Month: July 2017

I’m home.

Finally, after months of searching and agonizing and driving for miles, I am finally home.

The search for our perfect house was arduous. The negotiating was tedious. The packing and unpacking was endless and the unpacking is still going on.  I’m thinking we’ll be completely unpacked in another 5 years. But “it’s all good”, as our steadfast, loving Washington realtor reminded us on a regular basis.

It’s all good.

The cats are currently trying to figure out what kind of long-legged felines the deer roaming our backyard resemble. The Princess is trying to understand the complexities and logic of roundabouts while cruising around town.

And I’m still looking for my long underwear that’s somewhere buried in one of these mystery boxes.

It’s all good, though.

We’re currently experiencing balmy weather in this part of the country, but woo-hoo when it’s cold out here, it’s bone chilling cold.

Yes-siree, Bob, I’m sure glad the Princess and I like the cooler temps, because we’d sure as heck be SOL, if we didn’t.

The sun comes up early in the morning in the summer months and doesn’t set until well into the evening hours, and we just got internet services for the first time in two weeks. The world has gone on without Lucie and the Princess’s daily participation and knowledge of it.

And as far as I’m concerned, it’s all good. Mind you, the Princess doesn’t currently share that opinion, but the Princess has been through our local roundabout one too many times, lately.

Our journey here was challenging, but rewarding.

When we crossed the southern edge of the Washington border, rain, cold and clouds greeted us as we quietly drove-on into what seemed like an endless gray mass of cold and yuck. Each of us quiet with our thoughts and emotions, as the two cats slept-on snuggled safely in their special traveling carrier that we meticulously stuffed with soft, woolen blankets and items that smelled vaguely familiar and reminded them of home.

As the rain pounded our windshield, the car’s wipers appeared to quietly repeat my silent prayer with each passing stroke: “Please, Lord, keep us safe and let this be the right decision for my family and me.”

“Please Lord,” I solemnly mouthed while looking out at the cold, rainy scene of what was soon to be my home state.

When we finally pulled into the driveway of our house that Friday evening, tired and emotionally wrought, we gathered up our belongings and set about blowing up what would be our bed for the first two nights.

Todd, our Allied van driver, wouldn’t arrive until two days later. I remembered watching him carefully pilot his 18-wheeled behemoth, containing our furniture and comfy beds, crawling slowly down our roadway through a ghost-grey fog and hair-curling mist, and wondering, “Did the Princess and I really do this? Did we just move miles away from family and loved ones to a state where virtually no one knows us and leave behind most everything and everyone that’s dear to us?”

And then my older brother, Anthony and his wife, Lucy, showed up driving their RV from a visit with my niece in Seattle to come help us with our move in.

This gray-haired lug who I fought with as a child over everything from mowing the lawn to shoveling the driveway was suddenly Lancelot with his adoring Guinevere standing next to him, smiling and graciously offering us a chair that she had taken out of the RV.

“Here, Lucie,” she said while setting up one of their folding chairs in the middle of our empty living room floor. “Sit down for a minute. You look like you could use a little break.”

And then my brother came over to me before I collapsed into one of the chairs, embraced me in a bear hug and whispered into my ear, “You did good, Lucie. You both did good, and I’m proud of you.”

Yes we did. And we continue to do good with the support of loving, kind family members, friends and strangers who want nothing for us but good things.

We still don’t have television, haven’t read a newspaper in days, and are still waiting for the Maytag people to pick-up the broken microwave and repair the new washer and dryer, but life is good at our end, People, and I pray that life is good with you, too.

Be well and I’ll catch ya the next time, looking at life from my shoes.