Happy Anniversary to me...

It was a year (and about 40 minutes) ago that I arrived in Chicago. Everybody think, "Happy Anniversary, Steve" really loud...

I know it was 9:50 PM on August 22nd because we left Kansas City about 4 hours late, hit White Sox traffic on the Eisenhower and the Dan Ryan Expressways, and made it to LSTC with exactly 10 minutes to spare until the security office closed at 10. We got the keys to the apartment, and started unloading the 17-foot Penske rental truck that contained almost all my belongings in the world at about 10:15 p.m. My best friend Mike Moore had noted the condition of the neighborhood between the Dan Ryan and LSTC on 55th St., and said to me, "You just don't want to leave this truck overnight to unload it." So we started emptying it out - box by exhausting box.

At about 3:15 AM, exhausted mentally and bone-weary physically, I announced to Mike that I couldn't take another box (as it was, we were both at the stage of take-a-box-in-and-then-sit-on-the-porch-and-recover mode), and we left for the hotel, where we didn't actually get to sleep until 4:15 AM or so. Later the next week, at orientation, I had to make a public statement of amends to all of my potential neighbors along 54th Place for all the noise we had made during those trips with the refrigerator cart, up and down the side-walk.

I got back from Toledo tonight - after a fairly successful but mentally-and-physically-exhausting garage-sales. Sister Sue, my brother-in-law Jeff, and I worked for hour emptying the house of anything that was not primo condition, or of anything of which we would say, "Well, I should keep this, just in case. I told several people that I had to get back to Chicago, just so I could get some rest!

But as I pulled up, I saw a familiar site - a U-Haul pickup, a crowd of people hanging around, and looking at the 3rd-flood balcony, wondering "What have we gotten ourselves into, this time?" I'm glad I'm not moving in tonight - although the weather for it was certainly better than it was a year ago!) As it is, my back is tender and sore, and I'll rely on my friends (Mr. Blue-Gel Icepack and Ms. OD-on-Ibuprofen) to recover from the weekend. As it is, my room is a mess, owing to 3 weekends of chaotic running-out-of-town, and my bed is unmade. Yikes! But I'm glad to have been able to help my sisters.

I wonder - would I have made the same mistakes if they had known what it would take to move lal that stuff? Would I have been so eager to start at LSTC if I'd known what would happen within three short months? I wonder....

For now, bed is beckoning, and I'm slipping into a sleepy coma as it is. Sweet dreams, y'all!