Shake it like a Polaroid picture

I don't know about you, but I think I already know how to do this exercise.

*insert other witty dick jokes here*

Eighteen piles and a dozen roses

If you know the song I just bastardized, well, kudos, my friend.  It gets stuck in my head sometimes, much like another bizarre country tune that my childhood pals in East Texas and I would shout out as we were swaying on a tree swing.  

I know.  It will haunt you forever.  You're welcome.

There's a point I was going to make with this.  Let me remind myself.... Um... Ah.  Okay.

So, yes.  We are moving, as mentioned in my previous silly rant.  As of today, I have roughly two months to get my butt in gear and to pack all of our precious collections.  Collections become less precious when you find out just how much it will cost to haul that junk across state lines.  Very much less precious.

We've decided to employ the help of a moving company, a sort of you-pack-it, we-haul-it situation.  Considering we have one child and cat in our inventory, it seems better to stuff all of us in the car and let someone else drag our cargo to the final destination.  We've done the whole rent-a-truck-and-frighten-yourself-to-death routine with the driving and the hauling and the driving and the driving.  I know that driving with a cat while following your husband who is driving a Penske truck (without his CDL or a chaw of tobaccy in his mouth) seems romantic, but adding a child to the mix creates a new dimension of terror and excitement.  Being a trucker just isn't high on my list of priorities these days.  My old bones aren't up to the challenge anymore.

So, this creates a different problem.  We will be charged by the foot in this giant tractor trailer.  Can you look at everything in your house and say, "Hmm... it looks like we have 13 feet of possessions."?  Well, I can't.  I'm trying to learn the process of turning an entire household into a miniature Borg ship of cubic dimensions.  Don't even get me started on how painful it will be when we assimilate and become cybernetic organisms.  I know, I know.  Resistance is futile.

It's much easier to rent a moving truck and start out with good intentions, with the careful packing of items into boxes of the same size.  As you start the process, you congratulate yourself on how nicely you've stacked your items in the back of the truck.  Then, as the hours drag on and the random crap is still rolling around your house, you begin to stuff things haphazardly into baskets and bags and hobo bindles, cursing yourself for every little thing you've ever purchased in your lifetime.  When you're sweaty and throwing garbage bags full of junk into the truck, desperately trying to close the door to your U-Haul, that is when hindsight kicks you right in the balls.

I really don't like that guy, Hindsight.

I think you see my dilemma.  How does a very unorganized person become organized enough to create  X-amount of space in a tractor trailer to minimize the freight charges?  I can rent a moving truck that is 26 feet, and then proceed to shove my garbage bags into it without problem.  But, can I turn that loosely (and probably dangerously) packed 26 feet into a quaint and dainty square of 13 feet or less?  And before you answer, can I do that without having every single item break in transit?  Ha HA!  See?  It's not so easy.

It's one thing to accept this challenge when the distance is only across town.  It's quite another when you cross an entire continent.

I guess what I'm saying is that we are very popular right now with the charity organizations that drive around and pick up clothing and household donations.  Every few days, one of them calls.  We have the Lupus Foundation and the ARC folks battling it out over who gets my legwarmers and acid-washed jeans.  It's not a pretty sight when diseases and the underpriviledged engage in hand-to-hand combat in the streets over "vintage" clothing.  I'm just trying to help, people.  I'm just trying to help. 

So, keep us in your thoughts as we try to pry ourselves free of our possessions.  Perhaps I will try to assemble the 13 foot (or less, please) Borg ship before we slap it into the truck.  I suspect, however, that the whole thing will fall on me in a very disastrous way.  I should leave this to the professionals, me thinks.

Good thing I'll have the Rubber Duck taking care of things in his convoy.

Convoy!  Convoy!

I'm movin' on up, to the east side

Pennsylvania, to be exact. Yes, dear reader whose face I would try to delicately read with my hands but cannot because I would never let you into my house when you're dressed like a tart and smelling of cheese, I am leaving Colorado and my beloved Denver for the literal greener pastures of southeastern Pennsylvania.

Folks who know my exploits on other various things I spout upon are already aware of this, but I figured the world at large should know, since I'm sure my absence of late has been a large worry. Or not.

I've hesitated to talk about this, which caused me to basically seize up and refrain from saying nary a word on this here ol' Binky. I'm like that, you know. All chatty chatty bang bang, and then when craziness smooshes my bits, I clam up that trap of mine and just smile and nod. I know, I know. That's not exactly the hallmark of a blogger who happens to discuss juicy personal deets, but such is the life of this lady. After all, why talk about something when it's only in the decision stages, and get people all worked up about it with delight or pounding their chests with fury? That's what Fox News is for.

Now for the question and answer round of this program.

Why, you ask. Why would you do such a thing? Well, if you've been any sort of reader of mine (and I do love you and pet you and call you my Squishy for being so), then you are quite aware of the Disaster of All Disasters to Ever Strike a Binky. Otherwise known as leaving for Texas to take care of two parents at two separate times during one year, only to have both of them die up on the cabin floor (as Woody Guthrie would say). These events, while sad and tragic and such, caused the adults in this household to reexamine our lives. We realized, well, I realized first and then Phil realized because I told him so, that our son should grow up around family.

And that's how it will be.

Come December, these people of mine will pull up stakes and head east. We'll be north of Philadelphia in the land of Bucks County. No, I won't tell you where, you perv. It dawned on me one day that this decision was made partly because of the loss of my father, who would protest loudly if he were alive and knew I was doing this. You see, it was bad enough that his daughter married a Yankee. Now she's going to BECOME one?! Egads. Or ding dang, if you're Southern. See?! I don't even know who I am anymore! Damn you, dirty apes!

So, what's done is done. The check is in the mail, the lease is signed. Too bad, Dad. My kid needs grandparents. You could have stuck around for the interview.

Would I make this decision if I didn't have Amos? Tricky, tricky. Phil and I have been happy nomads all these years, living out on the high desert plains and supping upon the feasts of the Rocky Mountains. I'd probably pick Istanbul or Prague or some other exotic and probably dangerous location, if one was to poke at me and demand that I leave Denver. As it turns out, the fruit of my loins has more say in this even if he never said a thing at all about it.

Sigh.

Ah, but turn that frown upside down, mon friend. Pennsylvania is a land of many contrasts, I've been told by those who took PA history in school. Indeed, Pennsylvania and Bucks County in particular are quite spectacular. I have always enjoyed visiting there, seeing the lush forests and greenery, and making fun of all of the delis and such that proclaim "Steaks and Hoagies" on their front windows. The first time I saw that, I asked Phil, "Jeez, are these people meat eaters or what with all their steaks?!" Silly silly me. I didn't know that it referred to cheesesteaks.

Ah, cheesesteaks. Pennsylvania's state bird: the cheesesteak. Pennsylvania's state motto: The Cheesesteak State, Land of Many Contrasts and Toppings and Cheese Whiz.

Did I mention how great Phil's relatives are? Yeah. Anyone who causes me to pull roots and travel over 1,700 miles better be darn great. And they are.

In my neurosis, I actually had to sit down and think long and hard over a pro versus con list of why we should go there. It turns out that big changes kinda make me wacky these days, as you might imagine after having all the death and the dying and the croaking and the such. Makes a lady batty, y'know? There were more yeas than nays, but I know I will still have a few problems with the negatives. Maybe that's where you can help me. Let's get all Oprah on this and treat it like a national crisis that I must overcome these obstacles. And then write a book about it.

Cons

1) The accent. I know. I KNOW! It's hideous! (Except for you, of course, dear East Coaster, I'm sure you don't sound as awful as I think...er.). There are many accents that I can take, some that I dare say I find charming, but I tells ya and I tells ya, the southeastern Pennsylvania accent with its ca-ozy instead of cozy and ha-oagie instead of hoagie?! UGH! It makes me shiver and shake and twitch and twitter. Any "oh" sound in that region is mangled into something that inserts an "ah" sound in front of it. It's wrong, Pennsylvania. It's DEAD WRONG what you did to those words.

(No, I will not defend the various Texas accents in this debate since I am from there. I don't sound like that. You, Texan, will have to live with yourself for creating those sounds.)

(See? I'm even-handed here. I don't hate the player, I hate the game.)

2) Hoagies. Yes, I said it. Hah-oagies. I've never disliked a word before as much as I dislike that word. I'm pretty sure it will prevent me from eating one. Maybe that's not so bad, you think, but the little towns around where I will live are cornfed on these sandwiches. Hah-oagies are the bread and butter of that area, and I won't be able to swing a dead whatever around without hitting a hoagie. I'm sure they are tasty, Pennsylvania, but the way you say that word and keep saying it and then keep posting it on every window everywhere to ever exist, which in turn reminds me of the way you say it? Oh, boy.

(Yes, another set of parenthesis. Now, understand that I am somewhat pulling your chain here. Tongue in cheek, my friend. I'm not actually all bent out of shape here, you dig? What else do I have to write about besides random things that may or may not be ridiculous?)

3) The problem that shall not be named. No, don't even ask. I mean it. Stop. I said quit!


So, there you go. Or, there my go, as Amos would say. Eh, I guess that's not so many problems. As you can see, I doth protest too much. I will suck it up and try to plug up my ears whenever the vernacular offenses occur. I will be a Pennsylvanian. I WILL be a Pennsylvanian. I'm not sure if I'll get gussied up in a Quaker outfit or the undergarments of the Amish as part of my initiation, but what the heck. I'll do it, Pennsylvania, for you. And for my kid.

Aw, shucks. And I think you're kinda cute, too. Heheheh. No, YOU stop.