Friday morning we set up utilities in Richmond, except for internet. Stupid Comcast and your terrible user interface and inability to schedule appointments more than 5 business days in advance!
That afternoon The Husband and I took the canoe for a trip down the river to our house, since I’d never done that in the 6.5 years of living here. It’s been a very dry year, so about 50% of it was walking in an inch of water while dragging the canoe. Still, it was fun.
Saturday we sold the canoe.
Saturday was also packing day. Our friends K & S gave us some boxes from their move, as did some of our neighbors. They got filled very quickly, so K & S kindly brought over some more.
The upstairs is now mostly empty except for the furniture and pictures on the walls. The downstairs is pretty good except for the kitchen. That’s going to take a lot of bubble wrap.
Sunday we had our local/friends going away party, complete with ping-pong tournament.
J used his truck to bring the ping-pong table to K & S’s house and then we said goodbye to everyone again. It’s been a long month of goodbyes and they are often repeated because we’re not sure if we’ll see them again. So we said goodbye, but we may have to do it again on Thursday because some of the people will probably come help load the van on Thursday because they are good people and will move all our stuff for nothing more than a promise of pizza and beer.
I’m going to miss everyone.
Today was supposed to be a one-year pediatrician appointment, but it’s too soon for the vaccinations so it was cancelled. We’ll have to find a new pediatrician and set up an appointment quickly in Richmond, but we’ll probably just bring The Baby to The Father-in-Law instead since he’s 2 hours away from Richmond and a physician with his own practice and we don’t really have health insurance for after August 1 figured out just yet.*
So today will only be my fourth or fifth “last” fiddle lesson, except this time it really will be my last lesson and that makes me really sad.
Tonight is dinner with our friend M, who is a mechanic and will try to fix the old lawnmower that we’re leaving for our tenants, but we can’t get it to start.
Tomorrow night is dinner with my Aunt M and Cousin T who couldn’t come to the party yesterday because every time we invite Aunt M over she ends up having to go to a funeral instead. Dinner invitations have been bad luck it seems.
Wednesday is The Husband’s last day of “work” (read going to the office for some uninterrupted studying) and then he’s going out for drinks. The moving van is also getting dropped off at some point that day.
Thursday is the aforementioned loading up the van day with pizza and beer.
Friday the van gets picked up.
Saturday The Baby, The Dog, and I head to my parents where we will reorganize and The Baby, Mom, and I will drive in one car while Dad and The Dog will be in a second car and we will all stop for the night in New York. The Husband will hang around the house waiting for the carpet cleaners.
Sunday the 2-car caravan will drive from NY to Richmond and check into a hotel. The Husband will spend one last day hiking in the White Mountains.
On Monday, the Richmond contingent will do the final house walk-through and sign the papers while The Husband does a marathon drive from NH to Richmond with the two cats in the car with lousy air conditioning and no radio. The Girl Cat chews her fur off whenever she is placed in the crate. The Boy Cat, when placed in a crate, starts pooping. The Husband definitely drew the short straw on this one. He is armed with sedatives. (For the cats, not for him.) Hopefully this will be good training in some way for his future clinicals.
* If we have an emergency and need health insurance, we can retroactively COBRA or retroactively sign up for the MCV insurance plan. However, we don’t to sign up for the MCV plan before the deadline (Sept. 30) because we’re hoping I get a job with benefits before then.