Freight Train Runnin' thru the Middle of My Head

Curse?
If you've read or seen Holes, then you know about the Yelnats family curse. I think I have my own curse. Second attempt at selling some old stuff (this time, the flea market at the fairgrounds in Raiegh)and second washout. Jen and I woke up at 5:30, arrived, set up our stuff, sold a few things, and then proceeded to get absolutely poured on. We decided to leave. Profit this time? $10.75. Enough to see a movie and buy a soda later in the day (SuperSize Me). Oh well, maybe I should just give up on selling things and donate them. That's where it all goes eventually, anyway. I've learned my lesson.

After seeing the movie, Jen, Jerry, and I all felt a wee bit gross. I had a big salad and lots of water for dinner. Later, Jerry and I set out on a long walk around Chapel Hill and Carrboro. I had never just walked around at night for exercise, and it was invigorating. I realized that I will miss nearly everything about this place, although I'm excited about what lies ahead. Tomorrow marks two weeks until we leave.

Haikus
The other day while sorting through some old things, I found a little red notebook that I used to carry around with me in Athens, OH. It's filled with to-do lists, poems, phone numbers, doodles, letters home that I never finished. But I also found some haikus that my friend Tim, Jason, and I wrote one afternoon over coffee, laughing hysterically as we often did. I hate to say that we were completely disrespectful to the lovely art of the haiku. They are all inside jokes, so they wouldn't make sense to reproduce here. Let's just say that I hope I never lose this little red notebook or any of the boxes full of notebooks and journals that I have written in since I was ten years old, because they are like a map of my life, a very detailed timeline. I can throw away many things, but I can't throw those away.

We're Still Here
For those of you with any doubts, we're still in North Carolina. We've been in a bit of a fog lately, Jason applying for jobs like crazy, me working on research and wrapping up loose ends at school, and using any spare time to sort through our things in order to decide what to pack and what to get rid of. I realize that this is not the best way to spend our last three weeks (THREE WEEKS! GASP!) in the area. So, if anyone wants to do anything, give us a holler. I know the onslaught of goodbye coffees, lunches, and dinners will be a bit mentally and emotionally draining, but I don't want to leave without seeing people, either. Anyway, we move July 12, so until then, we need to soak up as much of North Carolina as we can. Particularly its lovely people, whom we will miss dearly. We don't want to rot inside our dreary, box-filled casita!!

Update: new niece
I am the proud aunt of Hannah Marie, who was born at 1:15 p.m. today and weighs 7 pounds. I can't wait to see her!

For sale, barter, or giveaway
Yesterday J and I crawled into our enormous attic to start going through it and packing up the stuff piled everywhere. We were able to empty quite a few boxes and consolidate several, so that we ended up with less stuff than we started with. For two packrats, that's an accomplishment. What this means, though, is that we have all this stuff we've accumulated in 10 years together that we no longer want. So, if anyone is interested in the following, let us know or it's going to a flea market and then charity this weekend.

• cassette tapes mainly from the 90's, including Nirvana, Gin Blossoms, Blues Traveler, REM, Pearl Jam, Spin Doctors, and more fun stuff


• all kinds of random cables...this is Jason's territory if you're interested
  
• random toys including action figures, stuffed animals, Happy Meal-type prizes, and more


• a small while TV stand with swivel top and a drawer


• an assortment of Christmas decorations


• a small assortment of baskets from when I went through a basket phase

And more, more goodies...

Update: no baby (yet)
They sent my sister-in-law back home. Apparently the baby wasn't quite ready to greet the world. Soon, though, very soon...

The best Father's Day gift
My brother is going to be a father again today, on Father's Day. My sister-in-law went into labor around 6:30 this morning. I'm can't wait to hear the news...they never found out the sex of the baby. I think my brother, who lives in a house full of women, is hoping for a boy. I'll be sure to let everyone know.

Check one more thing off the things-to-do-in-NC list
Before I move, I have these things I want to do. Before I leave the Triangle. One was to actually go to the NC Museum of Art, which I'm ashamed I had never visited. Until today. We took off late but had a good afternoon there, tooling around and admiring the art. My favorite was the modern art, particularly an intruiging and starkly sad piece about Argentina's desaparecidos.

Trying to work
Today I'm supposed to be working on some research, but there are contractors banging around my house, making it hard to concentrate. The place is also a complete, insane-looking, chaotic mess. Between empty boxes and full ones, you can barely see the floor. I'm sick of it. To make life even more fun, I injured my neck somehow (probably from the packing). It makes it hard to sleep, so I'm exhausted. It's also painful to look at the computer screen for any length of time. I have to give my laptop back to my old department in about 2 weeks, though, so I have to keep plugging. I need to get things half-way done, back up all my files, and enjoy the wireless while it lasts. We have an old desktop that Jason is trying to get into working order, but I'm so spoiled with the laptop now that I know I'll be angry when I have to use it.

A Southern Season Spree
It's a good thing we didn't have more money, because Jason and I could/would have dropped a ton of cash today. The annual clearance event at A Southern Season, which we actually just sorta stumbled into. We had no idea it was happening, and the next thing we knew, we were surrounded by people clammoring for expensive tea biscuits and imported chocolates that had been severely, sometimes outrageously, discounted. Everything was at least 20% off, but we were more impressed by the ridiculous bargains, like 2 super nice stainless steel mixing bowls that we really needed. 50% off! And 59 cent top quality dark chocolate bars? As a certified dark choco-holic, I couldn't resist. Buy one get one free Wasacrackers?? Why not? It made me giggle, though, to see so many upper class fru fru's elbowing each other to claw through the uppity goodies because they were cheap. To see rich people so exhuberant at a sale makes me laugh. Even rich folks like a bargain, I guess.

Walking for a Cure
Today was one of my favorite annual events, the Komen 5K Race for the Cure in Raleigh. Although "race" isn't exactly how I participated, I did do the course at a respectable walking pace with my friend Jen, who came over late last night and woke up early with me this morning just to do the event. They estimate that over 17,000 people participated, and I believe it. It took us 15 minutes just to cross the starting line. I always love doing the event(this is my fourth), because you see so many strong women all around you. So many survivors, their families, their friends. What broke my heart today, though, was seeing a young girl (maybe 11) with two pink survivor signs pinned to her back: In Memory of my mom and In Celebration of my grandmother. We can only hope that progress is made so that she doesn't have to go through what they did.

Casi free
In Merida, Mexico the hammock venders are a dime a dozen. They stand on the street doing nearly anything necessary to lure (mostly non-Spanish speaking) tourists to their stores. A phrase yelled often is a Spanglish treat: "casi free! casi free!," casi meaning "almost." So, where is this story headed? Well, in the search for entertainment that is free, or at least "casi free," we paid 50 cents to park in a metered spot yesterday, just long enough to run into the Undergrad Library and check out some DVD's.

While I haven't found my Mayan hammocks in all the packing, I have been finding lots of slips of paper with poems written on them. Sometimes they are completed, edited in red ink, signed and dated. Other times they are faint and blurry, smudged, unfinished, a verse or three or five that go nowhere. So far I'm shoving them all inside a notebook, meaning to get to them later. I wonder if there is any continuity in all those pen scratches.

The Schedule and Mo' Broke
Today, in an attempt to get my nervous stomach/near panic attacks under control, I decided to make a huge to-do schedule for our remaining 30+ days in NC. Not a to-do list, mind you, a daily schedule with tasks that need to be completed in order to survive this last month. I feel better already.

You know the saying "when it rains it pours?" When it comes to expenses, J and I have hit a monsoon. In addition to moving and setting up our new living arrangements (deposits! pet fees! so fun!), Roxanne (our Ford Escort) collapsed yesterday. Today it's fixed, after a semi-expensive (depending on your perspective) repair. We also just found out that we have even more repairs to make on the house before the sale is finalized. It's time to live like paupers again. We used to be really good at it, but a year of me having a real job has spoiled us.

A new reader
One of the best surprises of going home was how far Kelsi has progressed in her reading skills. When I saw her at Christmas, she could spell a few things, knew all of her letters (but still wrote a few backwards), and could recognize a few short and common words (the typical: dog, cat, is, mom, the, etc.).

I brought her three books, thinking she could maybe read one on her own but would need help with the other two. By the end of the day, she had read all three by herself, two of them several times. She could even read difficult words like "beautiful," "through," and "schemes." In fact, there wasn't any of that awkward sounding-out that you hear kids do when they confront a new word for the first time. She would just pause, think for a second, and get it. The most satisfying part of all was that she carried those books around like they were gold. Two years ago, a book would have been a poor substitute for a "real" gift (a doll). Now, she treasures books. I can't help but want to give her more. She has asked for a book about the beach and one about shoes. Any advice? She's 7.

Where to begin?
We're back from a whirlwind tour of KY and TN. Lots of family time, including 4 hours in an emergency room with my brother (kidney stones) and 2 hours with my niece Kelsi at the opthamologist (lazy right eye).

But there was also fun:
Friday we drove to Chattanooga to visit J's sister; had dinner at Sticky Fingers and walked around the Coolidge Park area. Had a treat at Clumpy's, reportedly some of the best ice cream in the south. I would put them against the Inside Scoop any day, although it would be a tough battle. Walked the world's longest pedestrian bridge. All of this frivolity made me feel even better about moving 45 minutes from Chattanooga. It's a pretty cool town...I think we'll like it there.

Saturday the whole Griffey clan went to Sewanee and saw the house J and I will be living in next year. We are very happy with it: hardwood floors, 3 good-sized bedrooms, 2 baths, a HUGE (gigantic, actually) screened-in porch with a view of a lovely little lake, large yards, flowers already planted, and lots of windows. The kitchen is pretty decent, too, with lots of storage space and good appliances. Now the search for furniture begins. We've never had a real guest room before. Let alone a dining room.

Sunday there was lots of splashing around Jenna's pool, even though it was only about 80 degrees outside and cloudy. This was followed by napping and then a Chattanooga Lookouts baseball game. I'm sad about leaving the Durham Bulls behind, but it's good to know Chattanooga has minor league baseball, too, although the variety of food at their stadium isn't as impressive as Durham's. The game concluded with fireworks, which is always a treat.

Monday was pretty much a wash out, literally. We did get some discount shopping done, as promised. I found some fantastic shoes for 70% off. I love the smell of a bargain in the morning. There was also rummy, and Jason kicked our butts, even that of his dear mother, the rummy champion of all time. He was quite smarmy about it.

Tuesday we headed to my parents' place, and basically spent our time running from relative's house to relative's house when we weren't in the hospital or a doctor's office. All in all, we're exhausted. I'll write more when I have time to process.