(By the fifth installment in the mini-series, even the most dedicated 19 Minutes readers are tired of the recaps at the start of each episode. We'll keep this one short: Left Flagstaff. Car broke down. Got ear infection. Car towed, fixed. Ate sweet rolls in Albuquerque. Had uneventful trip through Bible Belt. Watched plenty of late night Olympics coverage. Reached Wisconsin. Successfully bought house. Received free candle, plus 12 copies of mortgage officer's business card, in case we suddenly make a lot of friends in the area who also want to buy houses.)
Onward. Or, forward, as the Wisconsin state motto would note.
Thursday, February 23rd, 1:45 p.m. For my 37th birthday, not only do I get a house with beautiful hardwood floors, but all our possessions show up. Well, all of them except for our framed ketubah, which is a Jewish marriage certificate - or in our case, a Jewish-Lutheran marriage certificate, signed by the Unitarian minister who performed our ceremony. Our mover thinks he accidentally left it in Flagstaff with (really) a group of wardrobe boxes. He promises to replace it if he can't find it, and I imagine the ordeal of sending it around the country, so each of the people who signed it can re-create their signatures.
8:30 p.m. We return from our dinner out, put the car in our very own garage and go inside.
8:45 p.m. I head back out to the garage to bring a few things in, only to discover that the garage door opener no longer, well, opens the garage door. It does make a fine little humming noise, however. I enlist the services of my father-in-law to try to get into the garage.
10:00 p.m. Our breaking-and-entering attempt stretches into its second hour. There's no door to the garage, so we're trying to go through a window. After several hundred exhaustive attempts to hook the latch with a wire inserted behind the jamb, we meet with success. Our exuberance is tempered somewhat when the window moves only around an inch or two, revealing that it's also secured with a chain lock. The maximum security leads me to conclude the previous owners either used the garage to store a jaguar, as a meth lab, or to shoot porn movies. I recollect the story the next morning at work and a co-worker suggests the owners were probably concerned about the safety of a snowblower. Anyway, judicious use of a screwdriver gets us into the garage a few minutes later. I retrieve my toothbrush from the car and go back inside.
Friday, 7:30 a.m. The exhaust fan in the bathroom does an uncanny imitation of the humming noise made by the garage door. I celebrate my new status as a homeowner by going to work.
6:00 p.m. Our mover calls from the road to report our "Kabbalah" has turned up back in Flagstaff.
Saturday, March 4, 10:30 a.m. The 19 Minutes staff gets set to spend its first unstructured weekend in the Milwaukee area with some unpacking, some shopping for a new sofa, and perhaps a trip to the Children's Museum. We settle for Children's Hospital, as 20-month old Sylvi breaks her leg enjoying the wonder of our beautiful hardwood floors. She spends the weekend in traction before getting her cast on Monday morning. We'd heard good things about Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, but hadn't necessarily planned to investigate the place so quickly.
The negative aspect to the leg situation is that it's a big bummer for the next five weeks.
The positive aspect - aside from giving us a chance to catch up on our episodes of "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" and "The Backyardigans" - is that an immobile 20-month old is a 20-month old that isn't getting into the semi-unpacked boxes of cleaning chemicals, crystal bowls, and razor blades that are all over the place. And she'll stay away from that garage door.
[Roll credits. Preview tonight's "Late Show". Insert half-screen shot of TV anchor telling us what fires or car accidents we'll learn about on the evening news. Cut to loud commercial for furniture store promising No Payments Until 2018. Fade to black. Exit stage left.]
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