moving weekend

i love rain sounds. the smack, patter and drip symphony of wet outside my window while i lay in my bed is the best.  when i am the thing being smacked with droplets and rivers of water--that's another thing...although sometimes it can be good.  very good.  this is when heather turns away in disgust and has a cat cuddle under her electric blanket.  "how can we be so different?" she mutters to herself while tapping the pages of her newest kobo novel.  well i'll admit there is a misery to wetness too.  the wet sock feeling or wide legged jeans soaked up to the knee and a stranger's wet umbrella pressed against my leg on a crowded bus.  that's why i don't wear socks.

i digress.

ma n pops beet have moved in downstairs. i left work a little after 12 on friday and met ken (landlord) outside of his fancy sports car to get the keys to mom and dad's suite.  "be careful. don't scratch the floors." requested ken, his toupee lightly ruffling in the breeze, "remember it's newly renovated." i thought of the ancient cupboards and nodded mutely.  ya sure.  totally renovated.

the timing did not go as planned and plans changed last minute and all of this was of no surprise to me but the ward was less accustomed to clarke family chaos.  people started showing up at 2.  weissy, cassie, aidrie and i took the extra time to clean.  later when we were sitting on the back stairs talking cats and housing yumi started weeding the garden and weissy helped.  meanwhile cassie and aidrie pet and combed izzy and changed her litter box.  bro chan and the elders took the time to teach lenny a new member discussion and the men gathered on the outskirts of the yard discussing amongst themselves how dangerous my flower pots sitting on the balcony ledge were.  "yah, yeah, so dangerous." one would say, "if that fell on you, you'd die." said another.  president roeder said to text him when the truck arrived and walked home.

mom and dad arrived around 3:30.  the ward emptied their car so fast and thoroughly that even things that stay in the car got brought in.  at 4 doug and crew arrived with the big beastly truck.  then things started happening.  i was in the kitchen with weissy and later leilani putting kitchen stuff away and answered which room is doug's room a thousand times.  we started calling it the dark room.  also mom appeared to have 20 tubs of imperial cheese which totally astounded me. later i discovered it was only 6 or 8 and the other 12 were kefier portions.  still.  "for the love of imperial cheese!" that should be a saying.

mom especially found brother chan and brother suriyani helpful because they fulfilled her every whim.  she was going on fumes having only slept 2ish hours the night before.  i thought she held it together remarkably well.  i did enjoy how she threw her body in front of some stampeding people with boxes, arms wide.  sometimes you have to speak to people with body language.  there was a bubble wrap incident but i won't mention it. 

the next day evelyn came and helped and norm who mom is thinking of as her new handyman, came to put up the pull bar in the bathroom.  evelyn helped me stock the new pantry, aka mom's old fabric shelves.  she loves those shelves.  she still thanks dad for making those. this morning on a zoom call with katie, jordan and evan someone said that we will burry her in one of her cupboards.  "we'll line it with turquoise plaid and fluffy pink material" i said.  "and keep it closed with duct tape and panty hose." added katie.  we were all quite pleased with ourselves.

in the afternoon we took a break from unpacking and did some grocery shopping.  i was fully confident to do my own grocery shopping for the first time since before surgery.  mom wanted a few things and also wanted to get to know the closest places in our neighbourhood so she came too.  but i was too ambitious.  i thought i could shop at 3 different stores.  we started at shoppers and as soon as i started going up and down the aisles i became super irritable.  that's what happens.  it's like i can't handle anything.  by the time we got to the till mom knew that i had had enough.  there was a line  up which made me die a little inside.  but luckily there was self-checkout.  so i did that. because standing and waiting in the worst.  mom wanted to try self-check out too but i could only get her started before i bolted to the bench outside.  so... i modified my grocery store list to 'bread' and mom went in and got it for me and she also did my produce shopping at kins.  little by little.  yesterday shoppers tomorrow a 3 store shopping stint!  hopefully in the next few weeks i'll be more helpful to mom instead of using her as a personal shopper.

today is dad's 81st birthday.  he decided to come to church.  i helped him get some of his sundee best on.  i think i smacked one of his shoes on too vigorously because he winced.  by the time we got out to the car it was already 9:30.  i had sahib backed in and ready to load.  i had a stool to help dad get up to the higher seat.  this proved to be a mistake.  he tried to step on it and then that leg buckled and his bum wasn't on the seat yet...we were in a precarious position.  was dad going to do a slither to the ground on his birthday? no he was  not.  i removed the stool, put that foot on the ground, and he was much better able to scootch himself into the seat.  after that disaster averted i had to stand under the steady drip to get the walker folded up in the back seat.  i strategically parked so the drip wouldn't hit dad.  i didn't think about mom or me.  haha.

we got to church ten minutes late but everything went alright.  people were super glad to have mom and dad back in the ward.  dad went to priesthood and apparently he was quite participatory.  but before we could hear more about it annabella told me that he left already.  "what?? my himself??" mom and i and brother taylor quickly went in search.  i was picturing rounding a corner to see him sprawled out like a log on the sidewalk.  but no.  he was cheerfully sitting on his walker beside the car.  bro taylor helped us get all set and then we were off home where we had a rest before coming back together for a delicious birthday meal of steak, baked potatoes (with imperial cheese) and asparagus.  i made an apple cin-min cake.  it was super yummy.  we had it warm with ice cream.  well mom and i did.  dad poured cream over his.

and that's a little taste of the move in days.  there is lots more of course.  mom stayed up until 5 again last night.  she can't help herself.  one of her quests leads to another quest which leads to another.  but everything is coming together.  she likes fitting the puzzle pieces together of which of her 100 dressers or shelves shall go where and what shall be in them.