Wednesday, Nov. 1: I get a call from my attorney, the buyer of our Centereach house needs to be out of her apartment by the 15th, so I agree to a close date of Monday, November 13.
Thursday, Nov. 2: After work, Tracey and I go home and pack for our trip to Europe. She still doesn't know the destination. We still have no word about when we can close on our purchase.
Friday, Nov. 3: We begin a long day by getting up and driving to work at 5:00 a.m. Through the efforts of Tracey's coworker Rockelle, I meet up with Tracey's department at Senya for a surprise lunch for Tracey. After work, we sit in traffic for an hour and a half en route to Kennedy Airport. I tell Tracey we're going to Paris. A long, hot and very uncomfortable flight follows, during which I get no sleep.
Saturday, Nov. 4: We arrive in Paris. After checking into the Meridien Etoile hotel, we go for a walk down the Champs Elysee, go to the top of the Arc de Triumph, and enjoy the beautiful weather along the Sciene.
Sunday, Nov. 5: Tracey's 30th birthday. We walk to Notre Dame and down through the Latin Quarter, where we get a fabulous cheese fondue. We waited until 3:30 p.m. to go to the Louvre, which was a smart move -- there were no lines and we were able to see all of the highlights in two hours. We end the night with a meal at '234 Rivoli' and hot chocolate at Angela's. The best hot chocolate I've ever had.
Monday, Nov. 6: The weather turns bad on us as we walk through the Monmart district. The driving wind and rain stops when we reach Sacre Coeure, but resumes in earnest as we make our way back down. The Eiffel Tower was the next stop. Again, by getting there in the late afternoon, we avoided all of the crowds. The bad weather kept us from going to the summit, and the cold made for a short visit to the second deck. We then made the very bad decision to walk back to the Latin Quarter, which amounted to and hour and a half of slogging through the cold rain. We did manage to salvage a good dinner and chocolate fondue.
Tuesday, Nov. 7: After a two hour detour on the RER, we found our way to Versailles, which was also cold and wet but nonetheless impressive. We continued our hot streak of avoiding crowds by taking the tram to the back of the estate first, and working our way forward. We had a late lunch at the Versailles boathouse on the Grand Canal, mostly to get inside and warm up a bit. That night, we just got room service and watched the election results on CNN International.
Wednesday, Nov. 8: We went out for breakfast and picked up some gifts. Then it was off to the airport for the flight back, which was even longer but not quite as uncomfortable as the trip there. I had been battling quite a head cold the whole time in Paris, which made for a terrible ear experience on the plane, and it was sometime here that Tracey picked up the bug as well.
Thursday, Nov. 9: Back at work, we both have busy days catching up with missed time. The closing on our sale is confirmed for Monday. I reserve a moving truck for Sunday through Wednesday and Tracey makes a reservation for Beelzebub to be boarded for the week.
Friday, Nov. 10: After work, we go to my dad's to visit with his friends Frank & Carol. Despite the jet lag, we stay out till after 1:00 a.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11: We start the day by going to the Christening party for Charles Dillon Rock, son of proud parents Tom and Amanda. Afterwards, we go home and do some serious packing.
Sunday, Nov. 12: Moving day. We start with a trip to the dump to ditch the last of our garbage (free on Sundays!). Then we take the cat to the kennel. We find out there that the cat doesn't have the shots he needs to get boarded, so we have to keep him. The next stop is the U-Haul to pick up our truck. Here's a surprise -- it's not there. The owner was able to track one down at another location, but it had to be returned the same day. With no other options, we took the truck. Tracey's brother Nick and my day & Madalyne helped us load up and move, and we managed to get everything into my dad's house and the truck back that night. The only casualty was my dad's mailbox...
Monday, Nov. 13: We take the cat to the vet's office for his shots. Here's a surprise -- the vet doesn't have all the vaccines that the cat needs. Luckily, he can board the cat for the week and give him the vaccine when it arrives. The closing on our house goes smoothly. We then get a phone call at 3:30 from my lawyer's office: I've got twenty minutes to get a homeowner's policy and we can close Tuesday morning. So we rush off to the insurance office and get our policy done on time. The close is on for 10:30 a.m. We spend the rest of the night cleaning out the Centereach house.
Tuesday, Nov 14: I was trying to work out the timing to get to work and finish the photos for the weekly issue before the closing. I figured that if I got up around 4:00 a.m. and drove in that I could be back for the walkthrough by 9:00 a.m. After fretting over the timing while staring at the ceiling, I realized around 1:00 a.m. that I wasn't going to get any sleep. So I got up and went to work. I got what I needed to finished and was back home by 4:30 a.m. I got three hours of sleep and went to the walkthrough and closing. All pretty smooth. Then we drove to work and got there around 2:00 p.m. Tracey's friend Rich Crabbe was doing his first book signing downtown at 7:00 p.m., so we went there after work. Then we drove back to dad's and got to bed around 11:00 p.m. Long day.
Wednesday, Nov 15: Aforementioned proud parent Amanda Rock makes her first trip back to work since having her baby. Tracey and I meet her at Dunkin Donuts to be supportive. And for muffins. Back to a normal work schedule.
Postscript: We didn't actually take possesion of the house until that Thursday, and we spent our first night there Sunday. We moved in all of our furniture one piece at a time, but it really only took most of one weekend.