Moving Day

Saturday we loaded up my sister Cyberspace Sarah's moving van, so she could move to Wisconsin, which isn't even in Minnesota.

I appointed myself in charge of packing and cleaning the kitchen. I made myself very busy mocking her storage techniques. She stores her groceries like a little chipmunk. Boxes of Jell-O here, here and there. I teased her about her food expiration dates. "When's the last time you had oatmeal? I'll tell you. It was 2002." I found a can of cardamom with a stamped price on the bottom. Not a stamped sticker -- an actual stamp in ink like in pioneer days (not quite) -- and, no, I didn't save it. Certainly it belonged to my mother or grandmother because I would be very surprised to learn that Cyberspace had a need to purchase cardamom during the time they were still using this technique to mark prices.

Then I started to clean -- no, thoroughly scrub every available surface. To say I have shed a few tears over this move is the understatement of the year, but on Saturday I took out my angst by scrubbing.

Then we shut the back of the van and sent them on their way . . . to Wisconsin . . . which isn't even in Minnesota.

This is a good move for them. I'm sure I'll get used to it. One of these days I'll figure out that they aren't really on vacation, and they aren't coming back to their little house across from the elementary school.

One of my fellow movers said, "I don't like this." I tried as gently as I could to say that I didn't think it was really about what we did or did not like. It was about Sarah and Brennan. He didn't buy it . . . but I still think that's probably the truth.