Vermonter-ization

This is a narrative I wrote over the first couple of weeks we were in Vermont.  (Oh, and for those who don't know, we moved from Michigan to Vermont in the last two weeks of June.  I'm going to be the 5th grade teacher at Orwell Village School (also on Facebook) starting August 28, and Tina will be home with Esme.  Daddy will still play bass, but not quite as much as previous.  Hopefully I can find the time to keep this blog going...

The truck is ready to load

It's big and empty

Jim was the primary packer inside the truck
Ross and I just brought him stuff and followed his packing instructions.

Notice that the motorcycle in this picture is not the same one from the previous picture

Housefull of stuff, two motorcycles, three bicycles, plants, grill...

And whatever else we could throw on top of the other stuff.
Still plenty of room, though.  (As one of my unpackers said after I'd opened the truck:
Well that's not even packed halfway to the ceiling!)

June 23, 2013, 5PM:  Arrive in East Middlebury - Zero Hour

Okay, so this is technically leaving Ann Arbor, but it gets the point across

Nothin' but bikes left in the back!

There were at least eight people waiting for me as I pulled in to the driveway -- or more accurately, alongside the driveway -- with my 26’ moving van towing a car.  Within two and a half hours, the van was empty aside from our two motorcycles.  I only had a brief tour of the house before I was beset with requests concerning where a particular item should be placed within the house.  My confusion, already set at maximum with the whirlwind of having rented the van, loaded it, driven it 765 miles with car (and cats) in tow all within the preceding 53 hours, was exacerbated by the changing names of the rooms within the house.  The cats were immediately placed in the master bedroom.  That was the back of the house and led into the kitchen, which also somehow adjoined the bathroom, the back exit of the house, Esme’s room, and the living room, which is also the foyer.  Or at least that’s how I see it now.  At the time, I can remember giving directions for things to go to the back bedroom, the master bedroom, the guest bedroom, the nursery, the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the bathroom, the study, the library, the coat closet, and wherever-the-hell-you-can-damned-find-space!  (Okay, I never actually said that last one, but it certainly went through my head several times.)

Sweaty Wade offers his thanks

9PM:  Return Home for the first time - Hour Four

Following the unpacking and riding the motorcycles back down the ramp, it was shower and pizza time.  There was some checking in with the landlord, talking to the new housemates, making sure to batten down the hatches before leaving, but I found myself showering in record time to get to the pizza.  (And even after receiving such incredible help, I was not allowed to purchase the pizza.)  As dusk began to fall, I realized that I had shifted from the far western edge of Eastern Time to the far eastern edge of Eastern Time (and sure there are those who would split hairs with that statement, but the point is still valid) and it was getting dark an hour ahead of my schedule.  I bid a grateful thanks and a hasty farewell to my hosts and helpers and made my way back to the new homestead.
Pulling in to the house in full dusk, my task became painfully clear.  Find light, or turn around and go back to sleep somewhere else.  Luckily, I had packed well and all the tools I needed were at the back edge of the truck.  Unfortunately, I had not unloaded the truck, so not only was I unclear on where things had been moved, but it became painfully clear very quickly that the first things off the truck were tucked up against a wall, with layers and layers of other stuff stacked both horizontally and vertically around them.  Okay, no toolbox, no flashlight.  
But wait!  I have multiple flashlights though the only one I could find for certain was in the tank bag of the motorcycle, which was, astoundingly enough, still on the bike.  This was a particularly trick LED flashlight with a controllable beam and a translucent sleeve that would turn it into a lantern.  Oh, and a hook for going hands free when necessary.
Armed with my flashlight in the now completely dark house, I began to wander from room to room, checking on the cats occasionally as I wondered if I was going to do anything by lantern-light or just throw in the towel and head back over to the waiting bed offered by Jean & David.
It occurred to me -- as my eyes rested on the 50 foot extension cord hanging on the porch railing -- that the other apartments in the house did have power.  I immediately went outside and started walking around the house to see if anyone’s lights were on.  I saw none.  (I later learned that one neighbor is an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type of person, and the other neighbors were out of town at the time.)  I did find the electrical boxes and saw that two of them had dials in motion while ours was still.  
I went back inside to get my iPod charger -- the only thing I could think of that would tell me if a particular outlet had juice -- and began looking for outdoor outlets.  The one on our porch was dead, but, lo and behold, the garage had not only an active outlet, but lights as well!  Once I had the power going, I realized that my extension cord had only one plug at the other end.  I found the first lamp I could put my hands on and the living room was lit.  Over the next five hours or so, I added extension cords, a power strip, two fans, and three more lamps to the mix as I sorted our houseful of $h!+.  As I plugged in yet another lamp around 1:30 AM, I thought about what I would do if I blew the fuse.  The panel had to be inside one of the other apartments, so I wouldn’t have access to flip the circuit breaker; however, when I added up my power usage, I figured the two 30 watt fans, and the four 6 watt LED bulbs didn’t even add up to one 100 watt bulb, which I was sure the system should be able to handle.  
I continued to sort the boxes into some semblance of organization, putting them in rooms I thought would be appropriate as I dug my way into the piles of stuff to access the four items that I most wanted to assemble before I called it a night:  Esme’s crib, our kitchen table, the futon couch, and Tina’s and my bed.  By 3:00 AM I had three of the four assembled, but I didn’t want to flip the table upright, as it’s quite noisy to move around, and I guessed that our early-to-bed neighbor was sleeping on the other side of our living room wall.  That also kept me from assaulting the couch, as my experience told me that assembling that quietly was next to impossible.  I continued to sort and organize boxes and assorted detritus until the fact that I’d been up for over 20 hours, including 9 hours of driving the moving van (without cruise control), finally caught up to me.  I lay down for just a moment to rest.  And, of course, it was fully daylight when I awoke.  (I was smart enough to set an alarm, just in case, as I did have to pick up Tina & Esme from the airport in Burlington before noon.)

7:30AM:  First morning in the new house - Hour 14.5

After my four hour snooze, I got started again, this time with an eye towards making the house navigable for Tina and a toddler to explore as we continued unpacking together.  When my second alarm went off, telling me I needed to get in the car to retrieve my family, I was satisfied with my progress.  Heading through Middlebury, I tried to see if there was any place that would be ideal for lunch after the airport, but, as you will see when you come to visit us, Middlebury is an oddly laid-out town, and I was not as familiar with it as I thought I would be.  Granted, it had been almost 15 years since I’d spent any time in town, but the lay-out of the town had not changed.  It took most of my mental capacities to make sure I went through town on the right roads without breaking any major traffic laws.  
Just as I saw the 50mph sign that indicated I was leaving town, I received a text from Tina saying they’d missed their connection in Philly, and would be in Burlington at least two hours after their scheduled arrival.  I turned around and headed back into town to find a place to eat breakfast.  After parking, I asked the first person I saw on the street where a new resident should have breakfast.  I was directed to a classic diner on the town green.  After fortifying myself with buttermilk pancakes served with local maple syrup, I headed back home to continue unpacking and waiting for news from Tina about when she and Esme would be arriving.
They did make the next flight and Tina barely had time to text me to give me an ETA before getting on the flight, which gave me just enough time to finish assembling the couch before getting back in the car and heading out again.

(Side note:  Tina has lived all her life in Michigan, and had never, before stepping off the plane, been in the state of Vermont.  Strange then, for her, to get off the plane and exit the terminal to see a little kid run up to his grandmother excitedly asking if grandma would make ‘Michigans’ for them when they got to her house.  We still don’t know what a ‘Michigan’ is, but it seemed to be a somehow fitting welcome to Vermont for her.)

Having been on the phone with Tina as she walked through Burlington’s airport, I knew they’d be outside waiting for me when I drove up.  I looked for them and the parking sign Tina described to me, but I was almost through the pick-up lane when I heard Esme’s squeal.  She apparently saw the car before Tina, and just before I drove past them, and alerted us all to our proximity.  (And I must say that it’s a strange thing to be driving along at an airport and hear, clearly and without any question, your not-yet-two-year-old daughter’s voice.  How can I tell the difference between her excited yell and that of any other child?  I have no idea.  I only know that, upon hearing Esme, I had absolutely no question -- that’s my daughter’s voice, and I need to stop now.)
We made it halfway across Burlington before the rain started.  At that point it occurred to me that the last time I’d seen any rain to speak of was with Tina in Michigan.  From the time I rented the truck until I had my family in the car with me, I’d had clear, dry weather.  This may not sound like a notable event until one realizes that both Michigan and Vermont were experiencing veritable monsoons at the time.  (Farming friends in Michigan were talking about root rot and losing crops to excessive rain, while the folks I was talking to in Vermont were saying that it had been raining for three weeks almost without a break.)  Somehow I dodged all that rain during my packing, my unpacking, and my traveling.  
As we close in on being in Vermont for two weeks, we have the house mostly organized, Esme and the cats seem to have accepted our new environs without complaint (though it was touch and go for a little while after we let Bo out of the house for the first time and we didn’t see her for 26 hours), and we’ve started exploring town a little.

Old Orwell Town Hall, now Orwell
Village School Gym, where I will
be teaching Aikido come fall.

Orwell Village School (with the Gym on the left)

Orwell Town Green, where I had my first orchestra concert

I did go down to see my school and meet my principal in Orwell.  He has been very encouraging about starting a youth Aikido class as an after-school club, but in that first meeting, he also indicated that starting an adult class was not only possible, but likely as well.  I also found out there is a town band at the school, meeting for an hour to practice on Thursday evenings before giving a concert on the town green.  I joined them one week, but discovered they are an orchestra, following sheet music.  I played along on a bass drum, but I don't read music (yet), so I haven't been back for that.

Life is starting to settle for us.  We have power, utilities, and internet is coming this afternoon, which makes me want to finish this narrative so I can post it once the web is again accessible.  We’ve explored our local lake/state park (Lake Dunmore at Brandenburg St. Park), our local swimming hole (the Middlebury River goes under a bridge about a half mile from the house, with places to jump into the water and swim), and the farmer’s market (I now have three tomato plants, four cucumber plants, strawberries, and kale growing in my new garden).  
We even went over to Montpelier for the Independence Day parade at the state capital at the beginning of July.  I think coming back from that was the first time that returning to our rental in East Middlebury really felt like coming home.  

We’re home now.  
Home.