It has been two weeks, I think I can talk about THE MOVE.

1) On the positive side, due to the delay created by the buyer/lender I finally caught up on cleaning out my files, and the world did not end. (I did, however, discover phone bills for much of the past decade and many, many other items that certainly did not need to make this move.)

2) Thanks to the thoughtful gift of walkie-talkies from the ever-wonderful Jamie, my husband and I were once again able to communicate with each other during both phases of the move. A highlight of our exchanges occurred when my husband sang "la-dee-dah-dee-dah" as the 26' rental truck he was driving crept up the side of a mountain.

3) Thanks to a referral from one of our realtors, we received some great help unloading the truck. When I ran out for beverages I encountered "Ballet Joe" and a lengthy delay. There I was, in the parking lot of a mini-mart, when this fellow made an innocuous comment about the make of my car, somehow it emerged that he was also from Wisconsin and he managed to segueway into a long, long story about volunteering for the ballet in Milwaukee for 25 years and winding up with a two-minute center-stage role in a production of ROMEO & JULIET. (And the point was???)

4) It felt really, really good to return the empty rental truck that night (despite the bill).

5) On the 90th day (yes, really), our former house sold (only 30 days late). We transitioned from cleaning mode to unpacking mode. Yesterday my husband arranged much of his art collection in the living and dining rooms, successfully covering most of the holes and marks from the nails and badly patched sections of the walls, thereby relieving us from the pressure to paint immediately and greatly improving the overall feel of the house.

Writing to you from an antique end table and grateful to once again be connected to the outer world.

Dazed and confused and moved . . .
and would you believe we STILL haven't closed on our previous home?!
And that this transaction has been "in the pipeline" for almost 90 days?

We have a LOT of cleaning to do before we even get to the unpacking stage (while we continue to wait for the paperwork to finalize things - we are renting the house during this prolonged transition phase), but I am grateful to be at this point, and although I have said it before, I will say it again, I LOVE LIBRARIES!

Thanks for all of the good wishes. It's nice to know that friends, family, and total strangers are thinking positive thoughts while we are grappling with the possibility that there are a couple of new sub-divisions to Dante's levels of hell.

As we were sitting on the floor this morning, wondering if this move was cursed and waiting for the phone to ring, a funny thing happened. The phone actually did ring, with the news we had been expecting, for several weeks: the documents had arrived.

With this annoucement came another flurry of activity, which felt a little more justified than yesterday's realization that perhaps we were only pretending to be moving.

In hindsight, it has occurred to us that this weblog may serve as documentation of our moving woes, so to provide a few specifics, we were told the documents were finished Friday afternoon and that they would be e-mailed that afternoon or Monday morning. Monday passed: no documents. We were assured that the documents would be sent by noon on Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon: no documents. We were told that they were experiencing computer problems; then we were told the documents would be e-mailed by 5 p.m., to a person who was out of the office. (Precisely when would we be able to believe anything that these people told us?)

Wednesday morning: no immediate confirmation, but after a couple of hours, yes, accompanied by the hope that the documents would be sent to the buyer later in the day. Turn around time? A day, or two, or whenever?

And so, with a loose time frame, we are trying to coordinate closing dates (it's like using feathers instead of darts when playing darts, only the board is your life) and meet with a gaggle of realtors in two different towns (really people, this is not a spectator sport, nothing to see here, pay no attention to the two really nervous people who are wondering if there will be another rental truck in their near future).

As a necessary diversion from all of this, last night I read Robert Parker's MELANCHOLY BABY. (I've played the song, now I've read the book.) Clear characters, engaging plot, smooth read. He is such a clean writer, in and out, make a few jokes, show some character depth and throw in a few easy character types.

May blog tomorrow, may not blog for a week or so.
May fortune smile upon us all.

Yet another day of waiting for the phone to ring. We were okay until this afternoon, when a series of events threatened to drive us over the edge (except we wouldn't know where the edge is because it has been moving so much lately).

Our water was shut off. Thankfully one of the workers noticed the moving truck and stopped to inquire (pretty hard to overlook a 26 foot truck). I blame myself for the confusion. I had made the call weeks ago to have our service extended. I didn't think I had stated a specific date, but I may have indicated a potential date--I thought I was going to call back with specific information, they apparently thought otherwise. They were really nice about it. We have water.

The waste removal people are less flexible. They demanded specific dates. Please, if I had specific dates I wouldn't be sitting here eating a mediocre donut.

Several phone calls from our realtor verified that no, the title company has not received the documents as promised. Snap. In our minds these jokers are now more than stringing us along: they are lying, they are misleading, they are not to be trusted.

Then we received the news that the reason the documents hadn't been sent was due to a detected error which would have cost them $75, so the documents needed to be revised.

HELLO? Couple with frayed nerves, large rental truck, and sleeping on floor here.
I would have paid them $75 to just GET ON WITH IT!

We have once again been examining our option to simply walk away from it all. The entire move has been tainted by our buyer. They have disrupted two households, increased expenses, decreased sleep, and THEY DON'T CARE.

It's been a rainy and gray day, perfect weather for spending the day at the computer (my husband periodically calls out "where is my wife?" looking for confirmation that I haven't disappeared into cyberspace). I've been playing around with my website again (LOOK OUT!), making some questionable choices.

I spent a chunk of the weekend reworking the opening chapter of my first novel, and changing the title. All I can do is explore new possibilities, tighten the plot, develop the characters (until I quietly go insane, wondering if I will spend the rest of my life rewriting the same novel).

We received a phone call from our hard-working realtor Friday afternoon. The buyer's loan documents apparently have been completed (I need proof), but since it was Friday afternoon they weren't going to e-mail the packet to the title company until Monday. ?? !!!

Sure, fine, it's all good, never mind that we are lounging on the floor of our home, paying for each day the partially loaded rental truck sits in our driveway.

Hopefully, the buyer is in the states and still interested in purchasing this property that she made an offer on about 90 odd days ago, and we may actually
MOVE this week. We are hesistant to finish packing and loading until we are really really certain that the sale has been completed, closed and recorded, and even then, I bet it haunts us for awhile.

And it will be better than before . . .

I've been making pages of notes for revision. I love all of my characters, so it is difficult to cut, but I know the plot needs work, and so . . . I'm thinking I have once again fallen into the trap of trying too hard -- simplify, simplify.

Can you BELIEVE that the buyer's documents STILL aren't at the title company?! (My aunt would ask if they were sent by dogsled, but I think dogsled would be much faster than whatever means, if any, this group is using -- I bet the processor has a processor, has a processor. Aarghhhh!)

I spent far too much time at the community pool this morning, listening, yet again, to a one-sided dialogue I refer to as "The Republicans & Guns" speech. I have avoided this class because of this one person, a nice guy, but, silly me, I don't think I should have to repeatedly endure a testimony by a lifelong NRA member while participating in water aerobics (cruel and unusual punishment). While the only weapon I use is my brain (look out!), he is running the risk of being pummeled by a pool noodle.

"Send money, guns and lawyers . . ."

My husband gave me a golf lesson yesterday.

People who know us may be surprised to learn that it was the first time he has done so. We just hadn't gotten around to it before, and this is probably my fault -- I fogot to ask for assistance or show any interest, oops.

He's a great teacher, and, given all of our recent frustration, it felt very satisfying to repeatedly whack the ball and send it flying. If my arm didn't feel a little sore today I'd opt to have another go at it.

Instead I'm working on another revision of my novel (I know, all writing is re-writing); word has it I need to pull things together in a more cohesive manner. The last time I did a revision I cut fifty pages, this time I intend to add, and yet . . .

Flounder - 1) "flatfish," 2) "to struggle to move or obtain footing"; "to proceed or act clumsily or ineffectually" (WEBSTER'S)

Right now I feel a strong affinity for the word flounder -- all of the definitions. This does not bode well.

It occurred to me that our whole move/non-move experience is probably like a really tame episode of SURVIVOR.

Day 15: I'm running out of make-up.

This would be less of a crisis if I hadn't
a) repeatedly and abstractly scratched my neck to the extent that it looks like I've developed a suspicious rash (are all rashes suspicious?),
b) inherited the sensitive skin that some Irish apparently have (in my case this means a tendency toward red blotches and allergic reactions to most products).

We heard from one of our hard-working realtors today. Unfortunately the news is more of the same. It feels like it's anyone's guess when the necessary documents will show up at the title company; the projected dates keep getting pushed back.

It's like they are expecting us to just be on standby (with a moving truck) for a closing at some point (not that any of the documents mention this).

Wow, what an election. I am amazed (and strangely proud) that people stood in line for hours and hours to vote (and didn't fight). I hope that we can improve the methods, flow and access for next time.

I've been reading Sarah Dunn's The BIG LOVE, a debut novel by a talented writer who has created a protagonist that readers pull for, not unlike Bridget Jones, although Dunn's use of detail and narrative style shows more depth.

I've also been attempting to participate in an online "class"/discussion about Jennifer Weiner's LITTLE EARTHQUAKES. I typically have to log on three times before I am able to enter the classroom and wade through the messages, and then I find I have little to say and it's time for me to log off because I'm tying up the phone line (yes, I know, nobody uses phone lines anymore).

It's 5 degrees outside. We will probably unload the rental truck later. Our refrigerator has never been so empty, which means it's a good time to clean it. I have refrained from painting the closets, so far.

Maybe we will receive, finally, the green light on the move today, or tomorrow, or . . . We realized that we can't back out of this transaction so we are at the mercy of our oblivious buyer.

I'm hoping for record breaking voting today; I'm hoping things don't turn volatile in the long lines. I'm also hoping that everyone plays fair.

I'd appreciate a phone call that indicates this move is indeed occurring, not that I actually believe anything said by the buyers anymore. I've been bombarded by political advertisements for months and months, I don't need any more empty promises.

It's incredibly cold here, we are both having back problems, I can't imagine unloading the truck in our garage. This has been a big lesson in trust and transactions, although I'm not quite sure what I have learned.