Progress, Loosely Defined

It's been, perhaps, a momentous day, at least by my meager standards.

The biggest thing today won't actually happen until tomorrow, when my account gets drained. Through the magic of electricity and modern banking, funds are moving from me to the escrow company by way of a large bank in New York.

This makes Sandy personal. I can only hope everyone involved has all the electricity they need to make this happen. If not, well, I'd prefer not to think about that but will, anyway.

And, I just got a phone call from someone advertising himself as an ex-Marine. He and a buddy, who is also, probably a vet, are going to help me move by packing up all my crap in the truck I'm renting to haul it all out of Murrieta and up to the desert. I apologized for the state of the things in the storage place, which he said was no big deal, but he hasn't seen it yet. I've been rehearsing the speech for about a week now to explain things.

Roughly, it's a 10x15 foot area, packed to the brim. The first load of stuff was done pretty neatly and in a more orderly way. Filling the storage place took about three trips, each one more chaotic, and the last load was almost entirely weird-ass crap that isn't in boxes and was pretty much tossed on top of the stuff already there as quickly as I could get it out of my sister's sweet little truck and out of my hair and mind.

So, the stuff in the front of the storage area should probably be the last stuff to go in the truck, but we'll see how these guys handle it. According to the ads and comments, they'll do all the work while I sit back and polish my nails or something.

Also, through a marketing and profitable breakthrough, the size truck I wanted isn't available anywhere within fifty miles, so I'm getting a larger one. That should help in case my guess at how big a truck I'll need was off.

In my dreams, all the crap will fit in one truck, which I will then drive up to the desert with the dogs and unload by myself. I guess I'll be getting there around noon and hope to get everything out of the truck by dark. Then, we'll spend the night up there, enjoying life without electricity and maybe without water, which explains why I bought a hatchet.

My little desert home, like just about every other place up there I saw, has a little fire pit area on the property, which should provide some heat, light, and a way to cook. Then, a mummy bag on some foam rubber to serve as a comfy bed.

The next morning I will be preparing coffee on a cheap little camp stove, loading the dogs back in the truck, and driving it back here to drop off at the truck rental place. Then, we all pile into my Jeep and drive back up to the desert "for good."

Yes, I could have arranged a one-way rental and saved myself $100 in mileage, but only if I either didn't mind walking twenty or twenty-five miles from the local truck drop-off space to my home or towing my Jeep behind the truck Yes, marathon runners or walkers would shake that off as simply training, but I'm neither of those.

I considered using my bike, but in any case that would have meant towing my Jeep, and that would have required me to drop and re-mount the drive shaft, something I doubt I'll feel like doing after picking up and setting back down everything I own, maybe more than once.

I'm sorta worried about my back holding out, but if it's gotta be done, it's gotta be done and maybe I can take my time and liberally rest and take breaks.

Then, I can spend the rest of the day sorting through my shit and wondering why I thought I'd need or want this in my new place. In my defense, when I packed I had no idea what place I'd be moving into, so I may have brought everything, all in poorly-labelled boxes.

The truck rental company advertises an adventure in moving. Yeah, that's an understatement.