The Neurotic Nomad

Our moving van pulled off of the farm road and onto the driveway, soon we would see the house.

When we arrived, we hugged the woman we’ve met only once and brought our overnight bags into the spare bedroom and passed out for ten hours. Then it was time to unload the moving van.

The cabin that we’ll be staying in isn’t move-in ready yet, so the bulk of our things are being stored in the barn. The barn is by the horse stable, next to the electric fence, with only a dirt trail leading up to it. Feeling adventurous, we take the moving van off road for the first time. It’s been raining for days so the ground is soft and the air is thick with humidity.

All of our furniture and half of our boxes fill the space in the barn. Then BioMom starts arranging things. Now I know where C gets her Tetris skills: genetics.

The rest of the things going in there fits with room to spare. The remaining boxes join us in the spare bedroom.

Suddenly we both become aware that we’re living with strangers. This will be an adventure.

As we crossed the Continental Divide, we escaped the thunderstorm and ran into a blizzard. The snow was flying sideways and the landscape turned completely white in under 15 minutes. Ice began to collect on the windshield wipers and the road in front of us. We continue on.

As the elevation drops, the snow turns to severe rain and we drive and drive trying to get ahead of it again. Lightening strikes nonstop in the sky above us as we cross the corner of Colorado and get into Western Kansas where it finally gets so bad that we have to pull over for a few hours.

Huddled together, we share a bag of pretzels and tell each other it will pass soon.

A six this morning, when we started moving east again, we find out about Greensburg - a town due south of us. They are reporting 63 injured, 7 dead, many missing, and 100% building damage. Everyone has lost their home.

The forecast says a 70% chance of more tornadoes sometime today. As we drive, the wind is blowing 45 miles per hour on our passenger side and it’s getting darker.

We’re pulled over in a truck stop in Ellis, Kansas watching the wind blow.

I don’t know how long we’ll be here.

During the night the sky opened up, but when we woke up at 7 the sky was a beautiful clear blue.

Caren went to grab our free breakfast (english muffins) while I vomited for an hour. My fever had kept us both up late into the night. Ok, it kept me up and I acted like a giant child and kept waking C up. She jumped out of bed at my every whiny whim without complaint. I finally left her alone by 3.

I dragged around the room while C packed up and rearranged the van. Tetris, her alter ego, was able to double our cabin space.

I climbed into the van’s passenger seat and we pulled out of the parking lot at 9:01.

Following the smiley man’s directions, we found our way back to the highway and began to head east. Ten minutes later the “Check Engine” light comes on.

C pulls over to the shoulder and calls Penske. They’re very glad to recieve our call. We’re number… FOURTEEN …in line. Sure, well wait for the first available representative to take our call.

As we sit on the lonely stretch of highway we can’t help but think of the 24 hours of putting boxes in the van as we consider the possibility of having to switch vehicles. I begin to sweat and shiver. C gives me Tylenol with codeine and I press myself against the increasingly colder glass. That’s when we notice the first snowflakes.

In the mirrors we see the dark clouds. In front of us is clear sky. C cranks the engine. The check engine light doesn’t come on, so she puts it in drive and we take off.

As we head southeast the snow stops, but the clouds are almost above us. The entire northwestern sky is pitch black, the entire southeastern sky is clear blue, and the line is right above us. The storm is chasing us.

For the entire day we stay just ahead of it. Whenever we stop for gas it catches us, but we’re able to outrun it, but then somewhere in Idaho the road curved south and the storm was coming toward us sideways.

We’d put a lot of miles between us, but it caught up with us in Ogden, Utah. Luckily, we switched highways and started heading east again.

The entire time, C has been driving. We make it to Evanston, Wyoming and 11 hours behind the wheel is all she can take.

Money is getting tight, so we have to shop around for a cheap place to stay. The clerk behind the desk of the Comfort Inn takes pity on us and gives us a discount.

We are now two days behind schedule.

Too tired to sleep to noon, we laid in bed and felt the ache of four 15-hours days and 12 hours of heavy boxes. Little did we know at the time we still had twelve more hours before the apartment was empty.

In a ironic twist the last of the boxes were filled with books, papers, and I think some lead bricks. As we moved at half speed, I could feel my arms getting longer. I imagined being able to tie my shoes without bending over and changing the TV channel sans remote control. Caren kept cramming more and more into the tiny moving van. At ten o’clock, the van was full. C says she’s so tired her whole body is humming. The only things left in the apartment was what was going in the front of the van with us, and the bed we were abandoning. (It was a craigslist freebie, anyway)

At midnight we turned off the lights and slept in our Seattle home for the last time.

Morning arrived and our new body aches made yesterday seem like a sneak preview. It took us an hour to fill the cooler, make sandwiches, and get out the door, but we’re finally off.

We take turns driving, switching every hundred or so miles, but it’s clear that we are too tired to continue. Crunch week was catching up fast. We were hoping to make it into Idaho before stopping, but the approaching dark clouds made us think better of it.

We pulled off into La Grande, Oregon. A small winding mountain road led us into the heart of the sleepy one-road town. We start to pull into the tiny Greenville Motel, but notice that The All-American Inn across the street has free WiFi.
The All-American Inn is typical Americana, with it’s glowing sign above a never-used swimming pool next to the parking lot.

The man behind the desk is all smiles. He recommends a good restaurant and lets us know how to get back to the highway. We thank him, take the key, and pass out in the bed for three hours before returning to the van to get any of our luggage.

When we wake up, it’s pouring rain. We decide to eat more sandwiches and catch up on Veronica Mars rather than venturing out. C gives me some Tylenol and makes me drink water. She says I’m sick, but I don’t believe her; although as I snap a few pictures I can’t help but notice how good the cold night air feels.

Our apartment is tiny. A shotgun 11′x34′ rectangle with an 8′x6′ bathroom attached. Around 7:30pm last night, we ran out of room to pack. The apartment was full. We couldn’t even open another box. We couldn’t pack any more until some of the boxes left this place. So we called a friend over, sat on the sofa, and watched Ugly Betty, Dirty Jobs, and The New Adventures of Old Christine we had on the TiVo.

Van day started @ 7am. Caren and S from downstairs (I really should learn his name) went to pick up the moving van while I guarded two parking spots and the driveway leading back to our apartment.

People were kind enough to mutter “fu**off” under their breath as they moved their cars for me. Pre-coffee dawn-ish is not the best time to be asking for favors.

Caren arrives with the van and we get it all situated. She jumps out and tells me that we got a free upgrade to the 15 foot because they were out of 12s. I thought we were getting an 18 or a 20. I begin to get nervous.

We begin the loading process going to the shed to get our GIANT WROUGHT IRON TABLE AND SIX GIANT CHAIRS. After that, the entertainment center. (2 bookshelves and a TV stand). The van is half full.

It’s 8:00am and I’m already tired.

Tonight, as a “we’ll miss you”, the two bachelors who live in the basement took me out. They’re really nice guys, but I’m five years older and fifteen years more married than either one of them, so for me it was like a night on safari. It was a real life Animal Planet, with beer and live music.

It didn’t start out that way. It started out as a nice dinner.

J and S had a party last night (their dog turned 3, so it was as good an excuse as any for loud music and beer). I threw some meat on the grill, met some of their friends, grabbed a bite, and said goodnight. C was better with the small talk, and I ended up meeting our newest neighbor. He reminds me of Steve Zahn. Nice guy; would have loved to have had him for a neighbor.

Anyway, so tonight J and I were going to hang out. He suggested food. He’s a food snob, so I was game for any place he suggested. He ended up taking me to this little Mediterranean place, where I ate incredible beef and impressive chicken. I also had my first two beers. J had a drink so strong that his leftover ice tasted like a tequila snow cone.

That’s when S called.

Two pitchers of beer later, the bar we’re in is getting boring in spite of the pictures of Telly Savalis, Steve Martin, Burt Reynolds taken from vintage magazines and turned into Men’s Room wallpaper. The pitt bull over by the pinball machine is now taking up a booth to itself, and the DJ has been spinning the same beat since the last time I went to the bathroom.

We grab Flex (S’s Boston Terrier) and we head to a place by the pier, under the viaduct, where three guys in leather and their drummer make eyes at the only three women in the place while they played Silverchair, The Darkness and Chris Isaac.

I hoot and holler and drink another beer. I bang my head. It’s been twenty years, my neck could use it. After the band finished their set, another Chandler and Joey who came out that night continued to drunkenly sing along to the Guns N’ Roses CD that played as the drummer packed up gear. I sang along, not knowing if I was enjoying it in an ironic or nostalgic way, and not caring. I had my fifth beer.

Most everyone was hanging out front. Some were smoking, all were drinking, and the homeless were asking for change. I struck up a conversation with a few of the underprivileged. Two were just guys on the hustle. One was a very sad woman, and two were the real deal. One man, Mike, took the time to talk to me like a person. He has a warm place for tonight, but who knows about tomorrow. Another man, I didn’t catch his name, sang me a song. He says he’d get a gig if he could… and he looked at his feet.

I thanked him for his time and went back to the huddled smokers in the tiny pen by the front door of the bar.

The guys in the band turned out to be cool guys, and I almost bummed a smoke from one but realized it’s been over two years since my last one and decided not to even tempt that demon.

Back into the bar, the Sing-along Twins are belting out Poison’s “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn”, and playing air guitar. That’s when I realize I haven’t thought about the herd of boxen in my kitchen for almost six hours.

Thanks Guys.

I’m a bit of a beach bum. The sun, the sand, the surf, the sun, the people. The sun. I’m a bit solar powered. Nothing sounds better than a day outside, and a day at the beach is like a double-espresso shot of sunshine.

A short drive up the road is a small cafe called The Purple Cow. It’s a great place to grab lunch before heading back to Golden Gardens to watch the sunset and maybe stick around a while for the bonfires.

I spent many an evening strolling up the sidewalk hand-in-hand with Caren, stopping to sit on a log and plunge our toes into the sand, getting an ice cream from the small stand at the end of the walk, or sitting on a bench curled in a blanket watching the sun disappear over the mountains in the western sky beyond Puget Sound.

When we first landed, we were flat broke, had nowhere to live, no jobs, and only enough money to survive for 90 days. The first meal we ate was at Dick’s.

“Gimme a cheese, a deluxe, two fry, a chocolate, and large coke.” was spoken twenty more times before summer was over. Cheap, fast, and the best darned little burger I’d eaten in over a thousand miles.

Mmm. A cheeseburger sounds good right about now. I wonder if that guy is still selling bubble tea out of the edge of QFC? It would give me a chance to stroll up Broadway and do a little window shopping.

Besides, I need a souvenir. Can you get a souvenir cheeseburger?

I’m currently living in a house that’s been converted into five apartments. I live in the back half of the ground floor, overlooking the back deck and beyond that is the coy pond and storage shed.

When we first moved into the place, we were in the basement, but the low ceilings started freaking me out so they let us switch.

My landlord is my upstairs neighbor. He’s a pretty decent guy. He’s getting married this afternoon.

All in all, it’s a decent place to live. The only drawback is my landlord’s dog.

Don’t get me wrong. She’s a sweet dog, but she’s kinda clingy. For the first two months I lived here, the dog would immediately scratch on my door after her owner left for work, and demanded to spend the day with me.

Stupid dog with her stupid big sad puppy dog eyes.

That’s not why she’s a drawback.

When spending the day with her, she’d lay at my feet while I wrote or edited. With her flaky, smelly skin against my feet. If I made the mistake of touching her, I would be forced to scratch her for hours at a time.

That’s not why she’s a drawback, either. It turns out it was a food allergy, and she’s healthier and happier.

The reason why she’s a drawback is because we aren’t giving notice that we’re moving out.

We’re not skipping out on our rent, or on our lease. (We don’t have a lease) But we’re not giving notice until we are 100% certain that the move is this month, and not next… and we won’t know that for another week.

Besides, he has wedding things to worry about. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.

And while he is off exchanging vows - I will be moving all of my moving boxes from the storage shed into our apartment. I’ll be moving out while he’s on his honeymoon.

How does this make the dog a drawback? It doesn’t.

I just have nothing to write about and “I’ve got to get the boxes out of storage”, “My landlord’s getting married” and “Hey, there’s Scuffins!” was all I had to work with.

No one can enter or exit the parking lot. It’s 8:30am, the car carrier is still sitting against the security gate’s pole and the gate itself is opening and closing on itself and the empty carrier. Traffic on Shelby starts picking up.

I try lifting.

It lifts, but Caren is too tired to push it.

We switch.

I try pushing, it won’t budge, because Caren is too tired to lift it.

I’m ready to break down and cry when a kindly stranger appears. OK, that’s not true. I’m ready to scream and kick the carrier when a guy walked up and I was embarrassed that I wanted to act like a baby.

He lifts, I push and slowly the carrier starts to move. First one inch, then two, then three. We shift our weight and try to get it to turn. The twisted piece of metal that was once the wheel well rubs against the warm rubber tire making a noise and a smell that reminded me of how well the morning was going.

No longer pointed at the gate’s pole, we set it free. It rolled into the street. We now had enough room to move the truck out of the parking lot.

Looking at the now very dented wheel well, I suddenly become aware that every tool I own (nee.. every THING I own) is packed away in the moving van - not that I owned a dent puller or a crow bar or anything remotely appropriate, but at this point even a hammer would be helpful.

Caren says “Oh!”, turns around, and leaves me to bake in the morning sun while I stand in the street with cars swerving around our disabled carrier.

A minute later she returns with a tool.
That’s about as specific I can get.

“This is all I can get to”, she declares while handing it to me.

It’s a piece of the Element’s jack. The crank, I think. It’s not really a tire tool, not really a crow bar, and not really helpful, but it was all we had.

The surgery didn’t have to be beautiful, it just had to work. After twenty minutes of each of us giving it all the strength we had, the metal was no longer rubbing against the tire.

More cars drive around us, slowing down to see what we’re up to.

We decide that the best way to proceed would be to attach the car carrier to the moving van, then park the duo against the curb.

Caren, now behind the wheel of a 15-foot moving van filled to almost double capacity, turns the key. The truck is brand new. We are just the second people to rent it. The engine comes to life and the hulk moves forward, down the slope of the parking lot, past the car carrier in the street, and into the driveway of the building across from us.

She cuts the wheel to the left, and drops it into reverse. With the expertise of a pro, she backs the van up to the trailer putting the hitch directly where it need to be. My jaw drops.

I think back to my trailer-hitch training from my childhood.

The hook thingee goes over the ball thingee… check! The ball thingee gets locked. Hmmm… how do you lock one of these things? It doesn’t look like the one I had growing up. I guess I should have watched the instructional video more than once and closer to moving day rather than six weeks before the move, right before my first viewing of Shrek 2.

I push, I pull, I stand on the thing…. nothing seems to lock it. Then I twist it to the left and it pops into place! Will it come unlocked? That question won’t be answered for 2300 miles. I put the safety pin in place so it won’t unlock on it’s own and continue the hooking up process.

I attach the brake cable to the van so the trailer will have brakes (it’s kinda important), and open the wire box for the final connections. It looked as if R2-D2 had thrown up in there. As I fight with the wires, a large cement truck pulls out of the construction zone down the street and starts coming toward us…

So as we sat there in the dark in an ever-increasingly warm apartment, Caren realized how tired she was and we put off leaving until morning.

Jason bid us adieu, and we went to “bed”. (”Bed” being the futon mattress without any extra padding on the hard wooden floor).

Just as I was drifting off to sleep, the lights came back on. Oh, well - at least we now have air conditioning.

Come morning, we realize how unfinished we actually were. Boy, that place was dirty!

After another couple of hours scrubbing, wiping, and sweeping we were ready to leave.

The car carrier needed to be moved to the street. As it started picking up momentum going down the hill, I realized that I had no control of the steering. Caren stood between the hard steel wheel well (which was quickly approaching) and the hard steel beam of the security gate. The only word to come out of my mouth was “MOVE!!!!!” Luckily, she listened.

She took two steps back just in time to keep both her legs from getting crushed.

BAM!!

Now the wheel well is dented and rubbing against the tire - and the whole thing is too heavy for me to move alone. It’s stuck. It’s 8:30am and beginning to get warm.

Two weeks before I even start packing, I’m going a bit stir crazy. With nothing to do but think about moving, I got to thinking about our move here. Here’s an excerpt from that tale:

Shortly after you left us to finish packing, things slowed down. The intense heat and the long hours started catching up with us. We grabbed a bite to eat and kept working, figuring a snail’s pace is still faster than stopping. The hours marched on. Darkness fell. It cooled to a nice 97 degrees outside. Then, my body chose to turn against me. Caren and Jason had to finish packing without me. I tried to help, but I was just in the way - or in the bathroom.

Sometime around 10pm, insanity started gripping Jason. When the moving van was full, but the apartment wasn’t empty - I think his mind snapped. Desperate to finish, He stuck things where ever they’d fit. It didn’t matter what it was.

As the mercury dropped to a breezy 92 degrees around midnight, I started feeling better and began to realize that Jason was muttering to himself and packing garbage.

After several tries, we finally got everything in the moving van except for the futon mattress, our luggage for the trip, and my plants. Those things would have to go in the Element. It was 1:00am.

I was awake, but who knew for how long. Caren wanted to get on the road immediately. I told her it was a bad idea, that we needed food and sleep. She wouldn’t hear of it. She swept the floor and “finished” cleaning while Jason and I went to get Wendy’s (not knowing if I’d ever eat it again) and pow-wowed on how to change her mind. We couldn’t come up with anything. We were too tired.

When we got back to the apartment, we sat down and started eating - and then the electricity went out.

Tackling the To Do list, I started simple: Rolling all our spare change. I didn’t realize how quickly change adds up when you don’t fish the quarters out for the laundromat. (Our landlord finally fixed the washing machine.)

Grand total, One hundred and fifty-five dollars, not including the pennies.

It’s a little weird to see your entire life on five sheets of paper, but there it is on the back of my door.

To Do:

I am about to move from Seattle, Washington to a small farm in Texas.

I’m a city dweller. I don’t know if I even own shoes appropriate for off-concrete use.

Where will I get fresh tofu? I don’t like the grocery store brands. I get my stuff from a small unmarked store on 12th Street in the Central District. $1 per brick of still-warm curd. It’s sunshine in a bag.

Now, I’m about to go live on a farm and help tend horses for 18 months.

Barring any financial disaster, the moving van is due here on April 30.

Well, I have to make it there first.