It has been three years since we moved to Massachusetts from Georgia, and our lives are so much better for the move. It has been a long time since I’ve been able to post. Someday I will tell you all the whole sad story of how we got ripped off by the moving company and lost everything (and we did due diligence checking them out) but today has been too pleasant to ruin by a subject that still makes me almost as much as Trump’s Twitter comments. Suffice it to say we ended up with only what fit in the car when we drove up here—the four kitties and two suitcases of clothing plus my jewelry, our phones and two tablets the proper size for ebooks but useless for anything else. We lost our furniture, our artwork, all our photos, fine china, Waterford, costumes—a lifetime’s worth of things, including all the copies of my published stories. We can never get it back.
We spent the first year sleeping on air mattresses and occasionally on the floor when the current mattress developed punctures. It did NOT help my back (I was born with a sacro-lumbar scoliosis, injured my back in high school and again in college, and have occasional flare-ups—the floor was not great), and for a time I feared I would never be painfree again. Two things happened: I founf an osteopath who worked hard with me, and we finally got a real mattress. By June, 2016, we bought a mattress and bed from IKEA and it is even a bed that suits my Elder Goth taste( white wrought iron that looks like it belongs in a high-class Victorian bordello). Last year we bought a wardrobe, two bureaus and a TV, and replaced the Dollar Tree plates and Walmart flatware with a set of very Japanese-looking china and oddly medieval looking flatware from IKEA , which also was the source of our cookware. This year we bought a decent couch and some glassfront cabinets from IKEA and a chair for The Packhorse. We were lucky enough to hve been given a dining table and chairs by friends up here. And also this year we got (for one third the cost because it was on sale via Pfaltzgraff) the earthenware pattern I hve drooled over for 3 years. We actually have a home again. That is where our IRS refunds went every year.
The only things I truly mourn are the copies of my published stories, the autographed books, and y reference books. I don’t even have copies of the books and mags my stories were in.
It took us three years to get here, living like adults instead of starving students. Ben got part-time job at Walmart, and is about to go full time there—customers love him as their personal shopper. That eases our finances a lot, more than doubling them. We are still at the low end of middle class, but we have a bit in savings, and we’ve been able to extend our wardrobes a bit (zulily has become my best friend after IKEA) because two suitcases don’t stretch very far with two adults—we had no winter clothes or boots, and MA winters require them.
Despite everything—the financial issues, the loss of pretty much everything we worked hard to acquire—we are in a much better place these days than we were in GA. I can dress the way I like. Ben can have his hair long without nasty looks. We are finally home. We are living proof that you can lose everything and end up happier than when you had it all.
In fact we are hard at work planning a vow renewal for our 30th wedding anniversary in August. Our doctor, who is also a shaman, will officiate along with her husband. We will be combining a traditional Irish handfasting with my doc’s Huichel tradition, to be followed by a small party. My two oldest friends ar3 coming so YAY!
The only thing that upsets me these days if the Trumpster Fire who is our president. I wake up every morning and reach for my Nook to check the headlines to see what President Dumbass did while I was sleeping. The only thing I can imagine worse than Donnie would be having Mike Pence in the White House. Trump is a moronic opportunist, corrupt and ignorant and a conman, whose sheer stupidity and lack of knowledge of the constitution, international law and foreign affairs render him a disaster. Mike Pence is far, far worse: a true fundamentalist Christian who would happily return women to second class citizens with no control over their own bodies, remove all protections for the LGBTQ community, and do whatever he could to turn this country into a Christian theocracy. I sometimes give myself a headache wondering how far down the Republican leadership and the Cabinet we would have to go before we could fine someone who doesn’t make me break out in a cold sweat.
At least I have Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey as my senators, and the governor here, while Republican, isn’t terrifyingly rightwing. When you live up here, it is all too easy to forget that Republicans elsewhere are often raving theocrats. Even here in Ware, which supported Trump by a small minority, it is hard to find anyone as rabidly, doggedly insane as Steve King or Rand Paul. You can get lulled into a false sense of security.
I will check in later—and anyone who wants to just say hi—please do. I am happy to be in MA and financially solvent and in good health (as is the Packhorse, who is off insulin and whose heart is doing well) and simply happy. I look out the window and see the old hills of the Adirondacks framing a lovely old Catholic church, and am always surprised by the sheer beauty of Western Massachusetts.
Lif isn’t perfect but it is damned good.
I do