Casting About

Castaway Cay is the name of Disney's private island in the Bahamas.  An idyllic place to land after bobbing about in the ocean.  The name reminds me of what we're presently doing: casting about for what to move next!

While hurried moves can be distressing, having a month in which to move house is almost too long.  There's still that little voice in your head saying: Hurry up, time's a-wasting! Something might go wrong.

We're at that state.  While we have a timeline in which certain things should be accomplished, there's a lot of wiggle room.  We began with the concept of moving a room a day, but there was extra time, so some rooms got moved ahead of schedule.  Then some planned events (the new gas line for the dryer, for instance) got delayed due to availability of workers.  Cleaning the house took two days instead of one.  While we've mostly adopted the Mexican approach to life - mañana - it still throws a wrench into one's plans.

So here we are at 4 am, wondering what's next.  There is a point where everything will move to the new house and then we'll live there!  But we're still in the stage of maintaining a life in the old house: the kitchen appliances are here, so we'll be eating here; the office is still here, so we're working here; and our bedroom is still here, so we're sleeping here.  And since our internet/telephone/phone service is tied together - and you can't have service at two locations at once - the final move must be carefully choreographed.

We have, on the other hand, signed up on line to review the electrical billings of the new house.  That is amazingly simple.  Not that we can switch the ownership of the account to us without purchasing the property (where in the states they only care about who is paying the bill), but we can sign-up online to review the account if we have the name and number associated with it.  And since bills are delivered door-to-door, we have the information for the new place, too.

It gives you an idea of what kind of deadbeat your landlord is, that's for sure!  He presently owes $301 pesos in arrears.  Which is a different concept here, too.  Why pay my taxes when the government won't try to collect for a few years?  How long does it take to turn off services? There's always mañana....

I'm sure we'll think of something useful to do today.  Once the Mega opens I can get a pair of gardening gloves and attack the weeds in the new back yard.  Our gardener didn't show yesterday and the dogs can't go over until the backyard is cleared up or we'll be brushing coats for days.  We'll have help on Monday for moving heavy stuff (though the washer/dryer and kitchen appliances, for instance, will go at the last minute). And Tuesday the carpenter will be here to remove the upper kitchen cabinets which we're having reworked for the new house.  We put the upper cabinets in ourselves, so they're ours to do with as we please - and it pleases us to move them.  That means we need to bundle up all our dishes and stemware so they can move the cabinets to their workrooms - but that requires bubblewrap and the Office Depot doesn't open until later in the morning.

And today we're going to see the Luche Libre - Mexican-style wrestling by big guys wearing head-covering masks.  Can you believe that some appear in movies wearing still wearing their masks?!?  Bizarre.  I'm hoping our friends can explain some of this mystique to us....

It's now about 5 am: Mega opens at 8; Office Depot at 10.  Perhaps a little nap is required.  In the meanwhile, we'll cast about for something useful to do.