OK. Yesterday's saga, if it may be called that....
I was pretty impatient, having envisioned getting down there, loading up the trailer and van and whisking Karen home with me. I had the wrong idea altogether, the main purpose of the day was getting Betty and Charlie settled in, I finally got my brain tuned in to that, improved my attitude a bunch.
Finally, Karen and I went over to the old place and started getting stuff over there figgered out. I started putting stuff in the trailer; Karen was packing up stuff from the fridge to take back to the folks' new place. They're getting three meals a day served over there, so their fridge needs will be minimal. She threw away far more than she kept.
She and Deb and Jeff took the food over, and I continued loading stuff. The elevator for the building was completely on the other side of the complex, so I bumped most of the stuff down the stairs on my two-wheeler. I went up and down those stairs a hundred times. Nine steps, a landing seven steps long, another nine steps down. Ric arrived after work and helped me with the mattresses and the rest of the stuff.
Karen returned and I sent her off again to gas up the van. The trailer was loaded by this time, and I was attempting to cover it with a couple of tarps. It was dark by now, and I knew that if the tarps weren't on really good, they'd tear and blow off on the trip. I finally gave up on them, it was too dark to see what I was doing.
Karen got back, we did another quick look-around and locked the place up. We need to go by Ric and Deb's to drop off a table I had perched and tied down on top of the trailer. So I hitched the trailer up and we were off.
On the second turn, the trailer hitch failed. I'm not really sure what happened, but I think that I didn't have it fastened down right. I did have the chains on it, though, so it didn't overturn or anything... just knocked the shit out of the rear doors on the van. And scared the hell out of us. I've never been in a vehicle with an out-of-control trailer before... not recommended. Especially the language from Karen and I. OK, it was mostly from me.
We were only a few blocks from Ric's, so I hitched it up again and made it over there just as a pizza was being delivered. We got the table off and Ric found a bolt to secure the hitch coupler to the hitch. We went in and found out that the jury was back! But we would have to wait for the results until the principals all got there. I thought about doing some word play on principals/principles, but I'm not going to.
Anyway, we waited around for a few minutes and decided to leave. I had to pry Karen away from the TV with a promise that we would find something on the radio.
We finally found an all-news station. They faded out shortly after we got out of the Wichita area though. Listened to some oldies station for a while, and there was finally an announcement...the OJ trial is over andtheverdictwasmumblemumblemumble andthat'sthenewsfromCalifornia.. We decided that we could wait and not worry about it anymore. Then we found the KU-Missouri game. Now, I usually don't get excited about basketball, but this was one exciting game listening to it on the radio. Double-overtime, fantastically-described moves... the whole schmear. It was fun, except for the end.
My idea was to leave the trailer in the garage at the rental house, where it would be secure and we wouldn't have to worry about it for a few days. We got over there and I didn't have the right key for the lock that I'd put on the garage. I'd bought a set of four locks advertised as all keyed the same! at Sams a couple of months ago. Well, they aren't. So we came on home and covered the stuff with the tarps, and it's still sitting out in the yard, waiting for me to get dressed and take it over.
Other news... the Open Pages Web Ring is back and faster than ever! And I am going to keep a back-up every time that they change from now on.
It's back-to-work-Wednesday. I didn't get much accomplished (again) but I had an excuse this time anyway.
I'm going to get dressed and get stuff done, then go to work at 17:00, so this will be all I write for today. Back to one-a-day entries...
I got to Wichita about 13:00 and dropped the trailer off at the old place, then went to the new place, where Karen and Debbie were unpacking stuff. Once again, I stood around feeling rather worthless, unless someone would put me on a project. I went around plugging stuff in, removing all of the 3-wire-to-two-wire cheaters installed on every appliance. I got there after everyone had already eaten, and I asked for directions to get to a fast food place. I must've not been listening very well, making all of the wrong turns. It took me fifteen minutes to get to the Wendy's that I'd aimed for, a half-mile away.