Count Down

 

The pod arrived on Friday, but not until after 4:30 pm. By then Ken was home and as I suspected he rushed out and was doing his "man of the house" routine. The woman who delivered the pod told me that the door to the pod could be placed to face either direction. But Ken jumped in with "put it here", mainly because he didn't want to have to move his van. As a result, the door to the pod is facing away from the gate and we have to walk up a small incline. Even though I spoke up and requested the door face the gate, no, she listened to Mr. Bossman. I have to work harder to keep from emasculating a guy. I remember it with every heavy box I have been carrying up that incline. I was so furious with my brother, and I let him know it. Then I went to my room, smoked almost a whole joint by myself and went to sleep without making him dinner. Having gone to bed at 5:30 pm, I woke up at 2:00 am. The headache that I had brewed the day before was still with me and I was grumpy with the frustration that I have been feeling.

Karen is the only one of us who has actually been inside the house. Her description of the floorplan is that you walk into the house and into the main hall. on either side of the hall are two of the bedrooms, the kitchen and the living room. In the middle of the hall is a small staircase that goes up to a landing where the bathroom is, then goes to the back of the house and staircase that leads to my area upstairs. The only problem is that looking at the pictures I have, there is just no way that is a three-story house. And it isn't the style that lends itself to being a split level. Anytime I show her the pictures and ask for an explanation of what I'm seeing, she says she can't explain it, and I will just have to wait and see. That too has been a source of irritation to me. It's not just that she can't tell me anything about the floor plan, but she says she didn't pay attention to things like closets and pantries. What she saw as the porch, and that is all she apparently needed to know.

I used my early morning hours looking at the few pictures I have trying to figure out what exactly I can expect. And to my amazement I did actually come up with a reasonable deduction of what is there. The revelation started with a picture of the back of the house. I noticed that the shades are up in the upper left window. And in that window is a can of some sort. I was able to locate that window from the pictures I have of my area inside. It is the window that you face as you come up the stairs to my landing. It accounts for one the dormer windows. There is a picture of the bathroom where that window is showing in the mirror above the vanity and sinks. The other two dormer windows are in my bedroom and bonus room.

Coming up the stairs to my area, there is a rather large landing. Karen says that it is large enough for a small seating area. The window that you see is the one that I noticed the can sitting in. For the window to be in the mirror in the bathroom it has to be the door opposite it, it's kind of hard to see. The door on the left with a window showing is the larger of my two rooms. Karen can't really give me an idea of how large it is. But it has it's own mini split. There is a second one in the landing. and all of the rooms have ceiling fans. There are also closets in both of my rooms and a large linen closet in the bathroom. But the bedroom closets seem like they may be on the small side. From what I can tell from the pictures I have; the smaller closet may be close to the size of the closet that I currently use. The other room, the closet may be the size that you see in a child's bedroom. It will be more storage space than I have had for a while. I'm really kind of excited about this now.

After being up several hours figuring all this out I decided to take a nap and get up Saturday morning ready to go fresh. I woke up around 9:30 am. Karen was sitting in the living room playing games on her cell phone. Ken was in his room watching YouTube. I went out to the pod to see what we had to work with. It is 16 feet long, which is way more than I can imagine that we will use as we do not plan to take a majority of our furniture. Inside the pod are handles that can be used to tie the boxes in place so they don't slip around the unit during transit. I hadn't thought about that, so as much as I didn't want to spend money and especially at the big box store that I went too. But I needed to get things so we can get this show on the road...literally. When I got home, Karen and Ken had not moved from the locations they were in when I left. My frustrations began to flourish again. 

They are coming on Friday to pick the pod up and ship it. I am more than willing to bet that it won't be 4:30 in the afternoon. Probably more like 8:00 am. So, we need to have it packed and ready to go by Thursday night. There is nothing that I can do to motivate Karen and Ken. They are making their own decisions here. I have decided that all I can do is make sure that my things are in the pod. Karen and I already had around 30 boxes packed and stacked up in the living room. I grabbed a travel dolly that I had taking up space in my bedroom and started hauling boxes out to the pod. My plan was to take the larger and heavier boxes first. Then add a layer of larger lightweight boxes and then stacking the smaller boxes on top of them, doing one row at a time so we don't have to reach over a row of boxes to stack the pod to the ceiling. We have space, but we won't if we waste it. Karen wouldn't even stop to listen to my plan. She had three rows deep before we were even stacked halfway up. I kept having to rearrange it. 

I was exhausted to the point of physically shaking by the time we got all the boxes in the pod. When we came back into the house, Ken was pulling on his shoes and asked if he could help us load. For the three and a half hours that we were loading and arranging the pod, he sat in his bedroom watching YouTube, and as soon as we were done, he decided he should be helping.

When I got up this morning, it was Ground Hog's Day all over again. Karen was sitting on the couch playing games on her cell phone and Ken was in his bedroom watching YouTube. The only difference was that Ken had gone out and brought me home two egg McMuffins. I looked around and decided that it's time to get down to the suitcase that I will be taking with me on the trip across the country. I had told myself that it would be fine to leave my bookcases intact. At first, I wasn't going to take them. They are cheap Ikea knockoffs. But when I was in the big box store, I noticed that they are more than what I paid for them three years ago when I bought them. And with the clown we have running the country, who knows how much more they will cost next week. 

Last night I thought leaving the shelves constructed would be fine. But why? Even with plenty of space, it will fill up fast if we all do things like that. So, I deconstructed them and my desk. Then I went through my clothes and packed everything I know for sure I won't be taking in my suitcase for the trip. I need to do laundry before I can finish this task. And I couldn't, because as soon as I started taking my furniture apart, Karen got up an started doing her laundry. I will do mine tomorrow and work out just what I plan on taking with me. Everything else will be packed and taken out to the pod. My hope is to be living out of my suitcase tomorrow night, and if not, at least by Tuesday night. 

Karen's last day at work is Tuesday. I honestly do not know if Ken has even put in notice that he's leaving. It's important that he contacts Social Security. But I dare not even broach the subject with him. He knows this, but he is being a dick about it. I'm going to do my thing and let him FAFO. It would be nice if we could sit down like adults and have a constructive discussion about what the timetables are and what needs to happen. But no, that can't happen when people turn stubborn and refuse to do their part. 

Realistically, the communication has not been stellar. Karen insisted that she has the planning under control. When I'd ask for information that I needed, like "What's the target move date?" and "When is the pod coming?" or "Do we have junkers coming to take refuse away?" I was more likely to get a "Don't worry about it, everything is taken care of." Only it isn't very well planned. Nora is coming to help us pack on Thursday night. The pod will be gone the next morning. 

My frustration at this point is boundless. All I can really do is make sure that I have done what I need for myself. I know that by this time next month, I will be complaining because I won't be able to find all my stuff and I wish I'd labeled the boxes better. I hope that we will all be settling into our new home.