Mount Shasta, September 3 2003: On Saturday, when Joe and I arrived in the Big Yellow Truck, we discovered that our unloading crew had faded, so we did it ourselves. My son-in-law Joe is a mammoth skinhead, who can press almost 400 pounds. He’s plenty strong.
I, however, am 59 and nowhere near as durable as once upon a time. All the same, I managed to be of some assistance. It was mongo hot, and almost 4000 feet altitude. The secret, learned in scorching Texas summers so long ago: Slow waaay down, and just keep moving.
We’d make 2-3 trips from the truck, then sit to let the oxygen catch up, then repeat, till dark. By evening, we’d finished and I was toto exhausto. Off to Casa Ramos, walking real slow. They didn’t card 36-year-old Joe this time, but they ran in a deadly jalapeno: his face turned red, sweat popped from his skin, his eyes watered. I’ll credit him this — he didn’t cry.
Next morning, a Sunday, I drove the Big Yellow Truck back down to San Anselmo, to pick up Adrienne and our pets.
I finagled a switcheroo, because Adrienne wants me to sell my beat-up red Honda, whereas I want to make sure that one car will work out — she’s planning to take our one car back to Marin for weeks at a time, you see, leaving me completely strando!
Then, saying adieu to our home of ten years, I drove the Ford back up the road to our new home, into the evening. On the last leg, coming around a bend on Highway 5 near Black Dog Gulch, we saw Mount Shasta looming above the skyline. Finally, in the dark, we unlatched the fence and stumbled into our new home. Falling into bed, with the fatigue of a wounded cavelier, I groaned with pleasure, and then was fast asleep.
Monday, Labor Day, we unpacked boxes. Surprisingly, Adrienne had kitchen and bath functional by day’s end. Our new home is quite lovely.
Today, Tuesday, telco and cable internet came and ran new wiring to my office. I’ve engaged the computers, brought up the network, and to my eternal delight, with one tweak in my firewall, up came the internet over the cable modem.
Not ‘spozed to be that easy!
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