Odds and ends of moving - Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011

Kapolei, Hawaii--Oh the stories I can tell about getting ready to move...

1. After we sold our bedroom set, the only place we had to sleep was on the floor. Luckily, we had three air mattresses; that way if one had a leak we could use another. Little did we know, all three of our air mattresses had leaks. By morning we were lying on our hard laminate flooring. We moved the least leaky air mattress into the one room that had carpeting, so we had a tiny bit of padding when the air mattress went flat. 

I mentioned our plight to one of my former co-workers who now works with Bob. She told me they had two self-inflating, queen-sized air mattresses with no leaks and they would be happy to loan them to us. I told her we really only needed one. She brought it to work with her last Thursday and gave it to Bob. We have been happily sleeping on a full air mattress since then. Bless you, DK!

2. Today, Bob came and picked me up from home so we could go to the title company to sign closing documents. When we finished, we went to lunch, then headed home. While we had been out signing our documents, the buyers came to our house for final inspection at 1:00 pm. (It was pre-arranged.)

When we got home around 2:50 pm, the buyers were still there--it had been two hours--so we parked down the street and waited for them to leave. Bob dropped me off, I went in through the front door, then Bob left to go back to work. I went into the house and checked around to see what had happened to a large packing box that I had left sitting on the kitchen counter. I stepped through the door to the garage, found the box, then tried to go back into the house. LOCKED! 

In all the time we lived here, the only time we locked the door from the house into the garage was if the button accidentally got turned to lock the door. We always had a key hidden in the garage in case we got locked out. However, because we were cleaning everything out and getting all the keys together for the buyers, the key was no longer in the garage. I knew Bob had gone into Honolulu for meetings, so he couldn't come back and let me in.

Aha! I had an epiphany. The realtor's lock box was still on our gate. I pressed the button to open the automatic garage door and the door got stuck halfway up. Sometimes the screws/bolts on the door get loose and the door gets stuck. I retightened all the screws and finally got the garage door to open. At our document signing today, our realtor told us the code to get into the box. I was able to retrieve the key and get in the front door. Whew! I was afraid I'd be locked out until nightfall.

3. Just when you think you had everything packed, more stuff appears. We shipped our container last week and thought we might have one last box to mail via USPS. Well, we are now planning to mail at least three boxes, maybe four. There were some last minute items we wanted to take on the 5th wheel, like our Dirt Devil dustbuster, bucket, stuff from my car (everything that wasn't factory installed had to be removed from the car), books we decided to keep at the last minute (after the moving sale), and so on. It is really hard to get rid of your stuff! I have a feeling we'll be giving more things to Goodwill while we're on our trip. I think we way over-packed for the trailer. We may have to put some of our stuff in my Escape and some in Bob's truck.

4. At closing today, our realtor dropped a small bombshell on us. We had been operating on the knowledge that closing would be Friday, Oct. 21 and we would move out that day, go to the airport and fly to Portland. Today, after we signed our documents, the realtor told us we need to be out of the house by Thursday. So now I have one less day to clean the house top to bottom and finish up any last minute gardening/pond cleaning. Our realtor swears he told us we had to be out by Thursday. Neither Bob nor I remember him telling us that. Oh well, another hurdle to leap. 

5.  We took our remaining two cats to the Humane Society last night. Sniffles and sobs. We got Rama into her carrier relatively easily, although she hates it and immediately started howling.

Oreo was another story entirely. (An aside, I felt so bad for Oreo. He had been a feral cat who adopted us and after 1-1/2 years trusted me and loved getting brushed and petted. Sometimes he would sit on my lap.) I had him in my hands for a short moment, then he turned wild. We had closed the doors to the bedrooms and bathrooms so he couldn't go hide in them. Bob and I then tried to catch him. Bob had a bath towel at the ready so we wouldn't get shredded. 

Oreo ran down the hall and, finding all the doors closed, ran back at Bob who had the towel blocking the exit from the hall. Bob said Oreo leapt up the wall and over him and the towel. Then Oreo crouched in a corner behind the TV. He was so scared, he piddled in the corner. Then he gave one last Herculean effort. He raced to the cat door into the garage. I had put the lock behind the cat door so he couldn't escape into the garage, but forgot to block it with a chair or box. Oreo hit the cat door full speed and slammed into the locked cat door. I was afraid he broke his neck. He didn't, but it did stun him and we were able to catch him and put him in the carrier.

It was a sad night at the Alton house. I cried all the way into town (45 minutes).

Good night all. Travel Bug out.