It’s comin’ up on two years we’ve been here in the Golden Estates. I was drug here, kickin’ and screamin’ by a wife who said it’s time to sell our home and simplify. So, just a couple of months before all hell broke loose in the real estate markets, we sold our home and moved to a senior mobile home estates. It made Gorgeous look like she was the guru of California real estate.
One of us had to admit to being 55 or older,though, to qualify. I did so.
Somethin’ should have warned me about moving on April 1. First thing I did was fall off the pneumatic tail-gate at it’s apex. My wife described it much like a flounderin’ harbor seal out of water, fallin’ from a precipice. It felt more like a bundle of papers thrown from a movin’ deliver truck. This will not be the last time I shall fall durin’ my sojourn at The Ponds.
Tricky thing about falling from a truck . . . it pretty well dims any hopes of carryin’ anything for the next two or three days. I walked like I had osteoporosis and shuffled like a kid tryin’ to kill all the ants on the sidewalk. So, I relegated myself to being the supervisor of an unwilling regiment of misfits, misappropriates and misdemeanors. No one takes the move as seriously as the people being moved.
A grandson and friend came in from Arizona to help. Since he had grown up in the area, he couldn’t wait to be cut loose and party. A significant other of a daughter came too and proved to be the best worker of all of us. Like an ant, he was able to lift and maneuver a gazillion times his own weight. A couple more sons and a daughter-in-law rounded out the muddle of movers.
There are times in life you wish everything would be carried out in a strictly military fashion. If your idea of a highly disciplined work force is a grocery clerks union at bargaining time, then you’ve got an idea of how things went.
We have this 84 foot couch, or at least it looked that long when we tried to tip it up and get it in through the two logical doors. The only opening left was the door into the living room. But to get there, you had to carry the elongated couch up the carport, through the breeze-way, cantilever it over the slope, as two men swung it carefully back onto the walkway. From there, we made our way across the front of the house and onto the front patio. From thence we wiggled, wended and warped our way into the living room. Did I mention this particular couch was destined for the family room?
If you’ve not surmised it yet, our home is laid on the lot backwards. Now wait, it makes perfect sense. If the manufactured home had been placed properly on the lot, it would have been the only one on the block to be placed so. Instead, it was inverted so the living room and picture windows looked out on a 180 degree view of the valley. Yeah, we bought a house with a million dollar view. I’m waiting for the county to find a way to tax it. The downside is that our bedroom windows face out onto the street.
It’s seems like everyone had to leave at noon for somewhere. That left Gorgeous and me with the two guys from Arizona. Actually, things speeded-up a bit because of their willingness to work quickly to leave early. Amazingly, we were all moved in within the day. Of course, putting it all where we wanted it is a whole other story. In fact, I’ve still got two boxes in the storage shed holding treasures that may end up in the next garage sale.
Welcome to The Golden Ponds Senior Mobile Home Estates.
