lydamorehouse: void cat art (void cat)
 Today is the beginning both of the graduation "stuff" and packing up Mason in earnest.

Tonight is some kind of champaign mixer for parents and.... Wesleyan grads? professors? It's somewhat unclear. Shawn and I are bringing along somewhat fancy dress so that we can look exactly like the scholarship parents we are. And by "bringing along" I mean that we are stuffing our somewhat fancy clothes into a backpack and bringing it along to our real job for thae day: Packing.

Mason has sent a few things home via FedEx early.Things he was not likely to miss, like his winter clothes. Now we triage what we can pack up and send back via some mail service (now that we will have a car, likely USPS, since it should be cheaper) and what absolutely has to come back in the car with us Like most college students, Mason started out with almost nothing and now has an apartment full of things. Wish us luck. 
lydamorehouse: (Default)
 Shawn shows off her real life Tetris skillz in a storage locker.
Image: Shawn shows off her real life Tetris skillz in a storage locker.

Today was the unfun day. We had to help Mason pack up his apartment/dorm and somehow get it into a storage space that he was sharing with... a half dozen others? A lot. So many that the woman who organized it was sweating that it wasn't actually all going to work. Luckily, we had a secret weapon: Shawn Rounds.

We started around 9:30am and Mason is only just finishing with everyone now (at 6:30 pm.) 

But, it's done, and everyone is in.

A moving out day miracle.
lydamorehouse: void cat art (void cat)
 Mason and Shawn walking towards the library
My family walking towards one of the Wesleyan Libraries (Mason's favorite,) Olin.

Today was not a day for the road. We did travel the very short distance from where we ended up staying last night (Metamoras, PA) to Middletown, CT, but it only took us a couple of hours. We arrived in plenty of time for Shawn to do some of her packing miracles to save Mason a bit of space in the storage unit that he and a couple of his friends rented together for the summer. But, otherwise, our job was to offer assistance and/or stay out of the way. We mostly did the latter, as it happened, as he and his colleagues had everything under control. Our big job was to make sure that all of the books Mason wanted to bring home would, in fact, fit in the car. (THAT was a challenge.)

The weather looks great in the photo, but it was warmish here and weirdly humid (ocean air???) 

The library pictured above, Olin, is where Mason has one of his two work study jobs, as circulation staff at their government records collection. He showed us the stacks and his private fiefdom of books deep in the bowels of the library (very cool, honestly.) His mother, the State Archivist of Minnesota, was well impressed. Me, I just love any place that smells of old books and red rot.

Tomorrow, we are going to have more fun adventures to post about as we will be doing the same again, only in reverse. Shawn picked up a few books about fun roadside sites at the Wesleyan Bookstore, so I'm going to be doing some extra reading tonight. We already have several stops planned and we are not intending to even try to leave this state tomorrow. This is, after all, a big chance for us to explore this state that Mason is making his home for the next three years. 

Hope you all are safe and dry! See you after more hours on the road tomorrow!
lydamorehouse: (Renji 3/4ths profile)
 My nightmare... or the name of my son's interest house.
Image: My nightmare... AND the name of my son's interest house.

I wonder how many other Wesleyan parents saw this and had a chill run down their spine. I almost stood in front of it and screamed, "NOOOO! I have books due at the end of the year!!"

But, I decided to spare Mason my melodrama. 

I'm so adult. 

Also, it decided to rain buckets on us. Apparently, this was the tail end of Ida? I don't understand hurricanes, of course, being a Midwesterner. However, we did get quite wet moving things in. The dorm is actually pretty decent for what it is--a block building that has housed a lot of students over the years. Mason really lucked out, however, in that he got a corner room (he only shares one wall with another person) and he got one of the giant windows.  He'll have lots of natural light and air. 

Of course, the first thing we brought in and unpacked were his books.

Mason, proud, in front of his newly unpacked books
Image: Mason, proud, in front of his newly unpacked books. 

There were a bunch of activities that they wanted us parents to do after moving in, but the downpour made us change our minds. We did a little walking around campus, had the lunch provided us at the cafeteria, and then headed back to the hotel.

Wesleyan Library

We might have hung around, except that our car decided to make a very unpleasant grinding noise somewhere in Massachusetts a few days ago, and so I was anxious to see if we could find a repair shop. The sound started in the Catskills and so I was fairly concerned that we might be slipping our transmission or something EXPENSIVE. The guys at the shop were very New England and so I got along with them like a house on fire. We yelled good-naturally at each other for awhile and they took a look at the car and, a few hours later, we were back on the road. Ironically the part they replaced is guaranteed for 2,000 miles. WHICH IS ALMOST EXACTLY THE DISTANCE WE'VE TRAVELLED. So, you know, I guess it's not surprising we needed a new one? 

The only other stresser is, of course, the eldest. We got a call late at night last night because our cat sitter had not seen Piggy in 48 hours. I listed a few favorite hiding places and she was found, alive. I... was kind of surprised at that last part, since I'd had a dream in Madison (48 hours or so ago!) that Ms. Piggy had tapped at my side of the bed like she does to ask for a lift up.  In my dream state, I had the strongest impression of lifting her on to the hotel bed, telling Shawn that Piggy was with us, and then falling asleep (in my dream!) to the sound of her purrs. Just now, while we were eating Shawn felt a visit, too, another one of her signature tap-taps. I'll be surprised if she DOESN'T pass while we're away. 

I feel bad for our cat sitter, but I tried to explain on the phone that the reason the other cats weren't leading her to Piggy was because death isn't an emergency, or a sickness, or wrong. It's just what happens to old cats.  It's so hard not to think of death as a crisis, but it really isn't? It's natural? But, I also understand why the cat sitter would be beside herself, even though we were very clear in our email to her that we expected this to happen and even left instructions on what to do with the body, if she did. 

But, apparently, she's hanging on?

I'm not quite sure what to hope for--that she still be with us by the time we come back or that she just passes easily while we're away.  

We all had a good cry about her last night, at any rate. Even Mason, because he was still with us then. 

Now, now he's off beginning a new phase in his life.


walking to the future

lydamorehouse: (Default)
 All the stuff coming with Mason to Wesleyan...
Image: All the stuff coming with Mason to Wesleyan... minus two full boxes of books and so much more.

We leave for our cross-country trip to Middletown, Connecticut, tomorrow morning. We will be on the road for four days, making various stops to see the grand folks along the way. Then, we will drop our child off... and leave for home without him.

That's going to be weird. 

I will have my laptop with me and wifi at the various hotels we'll be stopping at along the road, so I will probably document some of this massive road trip in some form or another. I know I keep talking about all this, but it's kind of a momentous occasion! Plus, how could I resist a shot where there is an actual envelope labeled "Wesleyan 2021"??

May 2025

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