One time around the block: Oh, right, there's no river here to shape the city so as we come into the city the streets don't start with 6th, then fifth, etc. We're all backwards. No, turn here, we'll have to come around again because Cook only goes one way in the other direction.
Two times around the block: I see the restaurant. Big yellow sign. Is there any parking? What was that sign? It said parking for the "Mall" only. What mall? Oh. There is a sign on the restaurant building calling it a mall. Crap. Only metered parking here. How about this lot? Nope that says it for the diner only. Can we get through the alley to come around? Probably not, and it is impossible to tell, anyway, because there is a utility service truck in the way. In. Out. Three point turn. Turn again.
Third time around the block: Into the lot. Cross the brick street, which is closed off to make it a pedestrian zone. Still has the street sign, though: First Street. A view a little further down shows that it is dead on with the State Capitol Building. This little closed block is probably the one of the stretches of first street left. And into the restaurant for yummy pizza. My huband looks up at the sign and sighs, "I'm so tired of being new here and not being able to find my way around."
Amen.
DH and I have been doing a Springfield Pizza Tour, trying out pizza joints all over town. This was PJ #3. I will eventually post some results of the Duffield's Springfield Pizza Tour.
Besides being yummy, Pizza gives us a purpose for tooling around town and getting to know the ins and outs of the place that we live. And eventually knowing all the pizza places will probably make us feel like we actually live here and can call this place home. My nostalgic memories of living in Regensburg and Paris feel like that those places were an adventure. I explored, I trapsed, I tried new things and pushed my boundaries.
But when I am more precise in my remembering, I remember the lonliness, too. The not-knowing-where-I-am-or-sometimes-even-who-I-am. I think I chalked those feelings up to being a foreigner from another country, and I am surprised to find that they have surfaced here in familiar culture and not unknown place. And everytime someone says, "So, all settled in yet?" I want to laugh, howling laughter with a bit of derision. I usually manage a polite, "ehhh, no. Not at all. So, how are you?" Because I have a feeling that since they could even ask that question means that they are not prepared to hear how dizzyingly unsettled I still feel here. I mean I still can't find anything in my pantry, and everytime I vow to spend the three hours that organizing it will take, something else really needs to be done first before it makes sense to start that project. So, no, 24 days in and we are most definitely not settled in. I am guessing it will take about a year before we feel like we can even start to settle.
So bear with me, if I seem a little edgy about the whole thing. This, too, shall pass, y'all.
Showing posts with label Moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moving. Show all posts
Friday, September 25, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
All's Quiet...At Somebody Else's House
The Calm Before the Storm
The Breath Before the Plunge
It sounds tranquil, doesn't it?
And if you are lying in bed sleeping when the storm rolls up upon you, then maybe it is.
If you are dead, that is.
Because anyone who has prepared for a performance or trained for an athletic event will tell you that the last block of time of preparation is a frenzy of activity even when it looks methodical and meticulous to the outside observer. Even the last breath before going stage, entering the jury room, springing forth for dives or marathons and stepping onto the field of competition - that last breath is filled with all of the energy and purpose that will sustain you throughout the trial. The quality and energy of that breath is the hallmark of a virtuoso.
It reminds me of The Wizard of Oz. They know the storm is coming. The animals have sensed it, and then, when the people catch on, they run around securing what they can in the time allotted.
In a few moments, however, there will be at least a virtual calm before the storm of my move. As I pack "the last things" - which may well take all night - the computer must be powered down. Then it will be several days before we are on line again.
So stay tuned, y'all. And the most exciting part of my return will be that I won't be in packing frenzy anymore. Unpacking is like a treasure hunt! So here's to endings and beginnings and starting a new life! See you on the other side!
The Breath Before the Plunge
It sounds tranquil, doesn't it?
And if you are lying in bed sleeping when the storm rolls up upon you, then maybe it is.
If you are dead, that is.
Because anyone who has prepared for a performance or trained for an athletic event will tell you that the last block of time of preparation is a frenzy of activity even when it looks methodical and meticulous to the outside observer. Even the last breath before going stage, entering the jury room, springing forth for dives or marathons and stepping onto the field of competition - that last breath is filled with all of the energy and purpose that will sustain you throughout the trial. The quality and energy of that breath is the hallmark of a virtuoso.
It reminds me of The Wizard of Oz. They know the storm is coming. The animals have sensed it, and then, when the people catch on, they run around securing what they can in the time allotted.
In a few moments, however, there will be at least a virtual calm before the storm of my move. As I pack "the last things" - which may well take all night - the computer must be powered down. Then it will be several days before we are on line again.
So stay tuned, y'all. And the most exciting part of my return will be that I won't be in packing frenzy anymore. Unpacking is like a treasure hunt! So here's to endings and beginnings and starting a new life! See you on the other side!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Just a week + final weekend is left here in the Q. The finality of our time here has begun to settle on me. I knew we might move away from here some day, but the whole path to our leaving has been difficult for us, our family, our friends. It is like a break-up. You love a person, but then when they reveal that they have no use for you, not only do you lose them, but it is as though your former desire to help and love them has been stolen from you too.
So when a student said to me, "Hey since Bill is gone you and Nico should come and eat in the caf with us next week because all the students will be back in town," I did not even think about my reply. The words were out of my mouth without pause: Oh No. No Way. [and then, gathering my wits] I mean, no, thank-you. That really is very kind, but I just couldn't. I hope you can understand."
Well, this little anthology pretty much sums up the rest of my feelings [Not my own vid, but it works!]:
"He's Losing His Mind, and I'm reaping all the Benefits."
Onward, Ho, Y'all!
So when a student said to me, "Hey since Bill is gone you and Nico should come and eat in the caf with us next week because all the students will be back in town," I did not even think about my reply. The words were out of my mouth without pause: Oh No. No Way. [and then, gathering my wits] I mean, no, thank-you. That really is very kind, but I just couldn't. I hope you can understand."
Well, this little anthology pretty much sums up the rest of my feelings [Not my own vid, but it works!]:
20. The Break-up Song, Greg Kihn Band
19. Song for the Dumped, Ben Folds Five
18. End of the Road, Boyz II Men
17. Without You, Mariah Carey
16. Love Bites, Def Leppard
15. Breaking up is hard to do (slow), Neil Sedaka
14. Boys Don't Cry, The Cure
13. She Hates Me, Puddle of Mud
12. Don't Speak, No Doubt
11. The Time of Your Life, Green Day
10. Ain't No Sunshine, Bill Withers
9. Don't Dream It's Over, Crowded House
8. With or Without You, U2
7. These Boots are made for walking, Nancy Sinatra
6. Against All Odds, Phil Collins
5. Go Your Own Way, Fleetwood Mac
4. Love Stinks, J. Geils Band
3. I used to Love Her, Guns N Roses
2. You Oughtta Know, Alanis Morissette
1. I will Survive, Gloria Gaynor
"He's Losing His Mind, and I'm reaping all the Benefits."
Onward, Ho, Y'all!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Patron Saint of Packing and Moving
Saints are my thing.
So when I quipped that I was praying to the patron saint of packing, several people asked me who it was. My cousin wrote, "See, this is information a military spouse could use - I should build a shrine! Who, exactly, is the patron saint of packing?" And I had to respond, "Unfortch, I have yet to find a person specifically named - Joseph is patron saint of (among many others) houses, immigrants, laborers, travellers, and, well, dying people. That pretty much sums up packing, right?"
But it got me to thinking [ruh-roh!!].
Who could this saint be? Over all the centuries of moves and upheavals, no one has claimed a saint specifically for packing and moving? Don't get me wrong, Saint Josesph has been most attentive to our need for comfort and help while selling/buying our house. I daresay he is still busy watching over us because the dreaded process of working out all the details with the two closings on the same day and whatnot has not yet ended and there are only two weeks left! So, Fair Dues to Saint Joseph for his kindly and divine intervention!
And for the record, I DID buy a little statue of him, and I DID pray for his intercession, as did my husband (and Nico by his presence!). I also compiled a novena from various sources. However I did not bury him, though I have no specific objection to the burying of statues or medals as ritual process. And I certainly did NOT, in my prayer, bury him or hang him upside down and threaten to leave him that way until he had done my bidding. Please! I object strongly to such treatment of people and saints and their statues are no exception. That portion of the standard suggested prayer is an example of manipulative behaviour and I will not condone it. Yesh, you really have to be careful about the content of some of the prayers out there. Even some of the traditional ones, dare I say it, can promote ideas about God and humans that are best abandoned. Hmmm, seems like I should say more, so I'll come back to it in the future, y'all!
Anyhoo, I have been thinking about who the patron saint of moving a packing should/could be. And then I ran across this description of patron saints in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
"The beliefs of a Catholic in an age of Faith prompted him to place not only his churches under the protection of some illustrious servant of God, but the ordinary interests of life, his health, and family, trade, maladies, and perils, his death, his city and country....These patrons with very many others were chosen on account of some real correspondence between the patron and the object of patronage, or by reason of some play on words, or as a matter of individual piety. Thus, while the great special patrons had their clients all over Christendom, other patrons in regard of the same class of objects might vary with different times and places."
So I said to myself, We need a Patron Saint of Moving and Packing, y'all.
So might I propose Saint Frances Cabrini, first US citizen (naturalized) to be canonized (1946) ?
Excerpt from Find a Grave: "Finally the Bishop gave her permission to start an institute of missionary sisters. She took the name Frances Xavier Cabrini and was soon labeled "Mother" by her seven recruits. They took over an abandoned Franciscan friary. Here she drew up constitutions for the community. Their principal work was to be a Christian education of girls. The new order was called The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. She was asked by the Bishop if her community would go to America and help with the education of Italian immigrants who had migrated to America by the thousands. With six sisters she landed in New York on March 31, 1889. She founded a school at West Park, on the Hudson River. This was followed by many. The order was expanding rapidly. By 1907 the order had increased to over a thousand sisters in eight countries. In her lifetime she was to see sixty seven convents: free-schools, high schools, hospitals and other establishments."
See also http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-frances-xavier-cabrini/
Mother Cabrini certainly moved alot, and under trying circumstances and often ill health. Born July 15, 1850 in Italy, she died on Dec. 22, 1917 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. For her, packing and moving were never just chores but instead were simply part and parcel of the call of God to go and serve.
Our Moves can be like that, too. The job of moving not only serves the family or community in a direct way, but it is also the process of getting to the place we are next to called to serve, getting to the people who await us, following the will of God.
Mother Cabrini, pray for us. Pray for our packing and moving. Help us to see this work as Service, and while we prepare, help us to meditate and prepare ourselves for the tasks that God calls us to, for the people God calls us to love and serve. Amen.
So when I quipped that I was praying to the patron saint of packing, several people asked me who it was. My cousin wrote, "See, this is information a military spouse could use - I should build a shrine! Who, exactly, is the patron saint of packing?" And I had to respond, "Unfortch, I have yet to find a person specifically named - Joseph is patron saint of (among many others) houses, immigrants, laborers, travellers, and, well, dying people. That pretty much sums up packing, right?"
But it got me to thinking [ruh-roh!!].
Who could this saint be? Over all the centuries of moves and upheavals, no one has claimed a saint specifically for packing and moving? Don't get me wrong, Saint Josesph has been most attentive to our need for comfort and help while selling/buying our house. I daresay he is still busy watching over us because the dreaded process of working out all the details with the two closings on the same day and whatnot has not yet ended and there are only two weeks left! So, Fair Dues to Saint Joseph for his kindly and divine intervention!
And for the record, I DID buy a little statue of him, and I DID pray for his intercession, as did my husband (and Nico by his presence!). I also compiled a novena from various sources. However I did not bury him, though I have no specific objection to the burying of statues or medals as ritual process. And I certainly did NOT, in my prayer, bury him or hang him upside down and threaten to leave him that way until he had done my bidding. Please! I object strongly to such treatment of people and saints and their statues are no exception. That portion of the standard suggested prayer is an example of manipulative behaviour and I will not condone it. Yesh, you really have to be careful about the content of some of the prayers out there. Even some of the traditional ones, dare I say it, can promote ideas about God and humans that are best abandoned. Hmmm, seems like I should say more, so I'll come back to it in the future, y'all!
Anyhoo, I have been thinking about who the patron saint of moving a packing should/could be. And then I ran across this description of patron saints in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
"The beliefs of a Catholic in an age of Faith prompted him to place not only his churches under the protection of some illustrious servant of God, but the ordinary interests of life, his health, and family, trade, maladies, and perils, his death, his city and country....These patrons with very many others were chosen on account of some real correspondence between the patron and the object of patronage, or by reason of some play on words, or as a matter of individual piety. Thus, while the great special patrons had their clients all over Christendom, other patrons in regard of the same class of objects might vary with different times and places."
So I said to myself, We need a Patron Saint of Moving and Packing, y'all.
So might I propose Saint Frances Cabrini, first US citizen (naturalized) to be canonized (1946) ?
Excerpt from Find a Grave: "Finally the Bishop gave her permission to start an institute of missionary sisters. She took the name Frances Xavier Cabrini and was soon labeled "Mother" by her seven recruits. They took over an abandoned Franciscan friary. Here she drew up constitutions for the community. Their principal work was to be a Christian education of girls. The new order was called The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. She was asked by the Bishop if her community would go to America and help with the education of Italian immigrants who had migrated to America by the thousands. With six sisters she landed in New York on March 31, 1889. She founded a school at West Park, on the Hudson River. This was followed by many. The order was expanding rapidly. By 1907 the order had increased to over a thousand sisters in eight countries. In her lifetime she was to see sixty seven convents: free-schools, high schools, hospitals and other establishments."
See also http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-frances-xavier-cabrini/
Mother Cabrini certainly moved alot, and under trying circumstances and often ill health. Born July 15, 1850 in Italy, she died on Dec. 22, 1917 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. For her, packing and moving were never just chores but instead were simply part and parcel of the call of God to go and serve.
Our Moves can be like that, too. The job of moving not only serves the family or community in a direct way, but it is also the process of getting to the place we are next to called to serve, getting to the people who await us, following the will of God.
Mother Cabrini, pray for us. Pray for our packing and moving. Help us to see this work as Service, and while we prepare, help us to meditate and prepare ourselves for the tasks that God calls us to, for the people God calls us to love and serve. Amen.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Bed Sweet Bed
After being away from our house since early Tuesday morning, we returned last night like triumphant but travel-weary missionaries. Sleeping in three different beds while we were gone made for interesting nights. Why is it that the body is so very attuned to the same sleep accomodations. If you always sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag, there is a definite period of adjustment to sleeping in a bed, and vice versa. Even something simple like taking your own pillow with you, which I did not do this trip, can make all the difference. WHY IS THAT? Is our muscle memory so set in its ways?
The look of elation that crossed my son's face as he realised that we had pulled into our own driveway was heavenly. As he came into the house, he had a very large grin. The cats twirled about our ankles, happy to see us, and they even let *N pet them!
DH is in Springfield all week with teacher meetings and a first half-day of class on Friday.
I will be here, praying to the patron saint of packing.
The look of elation that crossed my son's face as he realised that we had pulled into our own driveway was heavenly. As he came into the house, he had a very large grin. The cats twirled about our ankles, happy to see us, and they even let *N pet them!
DH is in Springfield all week with teacher meetings and a first half-day of class on Friday.
I will be here, praying to the patron saint of packing.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
It is no wonder that $1 = Two Bits These Days!
Moving Right Along
So we are preparing to move, and so of course we must deal with all of the pleasant and unpleasant tasks that come with that. Pleasant = Well, there are not really any pleasant moving tasks. Perhaps those of us in the world who really do actively combat Entropy (nerd much?) do achieve some sort of satisfaction from being able organize our little corner of the universe into boxes and reduce our waste by havind sorted through knick-knacks and old class notes from time immemorial. Okay, yes, that does give me some spark of satisfaction. But the rest blows.
Click Click.
It all started with his clicking shiny shoes. The man who came to give us an estimate on the cost to us for his company to move our goods. They were much too shiny and expensive, and when he is wearing the fine threads, you know that it is going to cost a pretty penny! He tells us all about the corporations and fine folks his company moves for, including the local hospital. After the walk through, he names an EXORBITANT price, and promotes his tarif as if it is some kind of official state rate. Never mind that it is SIX HUNDRED dollars more than what was quoted to us by another company out of Springfield. $600 more. Just think, every time the Hospital has to have something moved, they pay that ridiculous rate. And their new hires pay it. And Then We ALL pay FOR it in medical care costs.
I do not know what to do about these things of course, other than refuse his services. I certainly do not want to venture into the territory of being the, ahem, person who sends around the mass e-mails of outrage which amount to being little more than spam. A few family members and friends send me those e-mails, and I refuse to read them as well. I block them from my Facebook newsfeed.
Oh Hey! Vacay!
That's right, cats and kittens [nod to You Bet Your Garden host Mike McGrath], the little onion [zwieblein] is going on vacation. Now it is not a fancy vacation, more like a family retreat. I am an associate with the Racine Dominicans, and Chapter is at the motherhouse. My little family and I go up there for a few days each summer and spend time with the community. Please pray for us to have safe travels and for the RD's to have a fruitful Chapter.
So we are preparing to move, and so of course we must deal with all of the pleasant and unpleasant tasks that come with that. Pleasant = Well, there are not really any pleasant moving tasks. Perhaps those of us in the world who really do actively combat Entropy (nerd much?) do achieve some sort of satisfaction from being able organize our little corner of the universe into boxes and reduce our waste by havind sorted through knick-knacks and old class notes from time immemorial. Okay, yes, that does give me some spark of satisfaction. But the rest blows.
Click Click.
It all started with his clicking shiny shoes. The man who came to give us an estimate on the cost to us for his company to move our goods. They were much too shiny and expensive, and when he is wearing the fine threads, you know that it is going to cost a pretty penny! He tells us all about the corporations and fine folks his company moves for, including the local hospital. After the walk through, he names an EXORBITANT price, and promotes his tarif as if it is some kind of official state rate. Never mind that it is SIX HUNDRED dollars more than what was quoted to us by another company out of Springfield. $600 more. Just think, every time the Hospital has to have something moved, they pay that ridiculous rate. And their new hires pay it. And Then We ALL pay FOR it in medical care costs.
I do not know what to do about these things of course, other than refuse his services. I certainly do not want to venture into the territory of being the, ahem, person who sends around the mass e-mails of outrage which amount to being little more than spam. A few family members and friends send me those e-mails, and I refuse to read them as well. I block them from my Facebook newsfeed.
Oh Hey! Vacay!
That's right, cats and kittens [nod to You Bet Your Garden host Mike McGrath], the little onion [zwieblein] is going on vacation. Now it is not a fancy vacation, more like a family retreat. I am an associate with the Racine Dominicans, and Chapter is at the motherhouse. My little family and I go up there for a few days each summer and spend time with the community. Please pray for us to have safe travels and for the RD's to have a fruitful Chapter.
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