I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends
When taking stock of my life I've always been more inclined to think of my friends and the joy in my life than to turn to worldly possessions. And yesterday the two things came together in such a way to reassure me that I have my priorities exactly right, and am richer than it seems I have any right to be.
Autumnwinds and I just got hired at Taylor Wilderness Research Station in Idaho and need to move there for the next 9 months or so. Our employers want us to be there as soon as we can, so we packed up our apartment as fast as we could for the move. The snag we ran into is that our apartment was on the second story and both Autumnwinds and I are both nursing bum knees, leaving us unable to lift especially heavy loads. So . . . how do we actually *move* our stuff?
Enter my new personal saviors (insert the sound of trumpets and angelic singing here): Bluemoonshark and Shrike30. With no requests on our part, and before we even had the jobs for sure, these two sensed a disturbance in the force and contacted me to say "Hey, I thought you might be moving soon. Would you like a hand?" I wanted to respond with something tactful and polite, like "As long as it's not inconvenient or anything," but instead I cried out something like "YES WE'D LIKE HELP!!! STARS ABOVE YES!!!!!!" I guess it's good I didn't take the tactful route since it ended up being anything but convenient.
Bluemoonshark worked a 14 hour day of hard labor before she and Shrike30 drove 2-3 hours out and showed up to get 5 hours of sleep before helping us move all our worldly possessions into a U-haul and off to storage. I use the term "help" loosely since my knee restricted what we could do and these two definitely did the vast majority of the work. Shrike30 spent 5 hours playing 3-D Tetris with our things and taking great care to make sure all of our things fit in a truck that was *just* large enough and also arrived undamaged. Bluemoonshark made more trips up and down those stairs than can be counted using conventional numbers, carrying most of our *very* extensive library in the process, and kept everything moving and flowing so that there was no wasted time or effort and things went as quickly and smoothly as they possibly could. She also took upon herself other noble acts such as cleaning the kitchen and under the refrigerator. These two even managed to keep me from feeling like a complete leach by telling me stories of horrible moving adventures they have suffered through and how this wasn't nearly so bad. Then after everything was packed we caravanned back to Seattle, where Autumnwinds's parents (who stayed up late just to assist) helped us unload and pack into the storage unit. We finished 5 minutes before the storage facilities were locked down for the night.
Afterwards we all hung out in the Brumble's kitchen consuming Thai food, Ben & Jerry's, and some hard cider while we joked, reminisced, and philosophized late into the evening while lamenting we didn't know anyone with a working hot tub. You seriously can't ask for better friends than that!
Autumnwinds and I just got hired at Taylor Wilderness Research Station in Idaho and need to move there for the next 9 months or so. Our employers want us to be there as soon as we can, so we packed up our apartment as fast as we could for the move. The snag we ran into is that our apartment was on the second story and both Autumnwinds and I are both nursing bum knees, leaving us unable to lift especially heavy loads. So . . . how do we actually *move* our stuff?
Enter my new personal saviors (insert the sound of trumpets and angelic singing here): Bluemoonshark and Shrike30. With no requests on our part, and before we even had the jobs for sure, these two sensed a disturbance in the force and contacted me to say "Hey, I thought you might be moving soon. Would you like a hand?" I wanted to respond with something tactful and polite, like "As long as it's not inconvenient or anything," but instead I cried out something like "YES WE'D LIKE HELP!!! STARS ABOVE YES!!!!!!" I guess it's good I didn't take the tactful route since it ended up being anything but convenient.
Bluemoonshark worked a 14 hour day of hard labor before she and Shrike30 drove 2-3 hours out and showed up to get 5 hours of sleep before helping us move all our worldly possessions into a U-haul and off to storage. I use the term "help" loosely since my knee restricted what we could do and these two definitely did the vast majority of the work. Shrike30 spent 5 hours playing 3-D Tetris with our things and taking great care to make sure all of our things fit in a truck that was *just* large enough and also arrived undamaged. Bluemoonshark made more trips up and down those stairs than can be counted using conventional numbers, carrying most of our *very* extensive library in the process, and kept everything moving and flowing so that there was no wasted time or effort and things went as quickly and smoothly as they possibly could. She also took upon herself other noble acts such as cleaning the kitchen and under the refrigerator. These two even managed to keep me from feeling like a complete leach by telling me stories of horrible moving adventures they have suffered through and how this wasn't nearly so bad. Then after everything was packed we caravanned back to Seattle, where Autumnwinds's parents (who stayed up late just to assist) helped us unload and pack into the storage unit. We finished 5 minutes before the storage facilities were locked down for the night.
Afterwards we all hung out in the Brumble's kitchen consuming Thai food, Ben & Jerry's, and some hard cider while we joked, reminisced, and philosophized late into the evening while lamenting we didn't know anyone with a working hot tub. You seriously can't ask for better friends than that!