Transformation Day

Well, this is an odd holiday weekend.  First, there was Christmas Eve, and then there was Christmas Day, followed by Sunday, which is Boxing Day up here in Canada, and then tomorrow, because Boxing Day was on Sunday and Christmas was on Saturday, Monday becomes some other holiday, I guess called Boxing Day Celebrated.  So, nothing is open--well not the things I need open like the post office and the bank, until Tuesday, which is a little awkward if you are trying to make your residency getaway during that time.

In any case, it is definitely Boxing Day for us, Boxes and Boxes and Boxing of Boxes Day, day after day.  Our actual moving day(s) will be Wednesday, with two much-beloved neighbors--one from Roberts Creek, B.C., and one from Point Roberts, WA--each offering to come and drive a truck-load of goods southward for us.  And then again on Thursday when we make our exit.  But until then, it's boxing day.  I've done this enough times that it should be easy, but no matter how skilled and experienced you are, it is still hundreds of decisions being made: to keep? to recycle?  to abandon?  over and over again.

But it is also transformation day because not only is all that ownership being settled when he become not house owners but former house owners, but the form of these goods is also being settled.  Will that jar of pickles in the refrigerator offer some kind of anchor around which to construct a lunch or dinner? Or does it go with us for yet another dinner? Should I make six loaves of bread and bake them in this big oven in order to not have to move a bag of flour southward?  Will the former towels and washcloths satisfactorily transform themselves into packing material for glasses and bowls?  And when all these decisions are made at the end of today, will there be coffee somewhere for breakfast?  Or an available bowl and a spoon for granola, if I haven't packed the granola, bowl and spoon?  I know there's a gallon of milk, and it, at least, is not going to be packed into a box or transformed into anything else.  So there we'll be the next few days: guaranteed to have milk, the more or less complete food.