six days before we leave for texas, and we've had "last quaker meeting," "last time in the library," "last grade turned in," etc. until by now i at least want to just get on with it and get on down there. meanwhile it's over a hundred degrees almost every day, and this is unusual for here; it's drought throughout the midwest and all the food crops will undoubtedly suffer. beijing, on the other hand, is flooding, but that's what you get. the earth in its cataclysms is getting more desperate. if they didn't get the message before, maybe they will now. maybe we have to hit them where it hurts. i'm not very smart about packing away things i might need in the next seven or ten days. this includes things like rope, bungee cords, movies, music. having packed away all the good stuff, i spend too much time digging through the boxes to find stuff i really need. meanwhile we have mounds of junk, things that didn't sell at the garage sale; we have to rent a dumpster, or finds someone to haul it away. in the intense heat even thinking about it is wearing on me. there are some things i didn't mind selling, but have trouble just pitching. there are other things that are valuable but fairly well hidden in the boxes. we made some mistakes in the sale and let some things get away very cheaply but overall, we've vastly simplified our lives.

all along, i was not the best person to trust with the material plane. no sooner did we give away our small car, or rather sold it cheaply to our stepdaughter, than i left the key on in the van, running out the battery when the jumper cables were in the car. to make matters worse, my wife's gardening crawling up both sides of the driveway made it impossible for neighbors to come up beside it. i felt like an idiot, drenched heavily in sweat and searing in the heat.

later i take a shower, have some dinner, and calm down by my easy chair beneath the huge fan. now things are a little better. turns out the indians game is on live on my phone, and the indians have beaten the orioles, and they're back at 500 so to speak. obsessing on the indians is much better than obsessing on that guy in colorado; every time i turn on the radio he's there, with his sick mind and miraculous ability to gather a stockpile of ammunition with nobody noticing. i have an aversion to even thinking about people doing that kind of thing with their anger, but even worse, thinking about the arguments it leads to in terms of the influence media has on our young. how many batman movies had this kid watched? why is it that some people in the theater thought that it was all some kind of act?

as we pack during the day we are barraged with a steady stream of telemarketers, and one door-to-door book salesman, a kid from estonia, very good at selling, but he's selling educational books and i'm in the process of moving. i told him, i've just tossed out hundreds of pounds of this kind of stuff, i'm the wrong guy. but i gave him a glass of water and we talked a little about cultures. some summer job, traveling through america selling educational books; maybe that was fun for him. but it's 102 in the shade, hasn't rained in weeks, and the grass is crackling again. there's a kind of dissonance; i like to listen to his voice; he's an excellent salesman, but having packed all day, being about to move, there's no way, no way, i'll buy any. finally he figures it out.

the countdown is now in earnest. we have all become excited, dying for the next step. next thing is to see what's down the road, and go there. whether our house here sells, or rents, or whatever, i guess we'll find out. might as well get on with it.