sweaty day of packing

My major regret today is that I didn't take a single picture of the massive concerted effort involved in moving old Kevin out of his domicile. Not that it matters: because my buddy Mike won't permit me to display photos of his family (he's private like that, the bastard), I wouldn't have been able to slap any pics on the blog, anyway. You'll just have to imagine how the day went.

My buddy Dr. Steve came over last night (Friday, August 9). He helped me with a great deal of packing; I was, despite my best efforts, way behind schedule. We stopped boxing my possessions around midnight and I tried to get to sleep, but in the end, I don't think I slept more than three-and-a-half hours.

I got up at 6AM on Saturday morning, showered and prepped, and was boxing again by 6:40AM. I moved slowly and steadily, zone by zone, through my apartment, but as was true the previous night, my pace was glacial. Steve awoke around 8:30AM; I gave him work to do, and that sped things up.

Mike and his entire family were due to arrive around 10:30AM, as was my brother David. Mike called to say that there would be some delay because of the U-Haul trailer he had rented: there was a learning curve involved in getting acquainted with the trailer's hookup procedure. Mike's call came as a relief: I was still way behind in my packing. David arrived more or less on time, and he brought apple doughnuts from the Apple House in nearby Linden, Virginia, just four miles up the road from Front Royal. I had designated a whole pile of boxes for David to take home with him; he had some misgivings because his SUV, while large, wasn't large enough to hold all those boxes. I offered to hold the rest of David's boxes in my little Honda. David and Steve both began loading their respective cars up with boxes while I continued packing desperately.

Mike and his family arrived in two cars: one SUV and one Volkswagen Passat sedan. Mike's wife, Rebecca, expertly backed the SUV and trailer into a parking space, a gaggle of kids spilled out of both vehicles, and Operation Move Kevin began in earnest.

I live on the third floor, and unfortunately for my volunteers, my apartment building has no elevator. This meant a lot of tromping up- and downstairs. Everyone was a trouper, though, and we eventually got most of my boxes and furniture into all our vehicles. The only thing left for me to put in storage was my master bedroom's closet, but that promised not to be too huge of a task. David volunteered to come back Sunday morning to help me clear that load out.

Loading took about two hours, including the moving of heavy furniture like my ancient dresser, and after eating pizza at the local popular pizza joint, Melting Pot Pizza, we drove off to CubeSmart self-storage in Warrenton, Virginia, where I had chosen to stow my possessions. Luckily, CubeSmart's storage facility did have an elevator (my particular cubicle is on the second floor), and it also had rolling pallets on which we could stack my boxes high. Unloading everything proved to be a much easier and more quickly accomplished task than loading the vehicles at the apartment had been. We made a lot of noise while unloading; the kids were energetic, jokey, and squirmy, and a CubeSmart staffer showed up to see what in the world was going on (I had just loudly told a fart joke when she appeared). But we got the job done, at which point David and Steve both had to leave so they could be in time for their various commitments.

I drove with Mike's family back to Fredericksburg and helped unload my bunk bed and dresser, along with a few other sundries. After tanking up on juice and ginger ale, I drove to Alexandria to drop off my carful of boxed items for David, to whom I had bequeathed the entirety of my kitchen supplies and equipment. David and Patricia weren't home (as David had told me would be the case); I simply left all the boxes on David's back porch. After that, it was a 90-minute drive back to Front Royal, and I found I was too tired to work on packing up my master bedroom's closet. I plan to wake up around 7AM to work on all that; David will be by around 10 or 11AM to help me drive the rest of my stuff to CubeSmart.

The above chronicle of events doesn't give you, Dear Reader, any real feel for how tiring the day was for all of us. All that stair-climbing, all that heavy lifting... I was dripping with sweat after my very first trip back upstairs, given how out of shape I am. Later, with pizza in my gullet, I yawned the entire way to Warrenton, then yawned all the way to Fredericksburg. Right now, it's after 11:30PM, and I'm dead tired, so I do believe I'll end things here.

What a day.


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