Packing Mode

Today, I stood with a Sunkist Orange box in one hand, held a Sharpie aloft in the other and intoned “It…begins.”

Then I packed ’em. Eight boxes in all, not a bad start. James’s new employers are paying to fly us out there to apartment hunt, but we don’t know the exact date yet, other than “Soon!” However, having given notice on the apartment and reserved the truck, we know we’ll be leaving the last week of January and since that’s, oh, maybe twenty days, I figure it’s time to start packing the non-essentials.

James fears my packing frenzy. This is probably wise–FEAR MY PACKING!–but it really is a good thing, since I always seem to get hit by this vague, restless, roaming pack-it-or-throw-it-out bug a few weeks before the move and wind up doing most of it well before crunch time. So that’s good. On the other hand, if he didn’t keep trying to convince me to take a break after every single box, there is admittedly a good possibility that I will have us living out of boxes before too long–I’ve done it before. It’s the packing frenzy. I become a sort of tireless juggernaut, wielding packing tape and fitting things together like some demented three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. I can pack for hours in this mode, without getting tired or bored (which beats the hell out of exhaustedly boxing crap at 3 AM the night before the move!) I even remember to pack each plate with the sheets of newspaper in between, and to bag the candles to make sure they don’t melt all over everything. Possibly I missed my calling in life.

Hopefully I’ll be able to maintain said packing devotion–we JUST moved a few months ago, and I fear I may be straining the kindness of the Packing Gods. I may need to go sacrifice a white yearling furniture dolly on the bumper of a consecrated U-haul or something…

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