Loading as I Write

Bom dia, faithful readers!
Emma and I are sequestered in the kitchen as the movers load all the aforementioned worldly possessions onto their truck.  It already looks pretty full to me, but Joe and Calvin tell me that there's enough space.  They got here at about 10:00, and predict they'll be finished by 2.  It's possible, 'cause they're moving (heh heh heh) pretty fast.
Miss Emma is being SUCH a good girl.  She helped me launder the linen, take the bike cave apart (it's like an igloo-shaped tent), dust the bed headboard/foot-board/frame (MS Word likes "headboard" as all one word, but it wants "footboard" to have a hyphen or a space between the two words. Weird.), and other miscellaneous tasks I couldn't have done by myself.  At last we were done - sheets and dust ruffle are in the dryer - so I can relax and write this post.  Or at least start it.  I moved one of the two bar stools I'm leaving here into the kitchen to create an impromptu desk, brought my little baby into the kitchen, and blocked the door to the rest of the house.  Calvin and the unhinged front door are in the photo below.

*  And speaking of photos...after dropping Emma off at the beauty shop yesterday, I went to Goodwill - none of these in the Azores, I'll wager - and found the absolutely most perfect album for 5 x 7 photos - unused!!!!  And get this: the front and back covers have pen and ink architectural drawings, the plastic sleeves are on archival plastic/paper, and there's space along the sides for memos.  For $3.79!!!!!  I had searched on line for one, and in Barnes and Noble, and they were at least $20.  And they weren't as nice.  See?  Charmed life.

*  Hope - one of my very best, unconditionally-loving, and generous friends - came over yesterday afternoon to put photos in frames and the album.  She spent 2 hours cutting off the white borders and organizing them (the photos, not the "crusts") by country and subject.  Whilst she was thus engaged, I packed one of my suitcases.  It's ready for the plane, and the other one is for clothes/stuff I need this week.  Damn, I'm good!!!!

*  Mike and Karen Morse - another two of my very best, unconditionally-loving, and generous friends - showed up at 10:30 to fetch my vacuum cleaner and sewing machine from the repair shop and get it here in time for them to be packed and loaded (not to be confused with "locked and loaded.")


....just had to dash outside to make sure Joe is going to box, or at least wrap, my bicycle.


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So....it's 10 PM. I'm on the air mattress and Emma is experiencing her first time in the crate (which required two movers to get upstairs!). I, also, exerted some intense physical persuasion - otherwise known as pushing - to get her

Emma in Purgatory

She Survived!

93 lbs (no exercise over the winter) inside, and she is NOT a happy camper.  She's shaking and panting, but, as I told her, it's a necessary evil.  I wouldn't like it, either.  I let her out after 15 minutes, and I'll go through the process again a couple of times each night.  The idea is to get her accustomed (yeah, right) to being in it so she won't be as traumatized when she flies over.  Which won't be with me, as it turns out.  Apparently there's a blood test she has to have to determine if she has rabies.  And, since there's only one lab in the country that performs this work, it takes over a month to get the results.  Would have been nice to have that little tidbit of information about six weeks ago.  Really, though, the only down side is she won't be on the same plane with me.  This way she'll have longer to get used to the crate, Steve will have another month with her, and I'll have time to explore Lajes on my own.  
As you can see, her incarceration didn't leave her a nervous wreck, so I guess it wasn't too bad.

Emma  Crashed

She was a big help today, making sure the movers didn't forget anything.  Hot work, too: the temperature reached 88 deg!

Box #187

*  Once the two reinforcements showed up, loading sped up.  The last of the 192 items, which had all taken their turns strewn across the yard and the street in a staging area for loading, went onto the truck at 1:30.  By the time the guys closed the doors, they had filled five of the crates like the one you can see in this picture. 
*  Even though I was exhausted, I spent the next couple of hours sweeping the all the floors and mopping the muddy mess on the kitchen floor.  If I had let myself rest, I wouldn't have had the momentum to persevere.  At 3:30 I finally cratered ;-} on Steve's couch. 
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*  Until about 11:45 Friday night, it was looking as if civil servants might be "out of work" starting today.  My boss called Friday afternoon to tell me that if a furlough happened, we should all report Monday morning to get information, and then we'd be released.  Guess the country dodged that bullet.  For now.
*  Time to turn off the light and rest my weary bones.  And muscles.  And head.  And....
Boa noite!