Oklahoma City Move

Frank and I just got back from helping Robin and Jeremy and Autumn move into a larger home. The move made me reminisce about a time in January in 2003 when Robin set out to Oklahoma from California, on her own, to pursue a engineering job with the FAA.

Robin in January 2003 in front of Mayflower moving van.

That day was very traumatic for me, sending off my first born. A couple days after the moving van left, Robin and I flew out to Oklahoma City to await the arrival of all her worldly possessions – well, almost all her possessions. I still remember the phone call to make the airline reservations for those flights. It was in the wee hours of the morning, when phone lines are least busy. I reserved two flights out. Then, when I was talking to the attendant and I told her there was only one return flight, and my voice broke.  I explained why and she understood, having just sent her oldest son off to college. She really could empathize, so we cried on each other's shoulder, feeling a close kinship while each of us realizing how ludicrous the situation would seem to the uninitiated.. two batty, middle-aged women who do not know each other from Adam, crying on the phone, in the middle of the night, over an airplane ticket.

Fast forward a decade later and here is Robin, standing in front of a different moving truck, this time, holding her eleven month old daughter, Autumn.

Robin and Autumn in September 2013 in front of moving truck.

And here is the new home they are moving into. They needed more square footage because of the paraphernalia that comes with a new baby.

The rear door is open because Autumn is asleep in her car seat in the back.

See that turret on the far right?  Robin and Jeremy already have a picture of their princess in a tower. There is a small stream at the rear of the property. Jeremy is so smitten with his precious daughter that I would not be surprised if he installed a moat in the front of their "castle"!

Look closely and you can see Autumn, nose and hands pressed to the window pane.

Jeremy had to be on travel for his job and did not arrive home until a couple of hours after the moving truck left. Was that excellent timing or rotten timing?  I guess it depends on your point of view. He did not miss the move on purpose so Frank and I felt very much needed and appreciated.  Doing that move on her own while caring for an eleven month old would have been very inefficient and darn near impossible for Robin. We arrived the Wednesday before the Saturday move, fetched boxes, tape, and packing materials from Loewe's on Thursday, and packed boxes and carted clothes through until midnight on Friday. The truck arrived bright and early Saturday morning and in four hours, the furniture and 40+ small, 25+ medium, and 12+ large boxes were moved. After Jeremy's arrival, we spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday and Monday emptying and refilling the boxes as we shuttled between the two houses with multiple loads.

Despite our best efforts, not everything got moved over or unpacked as needed, so a bit of improvising was necessary at times. No bowls or teaspoons had come over so Frank and I ate ice cream out of zip lock baggies. This  may be lots of laughs, but it is very messy and ill advised. Autumn had her rice cereal from a wine glass... stirred, not shaken in non-elegant James Bond fashion.

This is rice cereal, not rice wine.
It is not sake either. Sake is technically rice beer since it is brewed.

An inescapable downer part of the trip was that Autumn got some sort of stomach flu and passed it on, big-time, to Grandma and Grandpa. She caused Frank and me a sleepless Monday night in the bathrooms instead of the bedroom and a totally lethargic Tuesday recuperating from the exhaustion. Fortunately, we had Wednesday as a low key day of recovery, with minimal unpacking, before having to fly home on Thursday. Autumn is now recognized as being Patient Zero and her nickname of BBG, for Ba-By-Girl, was temporarily re-dubbed as PBG for Pestilent-Baby-Girl. As an aside, the origin of the BBG nickname was a take off on Frank's PPD moniker for our dogs, which, of course, stands for Pup-Py Dog. Amazing... the weird traditions you unwittingly pass on to your kids...

The new home has a wrap around porch and an expansive screened-in sun room at the rear. A highlight of the trip was viewing the lightning bugs from the sun room in the evening. Frank and I watched them one dusk. Frank and Robin shared a father/daughter bond doing that one night, too. We made up a game to play with the lightning bugs. Do you know when you go to the eye doctor and they run that machine that flashes tiny spots of light in various locations to check your field of vision? You press a button for each spot you see, when you see it, and a "Feep" sound is emitted. Lightning bugs are surprisingly like those tiny, ever-elusive moving pinpoints of light.

"There's one off to the left! ... Feep!"
"Oh, there are two up to the right! ... Feep, feep!"
"Just saw one down there by the lamp post! ... Feep!"

Spotting lightning bugs is like nature's eye test.

Indulgent first time grandparents that we are, we foolishly bought – and stored – a rocking fire engine for Jeremy and Robin's kids-to-be a couple years ago, long before they were even expecting. (Jeremy had been a fireman at one point in his career, so it seemed so appropriate.) Shipping it out to Oklahoma from California was neither easy nor cheap and the amount of disassembly to send it there was non-trivial. But Grandpa took it apart and he and Jeremy reassembled it at the other end. Judging by the looks on Frank's and Autumn's faces, it was worth it!

A proud and pleased Grandpa looks on while an adoring Autumn rocks away.

We got up at 3:30 am on Thursday to catch a 6:00 am flight from OKC. We arrived at SFO at 7:30 am after an uneventful 3.5 hour flight. We will take several days to recover but are very happy and pleased to have made the trip.  Jeremy and Robin thanked us many times over. It was so nice to be needed and, moreover, to be appreciated for it!