I live with two men.  One is my husband—the other is our “guy.”  Tinus is our property manager—keeping track of the various problems and projects that arise at one end of the road or the other.  He has our list of workmen on his phone, and when something goes haywire, he’s the one who calls to get things fixed, moved, or otherwise handled.  He drives a mini-van loaded with whatever won’t fit in the car.

Tinus is beyond organized.  On the day we arrive at one end or the other, he wants to know which day we’ll be leaving so he can sort out mail forwarding, newspaper deliveries, and anything else that has to be handled before closing up a house.  The week before any scheduled departure, he wants to have the mini-van totally organized and somewhat packed.

Bill worries about leaving.  Part of the problem is that some of his job of “writing the checks” involves moving his office—the papers and his trusty computer—in a way that he can access it as needed up to and including the last minute.  So he worries and pre-packs.

By now you’re probably seeing where this is going.  My way of dealing with leaving is to cling to wherever I am up to and including the last minute.  Which explains why, while they’re both hustling around putting stuff in places, filling gas tanks, organizing the doggy-bed back seat, and making lists, I’m sitting in the living room in my robe, computer on my lap, listening to music from the forties and fifties, writing the blog, and being HERE until it’s time to be elsewhere.  I pack when I have to pack, and not a minute before.

By Sunday, all three of these wildly divergent styles of packing and going will have somehow coalesced into a single departure time, and we’ll be on the road again, headed north, just moments before it would otherwise be necessary to turn on the AC.

We came to Tucson in January with a massive “honey-do” list.  First and foremost was to finish writing the book.  Check.  Fix the well which had gone on the blink sometime in October.  Check.  Clean up the back backyard which was a tangled desert jungle made up of low-hanging mesquite and palo-verde branches.  It was also an uneven ankle-turning tract of rocks, creosote, weeds, and gopher holes.  It took two men working two days a week for six weeks to turn it into a park-like setting—a dirt cactus garden made up of level winding gravel paths lined with river rock and with no unexpected branches lying in wait to knock you senseless.  Now that we can see what’s out there and actually spend time out there, we know we need more cactus, but installing more plants will have to wait until we return.  In other words, as far as backyard improvements are concerned, we qualify for only a check and a half.

When we bought the house in Tucson, it was a tear-down waiting to happen.  The movie The Money Pit comes to mind.  The problem was, when we returned from a European holiday, the house in Seattle was undergoing a kitchen remodel that had fallen hopelessly behind.  My thought was, “How bad can it be?  Can’t we just live in the ‘other’ half of the house?’  Turns out the answer was no, we could not.  Things were so bad that we couldn’t even get our dogs out of the kennel.  So we grabbed the dogs and came to an empty house in Tucson with some bedding and some clothing, and that was about it.  We bought a bed the first day we arrived in town and put it in the library.  Why the library?  Because it was the only room in the house with reasonably clean parquet floors.  The other rooms were covered with filthy shag carpets from eras long in the past.  We replaced the carpets the next week and bought a patio table and four chairs from Costco.  While we set about doing the immediate must-do repairs—installing carpet, fixing the ACs, getting the bathrooms functional, and cleaning out the duct work—that was the furniture we had—one bed, one table, and four chairs.

Eventually, with work either scheduled or underway, we needed to be able to live and cook here.  One Sunday morning, we left the dogs at home and went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  Soon after our arrival, a young woman named Jessica approached us in the kitchen implement aisle and asked us if we were finding everything we needed.  “Well,” Bill replied, “we need everything.”

She took us at our word and stayed with us throughout the next two hours while we bought dishes, pots and pans, towels and washcloths, glassware, silverware, a coffee pot, and all that other stuff that isn’t necessarily essential until you need it—like can-openers for instance.  When you need a can-opener, you REALLY need a can-opener.  At the end of the shopping trip, we had 13 carts parked in a waiting area near the check-out area.  When we started checking out, we learned that the Bed, Bath, and Beyond cash-registers blow a gasket if you run over a certain amount of merchandise in a single transaction.  Eventually our Suburban load required being broken down into three separate orders. (When I say Suburban load, I mean it.  The last of the stuff that wouldn’t fit in the back had to ride in my lap!)  That single shopping trip also explains why for the next year or so, whenever Bill showed up at that particular B, B, and B, they rolled out the red carpet for him.

My philosophy is one of living completely wherever I happen to be.  That means that once we get where we’re going, I want to be fully there, too.  As soon as the new AC was up and running and the new carpet was installed, we bought more beds and bedding and invited guests for the following weekend.  We were fine for bedding—we’d already done out B, B, and B excursion—but we were not fine for furniture.

So on a Saturday morning, with guests due about four that afternoon, I went shopping.  I visited a place called “Consign and Design.”  After first ascertaining that anything I bought could be delivered that very day, I went shopping—and shopped ’til I dropped.  We still have most of that furniture—end tables, coffee tables, a sofa table, lamps, flower arrangements.  And all of that stuff—including a dining room table and six chairs—arrived before our guests did that afternoon.

From where I sit, I can see six of those tables, the dining table and chairs, two of the flower arrangements, and four of the lamps right this minute.  Later we added some additional furniture—including the two white sofas Bill and I bought at Frederick and Nelson in 1987.  We also added some leather furniture.  So replacing some of the “original” furnishings was also on our to-do list for this year.  The old furniture—three arm chairs and the two 30 year-old sofas are in the process of departing right this minute.

This year we’ve added oriental rugs in the living room, sent other rugs out to be cleaned, installed a gas-log fire-place in the living room, and fixed the one in the family room so it works on a switch rather than with a lighter.  Yesterday we had a new piece of copper artwork installed on the patio and had the porcelain tile throughout the house professionally cleaned and treated with a sealer.  The new furniture arrives on Friday—just in time for us to leave without actually having a chance to sit in it.  (We did sit in it BEFORE we bought it.  Our decorator thinks it’s hilarious that I won’t buy any piece of furniture no matter how stylish if it doesn’t pass the sit test.)

Last night, with the floor still wet and the house reeking of sealer, we sat out on the patio, listening to decades old music, having a glass of wine, and simply being.  Tomorrow it’s off to Phoenix for several days of appearances before our eventual departure on Sunday.  I now have a manicure scheduled for a little over an hour and a half.  That means I need to pack FAST because those suitcase zippers are hell on manicures.

So it’s time to pack and go.  On the way north, we’ll work on this summer’s honey-do list.  I’m sure it’ll be a doozy.  In the meantime, Tinus needs to know what day we’ll be back.  He needs to adjust the mail forwarding.