Mission Accomplished!

I am happy to report that as of Tuesday, May 12, my father is a resident of Virginia! The move from New Jersey went quite well, all things considered. We had delightful weather for loading the truck (two young men did all the work themselves...carrying bookcases single-handed, carrying several large boxes on their back at once, pausing only momentarily to flirt *g*) and also great weather for the drive down to Virginia, except for the last 20 minutes which were in a gully washer of a rain storm.

The guys showed up with the truck in Virginia on time Tuesday morning, but the truck was too big to get on the property, so they had to bring a smaller truck to shuttle goods from where the big truck parked on the road in to the property. Luckily they brought along wheeled dollies so they didn't have to carry everything on their backs into the building, up the elevator, and down the hall to my father's apartment.

Part of what my father paid for was help in unpacking stuff and putting it away. They did a sort of peculiar job putting stuff in the kitchen and one of the unpackers said to me "why did your father bring all these books? you couldn't read one a day of these for the rest of your life. With everything on the internet, who needs all these books?" As a confirmed lover of books this question infuriated me so much i just sputtered "what a bizarre question!" and left the room. (After the unpackers left, we started moving things around to more sensible locations. And my father is continuing to unpack boxes and look for things that were hidden, like his brown socks which were in a bag on top of a closet, and the clean sheets, which are still apparently in an as-yet-unopened box.)

I stayed in the apartment overnight and on Wednesday we did some important errands like getting a library card at the lovely branch library...you know, so he can get some more books! (hmmmmph!! so there!) We also figured out how to use the new dishwasher and also the washer/dryer. It's a really cool space-saving unit where a full-sized dryer is perched on top of a full-sized washer, enabling the whole thing to fit into a closet.

Everyone seems very friendly, the apartment is starting to feel like home, my father's got his internet access back, and all's well with the world!

Here's a last picture of our family home for 49 years, taken Sunday shortly before we left.

This magnolia started off 49 years ago as a bareroot switch no bigger around than my thumb...now as you can see it's taller than the house, and reliably blooms twice a year!

A last visit with one of the local cottontail rabbits.

This afternoon i drove up to visit my father--it's an easy hour's drive--and went grocery shopping with him. He wanted to see if he could do the drive himself...it's quite challenging learning all new roads to all new places, especially given his reduced vision. He did fine and we had fun getting more essentials for the apartment. I had dinner with him in the dining hall and it was really nice...the food was quite good (unlike the dinner Wednesday night, where the food seemed very bland and underseasoned) and two charming women were seated at the table with us, one of whom has lived there since the Fall so she's an "old timer" and the other of whom has only lived there for two days, so she's even more of a "newcomer" than my father.

Here's hoping that all continues to go well!