House Closing and Move

Down to the realtors, ensured that the documents were in order, sent instructions for wire transfer and headed out the door. I was sure my realtor was going to start drinking damn near immediately. This was not the easiest commission he ever earned. On the way home I stopped at the corner store, nope, no cardboard boxes today. Ayahh. Down to the next chino. There was a large pile of cardboard boxes stacked in front of the meat counter. Sure, I could have one. No, I need a bunch. The clerk referred me to the meat cutter, who referred me back to the clerk. The butcher was Chinese, so he obviously outranked the Indian. The Chinese own every grocery store in this town except two seriously upscale store that no local would patronize. Back to the butcher who referred me to the ultimate authority, the chinese woman who controlled the money, who referred me back to the clerk. Come on guys, they are empty cardboard boxes, you must go through 50 a day. Nope, I could have just one.

I headed back home and started haphazardly bunging kitchen supplies in the box. I removed my mattress to access the storage under my bed, filled my backpack with more stuff, took out the microwave box and stuffed it with stuff. Miscellaneous item were tossed into a duffel bag. A suitcase was used inappropriately, I'll get the worcestershire sauce out tomorrow. The closet contained a suit, dress shirt, tie, a pair of Allen Edmunds cap toe shoes, one of a couple score of pairs of dress shoes I have in storage in Dallas, never to be used again. Ahhhhhhhhhh, I wore that suit back from my mom's funeral last May. I turned it over in my hands a few times and covered it with a plastic trash bag. Sundry supplies were jammed into a big rubber boat bag. What is this? Oh yeah, some strange sexual device ordered by a former room mate. Something so extraordinary that came with an instruction manual bigger than came with my compact camera. There! Done! Not everything was packed, but that was all the containers I had.

I staged all of the items on the front porch of the first apartment and headed to the corner, hoping to catch a taxi. Streams of yellow HiLux pickup trucks passed me in both directions, heading to or from the fair full of passengers. Nobody would stop. Life's not fair, fair fares fared well but I was hapless. I called the logistics manager of a local hotel, the jack of all trades: carpenter, plumber, chauffeur, boat operator, mechanic. He said he would be there in five minutes. He never showed. Finally a neighbor stopped for lunch in his taxi truck and agreed to take me in twenty minutes. I bunged my bags in the back and we headed down to Casa Verde. Arriving the driver decided to help me and picked up the microwave, turning it bottom side up for no apparent reason, the glass platter crashing against the door and then the top. Did I say I packed haphazardly?

The bags were moved from out front to the dock, I entrusted my dog to someone and headed down to the real estate office to get the keys to the house, having received confirmation that the wire transfer had completed. My realtor offered to hold onto my documents for me. "But then they'll go up in smoke in the fire!" "What fire?" "When I burn your damn office down!" He laughed, "Why do you think I offered to keep them?" We were both very glad this was over. I continued to a store to buy a standing fan for use on the deck, both for keeping cool and discouraging the chitras, and proceeded to the hotel behind which my boat was moored, returned and loaded it up. Fifteen minutes later I was at the dock of my house, with a stack of heavy goods and a 100 step flight of stairs to my house. I made trip after trip and unpacked. The only damage observed was, surprisingly, to a pressure cooker, the lock release on the top snapped off but it could still be used. Damn! All the spices, knives and utensils and nothing but spaghetti and potatoes to eat. Ah well, starch it up.

As the sun set the birds announced themselves, a few frogs chirped, but other than that, all was silent save for the fan, which served me well on the deck. I think I read a few chapters of "A Brief History of Nearly Everything." I'm virtually certain of it. Did I?