Moving from Europe times two

The whole process of moving one household lock, stock and antique from Europe back to the U.S. is a bear. To do what Bill and I are doing--moving two complete households, and two cars at the same time we are going to work nearly every day--is a recipe for meltdown.

Dealing with all the necessary paperwork of both retiring and moving with no central point of information and guidance has been frustrating and time wasting. Because of our status here--we both came over on separate orders and must go back that way--every single paper and process has to be done twice as we stay in our respective homes and get them ready by ourselves. Tomorrow, at last, we have an appointment to go to the transportation office to set schedules for packing and pick up of household goods and moving of cars. We've decided to ship Bill's goods first so his house will empty and he'll come stay with me for a few days and help with the last minute things before my packout. My house is closer to our work location so it made sense to do it that way. My car will ship first so we can keep his and use his roomier storage compartment for hauling things around.

From Europe we will wade through six shipments all of which ship at different times and take at least 30 days in transit:

1. Two of unaccompanied baggage (military lingo for small-shipment-of-kitchen-linen-clothes-TV-tools to ship early, arrive early and help you set up house in a primative manner at your home of record or alternate destination), packed into wooden crates, put on trucks, moved to a container ship, sailed across the ocean to Norfolk, Va., taken off the ship, onto trucks, driven to 931 (number of our new house in Blacksburg), taken off the trucks and hauled into the house, placed by the workers wherever we tell them so we have stuff to wear, dishes to cook with and eat from, no table upon which to eat, no bed upon which to sleep because all that is too big for this baggage shipment; tools for hanging pictures if only we had some, a mini computer if only we had a service. Etc.
2. Two major loads of household goods (see transportation route in 1. above)
3. Two cars placed in seagoing containers and shipped into either Richmond or Norfolk, arriving several weeks after we get there and several weeks apart. Note to self: buy Hertz stock now. (See transportation route in 1. above minus the personal delivery to our driveway.)

Don't forget, what gets shipped out must get shipped in and we must be standing ready at the door on all days of delivery to watch the trucks back down our long forest drive, watch the men tromp dirt and snow into our lovely house, over the beautiful oak flooring and off-white carpet to place each piece and unpack each box, praying the whole time that nothing was stolen or broken.

On my move over here, the head board to my long-sought and treasured bedroom set came in the door in two pieces, reducing me to tears at the end of a stressful day all alone save the German movers. Moments after seeing it, a lovely neighbor showed up with a pot of coffee in one hand and a kid in the other, took one look at me and invited me next door for wine instead.

In the U.S. already, we both have non-temporary storage of items we decided not to ship here. For me, non-temp means 17 years but I guess neither myself or the storage folks had any idea I'd stay so long and therefore really should have called it long-term storage.

1. From Norfolk to Blacksburg they will deliver my relatively small amount (I hope) probably before any of the European shipments arrive or at least they will if we ever actually get them a set of orders and our overall schedule. The most welcome thing that will come from that shipment will be a small dining table and chairs and maybe the ping pong table to help us while away empty hours waiting for the next onslaught.
2. From Richmond they will deliver something belonging to Bill. He doesn't remember what he stored but thinks maybe there is a wash machine which, of course, we no longer need because the house is equipped with all appliances. So now we'll have to sell or scrap an extremely heavy piece of useless metal.

Somewhere in this schedule my car will arrive somewhere and we'll have to drive all over the place to get rid of rental, pick up shipped car, get it registered, inflate the tires, put gas in it, hope nothing got damaged or stolen and drive back to Blacksburg with the car least helpful for carting things around. Did I mention we will then have to repeat the scenario for Bill's PT Cruiser x number of weeks later?

I will never move again.

And we're moving in February why??

(Photo is view from my home office door which opens on to the front porch of my beautiful home in Queidersbach, Germany.)

It has been snowing for a week.

All the locals told us it would be a hard winter. They were right, but seems a large part of the world is experiencing the same misery. Where we are trying to move from is covered in a white blanket even as the place we are moving to is getting pounded hard for the second time this year. "We haven't had much snow in five or six years," my cousin told me when I inquired as to the winter weather in Blacksburg.

It was certainly not our plan to move in February. We wanted to be out of here before then but all the accidents and recovery times just kept pushing us later and later.

This morning I cannot see the dense ivy at my front door. The trees are coated white yet again--the last coating never left, it just got added to. The funny front yard sculpture of a dog with his nonexistent head stuck in a hole in the ground is unseen, the only hint of his location being marked with a little mound of snow over the tip of his tail. Inside the metal body is a complete ant colony I discovered when I tried to move it to a new location. What are they doing now, buried in frozen darkness? I should have removed him and my favorite terracotta yard items into the garage while I had the chance this fall.

At the side patio I have been sprinkling seed on the bricks to make it easier for all the birds to find. I will run out soon. Seven fat blackbirds are either hunkered down in the deep snow, puffed out and unmoving, or hopping around pecking to find whatever they can not covered by the fall from last night. A netted bag of suet and nuts takes a while to get their attention. It is frozen and hard to eat. I should put on my boots and fill up the feeder. Grand tits, nuthatches, chaffinches and enormous jays are regular visitors. This morning, a solitary blackbird sits motionless inside the empty feeder, wondering why the filler-upper has been shirking her duties.

Inside the house, the packer-upper is hunkered down from the weather starting her third housebound day wondering why her "feeder" is so incredibly full and trying to get it ready to empty out.

My last grand opening

Tonight I sit in a billeting room on Chievres Air Base in Belgium. It is cold and foggy outside. Inside, my room is littered with papers, briefcases, and various digital gadgets from computers to card readers and cameras, all the necessary trappings of pulling together a commissary grand opening and being able to record it as I go. New to me this time is a Blackberry, a modern-day nag if ever there was one. Trying to be all things--phone, internet, camera, stereo--it has all sorts of challenges requiring me to figure it out as I go and frustrating me all the while. Of a greatly easier device is the new Kindle I received from Bill for Christmas. This device has nothing to do with the grand opening, it is just for feeding my ever-present appetite for reading. This device has turned out to be one of the easiest and must enjoyable electronic gadgets I've ever used. It is currently dishing up "The Measure of a Man" by Sidney Poitier, an actor I've always admired. For a book junky, this is like having a library on demand: buying a book can be done in less than a minute with the device not even plugged into the wall or a computer. No more having nothing to read on the road!

This trip is my last official grand opening. I have five weeks to go before I retire. Instead of going out in the evenings with the group, I stay in my room, isolating myself as a way of distancing from the emotions of saying goodbye to friends from Cairo, Egypt, and Livorno, Italy, here to work their usual magic on the new store. These talented and hard-working people have gained my respect. Knowing I may never see them again causes my insides to tighten and all my words to catch in my throat. I wish I could work beside them to design an endcap but can't find the time from my own job to do so.

My future keeps intruding on me this week. A problem with a new bank account in Virginia. A lost key to 931, our new house in Virginia. The longer I stay in Belgium, the more I can distance myself from the whole idea of leaving. These little surprizes jump into my email and remind me. Again my loyalties do the split, one foot on each continent, trying not to fall face first into the Sea of Separation.

The holiday is finished

(Photo of Bill and the little tree he decorated before I got home. We usually have a big tree with lots of European decorations on it.)





Thanks to Bill's efforts, Christmas did exist in my house this year, though in a much smaller and colder fashion than we normally have.

After arriving home from the airport on Christmas eve morning, I found only a trace of snow on the ground. Inside, my very smallest tree stood atop an end table with decorations and a few packages around it. The fridge had food for Christmas day. I went to bed for a few hours and got up to speak on the phone with a friend having a very sad Christmas because of a marriage gone nuts. As I spoke with her, I noticed the house getting colder and colder. Bill came up to me to inform me that the tank in the basement was totally empty! Christmas eve, 300 feet from my oil man's truck, and the tank is empty. Another fallout from my snow delay. Knowing it is probably hopeless, I call the cell phone and leave a message. We spend the evening feeding the fireplace and curling up under the covers. Fortunately, it is not below freezing outside.

At 1030 Christmas morning, my oil man Herr Wilhelm, calls to say "I come 5 minutes or never!"

Of course, we welcome him with open arms and profuse thanks and a few hours later the house is cozy again.

Christmas and New Year's were amazingly quiet this year. We were tired and just happy to read, eat and sleep. We stay up late and get up late. We wonder if this is what it will be like to be retired. We stay in our pajamas for two days and go nowhere. Bill had bought me Amazon's electronic book called Kindle and, though in love with real books, I take such a liking to it that I read one whole (free!) book on Christmas day. Bill has to travel to England for four days on business before New Year's and arrives home late and exhausted on the eve , another reminder of why we want to retire. Two airplanes, three cars, 1100 kilometers in four days takes a toll.

After New Year's, I marvel at the fact that I buy Andre Agassi's book "Open" through the computer and it drops magically into the Kindle in about 35 seconds from "one-click buy." As I take root on the couch again for hours and hours, I remind Bill that he is the one who bought it for me. He doesn't care. He is asleep in the recliner, recovering from his whirlwind tour of England.

Finally, on Saturday, we remove all signs of the little Christmas, pack it up and start working on my retirement papers. I've stalled on this long enough and dread the process immensely. I feel totally unprepared but grateful that Bill has gone through the process and mailed his forms a couple of weeks ago so he is coaching me through it all the way. When finished, I feel relieved but still wish I could just fast forward to the new house and be planted in one place, no longer in limbo.

I have not set foot in the office since arriving home except for a brief 30 minutes. More importantly, I haven't wanted to. Mentally, I have almost cut the cord completely, but remain still attached to it through obligation. I hope that once I've landed on the other side I will be able to move forward with some determination, no longer in limbo with one foot in each world. I have come full circle. Seventeen years ago, first arrived in Germany,I described myself in the same way and, as time went on, began to feel my worlds slidely slowly apart, pulling me away from the country I will now return to for good.