Despite the Slowdowns and Breakdowns

Well, two weeks of hell has receded for me. This past Friday we finished moving all of our stuff out of Frostburg, waving a not-so-tearful goodbye to the old apartment and its coal furnace (not just for heat either; our water was warmed by the furnace as well, which I didn't know until this past year... they used to use gas).

To be frank, Friday was one of the worst days of my life. We still had the essentials in the apartment - food, a few dishes, coffee, computers, mattress, etc. - so they needed to be packed in both cars to haul up to our new place. But before we could load her car, it needed to be checked out. It was getting jittery of late, and probably needed new spark plugs. The car got dropped off at the mechanic, and while we waited to pick it up, we got a P.O. box, had our mail forwarded to the new address, took our old mattress to the dump (we had to buy tickets at the local Rite Aid to dump it, which was kind of weird), wrapped the dishes up and boxed them, made one final trip to Goodwill to dump the stuff we didn't feel like keeping and got the animals ready for the trip.

We picked up the car around four o'clock and I followed her back up the mountain to Frostburg. The car had a bit more power on the straightaways, but it maxed out at 25 mph on the steeper inclines, and I had to follow close in the farthest right hand lane flashing my hazards. This was in a 65 mph zone, no less, so we got quite a few annoyed flybys.

An hour later, both cars were packed. To the brim. Neither of us could see out the back window, and we even ended up leaving a few things behind, putting them in the apartment basement for someone to grab if they wanted. I don't think either one of us stopped to remember our first couple of years up there (I did later; we had some great times in Frostburg), we just wanted to get it over with.

I started my car and pulled past her, up about 100 meters to the stop sign. I sat and waited for her headlights to hit my side mirror, but when I looked back, all I saw was her car still sitting in the same spot, and Heather walking up to my car, head buried in her hands. The car wouldn't start.

I've been in this moment many times before when I was a kid. My parents never had a lot of money, and we had car trouble quite frequently in the winter on the way to school. My father had an old Volkswagen Fox that was temperamental and it would take an hour to get moving in the morning on the way to school. My brother and I would stand outside and freeze in our silly Catholic school uniforms, feeling useless, waiting for him to complete the series of ritualized jury-rigged mechanics to get the damn thing started.

In an instant we were looking at driving one car up while Heather sat in an empty, dark apartment, unloading our junk, driving all the way back down, loading my car, driving the two of us up there and then trying to figure out a way to get her car up there, either by hiring a mechanic to drive out and service it, or by having it towed, both of which are not in our budget, and would tax our already bogged down credit card.

It was dark, it was cold and we were both exhausted, but she gave it another shot. The car sputtered and fizzled a few more times, until something sparked and it turned over.

The ride was tough. There are a lot of hilly backroads on the way to our house, and her car was having similar troubles as on the highway. At one point, the line of cars was about eight deep behind us, waiting for her little orange tank to pull itself up the mountain.

Why put up with all of this? I got a new job and Heather's graduating. It was time to move on. Plus I get to wake up to this every morning:

And some mornings this:

For a guy like me, it was all worth it. In fact, there's about three inches of snow on the ground outside right now. I think it'll be time for a winter trudge this evening.

Heather's not completely done with school, though her senior art show is finished and was fantastic. I'm prejudiced of course, but her work dominated the room, especially her installation piece which she built from scratch. I'll post a whole series of photos from her art show tomorrow morning.

Good to be back. I missed Sb, science blogging and my morning reads. Cheers.