It's the darndest thing - 1

Everything is so clean. I'm at work. My office is all organized and prepared for me to be in Italy for two weeks; but, here I am. My house (which, on Thursday, the day we were supposed to leave, was the cleanest it has ever been,) has open suitcases in the living room, tightly made guest rooms, only small spots show that we've been home; a pile of clothes discarded in disgust, a few dishes to be bused, houseplants brought in at the last minute before we left are still begging for water. I'm sure that would have been the last thing Rolf did before we headed for the airport.

It was a good week. We were so excited. My Mom and Dad had been over for lunch last Sunday. I ordered Chinese delivery, which was there by the time they arrived. We used the map of Italy as a table cloth, and Mom and Dad kept pointing at city after city which we must be sure to visit. It was so fun to have the map right there on the table. They were so excited for us. They don't know we haven't left yet.

I had hired someone to take the tree out, so after lunch I begged Mom and Dad to forgive us, but we had to go work in the yard to make way for the bob cat and stump grinder. So they left, and we spent the balance of the lovely day moving things from the driveway to under the sunroom. (We had moved just about everything out because we had seen four snakes, and we decided that they might be in the mess that was under the sunroom.)

It was such a crazy week trying to get ready to go. In addition to all you'd expect, packing, shopping: I was still making hotel reservations, and the people were going to take out the tree before we left, and my old maid service had broken each knob on my stove top (I fired them after 8 years.) So the knobs had to be replaced, which was an unbelievable trial. I went to three appliance stores, no help. Oh, and I interviewed and hired a new cleaning service too. Oh, Oh, Oh!; and the garbage disposal had broken.

Monday morning - we didn't know when the tree company was coming, the new maid service was coming at 12:30, I'd told them they had to be done in the kitchen by 3, because the plumber was coming at 3. Rolf was scheduled to be home at 3 for the plumber, and we only had hotel reservations for three nights in Rome.

I was putting on my shirt to for work, the door bell rang, and surprise surprise, there was a drunk on my doorstep saying he was there to take out my tree, so could we move the cars? Being that they hadn't told me they were coming, I assumed they weren't. It was too late for Rolf to make arrangements to work from home; so, I had a surprise day off.

This was not "the guy" I hired, by the way.

I asked, "are you Paul?"

"Nah," he said "He went off to get some chains for the saws. . . He'll be back in a while. That's a lot of wood you got back there. 's'Gonna be a long day. . "

"Well, do you think you'll still be here when I get home from work, so I can pay you then?"

"IT AIN'T GONNA TAKE EIGHT HOURS!" he said.

"Just how long is a long day?" I wondered silently.

It was such a nice morning. My house may not be ready for a magazine layout, but it does feel elegant and spacious. I had my coffee and all the travel guides in front of me, as I sat at the dining room table watching the tree crew work like mules to take the tree out, sorting through emails from the hotels that said they had space for us. You can already start to see the lake between the leaves on the trees.

__________

The tree folk quit at 3 and just left, with a whole lot of work left to do. So I guess a long day in the tree cutting industry is about six hours. I never did talk to the guy I hired. I am afraid that the tree stump will fall back on the house when they go to grind it up, so I begged Bemmy to house sit on Tuesday and Wednesday, just so I'd know that someone was there who could call me quick if the sunroom fell off the house.

The plumbers didn't show up. Eventually the plumber company called and tried to reschedule for the next day. When they realized that wasn't going to work for me, they went on and sent the crew out even though it was after 5:30. What they found was that the circuit breaker was broken and needed to be replaced by an electrician. "That'll be $75 please." So I call an electrician and beg them to come out on Tuesday or Wednesday to replace the breaker. What do they find? Nothing. As a matter fact, the disposal is now working and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the breaker. "That'll be $95 please." I had to rush home at lunch on Wednesday to deal with that. And then I swung around to pick up the knobs for the stove - "That'll be $75 please." Then back to work.

Bemmy said that three tree guys came on Tuesday, and didn't do much. So I had to call them and tell them to hurry up. I had to put up construction fencing so d'Ohgy wouldn't get out while we were gone. And that worked out pretty well. They didn't finish. They still haven't done the root ball, but everything else is done. I couldn't get out of work early enough, so Rolf and I ended up putting up the fence in near darkness.

We were pretty much packed, I just kept cleaning and organizing, while Rolf attacked the swamp of office bills and records. We zipped up the suitcases at about 1:30 in the morning, and I was in bed by about 2. I fell asleep thinking "You've got to get up a dawn and check out that fence!" But I didn't. On Thursday, I got to work at about 8:30; I had planned on being in at 7 and leaving at 2:30. Our flight was at 6:45PM.

_________

I was practicaly sent home from work. "Good Morning! Just get everything organized and get out! I know you have a lot to do at home today," my boss said. But I didn't really. Just waiting around. Puck met me at home. We checked out the new fencing and assessed the work that was left on the tree, and then we went to lunch. We were supposed to leave at 3:15. Puck asked me when Rolf was going to get home. And I said, hopefully, "Oh, he'll probaly come running in with ten minutes to spare." But then he called.

"Where are you?" he said.

"I'm in the dressing room, why?"

"Are you sitting down, you'd better sit down"

"Um, ok I'm in the bedroom now, sitting down. . "

He said we couldn't go today. That made me mad, because I thought he was kidding.

"I don't believe you." I said.

I was in shock.