Getting back to normal

Or as normal as it gets for us.

I made it into the office yesterday for awhile -- not earthshaking news, by any standard, but a healthy development, I hope, inasmuch as the bills will be coming due soon for our Arizona adventure.

And the office is taking shape as well. The carpet's been replaced in my office -- but my worst fears were realized: I did have to move again.

The carpet people showed up at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, March 3. They were expected. But they did not expect the size and scope of the project they'd been sent to undertake. They understood that they'd be replacing the carpet in the hallway outside my office. They'd not been briefed on the giant Rorschach blot on my office carpet.

But that was fair, because it came as a complete (and wholly unwelcome) surprise to me that I'd have to move out of my office right then. The hope that I'd clung to, that they'd first try a patch, was quickly and thouroughly crushed.

The people from the building sent up a number of men to assist in the panic clean-up -- but the weeks I'd spent agonizing on where to put things to minimize losses when moving in were compressed into minutes. And I did lose things, but so far nothing too serious. That was part of yesterday's exercise: Just being around my stuff again, organizing.

Fat chance that'll ever get done. But we must try....