Hey, what's up how's it going ohmygod.
I am typing this from my new living room,
surrounded by columns of boxes full of God knows what-all—books and china and
knitting supplies and Legos and trivets and knickknacks and tax records and
grill tools and mittens and stuffed animals and pictures and whatthefuuuuuuuuck
am I ever going to do with all of this stuff?
The furniture looks pretty good here, though, at
least the things that was Scott's mom's. Her mid-century sensibility mashes
nicely with the ultra-contemporary thing we have going on with the house. The
same cannot be said for all the stuff from Ikea, however. Those items look like
cheap crap wherever you go.
:::
Act I: In which I’m flattered, but only in as much as I want
you to be careful handling my TV
The moving company sent over four guys. Two of
them looked like they belonged on Tony Soprano's crew. They were older,
sporting a physical condition didn'te scream "lifting heavy objects" so
much as "enjoying a box of cannolis." Though they didn’t inspire
confidence at first, those two guys were fine—professional, not much for
chitchat or lollygagging.
Then there was Enrique. He wasn't a lollygagger,
either, but he did flirt shamelessly with me every time he walked by. This
wouldn't have been a problem except that a.) it got old because b.) he was so
spectacularly bad at it. He used lines that ranged from the obvious: "If I
lift something heavy, would you smile?" to the vaguely desperate:
"When we're done, can I see your guitars?" to the downright
perplexing: "You're very symmetrical."
And then there was Frenchie. Oh, Frenchie. Did
you know that he's named Frenchie because his parents ran out of names by the
time they got to him? He's married to a woman with ADD who doesn't like to
cook, but appreciates his cooking, which he likes to do—jambalaya and ribs,
mostly. Here's her picture. Her name's Antionette. Their apartment is furnished
with things he can't believe anyone would throw away, namely his 1991
commemorative Bulls Championship rug with Michael Jordan's face worked right
into it, his white leather armchair with metal grommets, his mirror-plated
floor lamp with the gold accents. He was homeless for a while, but now he
moves, is a certified mover, so he can move with United or Bekins where he
could make upwards of $15 an hour, but he likes this company because they're
not as fussy as a United or Bekins, who insist you wrap every single thing that
comes out of the house, even if it's one tiny teacup. His mother was involved
in politics and his father worked for Bally's gaming building the cabinets for
video games. Frenchie's oldest son is 31. He's got another one, and his wife
has two kids, the youngest of which is 27. They were married last year. It was
the first marriage for both of them, even though Frenchie is 57. Last year, his
foot got crushed by a safe. He was helping to carry it down a staircase when it
broke loose from its moorings and rolled down the stairs. Frenchie asked Jesus
what to do, and Jesus advised him to get out of the way, which Frenchie did
except for his foot. Jesus, Frenchie told me, doesn't care if you pray before
or after a safe is bearing down on you, so you'd best beat the safe down the
stairs and pray when it's all over. Also there's a dog that the moving company
has named Molly. She's white with brown spots, a herding dog, whereby she is
bred to get in front of the cows or sheep and keep them going in the right
direction. She's argentinian by blood, an argentinian dogo, to be precise, and
she could probably take my dog in a fight.
I learned all of these things not in passing,
but as Frenchie would seek me out, telling me long stories while standing stock
still, holding boxes I was paying the moving company a whopping $120 an hour to
carry.
"Frenchie," Enrique would say,
"There you are. What are you doing? Let's go."
And Frenchie would mosey along.
"So." Enrique would ask after Frenchie was
gone. "Do you, like, do yoga?"
:::
Act II: In which, in my distractedness and
exhaustion, I forget how young my children really are
Monica took the kids after school the day of the
big move, bringing them over after taking them to her son's soccer game and
feeding them McDonalds. I offered her a tour and a glass of wine. Ryan wanted
to go out in the yard, so I let her, closing the door behind her and ushering
Monica around the various rooms.
I heard Ryan call for me but didn't think anything
of it, until her cries took on a kind of urgency, and I ran downstairs to find
her in tears on the deck off the kitchen.
I threw open the door.
"Honey, what's wrong?" I asked.
"Look," she said, pointing to a puddle
on the wood.
"Did you have an accident?" I asked.
"Yes," she sobbed. "I scared of
the dark."
I felt terrible, realizing that I left a child
that's never been outside alone, outside. Alone. I didn't show her how to get
in or tell her where I was going. I don't know if she peed because she was
scared or peed because she couldn't get inside the house, but it didn’t really
matter and I scooped her up and held her wet little body against me and told
her that I was so, so sorry.
Both of the kids have had a little trouble
adjusting to the extra space. They look for me in illogical places. I found Kai
wandering around the basement, singing out a forlorn,
"Mooooommeeeee," after I'd called to him to come to the kitchen. Ryan
woke me up at 3 am on that first night. She'd gotten out of bed to come sleep
with me, only to get completely lost, winding up in the kitchen, which I
suppose is a more likely a spot to find me than the basement, but still off by
a mile. She was calling out to me frantically, "Mommy? Where are
you?!"
Still, despite more than a few parenting fails,
I did manage to get them to school on time the next day, wearing (mostly) clean
clothes, lunches in back packs. Kai had saved me the trouble of making him
breakfast.
He'd found a bag of marshmallows and ate some in the car.
:::
Act III: In which we find unexpected joy, which really is the
best kind, and realize that we are home
The second night, I heard a noise from upstairs,
a chair-scraping sound and assumed it was Ed upstairs, a sound as familiar as
any to me. He's been my upstairs neighbor for seven years.
And then it occurred to me that we don't live in
a condo any more. Ed was in an entirely different building from the one I
currently occupied. Whatever sounds I was hearing were generated by my own
family.
"Kai?" I called up. "What are you
doing up there?"
There was a long pause. "Nothing," he
said, finally.
And I ran up the stairs to see.
Later, as I was tucking him in, he looked toward
the window.
"What's that sound?" he asked.
I'd opened his window to let the fresh air in,
something I'd never been able to do before. His bedroom at our old place was on
the garden level, otherwise known as the basement. I'm not nervous living in
the city, but I'm not reckless, either. No matter how nice it is outside, an
open window on the ground floor invites rapists and murderers into your home. I
don't think I ever once opened the window in his room.
I stood still and heard what he was hearing, a
dribble-drop-rustle-splat. It sounded so beautiful to me.
I pulled the blanket up around his shoulders.
"Buddy," I said, "that's the
rain."
Little sigh. I loved Act III.
Posted by: Marna | 09/29/2013 at 11:17 PM