Hobbits In Rivendell

Taking a quick break in our packing to point out a less than amusing side of this whole moving thing: Sales.

I hate selling things. We sold Texas Manor Fruitcakes through grade school to support our class fund. Why anyone thought mummified cake and neon, vat-dyed fruit was a good item for raising funds for children, I don’t know, but that is what we did. (DISCLAIMER: I know that some fruitcakes are good. THESE were NOT.) I am dreadful at selling things — even my own things. What is anything really worth? How bad should I feel if you don’t look like you really need to be buying anything? These are the types of things that go through my mind.

Sunday we spent at the flea market — or the ‘car boot sale,’ if you’re playing along elsewhere (And frankly, a ‘car boot’ sale makes more sense. I mean, fleas. Eh??)

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Taking a quick break in our packing to point out a less than amusing side of this whole thing: Sales.

I hate selling things. We sold Texas Manor Fruitcakes through grade school to support our class fund. Why anyone thought mummified cake and neon, vat-dyed fruit was a good item for raising funds for children, I don’t know, but that is what we did. (DISCLAIMER: I know that some fruitcakes are good. THESE were NOT.) I am dreadful at selling things — even my own things. What is anything really worth? How bad should I feel if you don’t look like you really need to be buying anything? These are the types of things that go through my mind.

Sunday we spent at the flea market — or the ‘car boot sale,’ if you’re playing along elsewhere (And frankly, a ‘car boot’ sale makes more sense. I mean, fleas. Eh??), and it was an awful, long day. I am not a salesperson. I couldn’t sell warm sunshine to Antarctica (Oh, wait, global warming. Might not have to). We only made money because Himself has a good hustle and looks at people and smiles this slightly mad smile and steps toward them, startling them into a horrified stillness. Those who couldn’t run away fast enough bought something.

One sales thing that has been a big pain for both of us, however, is the online sales. Craigslist is a great place to buy and sell, but we have met almost all the flakes who ever use it. People have claimed to be coming “right now” to pick up something they’d bought… and they’ve never showed. People have phoned to harangue about the wording used in an ad (I kid you not.), people have been all kinds of bizarre. And then there are the people who think that we are all kinds of stupid. The scammers. This is an email which we received this morning:

Hello

I’m sorry I haven’t been on line, but I had an accident which i was
paraplegic and can’t get around to mail a check.I will have loved to call
your phone but i am deaf, If you are still interested in selling the item to
me i will add $50 to your asking price to cover cost of Business Check Paper
that is needed for printing of the Check.As my mode of payment will be via
Echeck and my shipping co will handle the pick up.Read more about Echeck via
www.insticheck.com ,I should be home from the doctor by this afternoon, and
would be happy to send the Echeck once you must have purchase the Supplies
at staples or stationery store.It is sold for just $20. Thanks for getting
back to me, and once again I’m sorry I didn’t see your email until today.I
will await your email today.

Thanks

Granted, this bloke knows something abut human nature. People immediately think “Deaf paraplegic, oh my word!!!” and potentially will smother a suspicious thought because how rude and unchristian and non-PC is it not to want to help a person with physical issues? (Who has apparently never heard of TDD/TTY and has no caretakers to get them in and out of the tub or write their cheques…?)

I looked up the ‘insticheck’ website, then did a quick online search to see if anyone else had recognized a scam using that company (which is, in fact, a real company). And then I found this amusing little story from a smart guy named Rob. See, Rob is a man whose sense of humor comes with…razor-sharp teeth. He doesn’t just get email from scammers. He… answers. And oh, how he answers. Go there, read his deliciously worded verbal sparring with the lying-lipped and grammatically challenged. What struck me the funniest is that this gent has done this before!! You’d think there’d be some kind of bulletin board in the Scammers Underground that says “Just Say No! Do NOT Email This Man!” But alas – that would assume some sort of intelligence and organization…

All this just to say that the sales, for the most part, are over. Last night between eight and eight-thirty p.m., both of our cars rolled out of the garage and away into new lives with Adam from EBay, and that other guy whose name I never did catch (but who wanted to pay us CASH. Cash. For a car. That gave us another turn…).

We have no cars. We have no knives. We have lots of luggage. We are moving to Scotland… in nine days.

God have mercy.

– D & T

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As part of our effort to acclimatize ourselves to Scotland, we’ve subscribed to the BBC’s news feed for Scotland. In the course of reading over this morning’s news, we read the sentence, “India lose their second wicket but are well set for victory after being set a revised 209 from 46 overs to beat Scotland.” Umm … okay. So, we clicked through to the story, figuring we’d get to know a bit more about Cricket. It was rough going, and we could tell there were English words in there, but the language is very sport-specific … until we happened across this sentence:

Two balls later Blain beats him behind his legs to remove leg stump.

Exactly.

As a side note, the flat we were considering in Yokers has been let to someone else already, apparently within hours of our having had a decent conversation with the letting agent. So, the search continues.

– D & T

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As word of our imminent departure gets around, we’ve been seeing many more of our friends than usual. It’s funny, to think that a bridge toll is usually the deterrent, but that seems to be the case. In any event, as we’re seeing friends, we’ve been looking about at our little neck of the woods, and seeing it more as strangers or visitors than as residents.

Part of visiting with people, after all, is taking them to see the waterfront, walking down the main drag (1st Street), and enjoying the breezes so common to Benicia. Before this move was thrust upon us, we would walk 1st Street every other day or so, as exercise. True, we’d enjoy it, but there’s a special poignancy in realizing that you may not see something for years.

Perhaps that’s part of the reason why we keep hearing the train whistle, echoing across the bay: that the trains might not sound the same in Scotland. Part of it is also, I’m sure, the fact that we’re to be taking the train to New York, in only two weeks!

So, we look out over our balcony at the bay, or at ordinary things, with different eyes: eyes which will be seeing new things shortly, but which want to fix this little town firmly into memory.

– D & T

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The other night, having driven to San Jose in order to pick up a friend from the airport, we realized that we hadn’t brought enough water, and that we were a bit early for the flight. So, we ended up at Cost Plus (rather than Trader Joe’s), shopping for water (and gifts). Our choices (in the non-glass-bottle category) included a bottle of Ty Nant water from Wales, and a bottle of Icelandic Glacier water.

I just wonder what they drink over there … American Tap Water? Each was dead flat and tasted exactly as if they’d been sitting in a plastic bottle for several months … which they probably had, come to think of it. So, to all of the Europeans out there: do YOU buy “exotic” waters from the United States? Arrowhead or Calistoga water, perhaps?

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Part of the process of moving is saying ‘goodbye’ to things … whether you’d intended to do so or not. In this case, we’re going to be saying goodbye to all of our clothes-hangers. Yes, folks. In our desire to be organized about packing, we removed every garment from its hanger, in order to fold it nicely, and to vacuum-bag it. This was to save space as well as to protect the garments. Somewhere in there we organized our hangers, intending to tape them together & nest them in a box – with little things inside the long column made by the space inside the hangers, so that they wouldn’t consume too terribly much space.

Well, we forgot, obviously. There, sitting pristinely in our closet, sit our entire collection of ‘good’ hangers … waiting, now, for the garage sale. Sigh.

The train leaves on August 30, first thing in the morning. We have 17 days in which to get the cars sold & the last odds and ends wrapped up.

– D & T

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