Here is Part 2 of the Saga of the Cross-Country Move...
Tuesday, January 11, aka Loading Day
Bright and early (just after dropping Dorothy off at daycare), we met the truck driver and loaders at the shipping company to witness the truck weighing, then we led them to our house. They spent all day loading up the truck. The poor labor guys had to lug all our boxes of books down multiple flights of stairs.
Wednesday, January 12
Wednesday involved some clean-up and post-loading work. In the evening, we went over to Brian & Susan's house to see them, Aaron, and their new baby Tara (who was less than a week old!). Tara was around 6 pounds, and looked sooooo tiny compared to Dorothy. It was hard to remember how small Dorothy was just so (relatively) recently...
Thursday, January 13
In the late morning, we went to see our accountant to discuss taxes, which is always a fun thing to do in your last full day before moving across country.
Thursday was Dorothy's last day at daycare, and it was sad for everyone. We're going to miss her wonderful teachers, and they're going to miss having such a happy baby. We're also going to miss Dorothy's buddy Ian and his parents Susan and Scott.
Thursday evening we picked up Elizabeth's parents from the airport (they were helping us to fly two cats, a baby, and lots of luggage across country) and then met Toby & Krystyn for dinner at Mary Chung's. Everyone from the restaurant commented on the photo we'd given to Mary, and one of the staff even gave Dorothy a nice little zebra, which is currently a carseat toy.
Friday, January 14, aka Last Day in Boston / A Day of High Entertainment
We were a little slow getting going in the morning, but finally made it over to the house. There we did last minute prep for our flight, and threw out a bunch of garbage at the house. We were too busy and rushed to say a long "goodbye" to the house; we were just hoping we'd gotten it cleaned up enough for our agent, Paul, to be able to finish cleaning and prepping it to be sold.
We left a bit late for the airport, but still arrived at 4pm for our 6pm flight. We checked in, then Tom headed out to return the rental car, getting stuck in Friday afternoon traffic and being delayed enough that he only made it to the airplane's gate 15 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave.
Elizabeth, Jon & Caroline had lots of fun going through security with the cats and the baby. None of us were quite sure how the cats (in carriers) were supposed to go through the metal detectors. It turns out that they have to be taken out and carried through the detector, while their carriers are X-rayed with the other carryon items. We had the cats' harnesses on them, so Elizabeth took them both out and put them on their leashes, giving Dorothy (in her stroller) to Caroline. The cats were pretty freaked out by all the people and commotion, and Cobalt laid down and refused to move (Rhodium was in Elizabeth's arms, but she couldn't carry both cats at once). Security was telling Elizabeth to "walk the cats through the detector now!" and she was exclaiming "I'm trying!" while pulling on Cobalt's leash. Eventually, she walked backward through the detector while dragging Cobalt on his back (much to the amusement of the poor people stuck in line behind them). Unfortunately, they set off the metal detector, so she had to go through again. Security thought it might be the leashes that were setting off the detector, so she took them off and put them in the X-ray machine, gave Rhodium to Jon, and walked through with Cobalt. Bzzzt - the machine went off again, so she and Cobalt were escorted to the holding area where they could be searched. Jon walked through with Rhodium without setting anything off, and got her back in her carrier successfully. Cobalt was patted down for bombs, and then put back in his carrier while Elizabeth and her carryon luggage were searched. It turned out that in all the excitement, she'd forgotten to take her cell phone out of her pocket.
Meanwhile, Caroline was attempting to get Dorothy out of her stroller and figure out how to fold it up to put through the X-ray machine. A security guard eventually showed her how to fold it, and also took the car seat off its luggage carrier for Jon while he was occupied with Rhodium. Dorothy was completely calm and relaxed through all the commotion - the only one in the family not frazzled by the experience! As they were collecting everything to leave the area, one of the security guards told Caroline, "Whatever you do, don't go out and come back in."
Once they all got to the gate, Elizabeth gave the cats their kitty Valium, and they stayed pretty calm for the first few hours of the flight, at least. Unfortunately, Rhodium had diarrhea sometime on the flight, so when we got off, her carrier stank to high heaven. Tom tried doing an emergency cleaning in the baggage area with limited success (while the cats skulked around the luggage on their leashes and got some water). We spent a while getting the rental car (we asked for "the biggest thing they had to rent," and got a pretty good-sized minivan that actually held all of us and our luggage without having to carry stuff in our laps, unlike the minivan we'd gotten in Boston), and then headed to the hotel, where we checked in, cleaned up, and crashed.
Posted by Tom Nugent at January 26, 2005 11:57 PM