Creatures

Here in the Lone Star State there are lots of critters that we simply don't have in the north. Our exterminator (yep, everyone down here has one) guarantees that we won't find any live bugs in our house. So far, so good with that. I have run across so many gross creatures outside, though, that sometimes I just want to jump in the car and head towards Michigan where at least the insects are familiar. And smaller. Even the spiders here are enormous. And brown, although I haven't encountered a brown recluse yet; I know - I looked that up. Our neighbors have informed us that all of this is just a part of living in the wonderful south. Lovely.

These are called "Palmetto Bugs," which is just a nice name for cockroaches. They are huge.

Here is the lizard head I found on our deck. The picture does not do it justice, as you cannot easily see the feet and claws.

A dead southern bird.

A chameleon. For some reason, I find these guys cute. They eat live bugs, so they aren't so bad to have around.

This is a shot of the very irritating seed things that continue to fall into our pool and hot tub.

March Madness

The moving van with our furniture rolled into Houston on Wednesday. It took the movers about 7 hours to unload everything, put together our beds, then remove the contents of some of the many cardboard boxes that held our belongings. Luck was with us that day, as some unpredicted rain began to fall minutes after the last of our furniture was carried safely into our house. We were authorized by Jim's company to have a "full unpack," but we opted for a "partial unpack" instead. This left us with approximately 40 boxes to empty out ourselves, half of which currently remain full of stuff. Two observations that I have recently made: 1) Movers unnecessarily bundle up every single item they transport in thick, beige packing paper, including pillows, bedding, and stuffed animals, and 2) Heavy-duty cardboard boxes have a distinct odor to them, and while it is not exactly an unpleasant smell, it is one that I am not enjoying. Today we brought bags and bags and bags of used packing paper to our nearby recycling center. We intend to bring lots of these stinky boxes back to Michigan with us to use for our eventual move to a condo.

We shopped today for plants and trees to spiffy up our yard and to replace the foliage lost in the freezing weather this year. Everyone who was out purchasing landscaping items was grumbling about the harsh winter they had just endured down here. It still saddens me to see so many palm trees with their fronds cut off and so many tropical bushes that have turned brown. My latest idea was to spray paint all of our dead plants green, but Jim does not like that plan, so we have begun to chop everything to the ground to see what grows back. We bought two Queen Palms, three Holly bushes, two Azaleas, a Southern Magnolia, and a tropical-looking reddish thing this afternoon. Tomorrow will be spent planting everything. We are also still working relentlessly to get our pool cleaned out. The biggest obstacle we have run into is the constant barrage of little pollen-seed-type things that fall out of the nearby oak trees (these southern oaks are not like northern ones!) and turn dust-like when they hit the water. As soon as this seed season is over, we will be all set. The temperatures have been very pleasant since we arrived in Texas, anyway. It was sunny and near 80 degrees today.

Texas Mess

Jim, Jacob, and I arrived at our Houston house on Monday night. The second thing that we noticed - after first noting that our front lawn was quite overgrown - was that our swimming pool was a disgusting mess. This was surprising because our automatic "Polaris" vacuum is supposed to alleviate problems of this nature. The filter was clogged with leaves & dirt, there was crud floating on the surface of the water, and a thin layer of scum was coating the pool bottom. Even though it was dark outside, we began to clean the filter, skim, and scrub. After more careful observation this morning, I discovered the biggest culprit in the water was an unfamiliar-to-me weed-type pod that crumbled and turned almost dust-like when touched. There were thousands of these weedy-things in our yard, so I spent an hour sweeping them up before they could dump any more debris into the pool. When Jim spoke to some co-workers today about our dilemma, they said that some recent storms have wreaked havoc with many pools in the area. We "backwashed" our pump, added chlorine, and filtered for hours. With some more scouring and filtering, the pool ought to have its sparkle back soon.

As I was scrubbing a shallow part of the pool this afternoon, I saw what appeared to be animal footprints in the bottom-scum. I thought they looked a lot like raccoon prints, but I doubted that a raccoon would frolic in the swimming pool, or that a raccoon would even live in the neighborhood. It was shortly after this that I discovered the head of a lizard-y type critter on the deck. The head was fairly big, with shriveled up gecko-like claw pieces nearby. If this head had been attached to a body, the varmint would have been well over a foot long. (And, yes, I do wonder where the rest of the body went . . . ) To top the day off, we found a dead bird at the back of our house. And the mosquitoes are out in full force here and are as big around as half dollars. Yes, it is true that everything is bigger in Texas. Note to self: Keep doors to the outside closed at all times!

I do have pictures of the paw prints in the pool, the lizard head, and the dead bird, but my camera is not cooperating tonight. Hopefully, I will be able to post these soon.

Moving Day

The movers showed up at our house bright and early Thursday morning. They spent yesterday packing things into boxes, and came back today to load those boxes onto the moving van. After they left, we were overwhelmed with the amount of dust that was left behind where our furniture once sat. I could have stuffed a couch with the handfuls of dust we cleaned up!

The husband/wife moving team assigned to transport our belongings to Texas is just wonderful. We have had a very pleasant two days with them, hearing about their life on the road, and learning everything there is to know about driving a semi. Our furniture and goods took up approximately half of their trailer. The driver told us that we would have used about three quarters of it had we moved our entire house.

The van fit snugly between our neighbors' driveways.

Driver, Mark, goofed around with Jacob inside the truck.

Jacob supervised.

We were invited to check out the cab.

Real Estate Run-Down

Over the weekend, we looked at six more condos - bringing our total viewings to somewhere around forty or fifty. We put an offer on another one today, but I have no confidence that anything positive will happen. It seems as if every time we display an interest in a unit, even if it has sat empty for a year or more, someone else decides to outbid us.

If the single-family-housing market was as booming as the local condo market we would be all set. We have had more showings of our house this past week, but still no offers. On Sunday afternoon, our realtor called us at 1:57 p.m. asking if an agent could bring a client through at 2:00 p.m. Since Jim is home this week, he is getting a glimpse of what our lives have been like for the past three months, having to tidy up and rush out of the house at a moment's notice. I hope it all pays off for us.

Later this week our movers are coming over, first to pack our stuff, and then to load everything onto the moving van for the trip to Texas. I will be spending the next few days frantically sorting, organizing, and labeling Michigan things vs. Texas things.

Write On

Having a house for sale is quite a pain in the butt. Actually, keeping the house clean for potential buyers is the difficult part of the ordeal. All day long, and especially every time I go out, I have to find hiding places for all of the clutter that has made itself at home on my tabletops. (I can't begin to tell you how many things I have misplaced in this process!) I am constantly emptying wastebaskets, wiping out sinks, and tidying up bathrooms. I basically have to make sure that the house is "show ready" at all times in case an agent wants to bring through a client. Yesterday, I got a call from our realtor at 10:40 a.m. asking if someone could come see our house at 11 o'clock. Yikes! I raced from room to room concealing things that had gathered on desks and counters. In a frenzy, I tossed a stack of mail, bills, markers, and pencils into the dryer. When I returned home later, I fished everything out of the dryer so as not to lose track of it.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I was doing a load of laundry. After the wash, I placed a pair of Adam's khaki pants into the dryer. Twenty minutes later, I removed the pants from the machine to hang them up, but was dismayed to find that an errant pencil had been tumbling in the dryer with the khakis. Adam's pants were covered from top to bottom with graphite. Luckily, though, there is nothing that I enjoy more than scrubbing stubborn pencil marks from light-colored pairs of pants.

Again

We arrived home from our ski trip yesterday afternoon. Adam, Jacob, & I flew to Michigan and Jim took a flight back to Texas. Despite our optimism that Delta Airlines' luggage handling had improved since last weekend, they still managed to lose half of our checked bags on our nonstop flight from Colorado. This resulted in another lengthy wait at the airport; this time in the lost baggage line at DTW. Not wanting to be exclusive to the Detroit-Denver-Detroit route, Delta also lost Jim's skis on his trip from Denver to Houston. Yes, we are somewhat disillusioned with our "new" hometown airline, and so delighted that we now get to pay those hefty checked baggage fees for the privilege of them misplacing our things. As compensation, they did give us little kits containing miniature toothbrushes, tiny chunks of deodorant, and funky plastic folding combs.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our vacation. We loved the Keystone Resort! I am very proud to report that I did not fall down once during our four days of skiing. I believe that is some sort of record for me, and it is definitely one that I hope to keep up!

The view of the gondola from our condo.

Jacob checked out this igloo at the ski area.

Jim took a call on the slopes.

We took a day off from skiing on Thursday and visited Wyoming.

Enough

Once our wayward luggage showed up at our condo in Colorado, we began to ski - and in Adam's case, snowboard. The weather has been simply perfect and the snow is plentiful. We skied Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday so far, and despite some sore legs (mine), and a few other minor aches & pains (the others), we are feeling pretty fine. Adam's skin has remained blue-free, even though we are at a much higher altitude than we were in Utah, and we are all relieved about that.

On Monday, I was trailing behind Jim, Adam, and Jacob on a ski run when I came across a 30-something girl sitting on the snow grimacing and holding her leg. She had a companion (husband? boyfriend? brother?) with her who explained that they thought her leg was broken, and help was on the way. I skied off. On Tuesday, Jim and I were lagging behind Adam and Jacob when we noticed another 30-something girl perched in the snow on the side of a run. This girl looked very shaken and was holding her chest. We asked if she needed help and she moaned that she needed "something done quickly." We spotted an emergency phone about 50 yards away, so Jim zipped over to call the ski patrol while I waited with the girl. She managed to tell me that she had been skiing through the trees and had smacked right into one. She didn't think that she had hit her head, but her chest felt "gurgly" and she was spitting up blood. A group of medics arrived within five or six minutes and confirmed that she most likely had some sort of internal injury. Moments later a sled showed up to bring her down the mountain and to the medical center. I never did find out what happened to the girl, but I hope she is ok. I don't know if broken ribs or a collapsed lung can cause you to spit up blood, but it was scary enough for me to beg Adam and Jacob never to ski or board through the trees. I know I won't.

Happily, I didn't witness any more crises while out on the slopes today. Who knew one would need a medical degree while out skiing?

The Long Day

On Saturday Adam, Jacob, and I arrived at Detroit Metro airport excited to board an early morning flight to Denver. Jim had left Houston earlier in the day in order to meet up with us in Colorado for a week long ski vacation. Using my shrewd ex-reservationist skills, I managed to arrange flights for Jim that would bring him into Denver within 10 minutes of our arrival. Jim showed up right on time. Adam, Jacob, and I did not.

The lines to check bags in Detroit Saturday morning were very long. Longer, in fact, than I had ever seen them before. We had no choice but to wait because we had skis, a snowboard, and ski boots with us. As the time ticked on, we began to get nervous that the line was not moving quickly enough. People were becoming very frustrated as the employees worked at what seemed to be a snail's pace. Long story short - we missed our flight, all because the Delta airline employees could not manage to check our bags even though we had arrived two hours before our departure time. We were shuffled off to the rebook line (Who knew there was such a thing?) to find a new flight to Denver. The rebook line had about 100 people already in it, and before long there were another 400 or so people behind us. I know. I counted. Unbelievably, there were only two ticket agents working behind the counter, and they took turns taking breaks, so sometimes there was only one worker. After two hours we had barely moved up at all. I phoned Delta's toll-free number numerous times, and even checked other airlines to no avail. Finally a reservation sales agent on the phone was able to find three seats on an afternoon flight to Denver that connected through both Milwaukee and Minneapolis. After hours in the rebook line, we finally had confirmed seats and we were greatly relieved.

Once on the Milwaukee-bound aircraft, the three of us settled in for the short jaunt to Wisconsin. Ten minutes later, the captain came on the intercom with the news that our plane had a mechanical problem that would require four hours of repair work. We were all sent back into the terminal to await Delta's decision about what to do next. A different aircraft was secured for the flight to Milwaukee, but there would be a lengthy delay as the passengers and luggage still had to be switched over to the new plane. We spoke directly with the pilots who assured us that there was no way we would be able to get to Minneapolis in time for our 7:15 p.m. connection to Denver. Much to our dismay, we were shuffled off to another rebook line. I phoned Delta for the 20th time - yes, I kept track - but was told that there were absolutely no seats available to Denver until Sunday.

After only an hour in the latest rebook line, we were actually chatting with an employee. She confirmed us on a flight on Sunday morning. Frustrated and ready to admit defeat, we took our new boarding passes. The woman then asked us if we would like to try to fly stand-by for the last Denver-bound flight that night, even though it was extremely overbooked and she was sure we would not get seats. We took on the challenge and hurried to the new gate. After all of the passengers had boarded, the gate agent called our names. She told us that she did indeed have seats for us and handed us boarding passes. In our tired stupors, we all squealed like little girls, grabbed the passes, and ran onto the plane before she could change her mind. The kind woman had seated us in first class, so, needless to say, I was a bit snockered from the complimentary free-flowing wine by the time we arrived in Denver . . . which was probably a good thing, because that took the edge off of the news that 3 out of 4 of our checked bags were actually in Minneapolis and would not get to Colorado until the next day.

Jim came to the airport to pick us up 13 hours after our expected arrival time. From the moment we left our house on Saturday morning until we stepped into our condo in the Rocky Mountains, 22 hours had elapsed. Our lost bags didn't show up until last night, so we were not able to ski on Sunday as we had planned. We intend to be on the slopes all day Monday.

Crowds inside the airport on Saturday.

Crowds outside the airport on Saturday.