An Evening After the Rain in Chapel Hill

This is a post with at least a couple of notable firsts. The first being I am writing and posting this not from my usual position in front of my computer at home, but standing up at a kitchen counter in North Carolina. The kitchen counter is rented. It is included with the apartment my daughter will be paying for until the end of this month. It's an okay counter. The height is just right to type standing up. There's no table to spread out on anymore. One of her roomates found a job a couple of weeks ago and moved out lock stock, and table to Dallas, Texas. So my first real time long distance post delivery is done standing at a kitchen counter with Mikey the goldfish looking on with critical eye. I am not sure if he has a bemused look, or is he just making sure I don't get frantic with my typing and knock the poor bastard off the counter I am sharing with him. Either way, Mikey the goldfish is keeping close tabs on me.

The second notable first is I am using a lap top computer for the first and I hope the only time in my life. The keys are enough different that my normal comfort here is way out of whack. But I guess it's a good lap top. It's getting er done.

The trip down here from Maine was nowhere near as bad as I had built it up to be in my mind before we started. Truth be told, an uninteresting trip with nothing of real note happening. I don't think we even saw an accident. I ran into no characters worth mentioning. Every person out there on the I-95 was busy making it from point A to Point B. No histronics or fuss, just folks busy traveling.

Of course the events and anxieties of the pre trip gyrations yesterday morning certainly covered any concerns I had about missing out on the stress of traveling. All week previous I could feel the tension rising and the emotional controls being kicked into gear. The more I insisted I was taking it as it came, the screws became a tad tighter as I struggled to remember all the important crap to not forget for the trip. Trailer hitches, boxes, tape, packing paper, tarps, and last but no least those personal items like clothes, toothbrush and an extra pair of flip flops incase I suffer a blow out in the old pair. Good thing I made a list and checked it at least once before we left.

My wife became irritated yesterday morining. At whatever ungodly hour she wanted us to leave, found me not even in the same ballpark. Loading the truck up with all the moving supplies took 2 hours longer than I figured. I made sure what I took would make it through any precipitation might encounter. I was not even close to meeting her scedule. A perfect set-up for a rocky start. SHe got pissy. I got pissy back. I said if she was gonna be pissy, I would slow right down.

"You mean you can actually go slower? I did not think it was possible."

Well I showed her. If my normal turtle pace was not fast enough....... hey, packing into an open truck bed can be tricky if dry is what you are after.......Anyway, if she thought I was slow now, over the next hour, I proved I had lower speed limits I could maintain. We left around 8:30AM only 2 & 1/2 hours later than she had planned.

As it turns out, we made it just fine. Any pain we suffered was self inflicted. And in a few days, I get to repeat it, just in the opposite direction.

The Nun picture has nothing what so ever to do with this post.

Later.