Tired, poked, and playing
In which we get shots and do some planning while relaxing into retirement
As we reported last week, we’ve completed the sale of the house and moved into temporary housing, which has been a hit-or-miss proposition, with little room for storage of all the too-many things we brought with us for this interim period and several power outages from Alabama summer storms. But we’ve taken advantage of the location in Highland Park to go to the Saturday market and AIDS fundraising event, and, today, though the Archivist absolutely hates baseball, we’re going to a minor league game in which the Barons will play the beautifully named Trash Pandas. As John Oliver recently reported, there’s just something different about minor league.
Temporary Locals
Other than these activities, the other things we’ve done this week have been focused on the trip, with our consultation with traveler’s medicine netting the Archivist four vaccinations and the Medievalist five (she had a booster they had had more recently). There were haircuts and therapy and short trips to the grocery store for everyday items, but we mostly just sat around trying to recover from last week’s many-faceted move. What we did get accomplished for travel, other than being immunized, is getting some of the remaining payments completed and arranging our transportation between southwest Ireland and Scandinavia—which will involve planes, trains, and automobiles (including busses). We’ve also been communicating with our friends in northwest Ireland and will have those programs paid for in the next week; we’ll then just need to find a place to stay in the area for the time between the programs, but we’ve gotten some great advice on the best areas to use as a base. Next week, we’ll get deeper into the Scandinavian part and at least make some decisions and reservations where we need to do so. We’re more than ninety days from this part of the trip until the end of the month, so that’s what’s holding us up from having this completed. We’re trying to strike a good balance between planned and paid in advance and spontaneity, which will take time from our actual travel. Mostly, though, this week has been about . . .
The Craic
Which has been mostly playing video games, switching between the Archivist’s Days Gone and the Medievalist’s Far Cry: New Dawn. We’ve also been watching our regulars and even bingeing shows, like Big Mouth’s final season. We’re still very much enjoying Poker Face—a highlight of each week, the return of Welcome to Wrexham, and Nine Perfect Strangers. Our recent pattern, though, has been to find a movie that looks fun and watch that without stressing over it, like we did Love Hurts last night. Ke Huy Quan is winning, as always, but it was just “a thing we watched,” full of tropes but kinda fun. We watched the Women’s Finals of the French Open, which Coco Gauff won after a first set that went to a tie-breaker—it was just brilliant!! We’re also in the midst of a planning fest for one of our activities while visiting our dear old friends in Cincinnati at the end of the month, a movie day full of curated choices on which we’re voting, looking forward to some new queer films. The reading is still the same, with us both careening toward the end of our mysteries in short time. Central Alabama Pride is next Saturday, and we’re gearing up and attending as many events as we can, since this is our last time. We’re also compiling lists of restaurants to visit before we leave, so we don’t miss one of our faves before departing next month, and will share as we visit.
Thanks for sticking with us during this transitional period. Next week, we hope to have some packing content—though the Archivist miscalculated that there would be more space as well as time to do this work in the temp housing, which there decidely isn’t. Paid subscribers, the Archivist has completed the first Transmigration Mixstation mix tape side, and will release that tomorrow for you. You can also look forward to some video of our packing, whether next week or in the future.
Ride and hearken, y’all,
The Transmigrationists