the updated 1962 version starring Pat Boone, Bobby Darin and a 21 year old Ann-Margret. Oh my! Why they haven’t made a version since I don’t know—the music’s real snappy, but for now I think I have had quite enough State Fair.
• Going through Mom and Dad’s stuff back on Sanibel (including things like old bills and menus for dinner parties among other more precious items), I went back and forth from wanting to throw everything away to wanting to ask them questions about what where who when why. I came across a receipt from a time when Dad had to “Surrender to the Crown” some pepper spray. And I thought he was such a law abiding citizen!!

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“Justice is what love looks like in public.” Cornel West

Moving: Closing in on the final chapter I hope

I am in the house: me, my vehicles and all sorts of stuff. I have "only" 38 boxes to go, but that includes several that will be finished up once I get additional organizational bits of furniture. It's funny how furniture in one house doesn't necessarily work in another. Colors are different and styles of course, and then there's size and scale...but there are other things. Aw heck. Maybe there aren't.

Anyway, the unpacking continues and here's the big question: is it possible that unpacking is worse than packing? Ring in. And I will get back to my boxes...

27th Annual Angel Island Picnic & 6th Annual Dirty Towel Tour

Once again, I managed to connect with many wonderful old friends in a variety of beautiful places. The Bay Area (I went from Carmel Valley to Santa Rosa) is a remarkable and wonderful place. The food is good, the views are stunning. Too bad so many people agree with me.

This year two of the many were hurting and that is hard to see. I hope that soon this won't be the case but I guess pain, illness, death are part of the package, and there ain't nothin I can do about it. My thoughts remain with you all, and I hope for rain without lightning to deal with some of that fire.

The Angel Island Picnic was a rousing success with the addition of more in the 20-something category. (Katie Scherbel brought along a whole slew of folks who seemed to enjoy themselves enough to agree to bring the keg next year!) Unfortunately a number of the regulars couldn't make it because of things like family reunions and children's activities. Enough excuses: next year's picnic will be on June 27 (wow that's late--remember: it's the Saturday after Father's Day), so put it on your calendar and show up.

We talked to a very nice candid ranger there about fixing the road to Perles Beach which has been washed out for several years, causing aging picnickers to have to vault down a steep hillside. We thought if we offered to find someone to fix the road and pay for it, we could get it fixed. Unfortunately FEMA is already on the case and the ranger said "So just like New Orleans, it's almost fixed..." or something like that. Sigh. Well, it's gonna get hard to get the truly aged down that hillside, but maybe when we are that far along, we will have other technology to aid us down. Until then...see you next year.

The Last Lunch

A wonderful lunch took place on my last real day in Florida. (I spent some time there after, but it was well...a bit unreal...) It was totally fun to be surrounded by people I really like. I hope you can see the gift from Darla who had...well I can't tell you the whole story, but trust me, the gift is priceless (and it only cost $1 at Noah's Ark Thrift Store) and the reason behind it is even better...

too bad I look so tired...

I survived moving!...well most of it.

I guess I have been talking about moving for so long that people assumed it was a done deal. It ain't so. I just can't do things fast I guess. Or I think I can't so I prolong them and then it drives me bats.

I packed for much of the month of May. My plan was to hire movers and do this like a grown-up and move at the end of June. A family friend in the business said that the end of June is the busiest time so rates are high and service isn't at its best, so I did what I always do--I did it myself. Well, I did hire two guys on this end to help load and one guy on the other to unload and that was a good thing. It actually all worked out remarkably well and I am relieved to be mostly moved before I go to California for a conference, lots of visits with friends and the 27th Annual Angel Island Picnic.

The guys I hired on this end were supposed to show up at 11 and when I called to confirm that on the morning of, the fellow said, "You were booked to move today? I thought you were just checking to see if I was available." Sigh. Well, he said he'd see what he could do and called back to say he'd be there mid-day then called mid-day to say he'd be here at 3:30 and then when he called at 3:30, he said it would be more like 5, all of this with plenty of excuses and suggestions that he was having a worse day than I was. He and his pal showed up at 5:17 and were done before 5:55 ('course, meanwhile, I had moved all the boxes to the garage so I wound up doing more than i had expected but it all worked out in the long run and as Gini pointed out, in the big picture, it will be a very minor blip).

I drove the 16' moving van up Highway 75, through Macon and Athens to 85 to Greenville SC (driving through parts of Greenville on a Friday evening is not recommended, in my humble opinion) and on up to North Carolina. It took about 15 hours and other than the frightening price of gas, it was painless. OK, I almost squished myself into a concrete barrier but other than that, it was pretty painless.

The following day I unloaded some stuff, ran some errands, and felt more tired than I have felt since our week of work in New Orleans. The day after that, a very handsome young man came by to unload the heavy stuff. He was great. And now, the bulk of my belongings are happily contained at a new location. Amazing.

The learning curve at this new home with a well, a propane tank, a septic system and oh there must be other stuff, is a bit steep right now. I have gas in the tank, but it isn't coming into the house. There must be a lever I need to pull but who knows where—and making coffee on the camp stove was kinda fun. I have been battling it out with an array of service providers to get phone, TV and internet and haven't successfully completed that task. I was supposed to have a phone last Monday but they lost the order. Don't ask. It's really bizarre. OK, you don't need to ask...here's the story:

I waited for the phone person to come hook up my phone—there had been some confusion as to whether s/he would show up between 8-12 or 1-4, so I hung out in the morning, zipped into town to do some errands, zipped back and hoped I didn't miss the event. Prior to hooking it up, I had a dial tone but got a fast busy when I dialed anything. On the day of, it went from busy to saying that all the numbers I dialed were out of order. I felt like I was getting somewhere...

By the end of the day (and the end of my time in NC), I had made no progress. I called the customer service number from the Atlanta airport. The VERY nice helpful woman said they had no record of my order--not under my name, the address, the order #, and the number I had been assigned had a different name on it...so I got angry, I cried, and Michelle (the VERY nice helpful woman) was close to tears herself--she said there had been some weird computer issues all day...so I said what do we do? And she said we start over. Name address date of birth SS# and I said NOPE I don't give that out over a public phone at an airport and by the way, I faxed a credit thing along with driver's license to the "welcome center." She said, AHA! So she called them and THEY HAD THE ORDER which did me no good as far as getting a phone but they approved me....again.

So in the meantime, she says, look at that! The number you were assigned is still available (huh?) (though they don't guarantee it til it's installed) and I said as long as we are having this conversation, I was told that they couldn't give me internet even though my neighbor has it. She said, oh yes you can so she signed me up for that and then I said, now what about TV? And she said, are you sure? Don't you wanna see how all this goes? Ha. So perhaps on June 26th at midnight I will have a phone--and maybe I won't. I am trying to think optimistically...but it can be harder than it looks sometimes.