Moving Out, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise

November 20, 2010 Martha Thomases 13 Comments

According to the Torah, there are certain mitzvah’s that observant Jews are required to perform. These include visiting the sick, being charitable towards the needy, and hospitable to strangers.

There is nothing in there about helping people move.

Perhaps, since Jews were nomadic people at the time of Moses, it went without saying. If you and your people were always moving, helping each other to move was a way of life. Sure, you might balk at schlepping that Golden Calf, but you were more than happy to pack some extra matzoh, if need be.

My father is moving this week. He went from a place with questionable wi-fi to a place with none (at least until the cable folk come tomorrow). Alas, this means I can’t show off my ability to link to newsworthy events. I can’t say pithy things about the Simpson-Bowles Report, because I haven’t had a chance to read it, and I don’t like to opine in print about things I haven’t read, where my words are immortalized on the Intertubes to better bite me in the ass at some future date.

Also, I’m more than a little shell-shocked.

My dad lived in a beautiful, large house in the St. Andrews Country Club community in Boca Raton. He moved into a big, beautiful apartment in Delray Beach, one nearly 50% bigger than mine. However, large and beautiful as it is, it’s not a house, and that means he had to get rid of a lot of stuff.

He donated a lot to charity. He gave things away to friends. He threw out tons of papers. And yet, as we unpack the boxes, we find the movers, in their zeal, packed up half-full packages of band-aids, plastic shopping bags, and empty file folders.

It’s really stressful. He’s used to knowing where everything is. Now, we only know everything is in a box, somewhere. Unpacking the boxes means finding the space to take things out while he decides where they should go. The more boxes we can empty, the more room we have, but getting started is really complicated.

The decorator he hired had a sudden family emergency, and therefore isn’t around to help. We’re finding out that he missed a few details. Nothing crazy, just the kind of thing that makes you appreciate the little things in life. Things like blinds on the windows. Or bedside reading lamps. Or art on the walls, instead of stacked along the wall or wrapped up in boxes.

Maybe this goes without saying, but the cable people are the worst. When my father first made plans to move, he called to schedule an appointment. They told him to be at the new place on Tuesday between one and five (he was moving on Thursday). We went to the empty apartment, sat on folding chairs that I thought to bring (I’m really proud of that) and waited. And waited. At four, the guy shows up, and asks us where our phones are. We didn’t have them, since they were still at the house where he was living. So now, we have no phones until they can come back. I don’t know why they couldn’t tell him he needed to have a phone with him when he made the appointment.

This, too, shall pass. Someday soon, he’ll be settled. He’ll have new friends and new bridge games and new routines.

In the meantime, I’m going home on Saturday, and I’m going to start throwing crap away.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, has too many books.