What a day it has been!
Did I go to Gilberto's First Communion ceremony?
No, I had to forgo that, even though I did go to Sebastien's.
Hope had dropped the invite into my mailbox at some time on Thursday, so it was quite short notice and I simply did not have that two hours in my schedule.
Did I make it to the Garrison Voices concert this afternoon?
No, I had to forgo that as well, though I'd looked forward to it for two weeks.
The Tis, aka John Tisbert, is retiring after thirty years of teaching chorus.
Watching him conduct for the last time was just not possible.
Instead, I left home just past 10:30 this morning, headed for Hinesville.
My first niece has become a home owner for the first time in her life, and will be residing at Georgia Homes in that town.
Her mom, stepdad, and brother were all going to be there to help move her stuff, and that of her two girls, into their new place.
The menfolk that will be her new neighbors were there, too, to lend their muscles.
I told her I would be there, too, to help in whatever capacity.
By the time I arrived at noon15, the U-Haul was packed full at Chris' house.
Our caravan headed south about a mile to the new place.
Initially, the ramp of the U-Haul truck was on the ground, requiring that everything be taken off and then lugged up the flight of steps to enter the trailer.
After a quick analysis, I suggested the truck be moved a few feet closer, to enable the ramp to rest on the top of the stairs.
That would give the guys a straight shot with no steps to maneuver.
Melinda was able to move that truck exactly where it needed to be!
Good job all around!
Between Matt, Michael, Willy, and Wilson, the truck was offloaded in fairly good time, with furniture being placed in accordance with Christina's bits of tape on the floors.
Good idea!
Then Matt set up the two new room air conditioners and started cooling the place down.
He and Michael tried to fix her central A/C, but it wasn't cooperating.
Good that Michael had bought the room units to help his sister out!
Then, things just kinda sorta stopped.
The plan - as I had understood it to be - had been to unload the truck, have lunch, then return for another load.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that didn't happen.
"Lunch" became a three-hour picnic, with the neighbors cooking the hotdogs and grilling onions to go with the shredded pork from Matt and Melinda; a trip to the store for more bread than we needed; a trip to the dollar store by Christina and Michael to buy dry clothes for twins and other stuff; and watching the kids play with the sprinkler dinosaur and splash pool that Grammy had given them.
I finally had to step in and say that we needed to get things going while Christina still had all these people here to help her.
Michael and Matt put together Miyah's bed first, in her new room, and then they assembled Chloe's new bed, in her new room.
That bed had no slats to keep the mattress from falling through, so I suggested using the slats from the lower bunk bed.
That had been discarded, as Miyah will only be using the upper bunk.
Matt and Melinda made that work quite well!
Good.
That meant everyone would have beds to sleep in tonight.
That also meant all the furniture that needed to be moved was there, so the U-Haul could be returned by that bus-driving Grammy, so that's where she and Matt went.
Michael stayed at Christina's new place with the four little blondes.
Christina and I returned to Chris's house.
Mostly, we were there to clean up the kitchen and living room.
Seriously.
So I swept and loaded huge trash bags with discarded clothing, unmatched shoes, long-lost crayons, debris, and endless discarded wrappers from snack bars and chips.
Seriously.
Those huge bags were so heavy that I had to drag them out to the curb.
Seriously.
Melinda helped when she got done with the truck, throwing things from the bathroom into another huge black bag destined for the curb.
I had told Christina I could stay until 4:30, but I was there until 5.
Then I had to leave, as I am promised to others this evening.
In fact, I just got home about five minutes ago, so Barbara should be pulling up soon.
No time for a shower after all, but that's okay.
I was where I had needed to be, and done what I could do to help.
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