We're seriously packing
In which we're finally getting to relax a bit but also packing up our lives for storage
It’s been a busy AND relaxing first week of freedom from our everyday work. Though one of us is still usually rising early, we’ve been able to—for the first time all semester—get enough rest and begin to recharge from the grind of teaching, especially when that teaching keeps us from spending time with each other. This issue won’t be one for us any longer!
Taking a Load Off
Our storage unit was delivered this week, so we started packing it with the help and advice of our organizer, who had packed most of the boxes you see in this photo herself. The Archivist wondered if the organizer will appreciate our constant availability and help or if it will be a huge annoyance to her. We’ll see, but at least now we have time and the plan to get everything we’re not taking with us into the unit—we did finish packing books in the office and are getting the art protected and boxed up to be put into the unit at the top on the last day. Right now, our plan involves working on packing in the morning and relaxing with alternating video gaming in the afternoon, which seems to be working well enough.
Temporary Locals
One of the tasks we’re working on is getting transportation between Ireland and Scandinavia (and back), then booking some of the Scandinavian parts of the European leg of the trip. What we have booked is our temporary housing in Birmingham with the cats before we leave for Atlanta, then the world, as well as a quick trip up to Cincinnati to spend time with a couple of very close friends during “Independence Day” week, as well as catching the USWNT play against Ireland; it’s our friends’ first ever soccer match of any kind, so it should be extra fun! It seems weird to be travelling before the big adventure begins a couple of weeks later, but we’re so glad to be able to spend time with dear friends before we’re gone for the year. That’s why we’ve already started planning dinners with folks in Birmingham, too—not only do we get time with the people, we get to eat at our favorite restaurants (and most likely find some new ones). If we haven’t contacted those of you in the Birmingham area, please reach out to schedule a meal (we’re generally available for lunch and dinner throughout May and June).
Carborundorum
Other than the constant national and state barrage on our rights, freedom, and liberty as demonstrated at the Archivist’s institution’s crass capitulation to tyranny this week, there’s just annoyances, so a bad week for you fans of the bitching. Though it’s been an immense help that our organizer put the storage/long-distance move together for us, it’s unfortunately in only her name, which means we have to ask her to do everything associated with this vital piece of our move, and which isn’t helpful for either her or us. So far, she’s been unable to get the unit transferred into one of our names. The other burr we’ve had is trying to sell some of unwanted furniture on Facebook marketplace—we’ve been successful with one early sale, but each subsequent potential sale has been a nightmare of waiting around on folks who just don’t show up and/or communicate (and who then tell you you’re inconsiderate when you add a seven-hour time limit on the wait). Despite our insistence to the contrary, we may end up having another driveway sale of furniture, if most of these items don’t sell or the “buyers” continue to flake on us.
The Craic
The Medievalist went to her last commencement, where she got to hood a master’s student who said that her class is what made her decide to be an English major. Those are the kinds of moments that almost erase the hours of grading and weird new projects that come from the administration. With our newly freed time, we’ve finished/caught up on most of our television viewing like Yellowjackets, Doctor Who, Hacks, Survival of the Thickest, and our rewatch of Superstore, so we’ve added North of North, which is super fun and reminds us of Schitt’s Creek, and our rewatch switched to Designing Women, which we find hit or miss in the holding up department (it’s very 1980s). The Medievalist has joined the Archivist in part of their MCU chronological order watch in Jessica Jones season 2 (usually, the Medievalist only joins for the movies). The Archivist finished bringing on the apocalypse in Far Cry 5; so, of course, two things happened: The Medievalist took up the same task and the Archivist started dealing with its aftermath in Far Cry: New Dawn. Now that we’re both here for long periods of the day, we have to alternate our playing; the Medievalist is on duty at the moment. Books remain the same, but we’re making more progress now that we’re more rested with fewer reading we have to do in work contexts.
Expect more packing content in the next couple of weeks, since that will be our primary focus. Since part of that packing is for both the temporary housing and the adventure, we’ll show you that one-bag packing as well as the long-term storage packing—all this calculation will surely make these humanists’ hearts sing (/sarcasm).
Ride and hearken, y’all,
The Transmigrationists