The Everything Update

Dear Readers,

Much has transpired since last we spoke. Rather than try to string together time and sanity to do individual topic updates, I thought it would be more efficient to throw it all in a blender and see what oozes out of the mix.

WORK/BUSINESS

After an initial flurry of optimism generated by actual business coming in the door, my LLC has been conspicuously quiet for the last 3 months or so. Part of that is the seasonal nature of the business. Part is probably not enough solid business contacts to support a growing business. I’ve got a lot of people who say they want to send me business, but the grand total of those who have actually come through and sent me work can be counted on one hand.

So, in order to keep the family fed and the lights on, I took a temporary job about three months ago while continuing the “all options on the table” job search and business growth plan. The pay is not great, but it beats unemployment “benefits”. On the plus side, the company I am temping for has wanted to hire me since the third day I was in the office. Initially, I demurred since we were just getting to know each other, and I had other irons in the fire. Now, I’m just waiting for them to put a bona fide offer in writing. They didn’t choke when I threw out a salary requirements number. We shall see what, if anything, develops there. 

I fly out to FL in a few weeks for an in person interview with a company based there. I’d say it’s encouraging to have a company willing to pay for a flight, hotel and car rental to check my teeth, but I’ve been in that position before. There’s no guarantee that it will mean an offer. If there is an offer forthcoming, it will likely come down to the money (since a major relocation would be involved).

There are several other positions I am pursuing one of which is particularly interesting to me. It would be a work from home position which has a lot of appeal since we intend to homeschool the wonder midget.

Then there was the recruiter who called today about a position I interviewed for a few years ago that is open again. I suppose it’s too much to hope that that company will see the error of their ways and shower me in money.

I’m not giving up on the LLC. If the floodgates open on that front, I’ll be ecstatic. If not, I can’t afford to sit on my thumbs and not do anything.

M&M

M&M, the wonder midget and cutest not so little girl in the world, continues to grow, dazzle and amaze. She is on the downhill side of 5 and a half going on 25. She weighs in at a well-proportioned and lean 52 pounds and measures just a hair or two short of 4 feet tall. All we did was blink, and…BAM!!!...suddenly it’s getting difficult to hold her. I don’t turn down her frequent requests to be carried or held unless I absolutely have to since it won’t be long before it’s physically impossible for me to do so.

I predict she will be the first female drafted into the NBA (not WNBA) as a point guard where she will have a successful 10 year career before retiring to have kids and cure cancer or solve the world’s energy problems. When she is 50, she will be elected first empress of the world for life at which time she will ban all partisan politics and biased media reporting (transgressions of the imperial edict will be punishable by banishment to the surface of Mars where you can live out your partisan fantasies…if you can breathe).

Seriously though, her birthday falls in November which puts her in an awkward scholastic position. Were we to enroll her in public school, we would not be able to officially enroll her until fall of 2018. Then, it would be the choice of kindergarten or kindergarten. Since The Queen has been unofficially homeschooling her since she was old enough to speak coherently, M&M is already well passed pre-K and most kindergarten level school work. Heck, she already reads at a second grade level. So, the plan is to start homeschooling her this fall as an official first grader (I think) and adjust course work as necessary. We will take care of socialization through homeschool coops and play groups with kids of varying age groups. Once she is older, we will investigate having her attend extracurricular activities such as band and sports in the public school system depending on her interest.

Here lately, M&M has been demonstrating behavior well above her age level. She is a very serving and polite young lady who gets compliments everywhere she goes. When The Queen (or, more rarely, I) gets sick, she is right there to help take care of what needs to be done including fetching water, reading stories, hugs, etc. I’d take credit, but it’s all The Queen’s doing.

THE QUEEN

Poison ivy is a right evil bitch. It’s even worse when you are a highly sensitive red head that was unaware that the pesky vines you were pulling and cutting off the fence were, in fact, poison ivy. Two days and a couple of hot showers later, The Queen was covered head to toe in misery inducing rash. That was about 3 weeks ago. At its worst, the rash covered about 75 to 80 % of The Queen’s body. Her eyes almost swelled shut early on. Poor thing looked like she’d been beat up by Mike Tyson. Unfortunately, due to The Queen’s other health issues, she is unable to take the only known medical treatment which is either oral prednisone or intramuscular injection of same. We’ve tried pretty much everything that can be had over the counter. The rash has finally started receding. The worst areas remaining are her hands and forearms. I am hopeful that another week or two will see her right as rain.

In other news, we have a new mantra in the house: All Ivy is EVIL!

Avoidance and paying others to deal with any future ivy disposal needs will be the primary means of defense.

OTHER DRAMATIS PERSONAE UPDATES

OMA AND OPA

Here about two months ago, The Queen Mum (Oma) and her consort (Opa) relocated from the  outer realms to cohabitate with us here at Castle Erickson. The genesis of this move requires a little backstory.

Oma has been suffering with early onset Alzheimer’s for several years now. Her condition is not as bad as some we have known, but it does have its challenges. She recognizes us in the sense that she knows we belong there in the house, but she does not know our names or relation to her. We don’t think she remembers her own name, but it’s hard to tell sometimes. Her short term memory tops out at a couple of minutes. Overall, her health is excellent, and she is fully ambulatory and able to eat. She is, however, starting to lose her grasp on basic hygiene and other skills, and she has a bad habit of stashing food in odd places (only to be rediscovered once it is fully rotten). She is also exhibiting “Sundowner’s Syndrome” which means she gets very confused and active, almost manic, when the sun goes down. It’s apparently common with Alzheimer’s patients. Fortunately, so far, she has been a very gentle and benign patient with no major outbursts or aggressive tendencies. Hopefully that will continue. Given her overall health, we expect her to live another 20 years barring unforeseen illness.

Opa, Oma’s husband of 50+ years, had been caring for Oma on his own in addition to dealing with his own health issues for the last couple of years pretty much non-stop with the exception of our semi-regular weekend visits. Opa and Oma are within a few months of each other age wise; however, their physical conditions could not be more different. Opa’s warranty expired a long time ago, but his condition has been getting progressively worse in the last 5 years. Over the last 6 months or so, we had been noticing his energy levels declining to the point we were concerned. We are pretty sure he had a minor heart attack back in about March or so, but we could not convince him to see a doctor about it. So, that remains a guess. We finally prevailed upon him to come to our house “for a visit” with Oma to rest and let us give him a break from having to do it all for the both of them. So, in early June, they packed a week’s worth of clothes and came to our house.

As you would expect, a little love, genuine concern and regular meals goes a long way to keeping people happy, healthy and wise. Over the next couple of weeks, Opa’s desire to go home went from “maybe in a few days” to “maybe we’ll stay with you all a while longer” to “what do we need to do to move in?” We moved heaven and earth (in some cases, literally) and had their house cleaned out in short order (with lots of help from The Queen’s brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephews). There is a renter lined up to rent their house for the next 6 months following which the plan is to sell it. So, if you want a killer deal on a recently remodeled (professionally) manufactured home (double wide, 2 bed 2 bath) located in Granbury, TX, drop us a line. We’ll work out a deal. Land not included (since my brother in law owns the dirt).

MY SISTER…THE DEVIL

MS…TD is living somewhat of a parallel life to mine…albeit in mirror image. She, her esposo – The Jack of All Trades, and Niece I Do It, recently moved in with MS…TD’s father in law who is getting on up there in age as the saying goes. I, being the wonderful brother that I am, provided some assistance in the moving process. While it wasn’t the worst move I’ve ever been involved in, it was definitely in the running for a top 3 finish.

The winner and holder of the life time achievement award for bad moves was Number One Follower’s practice wife. There are two infamously memorable and epically bad moves with her fingerprints all over them. The first time was when we helped her move out of her apartment at midnight (which I found later was because she was skipping out on rent with no forwarding address)…the cockroaches were less than thrilled when we woke them up by lifting their couch (yes, THEIR couch…dozens of them). And let’s not mention the dryer lint caked on the laundry closet wall. I’m surprised the whole complex didn’t burn down. The second one will not be discussed…I’m pretty sure I came close to witnessing a murder that day (and I would have been only too glad to aid and abet the disposal of the body in the process).

But,  I digress.

In other news, MS…TD is now a genuine published author. If you are into sorta kinda romance/fantasy/smut novels, you can get your fill here , here and here. I am not currently an Amazon affiliate. So, I don’t make a dime off the referral, but MS…TD will be grateful for your support. I provided a decent amount of editing and beta reader input as well as some technical consulting on her debut novel. I was asked to beta read the second novel and got a chapter or two into it before I had other commitments get in the way. Not being a connoisseur of the genre, I can’t say if they are good, bad or ugly.

I will say that MS…TD utterly ignored my advice to change the name of her main character in her debut novel. Somewhere, I have a copy of the manuscript with the name changed to Horace. I like that only slightly better. Beau. She seriously named the lead male in a semi-romantic novel with fantasy elements…BEAU!!! Pardon me while I puke. In the most loving way possible for a human being to hurl, of course. Mephistopheles would have been better. Elmer Fudd would have been better. Sodom Wanna Gonorrhea would have been better. But, no…Beau it is. Shake my head.

MY FATHER

My father, who will henceforth be known as Reporter #6 (he had an actual, minor, credited role in Mississippi Burning), has also put his English degree to use and published a couple of novels. I’ve read a version of the first one. I have a pre-publication copy of the second one somewhere that I haven’t had a chance to read yet. Throw a few shekels at the old man if you’re of a mind to. He tells a decent story even if it’s hard to pin down a genre.

NIECE TWIG

Last fall, Twig decided to uproot and move to Georgia to continue her college education in nursing school. Apropos of nothing, her high school sweetheart, is also stationed at Fort Bragg as an Army Ranger in training. I suppose I will need to give him a blog name now that he is family.

Wait….what?

Yes, a regression is in order. Prior to Twig leaving on the midnight train to Georgia, our budding Army Ranger, henceforth to be known as Gearhead (for his true passion is cars), asked my brother in law, Jack of All Trades, for his blessing to take Twig’s hand in marriage. JOAT’s response was something along the lines of “not yet” which caused a bit of drama. Twig and Gearhead proceeded to make plans for a December wedding despite the drama. Unfortunately, the vagaries of Army life made definitive planning impossible at best. So, the young couple decided to “elope” and get married over Labor Day weekend. Their plan included a vaguely defined idea to hold a reception when time and schedules allowed. Now, for those of you who don’t remember your recent weather news, Labor Day Weekend and Georgia equals landfall for Tropical Storm Hermine. Twig and Gearhead were supposed to meet the chaplain at a Starbucks to get hitched. Well, the Starbucks closed so that the baristas could head for the hills. Not to be deterred, our young lovers got married in the cab of the chaplain’s pickup in the Starbucks parking lot while the storm raged around them.

They seem happy from what I’ve heard, and it’ll be a great story for the grandkids. Word is they plan to return to Texas when Gearhead departs the military sometime in 2019.

NIECE I DO IT

I Do It continues her edumication in the fine art of animation in which she hopes to make a career. She is a very talented artist, but I have no idea what the job prospects are for a college graduate with an art degree in animation.

THE MENAGERIE

Numbnutt, the ½ dog, and Taco, the wonder bunny, have been joined by Tinkle Splat The Wonder Cat (on the right) and Sunny (on the left whom I call Ginger Snap).

The Queen named the dog because, “He acts like a dork.” M&M named the rest of the menagerie. We weren’t entirely sure about Sunny’s gender when he first came here, but he seems to have overcome any lingering doubts about his gender by demonstrating said sexuality without concern for gender or species (much to Tinkle’s perpetual dismay).

Numbnutt is about to turn 12, and he’s slowing down a bit. We almost lost him last fall to an acute case of aggressive gastroenteritis. He recovered, but you can tell he is getting up there in age. He’s slowed down a bit, but he’s still a very loyal and sweet dog.

Taco is a recently widowered bunny after his paramour, Sky, departed for the great rabbit hole in the sky. So far, I have been successful in rejecting any attempts to play matchmaker for the poor, lonely and extremely virile bunny.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print for now. Further updates as events warrant.

FREEDOM!!!!

Well...not complete freedom, but freedom from a mortgage at least. As of last Friday, The Queen and I closed on the sale of Castle Erickson closing out 10 years of residency there (with an interlude in Houston thrown in there as well). We are now officially and blissfully homeless (temporarily and figuratively of course).

We've needed a change for sometime now. The Queen has had her hands full taking care of M&M and trying to recover from her ongoing health challenges. Working full time allowed me very little time to keep up with home improvements and maintenance much less attempt to clean out the shop and get any kind of use out of it. We had been working on tiling floors forever with very little progress. Other projects had been started and then put on the back burner after priorities changed.

Despite our intentions to the contrary, we were moving, cleaning, repairing and purging right up to the day of closing. Literally. I left the house with the last trailer load of stuff at about 11:00 PM Thursday night before closing, and did not finish unloading until 1:30 AM the day of closing. The Queen was cleaning until about 11:30 PM. She made it to the hotel where we planned to stay the night a little after midnight. I finally made it there and crawled into bed around 3:00 AM. The Queen's 7:30AM alarm to wake us up to get to closing sucked horribly.

Closing was not without its hiccups. The first came on Thursday when the title company called to say that the buyer's lender had screwed up on the rate lock and was looking to stick The Queen and I with an additional $608 in closing costs AND move the closing date back AND move the closing to another title company. I allowed as how that I was not in favor of any of those developments. I further explained that I had no intention of paying extra for their screw up nor could I move the closing date because of other commitments. After several phone calls, the buyer's agent and the buyer worked it out with the lender and closing proceeded according to schedule.

If only it had gone according to plan, all would have been golden. Well...nickel at least. The next snag was The Queen's driver's license. You have to bring your DL to closing to prove to the title company that you are who you say you are so that they can notarize the closing papers affirming that you really are who you say you are. Well, The Queen's DL had been left at the hotel because the reservation was under my name and not hers and the front desk held her DL for some reason that still escapes me.

We tried having the hotel fax a copy, but they only succeeded in sending a blank page. So, after signing a mercifully short stack of paper, we trudged back to the hotel, took a picture of The Queen's DL and emailed that to the title company. Apparently, a photo of your DL is perfectly acceptable as a form of ID to prove that you are who you say you are.

While we left behind a neighborhood full of nice people that we've gotten to know over the years, both The Queen and I feel no nostalgia for the old neighborhood. There are certainly no regrets in selling the house. For the first time since we have been married, we are truly free to take a step back and make a thoughtful, unpressured decision about what direction to take. Our initial plan is to look for a rental in late fall/early winter after my busy travel/work season is over. We will likely rent for at least a year perhaps more while we decide where/if we would want to buy/build. Our current thought is to save up cash and buy a piece of land not in town but not too far out in the sticks on the 100% down payment plan. From my little bit of research in the last few weeks, that is doable in 2-3 years depending on how aggressively we save money.

Once that is done, I want to design and build a house of our own suited to our needs and desires. Nothing too fancy. Nothing too big. 1500 square foot max (if I could get away with 1000, I'd probably do it...The Queen won't let me do a tiny house except maybe as a guest cottage). Open floor plan. Architecturally, The Queen and I lean towards "modern rustic" (I think that's the term). We'd be happy in anything from Craftsman Period style bungalos to a cabin though. No carpet. Wood floors and/or tile. Just enough room to host a few friends or family from time to time but not so much that we will have wasted space that we don't use 99% of the time and would just accumulate junk.

I'm still waiting for a chance to actually relax. The weekend was mostly spent running here, there and everywhere at warp speed taking care of one thing or another. I may actually get to go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. That'll be a shock.

Kill Me Now...

So, yesterday was my second official Father's Day. It was a day filled with hard labor in the hot sun, and I am paying the price today.

The Queen had decreed that we should go ahead and get the antiques moved to storage. As a result, I woke up yesterday and picked up a 16 foot rental truck. Best friend Number One Follower arrived a little after 10:00 AM followed shortly thereafter by the youngest nephew Baby Huey (that's what his mother calls him...so, I'm going with that).

What followed was several hours of championship level 3D Tetris in high 90 degree temps involving old wood and glass including a piano, first into the truck and later into an elevator to get to the third floor storage unit. The saving grace of the day was a steady, cool breeze that felt great on sweat soaked shirts.

After 9 hours in the sun, I'm completely soaked, smell like a goat and have no critical reasoning skills left.

The end result was this:

10' x 15' storage unit with space left for boxes. The Queen vetoed my bonfire suggestion

The Queen promises me that she will locate someone to appraise this clusterstuff as a prelude to an estate sale. We just don't have time for it right now.

By the time we got done, I was overdue returning the truck, I was literally and figuratively baked, I was having trouble thinking and moving was an ordeal. As I asked NOF, when the Hell did I become an old fart? Fortunately, NOF married himself up in life. His new bride K3 was very thoughtful and brought a couple of rotisserie chickens, veggies, taters and fruit relieving me from the need to figure out what to do about dinner. After dinner, I filled the tub and soaked for a good solid hour following which I stretched out on the bed and started watching Longmire on Netflix.

Waking up this morning was an exercise in torture. Moving is optional at this point.

The good news is that The Queen has promised to make up Father's Day for me after the move is done. I thanked her profusely and told her that wasn't necessary, but she is insistent. I've learned not to argue with her about it.

People Are Nasty

I have made an observation about people in general that will come as no surprise to some (probably most) of you.

People are nasty (hence...the title of this post).

Case on point.

Y'all remember the photos of the piles (nee pile) of garbage on the curb that I posted the other day, right? Well, since the garbage company would not pick up Pile o' Crap 1.0 on our regular trash day last Thursday thus leading to me spending a fun filled Thursday night creating Piles o' Crap 2.0 (bagged trash), 3.0 (flattened cardboard), 4.0 (flattened cardboard), 5.0 (bagged trash), and 6.0 (recyclable items).

Well, between Thursday and our next regularly scheduled trash day on Monday, it looked like a pack of lions and tigers and bears oh my had rummaged through my once neatly organized dump.

As you will recall, this was all garbage that had been defiled by rodents. Visibly and unmistakably ruined with filth that would probably gag a maggot.

Grandma's old hard side Samsonite luggage? Gone.

Old coffee/espresso maker? Bye bye.

Whole bags of rodent ruined clothing? Outta there.

People would tear open the garbage bags to see if there was anything they wanted to take and then left it there to be strewn around the neighborhood. I had half a mind to sit in the picture window with my shotgun, but it wasn't worth it.

Fortunately, the garbage company took it all (at least what was left) away on Monday.

Congratulations

I'd like to take a moment to offer (again) my sincerest congratulations to my best male friend, known here as Number One Follower, and his new bride on their recent marriage. I have known NOF almost 24 years now (over half my life...yes, we are getting old), and I have known his lovely bride, henceforth known as K3 (her initials are KKK now and K3 sounds better than The Klanswoman), for more than half of that time.

NOF and I have known each other through at least a dozen moves (usually involving pouring rain or 100+ degree heat and including the time his ex-girlfriend/live-in brandished a gun at him and "his thug friends" while we moved his crap out of the house). We were friends through his first marriage to the raging alcoholic who I affectionately call his practice wife that both his dad and I warned him not to marry (though he claims differently). He was the best man at my wedding to The Queen. He was the one trying to tell me a little time with M&M was better than no time with her (something I REALLY didn't want to hear at the time) during some of the darkest times when it looked as if we weren't going to be allowed to keep her. We've been there for each other through family joys and losses. Needless to say, we know each other like brothers.

K3 is a sweet lady who has patiently waited for NOF to get his head screwed on straight enough to figure out that they were good for each other, and I was only too happy to stand up for them at the wedding and give the toast at the reception.

They called their wedding "The Inevitable". As I said during the toast, I wish them "The Expected": Long Life Together, Much Love and Lots of Laughter.

Congratulations my friends.

A Moving Curse

I had dinner with mom recently. I think. It may have been a week or two ago now. Time no longer has any meaning to me. Warning to those who are offered the chance to work from home: make it a point to get out in public once in a while to avoid becoming a workaholic hermit.

It was a lovely dinner after a long day of driving from Dallas to Aggie Land (Bryan, TX - that’s a 3 hour trip one way for those of you who are cursed with the misfortunate to be from somewhere other than Texas) and back; however, mom made it a point to take issue with the way in which she has been portrayed in this blog so far. Specifically, she indicated perhaps, just perhaps, I might have been using my bully pulpit to make her the butt of my slightly skewed worldview a little more frequently than a good son should.

I love my mother. I really do. I wouldn’t have a world view, much less a slightly skewed one, without her. So, in an effort to show her how much I appreciate her and respect her wishes not to be the whipping girl yet again, it’s dad’s turn to be thrown under the bus. I’ll get around to rehabilitating mom’s image in another post. I promise. Oh, and if my sister is reading this by some miracle, I will gladly entertain requests to be left out of this exercise in character assassination. I’ll even seriously consider such a request if accompanied by appropriate compensation.

Now that the solicitation of bribery as a means of avoiding familial libel and slander is over with, we can continue with our story.

I’m not too worried about dad getting offended by my humorous references to his character flaws, real or imagined, as I’m pretty sure he’s still not reading the blog. When I last spoke to him a few weeks ago and inquired as to his opinions about whether he liked the blog, the quality of the writing (he was an English major in college after all), etc., he said, and I quote, “He-eh”. At least, that’s the only way I know to spell the sound that comes out of his mouth when he has no clue what someone is talking about. It sounds like a cross between “hay” and “eh” with a slight hint of a nasal “nuh” in the middle. Or maybe the nasal sound is tacked onto the end somehow. It’s hard to tell.

I’m sure there are lots of stories to tell about dad. The problem is I only know a few of them that don’t involve carefully repressed memories. I think it’s one of the side effects arising from him not being the custodial parent in a “joint custody” situation. One of these days I’m going to ask a family law judge how they figure “every other weekend and two weeks in the summer” constitutes “joint custody”. Seems to me like someone was smoking a joint when they came up with that euphemism, but I digress as usual. Instead, I will focus on how I take after dad.

If you were to ask number one follower, best man and all around good guy, Ken, what is my most notorious curse, he will likely, without hesitation, tell you it is my perverse luck with moving. As in “it’s time to pack all my crap and change addresses” moving. I’ve lost count over the years, but I’m pretty sure Ken and I have helped each other move at least a dozen times. We’ve got it down to a science. However, every time, without fail, on any moving day I happen to be involved with, disaster strikes. I’ve pretty much seen it all: a completely insane soon to be ex-wife (not mine, Ken’s, The Queen is a dream to work with on moving day), dozens of fearless cockroaches chasing Ken and I down to reclaim their sofa that had just been moved in the middle of the night so that Ken’s now ex-wife could avoid leaving a forwarding address (that move was also the scene of the laundry closet wall caked with dryer lint because someone didn’t connect the vent hose…for a few years), heatstroke caused by choosing the hottest freaking day of the summer to move (there is not enough water or Gatorade on the planet to keep someone properly hydrated in 100+ degree Texas heat when the inside of the moving van feels like the surface of the sun), moving furniture up three flights of stairs while coming down with pneumonia (The Queen had to do most of the work that day as I was passing out from fever), thunder storms, furniture that had to go in through a second story window because it won’t fit through the front door and many other fond moving memories.

I come by my curse honestly though. It’s genetic from dad’s side of the family. Mom’s side of the family doesn’t move unless forced to by a tornado. I can prove it, too, with two fond memories from the Annals of Disastrous Moving Adventures.

The first fond memory I will relate is actually the second memory chronologically speaking, but it’s bad form to give your best evidence first. As moving weekends go, it was what has become typical for me: the weather sucked (thunderstorms all weekend) and one of my uncles (mom’s brother) went into the hospital for the final time due to a terminal illness. The bad karma of that weekend could have all been avoided though had my father made a simple, life altering phone call. You see, my dad and my uncle (his brother, not mom’s brother) had season tickets to the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys made it to the Super Bowl that year which gives season ticket holders first dibs on Super Bowl tickets. My uncle generously asked dad if I would want the other ticket. Dad, without asking me, told my uncle that I wouldn’t want it because…wait for it…I was going to be moving that weekend. He and my uncle went and had a great time in Pasadena, California while I was stuck back here in Texas to get run over by the bad karma bus. No, I’m not bitter at all.

The curse actually got started earlier than that though. This particular story will prove, without a shadow of doubt, my curse is genetically inherited from dad. Dad and my uncle owned and ran their own company. Sometime in mid to late 1988, they decided to buy a competitor’s operation down in Houston. Dad drew the short straw and prepared for the move to Houston to become the fearless leader of the office there.

By the time dad was ready to move, it was late December or early January. The week he was going to move, he was out of town for the first part of the week when the weather was perfect: sunshiny and relatively warm for winter in Texas. Dad came back into town Wednesday night, and we started loading the truck on an overcast and chilly Thursday so we could leave first thing Friday morning. Thursday night brought a Dallas, TX version of a blizzard: snow and ice covering everything, dropping power lines, and turning roads and bridges into skating rinks.

Now, I can hear some of you from places that actually have four seasons and see snow outside of a glass globe snickering into your coffee mugs; but, down here in Texas, most drivers think ice goes in your tea and were never given practical tips like cruise control don’t work on ice. Dad and I woke up Friday morning to a winter wonder land and embarked on what should have been a four hour drive to Houston. I know this is beginning to sound like the opening to Gilligan’s Island, but it’s really not that bad.

The snow and ice storm followed dad and I from Dallas to Houston. Ten hours later, dad and I rolled into Houston with a moving van full of dad’s worldly possessions still shiny side up by doing what most other Texans haven't figure out yet, driving incredibly slow. It was well after dark, and a lovely freezing rain gave Houston that cheerful, death on a slab in the morgue look. I don’t remember what floor dad’s apartment was on. What I do remember is being stiff from sitting in the cab of a moving van for 10 hours and then having to unload enough of the furniture to have something to sleep on that night. One elevator load at a time.

Saturday morning, after we unloaded and hooked up the TV, dad and I discovered that Houston had its worst ice storm in decades. Forty plus unlucky drivers managed to have a massive accident on an ice encrusted I-45.

Remember what I said? To people in Texas, ice goes in your tea.

As you can see, my moving curse is most definitely a genetic gift from my father. What I’m still trying to figure out is, given the fact he is well aware of my curse, why does Ken keep asking for my help when he moves?