When HA and I first moved into our mainland house, it was chaotic. She had moved twice in just over a year. I had announced my retirement, trying to wind things down with my patients, covid was in full swing, and my practice was just wild. HA moved first, then coordinated the move of my life from the house where I’d lived for 18 years. I didn’t have the time to perform much triage, so we basically moved everything I owned and combined it with her household, then sorted it out later (much of it to donations, recycling, and landfill — I’d gathered a lot in my sessile 18 years).

It became a running joke whenever anyone said “Do you have any idea where the … is?” To answer with “Yeah, it’s in a box in the garage.”

This move has been different. We’ve gone through everything and pared stuff down a lot; which is good, as we’re downsizing from about 2,400 square feet to about 900. But there’s the added complication of the fact that everything that didn’t fit in checked baggage or carry-ons is destined for a shipping container that will spend weeks sailing across the ocean.

The biggest problem will be tools, as I’m building a garage and extensively renovating an outbuilding (“the studio”) and re-doing the solar power system which also means re-wiring the house.

I can already tell that, at least for the next couple of months, the automatic answer to “Where is…?” will be “It’s on the boat.”

—2p

addendum 2024-10-04

I’m still identifying stuff as being “on the boat,” but actually it’s in a container parked at a small harbor near our home. It was shipped as a partial container, however, so they can’t just drag the whole thing to us. Our movers have to wait for Matson to unship the items in the container so the movers can hire trucks to bring our treasures up the mountain. For the last week or so, they’ve been telling us that Matson is unpredictable, but it can be from “two days to three weeks.” I semi-seriously have called next Tuesday 2024-10-08 as the magic day. HA says 2024-10-21. Alas, I think she’s going to win this one.

addendum 2024-10-10

The wait is over!

← previous|next →