Not in Kansas anymore
We are now in Minnesota and I am still calling this blog "On the Yellow Brick Road". Why? Well the simple reason is because I can't think of a better name to call it . A deeper reason is that I am on a journey and a lot like the people who traveled on the Yellow Brick Road I am looking for Oz. Not like in the movie which was a dream but like in the books a real place. A fantastical place where mystery still exists. In another way I think of myself on a journey to my "Undiscovered Country" in many of the same ways as Captain Kirk had to discover that he had to let go of his hatred and fear in order to discover something new and wonderful. And so a "Yellow Brick Road" seems like a good metaphor to describe where I am and where I am going.
The move up here
I have to write about the actual move because it was an event. When I arrived on Sat. it was clear there was still a great deal of packing to be done. Trudy, Benjamin, Catalina and I tackled the packing a number of rooms every day so that we could have most of the house packed before Wed. On Wed. Trudy and I went to pick up the first truck. We got a 26' truck from Penske Truck Rental. We had help off and on all day long. Unfortunately it was very hot and we really didn't have enough help to load the truck. By the end of the day Benjamin and I were beat. I could barely walk.
Thursday Trudy and I got the second 26' truck. We had more help to help take apart some furniture and load the trucks. Again it was hot and people had to leave before we were done. Plus Trudy was still packing boxes until the last minute. Trudy also had to get Roger from the Kansas City airport, a 90 minute drive each way. By the time we were done packing the second truck, got to the hotel, showered and ate it was close to 10pm.
Thursday night a monster thunderstorm rolled through Topeka and wiped out power in town. We had no power in our room so we all slept poorly. The next day Roger and I took off in the trucks for the Twin Cities. Trudy and the kids went to the house to get the pets. We had downed tree branches and not much we could do about. More about this later. Trudy also picked up our friend Dean to help us with truck driving.
It turns out driving a 26' truck is not that hard once you get up to speed. They are noisy but pretty easy to drive. Benjamin road with me part of the time. We had a good time talking and listening to his Johnny Cash CDs. Later I napped in Roger's truck and then he and I shared what was going on with each other. In fact one of the best things about the trip was spending a fair amount of time with Roger. I miss my brother. He is a great guy.
We got to St. Paul, unpacked our luggage, checked into the hotel and went to Bubba Gumps for dinner. Everyone slept very well on Friday night.
Saturday the guys got up early and headed to the house to get started. By the time people started to show up we had one of the trucks more than 1/2 unloaded. We had plenty of help and were able to be unloaded by noon.
So now a week later we have unpacked everything we really need. The only thing left is the basement needs to be unpacked of boxes when have books that need to go various places around the house.
Homeowners Associations
So after the storm, we heard that our neighbor spent a couple of hours cutting down branches and cleaning up the mess for us. I sent him an email thank you note. A day or so later I got a long somewhat nasty email basically accusing us of abandoning our home. I pointed out that we had been making arrangements on the road Friday to have things cleaned up but nothing could be done immediately because tree trimming places were busy taking care of fallen trees as opposed to downed branches. Also someone had 'dumped' some trash in our front yard instead of taking it to the dump and he decided we had someone doing work at the house who had done it. Basically he made a bunch of assumptions instead of finding out what was going on.
The worse part was the fact that he threatened to take the matter up with the city and/or sue if things were not taken care of by a certain date.
He also isn't happy that we are going to be renting the property. As if we need his permission to decide what to do with our property. If he wants to buy the house he is more than welcome to make an offer, we would entertain one. But honestly I think the neighbors would rather have the house rented rather than have us walk away from the house and go into foreclosure. That would really screw up property values.
Some people just assume the worse in their neighbors. They also have their priorities all wrong. He claims to be a Christian but I would say he worships his house more than he worships God Almighty. I have seen how much he preens over his property. I wonder if he spends that amount of time with God. Or money on God's mission.
This has convinced me more and more that I will never live in a neighborhood with a homeowner's association and I won't sign extra covenants associated with any house I buy.
In any case we hired someone to take care of the trash around the house from the storm damage.
Time to close this one up
We have some stuff we have to get to make this place more liveable. So it is time to signoff.