Authors: Fay Jacobs
Time Fries! (26 page)
Okay, first things first, we have to sell our house and its three quarters of an acre. The realtor said “You've got to unclutter this place and make it seem like a model home. All those bright colored walls have to go. The personal pictures, gone! Get rid of everything on the kitchen counter!”
Okay, maybe the place did look a little like Spencer's Gifts after a hurricane, but unclutter completely? We spent the first two weeks of June painting the walls beige. We got our recommended 10,000 steps a day in, much of it up and down ladders. Gone are the flashy colors and walls full of family photos and memorabilia. Missing are the Schnauzer statues and geegaws. All the walls are now Sherman Williams Latte. And trust me, you need a double shot latte just to stay out of a coma in here. And we installed fresh, neutral blah carpet to go with the neutral blah walls.
And clean! You could do an appendectomy on the kitchen counter. And bland! It's like living at the Days Inn, which wouldn't be bad if we had room service. And of course, we've been afraid to put down a glass for fear of making a ring on the coffee table. Listing and showing a home is a special kind of hell.
So we moved into the RV on the driveway. Seriously, it was our only choice.
For one thing, every time the house was shown, we'd leave and shop for things for the new house. Four thousand dollars' worth of appliances later, it had to stop. Secondly, it's hard to actually live in a house on the market. We'd be eating lunch, a realtor would call, and unless we wanted the place to look like we fled one step ahead of the mob, it took a frantic effort to make the place pristine. Living in the RV was just easier.
And “Let there be light!” Real estate etiquette says a home on the market should glow. Every time we exited it was like a
bonfire, visible from the space station. You could have a Nats game in there. It was our own personal Motel 6. We'll leave the light on for ya. Also, the electric bill.
Blessedly, by the end of July, we had a contract on the old house and were up to our elbows spackling and painting the new one. We'd downsized by way of a yard sale, unloading Harry Potter CDs, Billy Joel and Beach Boys on vinyl, decades-old furniture (“The 80s called and they want your coffee table back”), the gently used lawn mower and carpet steamer, the queen bed that won't fit in the new guest compartment and much more. A local thrift shop and the dump benefitted from leftovers.
At deadline, as I sit typing in my office devoid of most books and all personality, we still own more assets than will squeeze into our new house. Another sale is pending. Books, posters and albums I held as essential two months ago, now scream “What were you thinking???” Self-help manuals like
Fence and Deck Plans
or
Landscaping Solutions
gotta go. Frankly, I think we chose the perfect landscaping solution. It's somebody else's problem.
I am keeping the book
1000 Places to See Before You Die
and
Fodor's Essential USA
. As I write, we are about to leave for a vacation in the RV (our house on wheels), with plans to move into the new house (technically also a house with wheels, but one with a skirt around the perimeter) in early September.
We have miles to go (both figuratively and literally) before we sleep in the new place. But I am already using the community pool and clubhouse exercise equipment. Both modes of downsizing are going full speed ahead. And I pray we will come through the move two clothing sizes lower with a home that looks less like
Sordid Lives
and more like a sophisticated boutique hotel suite. I shall keep you posted.
In the meantime, if you need a 1970s chrome coffee table, the 1982 version of Trivial Pursuit, a Ouija board, a copy of Khalil Gibran's
The Prophet
, or Streisand on vinyl, you're too late. Downsizing can be painful.
Tuesday, July 30
Off to Canada we go! Fought with and cursed the Rand McNally GPS all morning Monday until we stopped in Poughkeepsie to buy a Garmin.
Bonnie, unwilling to give up on her special RV GPS kept it on while we learned to use the Garmin. I didn't know whether I was hearing voices or it was just the competing GPS women. Finally I had to sit on one device to muffle the arguing and there are a lot of jokes I could make here about pulling directions out of my ass, but I will refrain.
After about an hour of this insanity Bonnie hollered “For pity's sake, don't we have a map???” and I went to see if we had one of those antique travel thingies. My mate was not amused when I asked if she wanted the one on parchment or carbon paper.
Drove through the Adirondacks and across the border into Canada, where this time they did not question the amount of liquor we were carrying for personal consumption. I guess they care less about boozehounds in Quebec Province than they did last summer in New Brunswick. Got to the campground by 7 p.m. and grilled steaks on the George Foreman, sipping a 1991 Châteauneuf-du-Pape. I love campingâ¦
This morning we drove to the old port and old city in Montreal. Walked and walked all over this vibrant, gorgeous city, then took a double decker Grey Line tourâ¦this place is full of public art and bicycles, plus galleries, bistros, and shopping, shopping, shopping. We took photos of the stuff we might have bought if we weren't moving to a tiny house.
After sightseeing all day today, we've decided to go on a jet boat through the St. Lawrence River rapids tomorrow. We've heard it's wet but not scary. Hope so. I generally avoid activities that advise you to bring along a change of clothes.
Thursday, August 1
No, we did not drown on the rapids. Just had no internet connection when we got back..
The jet boat was fantasticâhuge rapids at high speeds. Like a combination rollercoaster and sinus wash. Drenched and laughing all the way. That we were the oldest people on board both worried and pleased me.
Later we visited Le Village, the gay part of town. “Look at those pink balls!” said Bonnie, something in her tone causing me to respond “Excuuuse me?”
Rounding the corner we saw an avenue with strings of pink plastic balls strung high over the street for blocks and blocks on end. This was clearly the gaycation part of our trip, where we had a great lunch, people watched and loved that the window of the store across the street featured two buff male mannequins wearing only pink speedos. And this was an eyeglass store.
Today we are off to the Museum des Beaux-Arts for a Chihuly glass exhibit.
Saturday, August secondish
Yesterday, in addition to the stunning museum exhibit in Vieux Quebec (Old city), we schlepped up and down miles of ramparts along the old fortified area, sipped Kir Royale at an outdoor café across from the magnificent Fairmont Le Château Frontenac (built by the Canadian railroad company in 1899) and dined on Quebec meat pies at Restaurant Aux Anciens Canadiens. By the time we got off the ramparts and seated for dinner, we felt like those anciens Canadians.
Lumbering into the campground here in Quebec, we were assigned a site directly overlooking the St. Lawrence. Out the back window of the RV we have the lazily moving waterway, hawks flying and black squirrels leaping. To the side Fay and Bonnie tried to light a campfire. I should have listened more in Girl Scouts instead of scouting the other scouts. We finally got it done, but it required burning all the magazines we had on board. Thankfully, sparks flew before my mate started eyeing
copies of
For Frying Out Loud
.
This trip, our longest ever, has been, by necessity, different. We're cooking more in the RV since traveling for a month is no two week vacation and we're trying to stay out of debtor's prison. Luckily we have a grill and don't have to count on our suspect campfire girl skills.
Today, on a tip from the book
1000 Places to See Before You Die
, we drove to La Malbaie, in the mountains. The narrow, impossibly steep road up was so long and winding, I hoped it would not be a place we'd see right before we died.
At the summit we found yet another fairytale Fairmont Chateau with turrets and battlements and all manner of gables and things. Even though the weather turned nasty, with heavy rain, the vistas of the mountains running down to the river, socked-in with low-hanging clouds, provided quite a show. In just a few weeks they will start to get snowâ22 feet each winter.
Then, on our way back to the campsite, we stopped at Chute Montmorency, a waterfall that is dramatically taller than Niagara Falls and ringed by a series of walkways. If the thundering falls doesn't take your breath away then the walk from the parking lot up to it will. We logged about a mile on the path and stairs up, crossed the falls on the somewhat scary footbridge and then headed down to the bottom via a series of switchback stairways. They reminded me of some kind of torture rack from the film
Bridge on the River Kwai
. I'd like to point out that once again we seemed to be the oldest people enjoying this particular adventure.
Me, at the bottom, panting like a St. Bernard: “I'd pay $12 not to have to walk back up.”
Bonnie: “Why $12?”
Me: “That's what the tram back up costs.”
We took the tram. Early night tonight. I think I have a full-body sprain.
August third or fourth, maybe
Driving eight hours today from Quebec to New Brunswick,
along the St. Lawrence, then inland. Amazing mountain and lake views. Passed the town of Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, the only municipality in North America with exclamation points in its name. Nobody seems to know from whence came the name.
From Ha! Ha! we passed a sign for the New Brunswick Potato Museum and I made Bonnie stop. Now she's seriously questioning taking me cross country.
We did pass up stops in towns featuring the world's largest axe and the site of the last official duel in North America. So many largests and lasts, so little time.
August 7
Made it to Fundy Park where we climbed down another ridiculous series of staircases to get to the floor of the bay, at low tide, where the gigantic 40-70 foot Hopewell Rocks stood exposed. These giant sculptures were formed by ages and ages of the largest tidal changes in the world. And it's amazing how fast you can climb back up those stairs when that huge tide starts coming back in.
August 8 (for a full report, turn the page)...