Past meets past meets future

As part of my goal to make this as environmentally friendly a move as possible, I've been Freecycling everything I can. People keep telling me I should write a book about Freecycle, and something happened today that showed me what one of the chapters would include.

I posted old file folders and hanging file folders on Freecycle. I received a number of responses, including one from a woman named Beth Zygielbaum, who works for a non-profit here in town. Freecycle rules recommend you prioritize non-profits over regular citizens, but as someone who works for non-profits, I would have anyway. Especially because of her last name.

Arthur Zygielbaum Park is across the street from where I grew up in Montreal. Arthur Zygielbaum was a member of the resistance in Poland during WWII.

When I told her she was the lucky recipient of the stack, I mentioned "and hey, random thought, you have the same last name as..." to which she replied it wasn't random at all - Arthur Zygielbaum was her great-grandfather! She and her brother played in that park once when they were kids.

She came by to pick up the file folders and I had to take a picture with her. I'm going to send it to the local weekly in the town I grew up in - a former local who grew up across from the park meets the great-granddaughter of the man who the park is named for in a small town in the Bay Area? - that's the kind of "small world" moment they'd eat up. 

As promised, when Beth walked into the house, I had to hug her thanks for her great grandfather (and grandfather)'s work. She came with her husband and the next generation. :) 

 

What goes around...

I've been getting rid of a lot of stuff I've never used, but have carried around from move to move. To wit: Still-in-plastic dish towels marked "dairy" and "meat" (bought in jest by my mother, since I keep Kosher, but not to the extent that I use different dish towels!), and many, many Kosher cookbooks I've never used.

I offered them on Freecycle in a town that is less than 5 per cent Jewish, and I'm one of only a handful who is Kosher. I was shocked to get quite a few people interested in them, and not just those who collect cookbooks.

The woman I chose is a Hispanic Catholic lady who has a friend who just moved to town - a Kosher, Jewish friend. She wants to set up her kitchen so that she may invite her friend over for dinner. She thought a Kosher cookbook or six was the place to start (I didn't bother to tell her that most cookbooks can be used for Kosher cooking, so long as you avoid the biggies - no meat & dairy in the same meal, skip the shellfish, etc.).

When she arrived to pick them up, I offered her not only the cookbooks, but a turkey baster only ever used for Kosher meat, the dish towels, stickers for pots & pans that say "dairy" and "meat," and a number of other things. She accepted, and left with arms full of stuff, more than the six cookbooks she'd expected. On hearing I was moving, she said she'd "be in touch" when she had boxes for me (since she just moved). Most of the time I hear that I never hear from the person again, so I pretty much had forgotten.

Today, she repaid the favour, emailing me to offer me moving boxes.I told her I needed book boxes, and she showed up two hours later with more than a dozen of the size I need, enough to finish packing my books! Freecycle rules are that the offerer makes the items available, the recipient picks 'em up. She even delivered!

Yeah. Sometimes what goes around, comes around.

The end is nigh...

My last Channukah in California...

The divesting continues...

I have a lot of stuff. When I moved to Western Canada, my company paid for it. When I moved to California, my company and I split it. So I've never had a lot of incentive to divest.

Now, I have incentive. Oh boy do I... 

But until recently, you wouldn't know to look around the house that I've been divesting for months  - most of what I'm getting rid of has been the contents of cabinets that I don't use (bundt pans and mixers? I don't bake, both were gifts and they'd never been used...), stuff tucked away behind things and I hadn't used in years (crutches from my knee surgery at 17?), or stuff that I used to love but simply no longer have use for so have been sitting in a storage room (800 a CDs from a previous life, that went to a local high school music teacher for her students.).

Today, I've started to see signs! One of the first pieces of furniture to go - the bookshelf that was in that corner (and you can see some of the contents in the boxes next to it).

I'd had that bookhelf since high school. It still had the "Hatred is not a family value" bumper sticker I put on it when I was... oh, no more than 16. :) It went to a nice, fairly typical late-life hippie lady here in Alameda, who loved the bumper sticker.

But that was an easy one to get rid of. The next bookshelf I post will also have a bumper sticker, but this one is "Trust your lust." Also from my teenage years, and I'm fairly certain I didn't actually comprehend the phrase when I put it up. :) It also has a picture on the side, a drawing by my sister of a not-anatomically-correct teddy bear, and a postcard she glued up, a picture of the Beatles. If I can get them off without damaging the shelf, I may surprise her with those...

My to-do list

It's so much easier when you just move houses in one area! No having to worry about:

Mail forwarding. USPS doesn't like to forward mail outside the U.S., and I don't want to ask friends to receive mail for me. I finally decided I'm going to put my mail on vacation hold until I'm settled, then when I head down to Buffalo to pick up boxes being sent to me, get a PO Box. That way I have a tangible U.S. address to have packages/boxes sent to, as well, since some of my possessions will follow by mail.

Phone companies. Verizon doesn't exist in Canada. 415 is an international number for a Canadian phone to call. Which means I need to get a local number, except that I don't want to lose a number I've had for 11 years; answer, either get a Canadian phone and turn the Verizon one into a pay-as-you-go, using it only when I need it, or make the 415 number a Vonage number and just forward it to my Canadian phone. Still figuring that one out.

Car exporting. I have to get daytime running lights to be registered in Canada, and I have to figure out what import duties I'll pay (let me tell you I don't like paying import duties on a car I've owned for years! It's not like it's a new car I zipped over the border to buy to cheat Revenue Canada, it's something I've been driving since 2006!). I also need to get a recall clearance letter from Honda, but that can only be dated fewer than 30 days before I cross the border. I expect to hit the border around the 12th of January; since Christmas and New Year's fall in the 30 days before that, I'm going to have to order it as soon as possible and HOPE Honda doesn't slow down in the final weeks of the year...

Social Security. I just became a U.S. citizen and still have a social security card that says "valid for work with INS authorization only." I have to get that fixed before I go; getting new cards for new citizens need to be done in person, so can't be done by mail from Canada.

Health insurance. My CalCobra won't cover me once I leave California as a resident. I need to get Blue Shield to cover me until my Ontario health plan kicks in, but it'll have to start even earlier, as of the day I drive out of California.

Clearance letters. I need letters from everyone - the DMV, my insurance company, etc, to smooth the process of getting drivers' insurance and the such in Ontario.

And that's not even counting the normal moving procedures of remembering to cancel all the utilities, doing the packing, cleaning, landlord walk-thru, etc...

It didn't seem this difficult when I moved here 11 years ago.

11 years later...

Just over 11 years ago, I decided to move to the San Francisco Bay Area from Edmonton, Alberta.

In a little less than two months, I move back to Canada (this time to Toronto).

There are many too many reasons for it to go into, but that's not really the reason for this blog. 

The move here produced a scrapbook that brings back many memories when I look at it - we took photos as we left and entered every state, we doubled back twice before we managed to get a shot of the "Half-way between North Pole and Equator!" sign along the highway, we giggled, we laughed, we made bad jokes, we took at least six roles of film each, and we saw sights we'd never seen before.

That was a 1,700-mile trip.

This time, because we are driving in January, we are taking a southern route to avoid the Winter weather. Whether we detour via Montreal on our way back (which will add two days to the trip, minimum) or head north gradually and cross at Port Huron/Sarnia, we don't know yet (that's a decision that will have to be made at least three days before we cross, since I have to fax the export paperwork for my car to the border 72 hours minimum before I cross). 

Currently, the route is tentatively abut 3,500 miles. 

Fortunately, we won't be working with old-style film this time, since the number of photos we'll be taking is likely to be much higher. :) And we are planning to make a few stops along the way - Grand Canyon at the very least, possibly Four Corners and Hoover Dam. 

Anyway. This blog will elaborate the process of the move leading up to it, the steps I'm taking, and I will try to update it every day along the way with photos, anecdotes, wacky stories and clichés. 

Right now I'm just divesting of possessions. I'm Freecycling like mad and giving away furniture to neighbours. It's hard to tell because most of what I'm getting rid of is inside cabinets, but I've got rid of a LOT of stuff and there's more to go. The furniture doesn't count - it's all still  here until mid- to late-December, but most of it has been claimed by friends & neighbours. 

The place will absolutely echo by the time I'm done...