melair

In a nutshell: Unprepared- more stuff than we thought we had- exhausted for our going away party- slept all day Sunday- dinner at Five Seasons- hot and cranky- lunch at Krystal’s in tha hood

July 11, 2008- Friday night and my Dad, his wife and her daughters, along with my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew stopped by for one last visit.  We scrambled around while we were there trying to get things in order, but not really knowing what to do.  We had movers coming to pack everything, piece of cake, right?  Ummm…wrong.  Jim got up into the attic.  The attic that becomes the vortex of out of mind, out of site for all of our “we shouldn’t throw this away, we’ll surely use it someday” items.  Jim kept handing down box after box after box.  It was like clowns spilling out of a clown car, and in the same way that when I’m at the circus I’m eventually, “yeah..okay, enough already,” I was completely over it before we were half way through.  So I pitched a few hissy fits, accused Jim of ruining our lives with his hoarding (even though half the stuff was mine), and went to bed at 1:30 AM because I was pretty much useless at that point.  Jim came to bed at 5:30 AM, at which point I got up from my nap and went to work.

Jim, Alyssa, and Drew

Dad and Justice

July 12- The movers arrived at 9AM (Jim was back up at 7) and didn’t leave until 4:30PM.  One of them commented “I keep thinking we’re almost done, and then I’ll open another drawer or cabinet.”  Lucky for him, we’d already taken two car loads to the Salvation Army and filled up something like 14 garbage bags at the street.   Jim got back from Tech, where the movers packed his office at 5:15.  He begged a nap until 6, so we didn’t make it out to our going away party until 7PM.  And man, were we ever out of it.

Ced and Amy

Syid, Cindy and Twain

Tennis Lesson

July 13- We slept most all day Sunday, and when we went to run an errand in the late afternoon, Jim looked at me and said, “I want a do-over.  Now I’m ready to have our going away party.”  But alas…the time had passed.  Our last intentional meal in Atlanta was at 5 Season’s Brewery- our favorite restaurant.  It just so happened that Dennis, one of the owners was helping to get our drink order and run our food.  We let him know that it was our last night and we’d come to enjoy one last meal until we could get back to Atlanta.  Well, that made him a little sappy, as we were being a little sappy ourselves.  After we ate, he came over, pulled up a chair, poured us a Flemish Triple he’d bottled, and we interrogated him about all the other restaurant owners in Atlanta.  At the point that we got home we decided to blow everything off until the next day, to stop worrying about a self-imposed schedule and to leave whenever we were good any ready.  Good idea on paper.

July 14- By the time we finally got the apartment cleaned, car packed, and hit the road, I was hot, tired and cranky.  I know it’s hard to imagine me cranky.  We had to drop our cable router off at Greenbriar Mall where we had our last unintentional meal at a Krystal’s on Cambleton Road.  Inside we were greeted by a really friendly, smiley guy with braids and gold plated buck teeth who was mopping the floor and enthusiastically recounting the different combo meals to us.  What a way to end the day in the Dirty South.

Me being cranky

Me pretending not to be cranky

Things I learned: If you haven’t used it in a year, you probably aren’t going to use it.  There are no do-overs when it comes to surprise parties or going away parties.