Fire bad. Tree pretty.

Simple concepts are the limit of our mental processing abilities at the moment. Packing is one thing, but the physical act of moving all one's worldly possessions from one place to another all in one go is, well, insane. I've lived a lot of places, traveled, and moved around, but never before with every, single, blasted thing I own. A teacher once told me that having books is a wonderful thing but a real impediment when one moves. It's true. Also on the list of impediments, I will add underpowered equipment. The 24-foot truck we rented drove like a kitten pulling a tractor. Ross, who drove the thing, bless him, said it was like captaining a ship: if you want to accelerate you have to send a message down to the steam room to tell them to throw more coal on. Thus, a three-and-a-half hour journey took about five. Mountains are big.

Our arrival at the farm was met with massive logistics; logistic gymnastics, really.

  1. Find a place to park the truck so that the 2,000 lb. car trailer can come off and be re-attached later
  2. Detach the trailer
  3. Stop half way through step 2 to remove the car
  4. Let the 2,000 lb. car trailer, that is no longer held firmly down by the truck, flip up as you remove the car
  5. Remove car
  6. Take cat to the farmhouse
  7. Build cat cage
  8. Discover the tool to build the cat cage is a piece of crap, find a different tool that will work
  9. Put cat in cat cage and make sure she has water
  10. Unload plants from truck
  11. Drive to storage unit
  12. Forget to borrow new employer's appliance dolly
  13. Rent appliance dolly from Budget truck place, which is two doors down behind The Trophy Club Gentleman's Establishment
  14. Arrive at storage unit, and back truck into loading dock
  15. Forget what our storage unit number is. Discover all paperwork is in a box. Somewhere.
  16. Call storage facility manager to get the unit number
  17. Find out we are in the wrong building of the facility and drive truck to other side
  18. Find correct unit and bring down truck ramp
  19. Align truck ramp with sidewalk
  20. Get large dolly onto truck
  21. Unload truck into storage unit
  22. Unload truck into storage unit
  23. Unload truck into storage unit
  24. Unload truck into storage unit
  25. Unload truck into storage unit
  26. Unload truck into storage unit
  27. Unload truck into storage unit
  28. Give friend directions to storage unit to help, tell him to bring lots of water
  29. Order pizza
  30. Eat pizza, drink water
  31. Repeat steps 21-27
  32. Organise contents of storage unit, maximise use of vertical space
  33. Organise contents of storage unit, maximise use of vertical space
  34. Panic that not everything will fit
  35. Take a deep breath and repeat steps 26-27
  36. Finish unpacking truck! Cheer loudly.
  37. Repack things that have to come back to the farm
  38. Clean up
  39. Take the amazing kid who helped (David) home and pay him
  40. Drive truck back to farm
  41. Unload things that need to stay at the farm into cars
  42. Align truck with 2,000 lb. car trailer. In the dark. On a hill. Twelve inches away from your new boss's truck.
  43. Attach car trailer and secure oh-shit brakes
  44. Discover that hi-quality trailer light connection panel is courtesy of Rent-a-Truck Nigeria
  45. Decide how we will get back to the farm after the truck is dropped off
  46. Drive to rental truck drop-off point
  47. Fill out paperwork
  48. Drive back to farm
  49. Find things we will need for the night
  50. Shower
  51. Sleep

You've no idea the sub-steps that are in-between. Fire bad. Tree pretty.