That's done. It's an odd feeling; I lived in Thunderbolt House for fourteen years, all but one with Mr. Ex. His nice cat Neko and my devoted Janie (who played together, quietly, at night, when the other two cats were asleep) both died there. It was there, over a decade ago, that I answered the phone about eight at night, already in my nightgown, to be told, "We have a working fire at the transmitter;" the following seven days, I took eight hours off to sleep, period. (It could well be that little things like that are why Ex X'ed out. At times, my job demands total attention).
That's the place he came to me, worried and angry, when our 10-year-old Jag was totalled while he was waiting at a stoplight; it's the house where I burned my first set of popovers* and where the call came from Mom that Dad was unexpectedly in the hospital and probably not going to wake again.
It was most of my adult life.
That's also where I found BBSs and teh intraw3b, using a '286 box and a (fast!) 2400 Baud modem, first logging onto Delphi, then a local outfit (who turned out to be a guy selling access "borrowed" from his employers!) and then a little neighborhood provider...which, a few years after AOL tapped into the 'net (it was a big deal then, invasion of the Visigoths!) got snapped up by a big provider, and there went shell access and my by-then antique computer -- and, once I'd replaced that with a modern laptop and a real ISP, there came the Web!
Which is most of the rest of my not-so-adult life.
And now my old home is empty. Dusty. I've got to go back over and bag up trash and then it will be entirely done. Someone else will call the place home, creaking floors, peeling paint, scary electrical wiring and all.
It's an odd feeling. This isn't exactly what I had planned.
Had to drop off the moving van at dawn's first light in the middle of a cold autumn thunderstorm. Aha, no problem, I'll dress in layers, I have my poncho, all set. Ha! Soaked jeans and shoes, nice fat drops of near-ice gave me a facial, and the best part was when, riding on rough pavement with a good coating of wet leaves, the poncho blew over my face. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart; it all worked out. Brrrrr!
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* Simplest receipe imaginable, yet easy to get wrong. Sheer heaven when properly prepared!
You know... I'm in the middle of somewhat similar circumstances now... Recently, a large part of my blog has been devoted to the sale of my childhood home... I spent most of my 30 years in that house and it is no longer in our family.
ReplyDeleteCompound that with the pain-in-the ass renovations that I'm doing (never fixed a damn thing in my life before!) on MY home and your post just really resonated.
http://discontentedcookie.blogspot.com/2007/10/last-night-in-childhood-home.html