Honesty Policy

It’s sometimes hard to feel sorry for the financial woes of a major retail operation, and a recent experience at one of the big box department stores has me scratching my head over the difficulties of being honest.

This particular retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2002, somehow scraped up the funds to purchase Sears in 2005, and then, late in 2011 announced the closure of more than 100 stores after a poor response from shoppers during the Christmas shopping season. Yes, we are talking about K-Mart of “the Blue Light Special” which, for the years of my youth, was the king of the Twin City Mall on the Fitchburg-Leominster line. Back in the day, they usually didn’t have what I needed, but more recently, they actually carry crap I think I want.

KMart carries “Official” MLB, NHL, and NFL team branded merchandise, and the selection is both different and less costly than that of neighboring store Bob’s. Yes, I am sure the quality is probably of a lower caliber, but I happen to like the specific items carried. It was KMart where I found the wicked cool Bruins logo wall mirror I got for my niece’s birthday in May, when Bob’s had primarily commuter cups, ear buds and the usual array of overpriced lounge pants and tee shirts. It was a most fortunate find as she loved it, and unfortunately, my unemployment-era wallet is more in synch with KMart. (It’s currently more closely aligned with the local Salvation Army Superstore, but that’s another story.)

On a recent Friday, Mom and I visited KMart as we were heading to Cape Cod to visit my brother on his birthday so I could check out the New England Patriots merchandise and also get cash back with my debit card (avoiding a separate trip to my mega-bank’s ATM across town). After gushing over the various team branded infant and toddler clothing, I chose a suitable adult Patriots shirt for my brother and we proceeded to the register.

When I arrived at the cashier, there were no other customers around, but a line quickly formed behind me as if a tour group had just received word their bus would be leaving in five minutes. During my transaction I selected the option for $50 cash back. The cashier lifted her cash drawer and removed three bills, which I jammed into my currently empty wallet with the receipt. I didn’t take the time to count the money, partly because the cashier was already ringing up the next customer and I was feeling a bit rushed and in the way with the next person in line crawling up my back. 

It was a leisurely ride to the Cape, with a stop at the Christmas Tree Shoppe and a pleasant tour of the hydrangeas of every color (including deep maroonish-purple) blooming in the yards along 6A in Sandwich. Now I want a yard with dark purple hydrangeas. Maybe I should move to Sandwich.

After sitting around for a while talking with my brother and his wife, we all headed out for dinner. My dinner was an amazing bowl of lobster stew and a massive fried haddock sandwich with sweet potato fries (in case you were wondering). When it was time to contribute the funds for my share of the check, I dug into my wallet where I expected to find two twenty dollar bills and a ten, and found instead a fifty, a twenty and a ten. And I immediately began to worry.

Having worked in both banking and retail, there are still lingering miserable memories of cash drawer balancing and people getting into trouble for drawer shortages. I had no knowledge of KMart's policy, but I began imagining the cashier getting a lecture, or worse, fired for the missing $30. Another part of me felt like I’d won a prize -- $30 was more than I’d won on any lottery ticket in decades. Knowing that I would certainly contact the store if my money had been short by $30 the right thing to do was to notify the store about my erroneous windfall.

It seemed like it would be easier to explain in person with the receipt in view, so on Monday I returned to KMart. The customer service manager listened to my tale, looked at my receipt and didn’t quite seem to know what to do. I wondered if there was a policy for such events. In her defense, it probably isn’t every day a customer rolls in smiling, waving a receipt and declaring she received too much change. In fact, it probably isn’t ever the case. Until that day, anyway.

The service desk manager called someone else in the building and explained the scenario while I stood awkwardly at the counter waiting, then informed me it would take about 30 minutes to check into the cash reports from Friday and I could do my shopping and return to the counter later. I didn't really have any shopping to do, but a huge yellow banner screaming “Clearance” hanging on a wall above an array of swimsuits caught my eye. In front of the swimsuits (buy one, get 1/2 off another) a cluster of racks was jammed with clothing items reduced by a mere 10%. I felt like I’d been tricked. Someone at KMart needs to look up the definition and perception of clearance pricing.

Back at the service desk I was told that the cashier’s drawer was short by $30 back on Friday, it had been written off as a correction of some sort, “the cash lady” needed to look into what to do, and someone would get back to me in a day or so. Even at minimum wage, the two people working on the problem for the better part of an hour had already cost most of the $30 I was trying to return. And I can imagine the employee conversations. “You’ll never believe the freak that came into the store today, trying to give us back $30! Who the heck does that?”

It’s now been a week and I haven’t heard a whisper about correcting the situation, so I guess the extra $30 is mine. Because I made the extra effort of hauling my ass to the store to fix the store’s mistake, my conscience is clear. And I’m thinking maybe I should shop there more often -- as long as they are handing out free money. Maybe they’ll even get the hang of clearance pricing.

Time Elasticity

Several lifetimes ago, (as measured by career shifts and ex-husbands), I spent six years working for a manufacturer of timekeeping, fire detection and nurse call systems. That stretch of time included a divorce, moving twice, finishing an MBA and ultimately leaving the company. Sometimes it felt like forever, but in retrospect it now seems more like a lightning flash.

The first week of time clock company employment included “orientation” -- a professionally produced company video which my boss told me was narrated by the same narrator for the PBS show Nova. I learned about company projects such as an underground school system and the monitoring grid over a massive sports stadium with water cannons that would rise from the stands and extinguish a fire detected by the system.

The time systems product line included school clocks and the dreaded time clock punched by hourly workers everywhere. Remember in school when it seemed that time stopped dead and the sweep hand just twitched on the clock for what seemed like forever? I do. I’d be glaring at that thing, willing it to move and tick off the minutes until I could move onto more interesting things like ballet class, public library meetings with my co-worker/sort-of boyfriend from the catholic high school across town, or Espresso’s for a slice of fifty-cent pizza before the one-mile walk home from high school. Let me point out, that yes, I am wicked old, and back in the 1970s, we really DID walk to and from school, and slabs of pizza could be procured for a mere fifty cents. There was no soccer-mom-SUV-caravan picking up schoolchildren -- we either took the bus or oh-em-gee -- walked. These were the dark ages when super-sized fast food was a special occasion treat and not a dietary mainstay, homemade family dinners at the table were the norm, and genetically modified food was the stuff of science fiction. All that walking and now-miniature-by-comparison nutritious food portions meant few schoolchildren were overweight, but I digress and that is a rant for another day.

Back to the twitching clock. In company orientation, I learned that yes, the clocks of my school days HAD indeed stopped momentarily, not to punish the suffering student body, but to self-correct to the exact time transmitted via some magical beam in the western United States that allows timekeeping systems to synchronize. It was a relief to realize the clock really did pause and it wasn’t a trick of my imagination.

During my years toiling in the treasury group at the time clock company, I moved money between banks to cover accounts payable, multiple payrolls, investments and loans. The routine at my desk was dictated by the clock and included multiple daily deadlines -- daily cash reports due to the executive suite by 9:00, account balance pulls and initial daily cash needs from payables and payroll at 10:00, loan or investment calls by 12:00 and 2:00, and final daily updates by 3:00. There were points in the day when I could not leave my desk for fear of missing a deadline, no matter how urgent the need to use the loo. There were times in the month, quarter, and year where the volume of reports and analyses made breathing feel like a luxury. To balance it all, there were also spells of mind-numbing emptiness of time.

During the time at the producer of master timekeeping systems, my concept of a Master Timekeeper living somewhere up in the clouds developed. Just to screw with the humans, he (yes, in my head it was a male, nonhuman entity with a sense of humor) would cause time to speed up or slow down, for his own amusement. This is why two weekend days never feel as long as a single Monday at work, and why an entire vacation week feels about as long as any one workday.  It’s why waiting alone in a bar for someone who is tardy feels as long as an eight hour factory shift and why a night of laughter with friends passes by in what feels like a second. It’s the Master Timekeeper messing around.

During a recent weeklong vacation at a rented beach house in southern Maine with no wi fi, no computer, and no schedule, the elasticity of time was felt. The first full day at the beach house, my oldest niece and I went to the beach. We walked to the beach from the house, and once at the beach, we walked in the shallow water for a while then laid in the sun on a blanket. After our very luxurious spell in the golden sun where time felt like it was suspended in honey, we were ready to head back to the house. A check of the clock shocked us with the information we had been at the beach for a mere twenty minutes. It was weird. I’m pretty sure it was my Master Timekeeper at play, but it worked in our favor, so there were no complaints, just wonderment. 

There were other time surprises during the week. Being awakened by the rising sun at 5:40 and being up and out of bed at 6 or 7 am (thanks to an overly eager dog) was pleasing to me and a nightmare for  my teenaged niece roommate. Morning and evening walks with the dogs that felt like ten minutes but were more like forty-five proved that the ocean as a destination is infinitely more fun than aimlessly walking around your own boring hometown neighborhood for the millionth time. A couple hours spent waiting for high tide to recede and reveal a bit of actual beach passes quickly when the kids are playing pool and there are books and lunch to be enjoyed. Conversely, sitting around after lunch for ninety minutes awaiting the completion of someone who shall remain unnamed’s laundry so six of us could go someplace felt like damn near forever. When we finally headed out and it began to drizzle just as we were leaving for Fort McClary followed by “the world’s smallest suspension bridge,” the angry voice in my head was screaming that “I’ll never get that hour and a half of wasted vacation laundry time back!”

The return to “normal life” at home where time is dominated by my job of looking for a job has been a bit of a letdown. During vacation, the pace was slow, leisurely and luxurious, but upon reflection during the first few days back home, the week feels like it sped by. The normal frustration of not knowing how much longer it will take to find a job is at least as aggravating as the months already spent searching. The fear of spending money to do things for which there is presently ample time (like a gym membership, travel or education) will someday be replaced by anger at not having done them when I am finally employed and looking back at six or nine or 12 months of unemployment with no accomplishments. And someday, it will all seem less significant. It’s just a matter of time.

Bitchy Resting Face

There is a YouTube video written by Taylor Orci and directed by Behn Fannin making the rounds of social media. Called “Bitchy Resting Face,” it chronicles “a disorder that affects millions of women every day.”

It’s funny. Well, to me anyway, because for as long as I can remember, I have been subjected to casual queries and full-blown interrogations as to why I am mad, glum, depressed, etc., etc. My history of wearing a lot of black probably didn’t help the situation, but hey, it’s not my fault that black happens to be appropriate for practically every occasion, episodes of bitchiness or depression included.

For as many people I know who walk around smiling like a toothpaste ad, there is an equal number of my acquaintances who are afflicted with Bitchy Resting Face. I relate to my non smiling friends, maybe in part because I completely understand when they look mad but aren’t, and the ensuing aggravation when people keep commenting on it.

Although I was kind of a moody teenager (who isn’t, really?), I’m pretty sure I was not as perpetually pissed off and bitchy as my face apparently portrayed me to be. Not when I was a kid, and not now. Even when perfectly content, I get the questions about being mad. I’m just not one of those people who can walk around all day every day with a smile plastered across my face. I’ve tried. It looks more like a constipated grimace than a genuine smile, and I’m pretty sure it’s scarier than my Bitchy Resting Face and my “get the hell out of my way I’m pissed off” face.

Even the photos of me as a young kid look serious. Shy. Thoughtful, even. The fact is, I was self-conscious as all hell. As my classmates blossomed into womanhood all around me, I lived with daily worry that my own bosom would never develop because I slept on my stomach and refused to wear undershirts in first grade. I spent fifth and sixth grade tormented by female classmates with chests that bore more resemblance to Playboy centerfolds and Maxim cover models than 11-year olds, and who delivered daily torture (today it’s called “bullying”) over my dream worthiness to pirates (sunken chest) and carpenters (flat as a board and skinny as a nail). These girls shoved orange peels down my shirt while chanting they were “adding to the cause.” Trust me, there was a LOT going on behind my early non-smiling Bitchy Resting Face, and cultivating a lovely smile was not as high on the agenda as surviving sixth grade.

Ample photographic evidence exists that even when I tried to smile for a photo, it usually looked fake. While attempting to smile (especially during my teens and 20s when I was engrossed in fashion magazines and fantasies of being a model or a wealthy tycoon’s wife), I was also worried about crinkly eyes, smile lines, my super prominent cheekbones appearing even more prominent, showing the chip in my front tooth (earned at age 8) and later the repair to the chip in my front tooth (finally at 17). YOU try smiling with all that going on. The inner life was affecting the outward appearance. But I wasn’t always mad, I was usually just thinking. Focused. Trying to not trip over cracks in the sidewalk. Riding the mood swing between wanting to totally be invisible and desperately wishing to be noticed.

During a short stint as a beauty pageant contestant (two pageants, one crown) I had to resort an insider trick -- Vaseline on my teeth. Try it. It’s freeking disgusting. The feeling is so nasty you’ll do anything to avoid closing your mouth over your teeth. Ta da! A smile, but not exactly practical for daily use.

Regular "Wasn't expecting a photo" Resting Bitchy Face.

Thankfully, some of the baggage of my inner life has been shed, and I’m slightly less self conscious (or no longer give a crap). Thanks to the proliferation of camera phones and digital photography, there is a small reservoir of recent photographic evidence of me smiling. These may be directly liked to an indulgence in beer, wine, or good old fashioned hard liquor (friends have said I am one smiling, happy drunk) but I’ll take whatever breaks I can catch. And now there is the comfort of the official recognition of “Bitchy Resting Face” and my sisters in faces.

Book Clubbing

There are enough balls in the juggling act currently masquerading as my life that I may soon be qualified for a position with the circus. The major variables in the air are: 1) a job to facilitate 2) my own place in which to live, 3) travel, and 4) a social life. For now, I live with my Mom and stepdad, and although I have a valid passport and plenty of time to travel, I am far too sensible (frugal?) to spend what money I have on travel, a situation I will deeply regret once I find a job and no longer have the time for it. Plus, I don’t have any travel companions, and there are certain things, like jetting off to a foreign country, that I refuse to do alone. Dang, I don’t even enjoy going to a local museum alone.

In between stalking the job listings and crafting customized cover letters worthy of a literary award (depressing), and flirting with the real estate listings to monitor current prices (more depressing), a meager amount of continually diminishing energy is directed to reconstructing a social life in a geographic area from which I was absent for 12 years. I considered ordering these stressful searches sequentially, but the logical first step is a job, a search that is going so poorly I’ll likely be eligible for Social Security before I find the next step in my career. If only I could be paid handsomely to just show up places and act aloof and snooty. You know, like Paris Hilton. Then I could be knocking out the money, travel and social scene all at once.

The whole life rebuilding thing isn’t exactly easy. It’s reminiscent of the square peg / round hole feeling I had all through school. And college. And most of my adult life. At least there’s consistency. And familiarity. I feel like a fish out of water, gasping for air on a dock, unable to commandeer my own life.

At Mom’s, we each seem to feel the need to entertain the other. We go clubbing (BJ’s Wholesale Club) and visit antique shops. We cook dinner together. There are Scrabble matches almost daily. She still has regular activities away from home that I have conscientiously remained out of, because she needs her own space as much as I need mine. I don’t get much writing done when she is home, because I feel like I’m ignoring her, which feels rude. Plus, she likes to watch the morning chat shows, an endless stream of crime dramas and the game show classics “Let’s Make a Deal” and “The Price is Right” which are intrusive to my focus, especially when she starts talking to me about what is happening on TV. It’s super fun when I’m trying to write cover letters and send resumes.

My trajectory into the social scene has been pathetic, to put it delicately.  There have been a handful of social outings in three months -- a lounge concert and a bar, a coffee date, patio cocktails, three book club meetings, and a ballet recital. There have also been seven dance classes and two workshops.  Sprinkle in a couple hair appointments and the sum total is the rough equivalent of one week’s activity in my previous, mostly-fully-formed-adult life.

My life is so small right now I don’t know how I have managed to not slip through the cracks in the front porch. Perhaps the extra 15 pounds of lard presently adorning my physique has spared me such a tragic fate.

It’s one thing to be a pathetic adult loner living independently and sulking after work in one’s fortress of loneliness, surrounded by cherished belongings and without witnesses, but it’s kind of horrifying to be a middle-aged, unemployed loner (by which I mean LOSER) living at your Mom’s and having her see you on the computer or on the sofa watching TV all night every night.

My most “interesting” outings so far, if they can be called that, might be the book club meetings. It is glaringly obvious that I don’t read books like other people in book clubs read books. While other members reference sentences, phrases, and incidents in the book with startling clarity and detail, I sit there frantically flipping through the story in my head trying to grasp something, anything, upon which to comment. I guess I need to postpone my reading until the last minute, instead of devouring the book three weeks in advance to increase my chances of recollection. 

When other readers are commenting on the “darkness” of the story or something that happened to the central character, I’m wondering just how that “darkness” was conveyed and how it managed to completely escape my attention. Instead of revealing my state of obliviousness, I bite my tongue to hold back the “Huh? What page is that on?” that is eager to burst forth from my lips.

Heck, even when I read Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar,” the classic depiction of depression and breakdown, it seemed like the chronicle of a series of normal days to me. Perhaps my own inner life is so dark and twisty that someone else’s mental breakdown reads to me like just another day from my own journal.

So while my book club members wax eloquently on the importance of the gold scarf that was not discarded in one book, the abusiveness of the father in another, or the symbolism of the tail gate party in a third, I sip my beverage of choice with a smile upon my face that I hope is concealing the utter emptiness residing in the cavity behind it. Maybe I need to check for Cliffsnotes or published reviews before my next book club meeting, so I can participate with confidence (and a clue).

Red Line

After submitting painstakingly prepared cover letters and resumes in response to 30 job postings within a couple months, there was finally an interview. In person. At an official office. It wasn't for a specific position, but with a placement agency for the potential of future contract jobs of varying duration. Work I'm not convinced I even want, but an income stream needed if I ever want to be a grownup again, with my own residence, bills and lifestyle.

Since selling my house and leaving a full-time marketing job in Tennessee to move back to the family home I lived in from age 10 to 23, I've wondered how long it would take to become bored with not working. At 2.5 months into it, boredom has not yet come to ring the doorbell, just the postal carrier and FedEx guy (eBay!) and a bedraggled young woman trying to “win points for a trip” by “meeting people” which turned out to be code for “selling magazines.”

Episodes of unemployment in Tennessee were periods of self-discovery (and de-evolution) as the woman who once vowed to never be seen outside the house without mascara, combed hair, and wearing an actual "outfit" began sprinting the driveway in pajamas to fetch the mail. I learned it was possible to plan, shop for, and prepare a decent dinner in 1.5 hours and power clean major areas of the house in about 15 minutes, leaving lots of time free for sulking and playing online word games with strangers in faraway places like the UK and India.

Having achieved something fantasized about for years -- time to write, do photography, make art, (and a husband to pay the bills) -- I had no idea how to proceed. Most days were occupied with thinking about all the things I *could* do, until it was too late to actually do any of them. Too many options led to total paralysis. The big discoveries were that I function better when expected to report to a workplace on a regular schedule, and that the busier I am, the more that gets done.

My small circle of Tennessee friends and acquaintances was comprised of people who had nice, grownup day jobs like journalist and museum worker, or retirees with spouses and a routine of joint daily activities. It eventually required Herculean effort to haul my own arse out of bed for the long, lonely days, and I’m pretty sure I nearly lost my mind during those poorly executed June Cleaver phases.

This time unemployment would be different. I'm older and wiser. Well, older anyway. And I didn’t plan on being unemployed for very long. I was scoping out apartments and job postings and applying for jobs in New England two months before I even left Tennessee -- a productive way to avoid the actual packing of the house. Daily emails with multiple job openings in marketing, writing, museum work and public relations, coupled with government propaganda proclaiming an improving economy were promising signs. By my initial calculations, it would take a couple weeks, maybe a month, to find a job, move into a great place of my own and dive headfirst back into whatever was left of the social scene I left a dozen years ago. This uncharacteristically optimistic (ridiculously naive?) view felt exciting. Refreshing, even. Nobody could accuse me of being “glass half empty.” Not this time.

Now that the dark cloud of reality has descended, it's more accurate to say that I'm an unemployed schmuck sitting around a different house in a different state. At least I have Mom for company and to inspire a level of self-regulation. To exhibit I'm a grownup, I don't lounge in PJs all day, like I would most assuredly do without a witness. There was a time when the idea of hanging out with my Mom all day, every day would have been more than either of us could bear (or survive). I'm referring, of course, to that period of my moody adolescence, when I knew absolutely everything and no matter what my Mom suggested, did, or didn't do, she was wrong in my eyes. I was a miserable bitch. There is no point denying it, as there are far too many witnesses. It’s different now. I’m a bit less cranky, and I see my Mom with mature, more respectful vision, greatly improved by a dozen years spent 1,200 miles away.

While in Tennessee and seeing friends with their families, I really came to miss, appreciate, and understand my Mom -- the woman who worked full-time and put herself through college while managing a difficult marriage and raising three kids. She transformed herself from low-wage retail clerk to well-paid accountant with a major computer company. Mary, the financial adviser we both utilized in the late 1990s, referred to her as "One of the funniest women I know." My Mom? Really? That was a major clue that Mom had a facet or two or ten with which I was unacquainted, and that I had probably sold her short for the past, oh, lifetime.

Mom is retired from the now defunct computer company, and I presently share her retiree life as I search for a new job (some days more diligently than others). We visit antique and consignment shops on a rotation loosely linked to grocery runs and dollar store visits and spread out to avoid entire days bereft of activity. There have been two trips to Maine -- first in April to look for a beach rental house for a vacation with my sister and nieces (yes, I’ll be taking a vacation from unemployment), and again on a gorgeous 80 degree day in Mid-May to deliver the rest of the payment, calculate the best walking path to the beach and note directions and landmarks. We lunched in the little beach town just beginning to awaken from winter. On the way home, we visited an outlet mall and an antique mall. I could really get used to this.

The day after the second beach visit, I was encamped at a Dunkin Donuts in Boston’s financial district, an hour early for the appointment with the placement agency. Like Mom, I'd rather be wicked early than risk being even a little late. Plus, I’d dreamed the night before that I kept changing outfits and engaging in delaying tactics until it was 30 minutes late for my appointment and I hadn't yet left the house. The disturbance of the dream launched me out of bed without hesitation, a solid two-and-a-half hours before my usual leisurely arising.

Pre-trip planning involved exploration of three options: the Fitchburg to Boston commuter rail ($25 round trip with inconvenient return times); the subway (one hour drive to Cambridge, then a 20 minute subway ride and five minute walk); or driving all the way into Boston (potential traffic nightmare and search for parking). Plan B won -- drive to Alewife Station, park for $7, ride the MBTA red line to South Station, then walk a few blocks. The return trip could include jumping off the red line at the Kendall/MIT stop to visit a nearby vintage/used clothing store.

The brief visit at the glamorous offices on the 20th floor with a view of the harbor hardly seemed worth the 1.5 hours of multi-modal travel. The purpose of the appointment seemed to be establishing my validity as a legally-employable worker by photocopying my driver's license and Social Security card. The agency representative said most of their writing and marketing placements are in Boston with practically none in Worcester or anywhere near my current (temporary) residence. It’s doubtful temp work will pay enough to relocate closer to Boston, so commuting may be a necessity, seeing as I didn't win the massive Powerball lottery drawing, and am too young to draw on my still insufficient retirement plan and too broke to swing it otherwise.

The visit to the vintage store included wandering lost around the MIT campus upon exiting the subway station and scrutinizing the throngs of skinny-jean clad men for lookalikes for Howard Walowitz on Big Bang Theory.  Some things are really more fun with a companion. After retrieving the car from the Alewife Station and exiting the garage, an unintentional and circuitous driving tour of MIT, Harvard University and Lesley College reminded me how much I prefer to be a passenger.

Now it’s back to plowing through dozens of daily job ads. Most are seeking someone with the skill set of three people from three different departments at my old job (graphic design plus account management plus production management? Really?). The highlight of each day is “Scrabble o’clock” when Mom and I start our daily round of games while multi-tasking the preparation of dinner and watching crime dramas and Judge Judy. Seriously, I can get used to this.

Self Contained

The house is under contract. The closing date is tentatively set. Ample notice and a departure date have been given at work and one of my bosses and I are disproportionately stressed about one or two projects. But basically, bit by bit, the details are being worked out. My mom and Butch are coming to help load up my stuff, and their travel dates are set. Their decision to drive instead of fly down helped resolve my debate of shipping container versus truck. Good thing.

On a vacation day scheduled to handle house repairs needed as a result of the inspection, I had time to sit and focus on the container/truck issue. I had already checked UHaul and PODS and spazzed out over the costs ($900 to $2500, depending). On this day, I found another company and got an estimate online.

After some trouble on the container company’s website when I tried to change their seemingly random assigned moving date, which was, unfortunately, a week later than I need the stuff gone from the house, I cast aside my long-standing neurotic issues with phones (another story for another day) and called them. Drew, my customer service rep, said there wasn’t much availability for February, which explains why the web page kept defaulting to March 5. We got things lined up. If I need to store the cube on the other end, it’s in Worcester, a town I have lived in twice and would be happy to live in again. The other container storage companies also had storage  -- but in towns I never heard of or in a neighboring state. I like to think my stuff is nearby, so I think the Worcester storage site sealed the deal for me with this company.

As promised by Drew, follow-up emails arrived within a few minutes. One email had checklists and the “Do Not Ship” list was quite helpful. Enlightening. Sure, I knew it wasn’t acceptable to ship/store my paint, gasoline, ammunition or fireworks arsenals, but I hadn’t really considered nail polish and nail polish remover. Anybody want 38 bottles of nail polish? Yes, 38. I counted. Well, maybe I can keep 10 or 12 in the stuff packed into the car. But seriously, at least half will have to find new homes.

The overall plan is to sell as much stuff as I can and have a super light move.  To have a clean start. To finally be free of secondhand clunky furniture and the need to find a living space based on the volume of my stuff. Heck, with the exception of four white leather dining chairs I bought new for the house in Tennessee, most of my stuff has been castoffs from family and friends, a couple yard sale finds, or the pressboard stuff that comes in a box and is assembled at home. My major new furniture purchases were in the last century for the house in Massachusetts (1986), and I walked away from most of that stuff in the divorce, telling myself it was a small price to pay to get out of there alive.

Worse than the secondhand stuff (or “Shabby Chic” as the trend was called 15 or 20 years ago when it was cool -- and still never a deliberate decor scheme on my part), some of my boxed stuff has enjoyed five or six moves and never seen the light of day. Time to go.

I still, however, have a couple issues with the “Do Not Ship” list, specifically, their category called Miscellaneous:
 - Antiques
 - Automobiles
 - Contraband
 - One of a kind artwork
 - Pets
 - Photos-photo albums

After I liberate myself from the replaceable furniture and stuff I am tired of looking at and schlepping around,  I’ll have a few antiques (mostly family furniture), a bunch of one of a kind artwork (most done by my Tennessee art friends), and my own gazillion photos /photo albums. Dang. Maybe I just need to get a tow hitch and drag my stuff behind me.

Sky Writing

Another Christmas trip home to New England is done. As always, it went by too quickly. As usual, I ran out of time and didn't get to see everyone. In keeping with tradition, approximately 6 days into the trip and a couple days before the flight back to Tennessee, I was visited by the annual stuffed up sinuses, scratchy throat and general feeling of unwellness to enhance the regularly scheduled depression at having to leave the family. It wouldn't be a major holiday family visit if it didn't end in me feeling like I'd been run over by a bus.

It seems the best thing I ever did to fully appreciate my family was to move 1,200 miles away from them. Maybe when I am 1,200 miles away from Clarksville I can finally appreciate that place, but it will probably be a delayed gratification thing, as it may take a few years for the excitement of leaving to wear off first.

It stinks to fly with congested sinuses, and moreso since Southwest stopped flying direct between New England and Nashville. Once upon a time, there were multiple daily nonstops on the schedule, but ever since the addition of Baltimore-Washington Airport to their schedule, there are no more nonstops to Nashville from either Manchester, New Hampshire or Providence, Rhode Island. The once two hour trip is now a four to seven hour event involving foot tours of multiple airports. The first leg of the flight introduces a mild ear discomfort which is topped with a bonus round of excrutiating ear pain and the challenge of suppressing the urge to scream and wail like an infant by jamming gum into my mouth and chewing it like my life depends on it while applying pressure to the outer opening my ear canal. Then, I spend the next couple days feeling like my ears are stuffed with cotton or I've just left a very loud concert. It might be my favorite part of traveling by air, narrowly edging out the joy of playing fortune teller as required to pack for as-yet-unknown weather conditions and activities.

Being New Year's Eve and dancing on the brink of sickness, there was a huge compulsion to go to bed early and attempt to heal, but that's what I did one year ago and resented it any time I thought about it for the rest of the year. Twenty years ago there would be no consideration given to missing a New Year's Eve celebration -- come hell, high water, the forced muteness of laryngitis or a raging case of tonsillitis, I would be dressed to the nines and out in the fray. I have a quieter life now. In my delusional moments I call it maturity, but it's probably more accurate to call it laziness.

Sleep was poor much of the week in New England, thanks to the seemingly never-ending sinus issues that prevented breathing. And the unfamiliar bed with no dogs. And the weird dreams. Some of the best sleep of the week happened each morning between 8:00 and 9:00 when I had intended to already be up, and on the flight from Baltimore-Washington International to Nashville International when I dozed off three or four times in six or seven minute increments, and awoke when I whacked my head on the cabin wall each time my head began to drop. I think it was starting to freak out the kid in the center seat, who had her mother sleeping in the aisle seat to her right and me smashing my head on the window like a psychiatric patient in the seat to her left.

The rest of the week's prime sleep came when I hit the couch after arriving home. In spite of the Doctor Who marathon on BBC America, the fatigue and feeling of crappiness, coupled with the coziness of the exhausted fur babies curled up beside me overpowered my supreme crush on David Tennant and I was sleeping, this time in 15 minute slots -- just long enough to miss key moments of each episode all afternoon long.

In a triumphant move, I managed to fight the urge to retreat to bed early and sick and stayed up all the way until midnight and the Central Time Zone airing of the Times Square ball drop. My friend Sharon came over and we watched the Doctor Who marathon, so I got to see all the parts I slept through during the afternoon airings as we chatted and drank Chocolate Rouge wine (her) and Bourbon Barrel Stout beer (me) from wine goblets and ate snacks and lamented wearing jeans instead of our comfy fleecy sweats. But it was New Year's Eve and we didn't want to feel like those lazy zombies who parade through WalMart in pajamas at all hours of the day and night.

On New Year's Day morning when I got up at the rosy hour of 8:15 (after a night of reasonably satisfying sleep) I saw the TV listing for the last episode of Downton Abbey Season 2 and immediately jumped to the potentially false assumption that the entire second season had aired overnight on PBS (and probably all day Monday). There was no way to verify this, as the TV listing only displays current and future time slots and shows. If only I had looked at ALL the listings yesterday instead of immediately shacking up with Doctor Who all day. And night. I mean, it's not like The Doctor even knows that he and I are dating.