[continued from previous entry]
The day of the closing -- moving day -- started between 3 and 4 a.m., skidded by as if seriously cranked on methedrine. Intense, non-stop, but blessed with classically beautiful June weather, birds everywhere outside the house making music, hummingbirds stopping by the feeder for hits of sugar water. The moving truck pulled in somewhere around 8, three 20-or-so-year-olds carting most everything of mine out. With truck full, I led them first to storage compartment then to teeny flat in Montpelier that currently serves as my stateside base/flop. I'd hired someone to come out the house while I was in town with the moving dudes to start cleaning the place, wanting to leave it as close to spotless as possible for the new resident. The new resident was using the same moving company -- the very same crew, turned out -- so I had time to go back and finish up at the house before her stuff arrived. Found the cleaning person there at work, running nearly an hour late. She turned out to be a very attractive older woman, we got talking, talked some more, kept talking, checking each other out. Her life was in transition (temporarily staying in a small room in her sister's house, with idea where she'd go from there), my life was in transition (heading to Montreal, then Madrid) -- at another time I'd have asked her out to see what would come of it. Instead I paid her excessively well, crammed all my remaining stuff into the car -- two carloads stuffed into one aging Subaru Forester, floor to ceiling packed with bags, boxes, loose clothing, rubbish to be tossed. No way to use rear-view mirror, no way to see out of any window except windshield and driver-side front -- stuck to backroads all the way into Montpelier to minimize the chance of an encounter with state police or local gendarmes.
The closing was at five, at a law office a few minutes walk from the new squat. Found the buyer there with her attorney and my jackass substitute realtor (who had said nothing to me about attending). He took advantage of the occasion to irritate me several times, me wiped and wanting nothing more than to be done and out of there. And 40 or so minutes later I was. Went directly to bank, tossed check at teller asking her to deposit it. (She did.) Went out, grabbed a copy of the New York Times, went to a pub, ordered a meal and a pint of Guinness, took a long time to eat, drink, do crossword (the Monday and sometimes Tuesday puzzles being the only ones I can actually finish on my own). Late afternoon sunlight slanted in around me, the pub slowly filled up as locals got out of work.
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Madrid, te amo
rws 5:14 PM [+]
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