A Day of Days

Friday night, on my way to work, I discovered that the battery in my truck is dying. I had to get a jump-start to get into work. I needed another to get home Saturday morning. I had agreed to help De and some other friends move some stuff for another friend, Maggie. De arrived literally seconds after I got home. My brother was headed out for the day, and the truck needed yet another jump, which De was happy to provide. I took a couple of minutes to change clothes and feed Spot, and I was back out the door.

I think we spent more time riding around than we actually did in the move. I live in Portsmouth, and we drove over to Norfolk to meet Nancy, who has assisted all of these moves with her Jeep and trailer. From there we went to Maggie's place, also in Norfolk. Maggie's moving into an RV, and her friend Martha graciously agreed to store all of Maggie's things that won't fit into her new home. Martha lives in Isle of Wight, aka, the Middle of frakking Nowhere.

In between stops on the move, we stopped for gas, and Maggie bought everyone snacks and/or beverages. She said that the least she could do was make us happy. I thought about what made me happy, and decided that I was happy with camaraderie. It sounds hokey, but I had a great time just being out doing something with my friends, and helping another friend, to boot. That's one of the best feelings, ever.

Like I said, the moving of stuff didn't take so long. We had lots of hands: De, Nancy, Becky, Becky's son Steve and me. By the time we were done, though, it was nearly 1300: bedtime for me if I haven't already crawled in. De insisted that Maggie treat us to lunch. We ate at a barbecue joint in nearby Smithfield. The food was good, but the place was short-staffed, and it took us a while to get in and out. On the way out, someone noticed the signs announcing the dress code. It listed a whole slue of prohibited items: white tee shirts, baggy pants, tank tops, du-rags. Basically, anything typically worn by the young urban crowd. It wasn't quite a "NO BLACKS" sign, but it might as well have been. I did say this was the sticks, but it's 2009, for frak's sake!

After lunch, it was back to Norfolk. I forgot to mention that in order to use Nancy's trailer, we had to unload a couch and a HUGE TV. I also forgot that Nancy has the cutest little dog, named "Poo". Poo looks like one of those Fu animals that one sees outside of Chinese temples, except that he's only about eight inches high. After we put the stuff back in the trailer, I had to play with Poo, if only for a minute. Then it was on home. De was nice enough to run me by the grocery store to get some cat food. I also discovered yesterday that De likes Firefly. I've been a Browncoat since the early days, and it's always nice to meet another fan. Before she took off, I loaned her my copy of Serenity.

I should have brought a camera. Poo looks like a photogenic dog. Out in "I Love White", there were lots of pretty hundred year-old houses. If I had managed to bring out the camera during the day, I'd probably have dragged in on to work with me. More about that later.

PS - I haven't sorted out what it will be, but I'll come up with a prize for the first of you lot to tell me which movie the title of this post came from.