cbtreks

On April 3, my best friend and I flew out to Las Vegas; on April 4 I picked up my rented truck and hired three guys to pack it for me. They made quick work - five hours all together, and that included an hour in which we went to the truck rental place, got all the paperwork together, and drove back to the storage unit. It also included about half an hour during which we had to locate bolt cutters and cut off both padlocks from the storage unit door since not one of the various and sundry keys I'd been so careful to bring with me fit the locks. They did a fantastic job packing the truck and in the end, only a handful of things did not fit. Since they were things I didn't really need - old computer equipment and an old stereo that I've been wanting to replace with one that records to cd - I told them to take whatever they wanted and we'd cart the rest to Goodwill. They were happy to take it all, including one box of computer stuff that I didn't look at carefully, even though S. kept saying, "Are you sure about all of that - you've checked out everything?" "Yeah, yeah, it's all ok. I don't need any of that."

About five hours later, I was in the bathroom at our hotel and suddenly a very clear vision of that last box floated before my eyes. It was neither stereo equipment nor old computer stuff. It was, in fact, our DVD player and VCR. I accidentally gave away our DVD player and VCR!! Who does that!? I had to laugh about it, though. At least DVD players are inexpensive these days. I'm hoping to buy one that is both a DVD/VHS player and can transfer (non-commercial) VHS tapes to DVD. At least now I've got a very good excuse to do that!

(PS - if you're staying in Vegas, Terrible Herbst is a nice hotel, with clean, good-sized rooms and two decent restaurants - not that I actually ate in them this time - but with no wifi. They have a computer in the exercise room that's available to any of their guests, but no wifi in the rooms. Bad. Come into the 21st century, Terrible's! Your guests want wifi!)

We moved to Las Vegas almost five years ago (it'll be five years on November 1). I've - we've both - regretted coming here more than we've been pleased with the decision, and we've decided to move back home. It's not going to be for awhile, probably next summer, but I'm really looking forward to being near my family again, my friends, having four seasons and rain and greenness and being able to drive to Lake Michigan if for no other reason than just to watch the sunset. And driving! Las Vegas is in a valley surrounded by mountains. There are plenty of places to go outside of Vegas, but if - like me - you're extremely uncomfortable driving through the mountains, then it feels as if you're trapped here. (Unfortunately, I didn't know driving in the mountains bothered me so much till we got here!)

We're not telling my mom yet, because I think she'd start trying to pressure us to stay (she was pressuring me to move here almost from the time she moved here herself, in what was it, 1996?) and that's a stress we just don't need. Besides, my sisters and I all believe she'll end up moving back herself and moving in with my middle sister once my niece and nephew are grown and moved out (just a matter of years now - nephew is 16 and niece is 13, 14 in December).

We don't really have a support system here, as evidenced by the two hospital stays over the past couple of months and our situation back in 2003. Mom does what she can but in all honesty, it's just not that much - she's just one person, 20 miles away, with an old car, limited means, a live-in boyfriend that requires a lot of her time, and an ex-husband who's leaving her to deal with his tax fraud while traveling to China with his new (younger than his daughter) wife every time the heat is on him, hides behind his crooked lawyer when he's in town. Yeah, he's a gem.

Things I don't look forward to: taking five minutes just to dress for running down to the store in January, getting up a o'dark thirty and scraping the ice off the car, 90 percent humidity, mosquitoes.

Things I'll miss here: hmmm, not a lot, really. Not having to own a winter coat (it never gets cold enough to require more than a jacket) or even a winter wardrobe. Being able to walk out the front door and just go, twelve months a year. The lack of humidity and mosquitoes. Going to movies with the Vegas Fen, then sitting in a restaurant till all hours, discussing and analyzing them - I'll miss that a lot. Depp fests with teresa_c - but she's moving anyway. But truly? Not so much. I guess I'm just not a desert dweller (or a big-city dweller, for that matter) and wasn't meant to be.

Most of the time, I'm content here and I think under other circumstances, I wouldn't mind staying so much - if, for example, Irish would fly (he was in several plane and helicopter accidents as a Marine and once he left the military vowed never to fly again) so it wouldn't require a minimum of a week's vacation just to go home for a visit. If we weren't in such financial straights. (Hey, if I'm going to be so broke I have to stay home for the holidays, I might as well be in the same town, or close to it, as my sisters so we can stay home together!) We're so much better off than we were two years ago, fortunately, but that stretch of unemployment (both of us at once, basically, for several months) really hurt us and we'll be feeling those effects for a long time to come.

Hopefully we'll be able to go to the family reunion next August. I'd like that so much. I just keep praying no one else dies before then! (Seriously - an aunt, an uncle, and a cousin have all died since the last one we went to in 2000.) And it'll be so neat to be with both my sisters and their kids at the same time - that hasn't happened since - I keep thinking it's 1994, but I'm not sure. And when my dad comes up to visit, we can all be together with him at the same time - that hasn't happened since 1991. I know Irish is looking forward to seeing his sons and grandkids again (one of which he's never met - and actually, by the time we get there, there will be another new one).

I think we're looking at next July. Here's hoping....