it--poor weather in Minnesota. Plus, my bags were having so much fun in the USAirways system, hanging out with all the other indistinguishable black rectangular bags, that they didn't show up for another two whole days. Fortunately, I had carried a tote bag with essentials like magazines and camera, so at least I had something to load into the minivan I rented. Who knew I would have to stand in line at the Thrifty Rental Car agency at 3:30 in the morning? I must say I expected to walk right in and sign the paper, and get about the business of getting lost on the way to Rachel's, but, no; there were people ahead of me! "Why aren't you people in bed?!", I wanted to scream. Minnesota weather, no doubt.No worries! After a good 3 hours sleep, or so, Monday morning, we began to survey all the puzzle pieces. Rachel had ordered first one, then, two storage unit pods to be parked in front of her place, and the plan was to pack up and load them ourselves (carrying everything down a very narrow flight of stairs with a tight turn, then down the outside stairs) over the period of a couple of days. Check. The pods were to be delivered Tues.morn. Furthermore, since her sofa had had to be disassembled, moved in, and reassembled in the living room when
she'd bought it, that entire process was going to need to be repeated in the reverse, in a timely way, on the sidewalk outside. Check. Mike and George were scheduled to take care of it. Yet, another part of this increasingly complex picture was that Rachel was scheduled to take a monumental (4+hours) business school qualifying exam (GMAT), about which she was very nervous, on Monday evening. Out in Waltham (about 20 minutes drive). She had been planning/studying for this test for years, on and off. Recently, she had gotten some extra intensive help to prepare for it. Tough math section. One wants to do well on this exam. She'd been carrying the burden of this test-in-the-future for a very long time. Factor 3 concerns the fact that, since Rachel's belongings will be in storage in Boston, she had to pack her suitcases, right then, to be a part of two weddings: one in Hawaii, the other in Vermont; followed closely by a nearly 3-month long trip to Europe--from Finland to Italy. Quite the interesting puzzle, by itself. How to choose what to take for when? And, then, there was a promised art project for which we left out materials so she could finish it before she left Boston. We also had to consider what to do with all the stuff she didn't want anymore: the give-aways. And there was terminating the cable (where to turn in the box?), changing mail delivery, subscriptions, banking stuff. Lots of moving parts. All in about 3 1/2 days.Did we succeed? Check in tomorrow to find out! (pics are taken Tues morning just as we're starting to power pack)
