Suzy Says

The Amsterdam cold has turned out to be particularly vile. Not sure if it’s some kind of mutant Euro-cold or Flu Lite or just a regular cold exacerbated by crossing too many time zones and doing too much emotional stuff in too short a time. Whatever it is, it knocked me on my ass and rendered me unable to assist in the final phase of my mother’s move yesterday, which has, from start to finish, been like something orchestrated by Ionesco or Becket on an especially black-humored day.

Movers arrived late to pack up Mom’s stuff. Despite having been told that I, the arranger of the move, would be out of the country, they insisted on having a signature and person to go with the credit card. Fortunately, my brother-in-law was able to give them his, though later the moving company wouldn’t use his credit card, either, and I had to go and get a cashier’s check.

The move turned out to cost twice as much as we had anticipated, because my Mom has twice as much stuff as anyone else. Remember how she and my sister Megan went to meet the movers on Thursday? Well, they didn’t, because the truck broke down, leaving Meg and Mom to camp in an empty apartment. However, Mom’s new neighbors came to the rescue, with air mattresses, blankets, and banana bread. On Friday morning, they even brought coffee to the unhappy campers.

But the movers had not yet brought the furniture on Friday afternoon. Rather than renting a truck in Oakland, where the breakdown occurred, they had one brought up from LA. I’m not kidding. John made a few irate calls and got them to show up after giving them step by step directions – the movers apparently hadn’t thought to bring a map with them. So they didn’t even start to unload Mom’s tons-o-stuff until after 5 that evening, thus destroying the original plan of having them take the things that had to be stored to the storage place, since it closed at 5:30. So they just piled everything in the apartment and left.

My brother Jonathan drove down after his firefighters’ meeting that night, and first thing Saturday morning, John took the bus up to help. I stayed home with the mutant cold and tried not to feel too guilty about not helping. John, Megan, and Jonathan kicked ass, sorting items into “stay”, “storage” and “Salvation Army” categories, taking the storage items to storage in a U-Haul and setting up the furniture in the new apartment. The Salvation Army items are on the patio until collection day. So we’re finally done.

I guess things go wrong with every move. But we all pulled together, Mom has met her new (really nice) neighbors, and we’re ready to face what the future holds, together. Family, I’m telling you. It’s what it’s all about.