Tuesday the 17th of October.  Super organized Honey rented a U-haul truck to help "The Man" and his two friends (soon to be roommates) gather their possessions to move into their school sponsored housing.

Day 1 (the 18th)-"The Man" will be driving with one of his roommates.  Honey and I will be driving the U-haul directly to the apartment complex where we will meet the boys once they have collected their keys and signed the leases at the school.  We arrive earlier than planned and Honey goes to the apartment complex office to see what building the boys have been assigned.  The office manager gives us the info and allows the maintenance person to open up the apartment so we can get a head start moving stuff.  The office manager warns us that new carpeting has been laid the day before so we can take precautions.

Holy Cow!  This is a hell of a lot nicer than any of the apartments I've ever lived in.  Yeah you have to walk up three flights of steps to the top floor, but because its on the top floor you have vaulted ceilings in  the kitchen/dining room/living room, and the large second bedroom.  It has one and a half baths and the kitchen is loaded with ALL the appliances.  I don't even have a garbage disposer and a dishwasher.  Well, I'm the dishwasher and Honey is the rinser/stacker/dryer.

We have a whole hour to unload before the boys show up.  We manage everything except the recliner, entertainment center, and the mates bed.  Pretty amazing considering Honey and I are pushing 50 and I have ZERO upper body strength.  I had to caution Honey to slow down a couple times.  We sure didn't want to deal with one of us falling over from a heart attack.  Honey said that wouldn't happen because he had to get the truck back before 4pm.

We tucked the boys into their new home.  "Take care of each other," we admonished.  "Don't get too noisy.  Take care of your new carpeting.  Call every once in a while.  Cook real food.  Eat vegetables!"  There was hand shaking and hugging all around.  And I didn't shed one tear.  Honey said maybe it was because he wasn't really mine.  I said it was because he wasn't joining the military.  Just as we were pulling away from the curb, I rolled down the window and yelled, "Don't forget to get up for school tomorrow!"  We dropped off the truck, grabbed dinner on the way home, and our tired sore bodies fell into bed. 

Day 2-Work, work, work.  I had to stop on the way home to pick up stuff to make the dessert I volunteered for Fridays fund raiser.   I almost had a head on collision with some woman who blew through a stop sign.  Last thoughts, "Oh my god, she's not stopping."  Maybe if I was really going to die I would have had that life flashing experience, instead I had that adrenalin rush as I pondered how she managed to slide between me and the guy who was behind me.  I was thinking maybe I'm not supposed to know the joys of empty nesting.  I had trouble keeping focussed on what I had to get at the grocery store.  At one point while passing the Deli counter I caught myself thinking, "I'll stop here and pick up 'The Man' some of those chicken tenders he likes."  Then I remembered he wasn't going to be home.  I'll just send him an e-mail to see what he ate and how his first day at school turned out.  Honey and I have a lonely dinner.  Then he teases me with his dish rinsing and stacking abilities and I chase him around the kitchen pulling off his clothes.  I'm kinda liking this.

Day 3-Early early in the morning.  I'm fumbling around in the dark trying to get my bathrobe on so I can go to the bathroom.  Ten minutes later after I've awoken the whole house I realize passing "The Man's" room that my attempts to shield his young impressionable mind were pointless, he's not there.  Rest of the day was like any other.  Still no phone call or e-mail from the lad.

Day 4-Weekend!  Sleeping in.  Book reading.  Frustrating internet use, barely.  Still no word from "The Man."  Honey figures they are out exploring their world, getting internet and cable hooked up.  I'm starting to worry that they have run out of money and are resorting to cannibalism for survival.  I shake my disturbing thoughts and take Honey to "the dinner and a movie place."   We see "3:10 to Yuma".  Honey orders the John Wayne, I have the Katherine Hepburn.  The server delivers the food after the beginning of the movie.  It's dark and this kid is saying, "John and Kathy." Here I am wondering how this kid knows my name and why is he calling Honey John.  By the time I figure out he was talking about the sandwiches, Honey took over and I didn't have to play it off as the dumb deaf girl.  It was good.  It was all good.  

Day 5-We decide to make what we bought for dinner yesterday, today, Sunday!  Stuffed Peppers and real Scalloped Potatoes.  I kill all the potatoes that are in the bin thinking that we can eat them over the next few days.  HA!  They were so good we polished off half of them for lunch, and that's with the Stuffed Peppers.  God, how do I fit in my clothes!  Honey is having football party with mexi-meatloaf-burgers.  I hang out in the bedroom taking advantage of the football widow package that came with the NFL Ticket.  I catch "Flags of our Fathers" and cry all afternoon, then watch "Children of Men."  Still no internet so Honey is calling tomorrow to order the new modem.

Day 6-Ugh, Monday.  Fullish moon.  Wacky customers.  Cranky PMSy Catty.  Honey orders modem.  He talks me into cleaning up our new guest room/office.  I'm going to have to drag the new carpet cleaner up here.  We start planning how we want to reconfigure the room when we rip the plaster out.  We also discuss why "The Man" hasn't called or e-mailed.  Honey thinks they are just sowing their wild oats or they haven't hooked up the phone or "The Man" hasn't figured out how to get his new internet card working.  I'm thinking they trashed the new apartment carpeting, tried to cover it up by cooking and accidentally set the place on fire, so the RA had them thrown in jail. 

Day 7-No modem, no internet, no e-mail or phone call from "the boy" , "the man", that guy that used to live here but grew up and moved away and doesn't need us anymore.  At all.  Never again.  I tell Honey he should call one of the other boy's parents.  He tells me he will do that if we don't hear from him Wednesday.

Day 8-Wednesday.  Honey said he got a short e-mail at work from "The Man" letting us know he was alright.  I press him for more information but he says all the e-mail really said was that he was doing fine.  The new modem finally comes.    Even  though we asked for the same model that we had before, the only thing that was the same was the model number stamped on the front of the modem.  Like  everything else now a days the modem shrunk to half its original size.  Honey had to spend three hours with the modem and telephone company to get the thing hooked up.  We are still having intermittent internet connections.  They are just more connected now than not connected.

Day 9-I HAVE INTERNET!  "The Man" answered my first e-mail.  They haven't cooked anything because they don't have any pots and pans.  They have been going out for food.  Classes are fine.  We have a pile of things started that we think "The Man" will need, extra sheets, mattress cover, drain cover.  I fire off an e-mail asking if they need anything else, like curtains/blinds,  bathroom cleaning supplies, a vacuum for the new carpet.  Honey suggests we take our fall drive on Saturday and maybe drop off the things we've collected at "The Man's" new apartment.

Day 10-We IM with "The Man".  Everything is a go except for the vacuum.  They bought a vacuum.  Honey and I head to our local discount store and pick up the three pack of non-stick saucepans for $5.99 and the three pack of non-stick frying pans for $6.99.  We also find a nice soup pot for five bucks.  Honey wanted to get them the 12 piece cookware set for $49.99 until I told him about my brothers being out on their own for the first time.  Anytime they cooked, if it burned, they threw away the food, pan and all.  If they cooked too much and the food sat in the fridge (in the pan) and got moldy, they threw it away, pan and all.  Honey decided the cheap non-sticks might be the best way to go.  

Day 11-Saturday!  We jump into the car and head towards Pittsburgh.  It's 7am.  The construction crews have been widening the route we take to Pittsburgh and we are downtown by 8:30am.  Honey decides we can't just barge into "The Man's" apartment at this time of the morning.  So we take a wrong turn and end up in the Strip District at Primanti Brother's Restaurant .  They make the huge sandwiches with the fries and coleslaw all on the sandwich.  Then we kill some time shopping in some of the ethnic shops.  We get to "The Man's" at a respectable 12 noon.  We put his mattress cover on his bed and measure the window for blinds then head out to Mall Land.

I don't know why I was so worried about them ruining the new carpet.  Everything that was originally in boxes last week, was now covering the new carpet.  The empty boxes were piled up in front of the windows to block out the sun.  If anything gets ruined it's going to be the stuff on top the carpet.  The new vacuum was hiding safely in the closet.  Now that I think of it, if they had time and money to go out and get a vacuum, why didn't they just pick up their own pots and pans?

They did some decorating.  They found some letters sitting in a parking lot and arranged them on top of their air conditioner.  They spell . . .KARATE.  They also found a church pot luck dinner sign and arranged it on top of their dresser.  The entertainment center sits empty, while their TV and game boxes sit on the floor in front of it. 

We picked up some mini-blinds and food when we were out.  We hung the mini blinds.  We made it possible for them to cook.  I asked why all their dishes (now dirty) were sitting in the sink and on the counter tops when they have a dishwasher to hide them in?  Then I thought they didn't know how to use it, so I explained that they could arrange the dishes inside the machine, put some soap in, and latch the door to start the washing cycle.  I asked him if he needed bathroom cleaning lessons.  He said that wouldn't be necessary.  I'm confident the cleaning products will be exactly where I placed them the next time we visit.  Unused.  I guess we'll know where the zombie plague originates.

OH MY GOD!  I forgot to explain about not using regular dish soap in the dishwasher! 

I'm so glad we could go visit and alleviate all those unfounded fears we had about them not being able to take care of themselves.

tags: kids  children  adults  college  cleaning  cooking  empty nest  primanti sandwich  pittsburgh  travel  humor  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit