The Move Effected
It's done. Saturday was the day of the move. Took the entire day. The movers sent a straight van, the largest there is, apart from a step up to a tractor-trailer. And three men to effect the move. They arrived three-quarters of an hour later than anticipated. And more than made up for the lag in time by their incredible efforts. From our own experience in moving households we feel that it's the smaller, more wiry men who seem to be the strongest, work the hardest. But, of course, that's not always the case. In this particular instance there were two men verging on the large-stout end and one, younger, thin, stooped. They worked well together. We didn't arrive on the scene until noon. It was our daughter's move, after all.
We had stopped to pick up some pine boards to take the place of the box spring that had to be returned because it just would not allow itself to be prodded, pulled or shoved into the main bedroom upstairs upon delivery from the store, the day before. Just temporary; there's a split box spring on order, and when it arrives we'll haul it ourselves on the car-top carrier. We loaded up our car trunk with some items, including two full gas-can carriers the movers couldn't take, a couple of middling-size ceramic elephants, Angelyne's miniature Victorian chair we'd bought when she was a baby (she's too big to sit in it now) and other odds and sods. And, oh yes, Stevie the Sheltie and Zoe the Pomeranian.
We helped Karen load the eight rabbits in their carriers into the back of her Honda SUV, then her other five dogs went into the back seat of the vehicle, the two tiny ones sharing the front with her and Angelyne. Karen had been in a panic that we'd arrived "so late"; she thought the movers would finish loading up the van before we arrived and she'd be stuck there unable to leave until our arrival. That obviously didn't happen, but she was on tenterhooks anyway, and began weeping, frightened and in momentary despair, as she contemplated the daunting task before her.
There were so many boxes crammed with their worldly possessions that despite the fact that she wasn't moving bedroom sets, nor kitchen appliances there wasn't room in the van for her garden furniture, despite that she decided to sacrifice the washer and dryer that she'd intended taking with her. All of the appliances were left for her in the log house she had bought, by the previous owners. She'd bought the washer/dryer set for the house she was now leaving and didn't feel inclined to leave them for him to use, although she had offered to sell them to him. She didn't feel particularly generous nor kindly disposed toward him considering the manner in which he had tried his utmost to completely shaft her, demonstrating his willingness to send her and her child out into the world without a penny, despite the thousands of dollars she'd given him.
We arrived at the new house first, opened up, let poor little Stevie and Zoe in, to their complete bemusement, along with Button and Riley. So all of them were able to put up a racket of whining and pleading to be let out of that strange new place. Soon enough Karen and Angelyne arrived with the rest of the contingent and then things began to get interesting. The neighbours wouldn't mind though, since Karen's new neighbour is the local representative for the Humane Society, and they've got their own menagerie across the street. Their geese were honking up a racket themselves.
Once the moving truck arrived the front door was left open to the elements, frigid air rushing in like an Arctic storm as they hauled items relentlessly from truck to home. Pieces that Irving and I had bought forty years ago and more, for a relative pittance, because back then very few people were interested in buying pine Canadiana. Because we were so poor back then, though, even shelling out a few dollars for these items had been difficult for us. Now, in came the dough box, the two washstands, the rocker, the Nova Scotia pub chairs, the Hoosier, the large flat-panelled armoire, the pine commode with walnut acorn pulls, the six-board chests, the rough benches. They too had finally found their home. Along with the granddaughter clock Irving had made aeons ago, and the huge oak bellows table he'd constructed, and the pine diamond point reproduction armoire her brother had built some twenty years earlier. And the pine kitchen table her father had made for her birthday, ten years ago. This one hundred and fifty year-old house absorbed everything. And everything looked just right. The furniture glowed in there, took their comfortable, comforting place in the interior of that wonderful house that is now their home.
All the while that the movers travelled back and forth with furniture, boxes, Irving was upstairs in the large bedroom where the dogs were also sequestered, safely out of the way, while he put together the bed and bed frame for Karen's new queen-size bed. Angie's would be downstairs in the bedroom off the great room, and hers is a double, and would require the same effort to get it up and usable. In the meantime, the dogs took grudging comfort in the presence of their owner's father, and were kept from getting underfoot at every turn. I accepted small items from the movers at the door to bring them into various places in the house, and Karen hauled as many of the boxes from van to house as she could manage, herself.
The great room, ah the great room. Truly a great room. The squared timbers which horizontally comprise the walls of the house, chinked with cement and whitened with mortar, are truly impressive, warm and protective. The ceiling beams are uniformly 15" in diameter; where to find such trees today? The windows marching along the long wall of the room emit light even on this overcast, cold day, and the views through them, and the tall windows on either side of the cast-iron propane-burning fireplace give out onto a view of richly rolling, tree-encrusted land. Right outside those windows a constant stream of birds flit over to peck at suet, at seeds in abundance.
Everything has been safely stored inside by six in the evening. The dogs are permitted to come downstairs from their temporary bedroom prison. We'd been unable to find Tibby the cat at first, worried she'd slipped out at some point, but she was there, deep in one of the many built-in closets. All of the rabbits' cages had been set up and they appeared none the worse for the ordeal. Angelyne had been opening the large refrigerator steadily throughout these working hours; her energy hadn't been severly depleted. She'd been very helpful in assisting her grandfather, putting her own bed together. On clear days, we tell her, she will be able to look up through the skylight in her bedroom, and see the moon and the stars.
There are a few other things we help out with before finally decamping to drive back to Ottawa; sixty wearying miles to get back to our own home. As we pull away our daughter and granddaughter are framed in the blazing light of those large front windows, waving at us, and we feel that they've finally found their home.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, February 15, 2006
<< Home