So we're going to move again. The first weekend of October. It's all set up, movers are coming and everything. We are just moving to another neighborhood five minutes away, Cal will be going to the same school and no one has to switch jobs and we are likely still going to be going to the same supermarkets and everything because it's that close by--but still, it's light years away.
We're moving to a house. A real house, not a townhouse. It has four bedrooms. (It's listed as a five bedroom, but the fifth "bedroom" is in the basement and it's barely habitable, I wouldn't stick anyone down there, except for maybe Cooper or possibly my in-laws) (HA! Just kidding in-laws! If you're reading, you know I love you guys and would not incarcerate you in the basement) (No, seriously, I was really kidding) (Don't kill me). It also has a backyard and a garage and something called a "bonus room" (???) and it's in a neighborhood with trees everywhere and lots of other houses with backyards garages, and if you kind of squint and look at it out of one eye, you might think that you were in the suburbs. I never thought that I would live in the suburbs. Except, apparently, I sort of will be now.
Because of Joe's HEART CONDITION (I have to say it like that, like it's in caps--partially to make it sound funny because to the casual observer he looks fine, but partially to disguise the fact that I was scared out of my everloving wits when he was ensconced in the ICU) he's not allowed to lift anything, and between that and our work schedule and all these damn kids underfoot it's a little difficult to pack up everything in this house in order to move it to the other house. And thus was a dream fulfilled, and that was to have movers come into our home and pack everything up for us and move it to our new place, just like on that final episode of "The West Wing," where the second the outgoing president left for the inauguration, about fifty professional White House staffers swooped in and packed up every single item of furniture and clothing and all the Americana knicknacks off the desk in the Oval office, presumably (this was not shown on the show) unpacking it for him at wherever Martin Sheen was going to go live post-presidency. Well, our movers aren't going to unpack for us, and we have to pay them many dollars to help us pack the day before the actual move, but miracle of miracles! To have someone pack for us! And to have it all done over one day! Truly, this is what makes our country great. That, and baseball.
(Really, I don't care about baseball. I just threw that in there. But I do hate packing.)
It's not even going to be as big a deal packing this time as the last time we moved. Well, first of all, we've only been living at our current place a little more than a year. Second of all, most of my clothes have never been unpacked in the first place. When we moved down from New York to Atlanta, I was pregnant, so most of my clothes I couldn't wear anyway, and therefore never bothered to unbox. And then I had the baby, but then it started to get warmer here, so I didn't need to wear my sweaters. Or my winter coat. Also, I never wear anything except scrubs and the most slovenly of weekend clothes, so I'm pretty sure I have several boxes of dresses and smart work-type clothes (from college and med school and my Peds resident days) that I have not looked at since I hermetically sealed them up in cardboard all those months ago when we were preparing for our interstate move. So good deal for these movers now. Just take those same boxes and throw them on the truck.
The real question is, if all those boxes are filled with clothes that I haven't found it vital to unpack and wear in more than a year, and probably didn't wear for a considerable amount of time prior to that, why am I even moving them with us this time? Have they not necessarily proved their obsolecense? This is Joe's argument. And while I see his point, part of me also thinks, they're fine clothes, and they still fit me, isn't it at least possible that I might still wear them at some point? Yes, I can no longer readily think of a venue in which to wear those black leather pants or those horribly uncomfortable stacked heel platform loafers circa 1996, but if the fashions of the 80's are back in vogue now, I only have to wait another ten years before 90's-wear is once again cutting edge. That's how it works, right?