This afternoon and evening will be spent, once again, helping Wendi and the kids move into their new apartment. On tonight’s agenda is the electronic equipment (computers, audio-video gear), as well as getting the washer/dryer over to my place and (finally) getting my box spring home.

The kids are handling things better than the adults, in a lot of ways, though Wendi’s holding up fairly well all things being equal. I worry, but I’m a born worrier so I’m working very hard not to let it show or to let it dictate my responses.

Tomorrow the heavy stuff gets moved to the apartment, and this weekend we’ll be cleaning the house. Six years and some-odd of detritus and wear and tear need cleaning out and off…

“Why the sudden silence,” you ask? “Again,” you add?

I took off for the Seattle area early on Friday to visit with Dawn. For the record, I highly recommend train travel over bus travel. Sure, Amtrak is chronically late… but there are fewer annoying people and you’re not packed in like sardines alongside ‘em.

Anyway. I arrived at the Tukwila station around noon just in time to enjoy a brief rain squall in the middle of a bright sunshiney day. Oh, how I’ve missed Seattle weather. (And by “missed” I mean “managed to blot out from my memory as a trauma defense mechanism.”) Okay, I’m teasing a bit there. Portland weather can be almost as freakish…

And, ah, by “Tukwila station” I mean “a raised platform attached to the rest of civilization by a switchback series of long, long ramps.” Apparently the real station is yet to be built. It’s kinda neat, really.

Dawn and I went out to lunch, then pretty much spent the weekend either shopping, hanging out, playing games or eating. Well, okay, we slept occasionally. All in all, I enjoyed the visit and ended the weekend much more relaxed than I’d started out.

As for not updating when I got home or at any point yesterday… well, I’m a lazy butt. I thought you knew that!

I apologize for the long silence, but moving is the sort of endeavor you save up energy for. And now? I’m moved.

Yep. Miles away from the house we lived in for almost six solid years. Living with a guy almost exactly my age and his teenaged son. So far, so good, and I’m as comfortable here as I could expect to be given the circumstances.

For the record, the first thing I did was sit down and eat. The second thing was to reconstruct the easier of the two desks, and the third was to set up the computer.

Priorities, people! It’s all about the priorities.

Oh, and did I mention we have broadband here? Oh hell yes. I expect to be posting more often now that I don’t have to fight a crappy slow dialup connection…

Wendi has the key to her new apartment. I’ll be getting the key to my roommate’s place today, if all goes well.

It has begun.

I’ll be moving first. It’s only a huge undertaking because of how long we’ve been entrenched in this house, not because of how much stuff there is to move. I’m firmly focused on the idea of junking as much junk as possible as I move. I’m not going to a very large space, and the next place I inhabit afterward probably won’t be that much larger. It therefore behooves me to keep the amount of packrattage to a bare minimum.

It should be an interesting couple of weeks. Hell, it should be an interesting life…

I turn thirty-two years old today, and to celebrate (in advance, sure) I went north to visit Dawn and also spend a bit of time with some folks from Pool. It was a wonderful, fun, relaxing, rejuvenating couple of days, and I shall always be thankful for such an interlude during this particularly stressful time in my life.

Hey, I even got to shoot some pool. I’m still not very good at it, but I am reminded now of how much I used to enjoy that particular pasttime. I even managed to call and sink a moderately tricky 8-ball shot… only to lose the game anyway on account of scratching. Oh well. It was almost a perfect shot.

All through the weekend I was getting presents of one sort or another… for instance, Lilith bought the anime version of Metropolis on DVD for me. Dawn gave me sweets of various kinds, a Pikachu candy dispenser and the most adorable little plush Nekobus from My Neighbor Totoro:

I arrived at work this morning only to find… well, what can best be described as a cookie basket, waiting for me at the front desk. Thank you, Heather!

I also got birthday cards and some brownies from my coworkers, not to mention lunch at one of my favorite restaurants and any number of verbal birthday greetings as I worked around the building.

Yeah. It’s not all bad. I just have to remember that when things go to hell like they’re so prone to doing…