Friday, October 26, 2007

day 11

Day 1: See previous, oh-so-overly-dramatic post.
Day 2: Found another bottle of wine on our porch. Hello, neighbors! I love you!
Day 3: Try to jam lawn ornament into ground. It refuses and instead pops up and smacks me on the eye. Spend hours holding washcloth full of ice cubes to eye. Say things like, "Boy, this move is going GREAT!" and other such sarcastic witticisms. Get black eye.
Day 4: Time drive to downtown, which equals about eight minutes. Later, go for walk around neighborhood. Everyone says hey. Watch, miraculously, as feeling of joy spreads over body. I love moving! Everything is an adventure!
Day 5: Begin daily fights with cable and Internet provider who treat hooking up our service as if they are building the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Relearn that Everyone. In. Customer. Service. Lies. The first commandment of cable/Internet customer service handbook: Lie to get people off the phone.
Day 6: Unpack all day long. Dig hole in neighbor's yard to put up mailboxes. She wasn't happy. Give peace offering of bags of daffodil and crocus bulbs.
Day 7: Nearly have a coronary when I discover I STILL DO NOT HAVE MY E-MAIL ADDRESS. What does it take, BellSouth, now AT&T? A letter written in blood? A nuclear missile pointed at your headquarters? It may seem small, but this is my business, people! Six hours later, get e-mail address. Proceed to ignore e-mails.
Day 8: Instead of going to grocery store, eat at seriously nasty barbecue joint in neighborhood. Seriously. Ugh. Feel sick all night.
Day 9: Go to local Italian restaurant because I still haven't gone to the grocery store. Eat the most delicious butternut squash soup while talking with the waitress about the car that drove over the ledge next to the parking lot. Watch as the Hershey Kiss Mobile pulls into said parking lot. Listen in on conversations the two women driving the mobile have with other diners. One orders friend zucchini because she is "a zucchini freak." We and they ooh and aahh over food because it is so so so good. Leave after tow-truck comes and rescues the car that drove over the ledge. Everyone yells out "Have a nice night!" as we leave. A Hershey Kiss woman follows us out, opens up a compartment on the mobile, hands us handfuls of kisses. Pat and I high-five each other as we drive away. West Asheville rocks!
Day 10: Sit on porch in the sun updating address book. Feel all the love in the world with this light on me, warm and comforting. Neighbor walks buy, whistling the theme to Andy Griffith. Obsess that it was a slight directed at me. Our neighbors hate us. Love disappears.
Day 11: I don't know where our current post office is and I don't know what gas station to go to. It's like choosing a date for the prom, discovering the post office and local gas station. Drive to Swannanoa to meet friend at diner. Go to the post office and gas station in Swannanoa, my old prom dates.

Monday, October 15, 2007

today

Things that happened today:

Woke up way before dawn.
Somehow got to work, though I don't remember driving there.
Finished edits on multiple brochures.
Wrote things on flip chart paper.
Picked up check.
Got e-mail from new editor.
Went to fast food joint, waited in line to get a chicken sandwich.
Watched my entire life get carted into a strange house, miles away from our original house, where I stood in shock and just wanted to chuck everything out the window and run back to Potato Knob because why why why did I want to move? Why? I love it, so. When everything in my life has gone to hell, that was my refuge! Why am I leaving my refuge???
Cried.
Cried some more.
Watched movers get stuck in the driveway at the new house. Really stuck. Like stuck in the middle of the road, blocking the entire road (Watch out neighborhood! Here we are!!).
Neighbors came over with warm pumpkin-shaped cookies, a jade plant and a bottle of wine. Kids go crazy on furniture, run up and down stairs. Went to neighbors' house for spaghetti.
Went back to original house.
Saw old neighbor while holding hands with Pat, walking down the road, looking at the moon and the stars.
Started crying again. Walked back home.
Changed light bulb on porch because the new people need to see where they're going even thought they can't possibly love the house as much as I love it.
Cried again.
Wrote this post.
Remembered: Change is good.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Spotted on the morning commute

A small, Milk-of-Magnesia pink sedan driven by a large African-American man wearing a light pink button-up shirt. I can't exactly see who is in the passenger seat, but using my crack intelligence, I was able to figure it out from these astonishingly subtle clues.

Clue One: All the model and make decals have been replaced with gold block letters, reading PLAYBOY.

Clue Two: On the license plate: PLA BOY

Clue Three: The license plate "frame" (is that the right word?) reads, on top: PLAYBOY. On bottom: Miss January.

I passed them, trying to get a look, but then that sweet pink sedan got stuck behind a school bus as I zoomed off. That totally made my entire day.