Day -37 : One Less Thing to Think About

A day of change. It's funny how life goes on and on the same for long swaths of time then suddenly stuff is different. We finally reached 'moving day -1' also known as packing day. I am off work today which is a great treat. I spend a good portion of my morning doing packing type stuff. Like tearing my computer apart from its monitors and power. Packing up the stuff that I want to be able to find easily and loading it in my car. 

The movers show up and they are doing the really tedious stuff like packing up all the kitchen stuff. I just don't have the patience or skill to do that. I would end up breaking the glass stuff because wrapping and packing each piece is too much work. Yet the movers seem to be enjoying themselves. They are chatting up a storm and gladly going through each cupboard (I didn't know cupboard was spelled like that, huh) all the stuff I am too lazy to do, that are doing. Yay!

We sign papers tonight, move tomorrow. We'll actually have keys to our new place this evening and I'll bring my car load of stuff over there and do some measuring to figure out where our stuff is going to fit. It's really exciting to be moving toward our goal of a simpler life. Less complications fewer distractions. The place we are renting has no yard! It's kinda weird to be excited about that. But after so many years of yard maintenance. It's exciting to think that that is one thing I  won't have to do, nor will I need to pay someone else to do. 

Spring is here, and with it the snow in the  Sierra snowpack is probably the deepest it's going to get. April 1 seems to be the day when it peaks. Based on the web sites I've been monitoring it looks like the snow in the southern Sierra is only about seventy two percent of normal (http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/products/PLOT_SWC.pdf). If it stays that way it ought to be perfect for the date that I have selected to start my hike, May 1. Starting at the Mexican border then traveling seven hundred miles north over the next month and a half will hopefully give the snow in the passes enough time to melt to the point where it will be possible for me to climb over the them with slipping off the side of a cliff. It's all getting rather exciting as the day draws closer for me to actually set off and start this thing.

Aaaargh! The garbage truck is driving away again. For some reason the trash collector has decided that my can is not worth stopping and collecting. The normal pickup day was two days ago and for whatever the reason he skipped us. So yesterday I called the city and asked them to send him back. They told me that he'll be coming back tomorrow. Which is now today. While I sit here blogging I hear the back-up beeping that a garbage truck makes when it goes in reverse. It's common to hear that when you live is a cul-de-sac. So I hear the beeping, and I think 'yay, the trash is gone' but no. It's not. There is a big moving truck in my driveway, and the neighbor's pickup in front of his house. There is only a narrow gap between them. The only way from him to reach my can is if he got out of his cab walked to my can and rolled it out past the trucks. He's not about to do that. So he's driving away. I run out to do that for him but he's gone before I get there. I call the city and they send him back, I sit by the window watching and waiting in eager anticipation of the garbage truck. Why? Because my can is full and I have more trash that I need to put in it. This is the last week I'll be living here... Woo hoo! He's back! 

Now he's part of my blog.