booked!

Ed thinks I’m unabashedly optimistic, but I truly believe we are now seeing the final stages of the farmhouse project rolling toward completion. In fact, I’m betting that I can pretty much move in on April 20th.

It’s important to get this date right, because I don’t want to move into chaos. Nor do I need to move before the last floorboard is sanded and finished. My condo buyer isn’t closing until late May. But, I want to be there sooner rather than later. Wisconsinites may fight me on this one, but I think spring is a beautiful season here and spring starts, in my estimation, pretty much when the leaves burst in a riot of green from long dormant tree branches. And as I recall, that nearly always happens around my birthday (April 21st).

There is yet another reason to move sooner: the farmhouse is starting to look so darn pretty right now! Freshly scrubbed, ready to show off her buffed and polish new face.



(new walls, new ceiling, still waiting for new floors)


From a more utilitarian standpoint, I should be there, too, because there is work that I need to do on the doors and frames and it’s easier to get rolling on it when I am actually at the farmhouse.

So today I booked movers for April 20th.

It’s the third move for me in the last half dozen years and I am using the same company I had for the previous two moves, except, as I explained to the agent today – I’m moving less “stuff” each time.


This morning, before classes, I ride out with Ed on his motorbike (cold!) to inspect the most recent progress. Nice!

Outside, I see that the first crocus is showing a solitary yellow brilliance.


 


Yes, it’s time to step outdoors more. Poke around in the dirt. Watch the sky change colors. And, too, it’s time to write a few words, not only for Ocean, but for the stalled book project. All that, starting three weeks from today.



In the meanwhile, I drive past one of the big lakes and see that the ice is clinging forcefully, as it were January and not almost April.





In the evening, I go to a public hearing downtown. It is in the matter of street art (I'm for it!).

I finish the day with a celebratory drink at a place that used to be a home of sorts for me (I worked there) some years back -- L'Etoile.






One of the waiters who worked there then is still on the staff and he and I spend some minutes thinking out loud about the passage of time.

Time. Short spurts, long hauls, dates and deadlines. I have one now: in three weeks, I should be packed and on my way.