Transients

I'm sitting here eating Guacamole that my bro-in-law George deftly made from a gaggle of over-ripe avocados that travelled with us from our house to...his house. This is day three of living in George and Joyce's basement. Basement paints the wrong picture. Subterranean room is more accurate I suppose. So why is the Dodge Clan all sleeping in one room on two mattresses for twelve days?

Two words: Ceiling and Floor.

It was time to scrape all that nightmarish popcorn off the ceiling and replace our carpet - which might have been issued by the Ford Administration - with some wood flooring. Now, don't get me wrong. I love popcorn ceilings, in the right environment. I spent my entire childhood lying on the floor of my living room, day dreaming while staring up at my Grandmother's glitter accented popcorn ceiling. But popcorn just doesn't feel right in our place. So we wanted it off, and then the natural question was begged, "Since we're doing our ceiling...maybe we should do our floor?" So we've hired our usual fix-it guy gunslinger for the task. In Chinese, he goes by the name "Little Lamb." Little Lamb gave us a handsome quote and we couldn't say no. We shoved everything we own into our bathrooms and garage and the folks went off to stay with some friends while we moved into George and Joyce's. Just close your eyes and imagine Cousin Eddie and his kin in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and you know what it looked like when we pulled up.

This ordeal has been like moving out without moving out. We had to pack EVERYTHING. Closets. Furniture. Under the furniture. All the kid's toys. All of them. ALLLLLL of them. This ordeal really made me appreciate the concept of throwing stuff away. When we finally unpack everything that is exactly what we're going to do. Half of the stuff we own will not make it out of the boxes and bags. I promise.

Hmmm. Guacamole....

So here we are under the roof of my generous Brother-in-law and Sister-in-law. And here's the kicker: Joyce is about to give birth any day. So soon we will all be humbly living together in the presence of our family's newest member. Very very exciting.