Every other move, my husband has gone into the transportation office, sat down for a half hour or so, hammered out all the details, and walked out of there all set to go.  This time when he went in, he was given a piece of paper with a web address and directions to log onto a secure site and arrange our move that way.  He was booted out of the office in a few minutes.

I suspect that he, busy man that he is, was perfectly happy with that at the time.

Unfortunately for me, that meant that the arrangements weren’t done that day, and the piece of paper sat on the kitchen table, then my desk, for some time.  Eventually, I decided it could wait no more, so I did it myself.  And guess what?  It took way longer than a half hour, the secure government website was anything other than user friendly, and we weren’t all set to go when it was over.

Besides reducing me to tears on multiple occasions, lack of a human interface meant that simple questions and clarifications went unanswered, and miscommunication was actually increased as I struggled to guess what their questions meant, exactly.  I don’t remember how it was phrased, but one question was about the date we wanted to commence the move.  Now in my mind, this is the day that we want people coming into my house to start packing up.

But actually, that was wrong of me.  The date THEY meant was the day the truck showed up to take my stuff away.

So, I put in June 11th.  This coming Monday.  The day I want packers to come and pack me up.

Once I submitted this information to the anonymous governmental server, I started receiving all sorts of email confirmations.  There was one from the transportation office.  There was one from Mayflower, a moving company.  There was one from A. C. White, a moving company.  There were a bunch from “Shipment Manager” which I think is the transportation computer system.  Now, I know that the transportation office is nothing except a bunch of people who send your paperwork off to others, so their emails are of minimal importance.  It’s not like the person assigned to our move is actually following our move and making sure that things happen as they need to.  Oh, no.

I do not know what the relationship is between Mayflower and A. C. White.  Both say they will be handling our move, but not exactly which aspects of it.

It was a guy from A. C. White who came to look at our stuff to see how many days it would take to pack.  So I guess they are taking care of that part of it?  When this gentleman was finished, he had the forethought to confirm the dates with me, and that’s when I learned that the 11th had been put down as the day the truck would come, so the packers had been assigned to come on June 6-8.  Since this was more than a month ago, we had plenty of time to correct that and change it to June 11-13.

Bill sent an email to the woman at the transportation office.  We got an email confirmation back.

But I knew that wasn’t good enough.  I called Toni at Mayflower a few days later.  Sure enough, it was in the system, but not in the system.  However the transportation office chooses to communicate with the moving companies has no follow through. 

Back when I worked for a big fat paycheck at a civilian company, one of my jobs was ordering supplies from the manufacturer and coordinating the delivery with the customer and the installation crew.  Sometimes I even had to call trucking companies.  Of course, this was back in the days before email, but even picking up the phone and calling somebody didn’t always guarantee that every single document would reflect every single change.  I had to call multiple times and re-confirm everything.  Oh, and guess what?  If things got screwed up, it was my fault.  Oh, and guess what else?  If I screwed up, sometimes it cost money to fix it – money that usually came out of the profit, which meant less money for my employer and less commission for the salesman.

So I find it more than a little annoying that the people who work in the transportation office do nothing other than update a computer system and then let everybody else be responsible for checking that system, noticing changes and acting accordingly.  And since they didn’t even take the time weeks and weeks ago to sit with my husband and enter our information for us, I fail to see what purpose this office actually serves the military.

Harumph.  (My sister has gently mentioned the possibility that I am more annoyed with people and life in general when I am pregnant.  She is very very right.  However, this doesn’t mean that I am wrong in being annoyed with annoying people…rather it means that my usual sweet disposition and charitable attitude is only functioning at about 80% capacity.  Pregnant or not, this system could be vastly improved.  I just wouldn’t complain as much about it if I weren’t hormonal.)

Back to Toni at Mayflower.  Toni changes everything in her system.  Or so she says.  Again, I’m not really sure what Mayflower is responsible for.  Things become less clear the more I interact with them.

I did not call A. C. White.  I should have called A. C. White, because on Tuesday, the 5th of June, I got a phone call from A. C. White.  After Alfonso identified himself, I said, “Don’t tell me you’re calling to say you’re coming to pack me up tomorrow.”  There was a silence on the other end.  And then he told me that he was calling to say they were coming to pack me up the next day.  I dimed out Toni at Mayflower, and he seemed to know who she was and said she had not called him and made the changes.

So there seems to be some sort of relationship with these companies. 

Alfonso said he’d call me back.  They must not be hugely busy right now, because they were able to change our pack dates to June 11-13 with no apparent trouble.  Of course, come Monday, I may have a single packer here, but at least for now we’re all pretending that we’re good to go.

I thought that would be the end of it.  I didn’t know of any other people I could possibly call to make sure that they knew of our changes.

Yesterday, the phone rang.  It was a trucker wanting to come and inventory our stuff.  That means he looks at all the furniture and notes ding, dents and scratches (a very tedious job).  He sees how many men it will take to load and how long.  He decides if he needs any special equipment.  Now, I really appreciate that this guy wants to do this in advance of the load day.  Noting all the scratches on the furniture sometimes takes hours, depending on how detail-oriented the trucker is (and how badly he’s been charged by customers who claim he is responsible for what he feels are pre-existing conditions).  We’ve also sat around and waited for one or two more guys to show up so that they could get the piano loaded.  So, coming in advance means the load day goes faster and more smoothly.

Unfortunately, I had to tell this diligent trucker that our load day wasn’t until Thursday.  Somebody had to hire this guy.  Mayflower?  A. C. White?  I don’t know who gave him his marching orders, but nobody bothered to tell him that the dates had been changed.  Having been on the other side of these transactions, I know that mistakes like this can cost people money.  What if that guy isn’t available on Thursday to drive a load of stuff to Tampa?  Maybe he’s contracted to drive a load to Kansas on Thursday.  Maybe he’s contracted to pick up a load in Tampa on Wednesday and drive it to Kansas.  Now maybe he has to drive empty down to Tampa.  Or maybe he sits for a week doing local loads or no loads.  It’s just not right.

I received one more phone call on Friday, from Alfonso at A. C. White.  When we submitted our original information to the transportation office, we did not have a new house address yet.  Since we don’t want delivery until July 9th anyway, this was O.K.  Our stuff is going into storage for a few weeks.  (Just so you know, our experience is that this is not a good thing, but it is unavoidable in this move.  When your stuff goes into storage, it gets handled off and on an extra time.  And you aren’t there to watch them do one of the unloads and loads, so they aren’t necessarily going to be as nice with your belongings as they would be if you were right there watching them.  The most damage we ever had was after a move where our stuff went into storage.  It was awful.  And, I’m not saying that definitely your furniture gets used while in storage, but we’ve heard stories of people finding evidence that indicates it has been.)

Anyway, Alfonso wanted to know if we had a delivery address in Tampa yet.  “We do,” I told him, “but we don’t want delivery until July.”  

“So, it’s going into storage?”

Oh, yes.  And even though we’ve submitted our new address into the system, I guess I’m glad nobody checks that, since my landlord doesn’t need somebody showing up at 8 am in a week trying to delivery our stuff there.

I’ll have to make sure that my trucker has a delivery address of a warehouse somewhere. 

Because that’s my job.

(sigh)

Two more days to get ready.  I’m off to work outside before it gets too hot – moving our bird feeder to the garage, dismantling our raised garden bed.  And I’ve got linens from 6 beds to wash and dry.  Fun stuff.

I’m in the home stretch of this pregnancy, but I can’t even think about it right now.  My weekly pregnancy countdown email tells me:

It may be harder than ever to get comfortable enough to sleep well at night. If you can, take it easy through the day — this may be your last chance to do so for quite a while. 

Fat chance!  Packers come next Monday.  When I went to bed last night, my thighs burned from all the squatting and stretching and walking up and down the stairs.  I did get a load of stuff off to Goodwill today – hooray, less to move.

Unfortunately all this physical exertion is doing nothing to combat pregnancy insomnia.  I’m lucky if I make it until 4 am.  Last night, it was 2 am.

While you’re sleeping, you’re likely to have some intense dreams. Anxiety both about labor and about becoming a parent can fuel a lot of strange flights of unconscious fancy.

I think I’m totally over any anxiety about becoming a parent.  But I did have a memorable dream last night.  We were moving into a new house.  It was huge, neverending.  I couldn’t find my way around it.  Then somebody – some man I don’t know – asked if I liked the baby stuff he had given me.  Not knowing exactly what he was talking about, he led me to a totally different part of the house I had never seen (passing through three complete kitchens on the way).  There was a room filled with baby stuff – enough to stock an orphanage.  He pulled out a baby carrier and told me how much he enjoyed carrying his own children in that particular carrier and how he hoped I would like it and get a lot of use out of it. 

Anxiety triggers:

1. A huge house that would need to be cleaned

2. Too much baby stuff: that carrier would put me up to 5 (how many carriers does one baby need?)

3. Other people’s sentimental objects that they want me to use, making me feel guilty if I donate them to someone else (again, how many carriers does one baby need?)

4.  All those thank you notes that I have to write

Saturday was a socially busy day for me.  At noon I attended a farewell luncheon in my honor hosted by my husband’s boss’s wife.  It was a small, casual affair – thank goodness – in my favorite local restaurant.  My two older daughters were invited.  Unfortunately, I did not sit the girls down in advance and explain protocol.  I assumed, wrongly, that they could follow on the spot cues.  They’re not little children any more.

They weren’t bad, really.  But since we were all seated at one long table with me at the head, and they to my right and left, their non-stop chattering and complete disregard for the adult conversation at the table prevented me to some degree from hearing and participating in it.  I asked them repeatedly to quiet down, but they didn’t get that I meant their conversation was rude; they only thought that it was too loud.

At home, I sat them down and told them I was disappointed in their behavior.  I explained that they were invited to the event with the understanding and expectation that they could – for a few hours – behave as adults.  I told them that side conversations were inappropriate in that setting and that if I have to ask them more than once or twice to be quiet they should have realized that no volume of noise was acceptable.

They were very disheartened and felt badly for not living up to my expectations.  Not wanting to leave them in such a state, I also explained that many children older than they – in fact, many adults – were frequently guilty of the same behavior.  I told them that I permit them to go to some adult functions/places as they get older so that I can teach them proper behavior so that they won’t be one of those rude adults.  Better to have your mother correct you when you are 10, then your boss to correct you when you are 20.  Or worse: to be labeled a rude person, possibly even without your knowledge.

*******

That night, I attended a dinner hosted by Operation Homefront.  I’m not really sure of all the things this organization does, and I was afraid to ask, because the hostess promised us a 20 minute talk if we didn’t know.  My husband attended a dinner they did up in Hilton Head, SC, back in April – this one was specifically for wives of wounded soldiers.  Saturday’s event was just for Army wives with no specific group targeted other than the 3rd ID (the Division here at Ft. Stewart).

I really don’t know why I felt I should go, but, as usual, I am glad I did.  There was a good speaker, and I ended up buying her book.  I’ll read it and review it (sometime).

One would think that a roomful of Army wives would behave properly, even though this wasn’t a specifically military event.  Unfortunately, I have noticed in the last few years that even specifically military functions are lacking in proper behavior.

There are lots of rules at a military function.  I don’t even get them all right.  I watch others if I’m not sure what to do and when to do it.  Sometimes I do research in advance, especially if I fear eyes will be on me looking for guidance.  Sometimes, everybody stands; sometimes only service members stand.  Do you put your hand over your heart during the National Anthem?  Does the man or woman go through the receiving line first?  How do you introduce yourself?  Making mistakes is understandable – I have seen some behind-the-scenes planning for formal functions and know that committees spend a lot of time hammering out the details and researching the right way to do things.  There are protocol offices whose job it is to answer questions and remind event planners of certain requirements.

But the average event attendee doesn’t need a book, website or class on most of that stuff.  Most people can just rely on good old common sense: make eye contact, smile, shake hands firmly, state your name clearly, keep conversations neutral and on-topic, and be situationally aware: if everybody at your table stands, so should you.

Somehow, though, one basic lesson seems to have not been taught: do not speak when someone is at a podium addressing the group.  In other words, know when side conversations are completely inappropriate.  At Saturday’s event, I think at least half the group failed to observe this basic principle.  It was awkward and uncomfortable.  Over and over again, the guest speaker would capture everyone’s attention and then tell an amusing anecdote – only to have the break for laughter be an excuse for people to begin talking with their neighbor.  She was pretty loud, and she had a microphone, yet I still had difficulty hearing some of her talk.  I was embarrassed to be a part of the group.

This wasn’t a unique situation.  Most of the events I have attended in the past few years seem to have this problem.  I do think that the more civilians that are present (and I am a civilian, even though I’m married to a non-civilian), the worse it is.  But I wonder now if those in uniform only behave because they wear their name and rank on their chest and so might face disciplinary action for their rudeness…or do they truly respect a speaker’s right to not have to shout over unrelated conversations to have herself heard?

*******

After that lunch with my daughters, it was a great lesson for me in how important it is to teach them now how to behave.  I do believe that rudeness has repercussions, eventually.  Perhaps not at that dinner or at that job or at that time.  But, eventually, habitually bad behavior will find it’s own punishment.

I’d like to go for my morning walk, but dawn is still 10 or 15 minutes away.  I’m waiting.

My neighborhood is surrounded by water.  Two small ponds flank the entrance.  Although we didn’t see our alligator friend for over a week, the lack of ducks kept us wary.  Sure enough, in the last few days, we’ve seen him plenty, sometimes in one of those front ponds and sometimes in the other.  This means he’s not adverse to getting out of the pond to look for food elsewhere.  Bill thought maybe he saw a second one, and I can’t be positive, but maybe I did, too.  We each saw the second one in the same pond, not in opposite ponds.

They’re still pretty small.  Certainly not more than 6 feet. 

OK, that’s bigger than my dog.  Not small enough.

Besides the small ponds up front, there is a small lake in the middle around which our neighborhood is built.  My house, on the inside loop of homes, is built on the lake.  There have been no ducks on the lake in recent weeks.  Houses on the left, across the street, are built on a creek deep enough to launch a small/medium boat.  That creek is a short distance from a river which borders the homes built on the right side of the neighborhood.  The river leads to the Atlantic Ocean – not too far away. 

My boys have canoed part of that river.  Alligators live there, and that’s likely where our friend came from.

I went for a walk yesterday morning before the sun was up.  It was very dark and as we approached one house, it looked like a large black cat was reclining on the driveway.  My dog was very antsy as we walked past this house, and I thought she was eager to chase the cat.  As we reached the far side of the property where the trees and underbrush come all the way up to the street and where a storm creek leads the 50 yards or so to the big creek behind those houses, there was a sudden flurry of movement and noise as some animal crashed into the underbrush.  There was also some noise, like a growling or a roar…but maybe that’s just my imagination.  Maybe.

The dog startled, and I nearly tripped over her as we hustled up the street, checking our backs every few steps.

“Do alligators make noise?” I asked my husband when I got home.  “They do when they go crashing through underbrush,” he said.

I did make a second loop past that house, but the sun was up by then.  It was not a cat on the driveway, but a large clump of Spanish moss.  Spanish moss falls from the trees all the time and looks like roadkill, even in daylight, until you get pretty close to it.

Later yesterday morning I was returning from an errand.  An older woman who lives in the neighborhood was working on the flowers by our front entrance.  This lady donates hundreds of hours every month to maintaining the plants up there.  As I passed the pond, I saw the alligator, hanging out in the water, so I turned around and went back to the woman.

“Miss Jean,” I said, in the Southern way, “did you see the alligator in that pond?”

She said she was aware he was there, and confessed that she was constantly checking her back.  And then she seemed to be looking to me for reassurance that these creatures would tend to keep away from humans.  This Yankee was not at all comforted by that Southern Belle’s anxiety.  She’s from Georgia – doesn’t she know that alligators are harmless until they’re 8 feet long?

*******

Billy woke up extra early this morning from a bad dream.  He was chasing Katie and she ran into the pond and was eaten by the alligator.

“Don’t chase your sister,” I said.

*******

I went for my walk before finishing this post.  No alligators.  But, by golly, if those flies weren’t out.  I thought they were gone, but apparently not.

There is no clarification in the article that there were x-number of real, live residents in this town.  In my mind, a ghost town is one that is wholly deserted, inhabited only by “ghosts.”  If you mean a once-booming, now with a dwindled population, town, then the phrase is metaphorical.

But I don’t sense that the writer understands that.

Unless, of course, the writer truly feared for the safety of the spirits wandering the streets.

*******

Another one in a different article talked about the potential closure of many USPS centers, ones that processed mail – sorting it and designating it for the right zip code.

It called them “mail-procession centers.”

No word yet on what sort of music they play as the mail formally makes its way through the facility.

*******

Any of you use Wordly Wise books?  There’s that one section with 4 sentences and the student has to pick out the one where the word is used incorrectly.  They should use those texts in journalism school, don’t you think?

“Mom, can we have s’mores for dessert?”

“Sure.”  These weren’t sit around the campfire s’mores, just 7 seconds in the microwave s’mores.  Not as much fun.

“How many can we have?”

“Eat them until you puke…or we run out of supplies.”  I’m in pantry cleaning mode.  I don’t need an opened bag of marshmallows hanging around.

Besides, despite 8 kids digging into one bag of marshmallows, one box of graham crackers and one package of 6 Hershey bars, they were unable to finish it up.  Some things can only be consumed in small doses.

Am I showing my age if I recall the commercial that spelled relief: r-o-l-a-i-d-s?

Do they even make that product any more?

It doesn’t matter.  I have a new way to spell relief: s-i-g-n-e-d-l-e-a-s-e.  And while I’m not there yet, I have just come to very agreeable terms with a homeowner and expect to have a signed lease soon.

It was the very first house I saw on Saturday morning.  I could have been home for dinner.  But then I wouldn’t have found that great Spanish restaurant my mom and I enjoyed, so it’s ok.

18 days from now, the packers are coming to box up my stuff.  Oh, I have so much to do in so little time.

The next month or so is an interesting time with multiple stages of stress and relief.  The stress of securing a new house is almost over.  In a few weeks, the stress of packing will be over.  Of course, there are the stresses of having a baby, cleaning and clearing our current home, and settling in to our new home.  But far and above all these issues is the mother of all stresses and there is only one way to spell relief from that one:

c-h-a-n-g-e-o-f-c-o-m-m-a-n-d

29 days to go.

A week or so ago, the kids and I entered our neighborhood which has a small pond on either side.  “There’s an alligator!” one said.  I wheeled around to get a better look, and, sure enough, a large reptile lay sunning on the opposite bank.  “Um, stay away from there,” I suggested.  Our house is diagonally across the street.

When I told Bill, he asked if I had told any of the other residents who might take action.  “Oh, he was only about 5 or 6 feet long,” I said.  “They aren’t territorial and dangerous until they reach 8 feet.”  I don’t know how he’s managed to live in this part of the country for this long without that vital knowledge.

*******

Sand gnats are a local pest.  I never realized just how awful a tiny little gnat could be.  These gnats bite and leave itchy welts like mosquito bites.  They start showing up in March and love the same weather that we do: moderate humidity and mid-70 degree temps.  But once the humidity and temps start going up, they disappear until the fall.  Unfortunately, they are replaced by deer flies which are worse.  You can run away from sand gnats.  The flies chase you.

The general rule is that the flies are out from Mother’s Day to Father’s Day, then, they too, die off.  This year, they started being a problem in April, long before Mother’s Day.  The flies are not nocturnal, so I have learned to head out for my morning run (now my morning walk) before the dawn’s early light.  Once the sky begins to show a hint of color and you can begin to see without the aid of the streetlamps, the flies begin their attack.

Around here, the pre-dawn light begins by 6 am, so if I’m not out by 530 am, I will get bitten.

*******

I never really felt that general knowledge of alligators was necessary, because I had never lived in an area where they also lived.

Unlike the annoying deer flies, alligators are nocturnal.

*******

We were supposed to have been moved by now – by March, actually.  When Bill was extended, the first thing I said was, “I can’t believe you’re making me live through another gnat and fly season.”  There are a lot of things I have enjoyed about this area, but they are the biggest detractors.  Once those pests are gone, it is usually very hot every day.  I love sitting outdoors, sipping my morning coffee while the sun rises or eating dinner al fresco.  But I don’t like sweltering…or being eaten alive.  I have spent much less time on our back deck then I would have preferred.

*******

The morning after the kids spotted the alligator, I went out for my morning walk extra early so I could do two miles before 6 am.  It was very dark, with no help from the moon between the few scattered streetlights.  As I passed the pond, I heard some strange noises.  That was when I remembered the alligator.  And that was when I remembered they were nocturnal, especially when hunting for a meal.

That was when I started doubting my ability to judge the difference between 6 feet in length and 8 feet in length from across a pond.

And started doubting the veracity of my sources on how “harmless” alligators were before reaching 8 feet.  Really, what’s so magical about 96 inches?  What if the creature is 95 inches?

I considered putting my dog between me and the pond, and I hurried past with no incidents.  On the second lap, several early morning car-commuters were in the area, so I felt a bit more secure. 

I wasn’t able to get out early the rest of the week.  And the alligator has not been seen again.

*******

Since returning from Tampa, I noticed no complaining from the kids about the flies as they played in the back.  And Bill took the kids out for a bike ride and nobody mentioned being attacked.

This morning, I went out a bit later, and noticed that the sun was coming up even earlier, as it does this time of year.  By the time I had completed two miles, it was quite light, and I had only had a few lethargic flies meander by me.  I saw no large lizards by the pond nor heard any unusual noises.

As an added bonus, the humidity was moderate and the temperature was in the low 60’s, although expected to rise by more than 20 degrees today.  I guess the early start to fly season has meant an early end to fly season.  How lovely.

I’m not ready to rest easy about the alligator quite yet.  I’ve not seen a single duck or goose hanging around the front.  Nor have I seen them in the larger pond in the back.  Bird excrement is unpleasant, but at least it’s a sign that no predators are roaming the streets, day or night.  I shall have to talk to some neighbors to see if anybody else has spotted the thing.

For now, I’ll enjoy an extra half hour of sleep and a full two mile walk while we still have spring-like mornings.

I’m heading off to Tampa to find a house.  Say a prayer that all goes well!