I promised myself many times that I will work on being witty and upbeat when posting to my blog, and yet this is the second post in a row that has me in not very high spirits. To tell you the truth, it must be a function of spending the last three days in a boxed-up, and then fairly empty, house, of kissing my beautiful girls goodbye (for the next couple of weeks, anyway) and possibly of a couple of screwdrivers, easily obtainable in the Continental business lounge…
It is starting to hit me: My new life is about to start…
The “moving” exercise is comparatively painless, when paid for by the corporation. Three burly Polish guys showed up on Thursday morning with tons of packing materials; asked us to point out how things were to be sorted; and by the end of the day, pretty much boxed up everything that was not staying in the house. After some additional packing on Friday, they spent maybe an hour loading our stuff into a huge truck and were off.
The amount of paper these guys spend on wrapping is unbelievable (although, I guess I should not be complaining). An inch-high crystal figurine is wrapped in so many layers of packing paper that the item is the size of an average vase. I have not ascertained yet what an actual vase looks like when wrapped that way. Stay tuned for the arrival.
The sorting of things was a bit complicated. Most of the stuff is shipped by sea-freight, which means about 6 weeks in transit. There is a 500 lbs allowance for an air shipment of more immediate necessities (e.g., main family computer đŸ™‚ ). I also worked out a local shipment to my parents’ house for some stuff that we wanted to keep but not bring with us, plus impractical things to ship (e.g., my 60-inch widescreen TV that is neither built for different voltage nor different resolution standard). And then it gets interesting. As I mentioned before, I am going over right away; Natasha and the kids stay for another month. They obviously need not only clothes to wear in the meantime, but also linens, tableware, cookware, books, toys, etc, etc. Therefore, household items needed to be sorted along the lines of “goes” and “stays”. Finally, there was some stuff – primarily, furniture, – that was never meant to be brought to England.
So, Natasha spent quite some time sorting. I helped – mainly, in agonizing over whether to bring the wine cooler (yes) and our custom-built bar (no)… And in the end, after all had been packed and the truck had left, we realized that we did not screw up… badly. Some of the small things that were not clearly separated ended up on the wrong route. Some of the documents that may be needed in the next couple of weeks got packed with the filing cabinet that is shipped by sea. Also by sea went my new shoes that we specifically bought for Becky’s birthday celebration in 3 weeks. Three different copies of each of my movies are probably within the same box – and I do not have any copies that are not shipped by sea… But overall, I think we did rather well.
The biggest screw up was the computers. I basically left Natasha without a computer at home. Actually, I did keep one of my old PCs from shipping, but inexplicably neglected to check it and set it up prior to packing all of the stuff. When I started doing that after the movers had left, I realized that I need some drivers that I have on discs that… yes, will be on a ship for the next several weeks. Friends who live nearby helped me with downloading and burning drivers to a CD, but then more drivers were needed… I sound like an Apple “comparing-to-PC” commercial, don’t I? Could it really be that connecting a Mac to a cable modem is as easy as plugging a cable in? I am ready to convert!…
And then, we spent a day in a house that only has the furniture that we did not want to ship (plus the bar with a dozen bottles selected for their cheerful appearance and low value). Check that – I spent a day; Natasha, Becky and Kimmy will live there for a few weeks yet. It’s a weird feeling, seeing the house that way after spending the last couple of years remodeling and improving it. At the same time, knowing that the house may not sell, it was kind of soothing to see it in this move-in condition – maybe, it will be us who’ll move in sometime…
They are announcing my flight…