bittersweet

I'm in Austin, TX this weekend. First I was in Harrisburg, packing up my sis's stuff. She transferred her residency to Houston, TX and didn't lose a year! She's transferring right in as chief resident (4th year). How divine is that? Now she'll only be 3 hours away from my dad, versus 23 hours. But now she'll be 20 some hours from me. You win some, you lose some. So anyway, I helped Es pack up her stuff because she was working til 6/30 (on call that weekend) and then had to be in her new apartment by 7/3. Her hours were so crazy. Even when she was "backup" on pager, she still had to go in. One night, she called to say she was done and that we can go out to dinner (when my dad was in town already). I got all dressed up and then just as she's pulling into the garage, she gets paged. Apparently a little 2 year old girl was running around and fell down some stairs or something while holding a toothbrush in her mouth. It wasn't a baby toothbrush either. So the dad cut off part of the toothbrush and the little girl was rushed to the hospital. Es said she had to cut into the little girl's neck to remove the head of the toothbrush. A toothbrush! You wouldn't think that would be very sharp and puncture your throat! So anyway, we couldn't go out to eat since my dad's truck was hitched to this big Uhaul and Es had to drive back to the hospital. What a life! I now understand one of the reasons doctors get paid so much once they're out of residency. They go through pure hell for those 3-10 years of residency.
Es was so lucky in finding a nice apartment online without ever having seen it! No floor plan. Just google maps and hearsay from friends. She really didn't have much choice, also because of having 2 dogs. One of the apartment complexes wouldn't take both dogs. So we packed up her stuff and loaded it into a Ford pick-up truck my dad rented that was towing a 12x6 UHaul trailer. Her stuff almost didn't fit. She had to leave behind her doggie door insert and some patio chairs. I also sold off two of her couches, lawnmower, lamp, and her guest bed. Thank you Craigslist! You sell it cheap enough, it goes! I actually sold the guest bed first. A family was moving from an apartment to a new house and looking for more furniture. The wife actually said she was looking for beds for the kids, but when she saw my posting, she thought it'd be nice to have a newer bed for her and her husband. When she and her husband came to pick up the bed, I asked her if she wanted couches too. I told her I already had an offer of 75 for the two, so if she wanted to beat that price, she could have them. She took them for 100 and also bought a lamp for 5 bucks. The kicker is that Es got the couches and the lamp free from a friend. The lawnmower was also a hand-me-down.
Back to the trip from Harrisburg to Houston. Not bad of a trip at all. My dad drove the pick-up the whole time. Es and I traded off driving her car - loaded down with her guitars, keyboard, miscellaneous stuff, and two dogs. Boy, those dogs were so good on the whole trip. My dog would have been getting antsy. But he's only a year and a half. Cous and Cory are like teenagers already - in dog years. We stayed in hotels on the way - one in Wytheville, VA and the other in Baton Rouge, LA. Thanks to my visa card points - free hotel nights. I forgot about the dogs though and didn't look into hotels that accepted pets. Cous and Cory had to spend those nights in Es' car. Can you believe it? Again, they were so well-behaved!
We arrived in Houston and found Es' apartment complex. Nice gated community. Interesting demographics. Very un-Harrisburg/Hershey and very un-Pittsburgh. Probably very un-Pennsylvania. Surprising enough, the apartment was pretty nice. A one bedroom with a little study connected to it. Nice sized living room, dining room, and kitchen. Nothing compared to owning an actual 3 bedroom house, but for 2 years, it'll be comfy. I hope.
I drove back to Austin with my dad on Saturday. Now I've been just taking it easy. Catching up on the internet (my sis didn't have her internet hooked up yet - we spent hours on the phone on the car trip to Houston yelling at AT&T because they couldn't hook up her internet until 7 business days later - not counting 7/4 and the weekends - AT&T entertainment said they could hook up the cable in 3 days, AT&T internet needed 7 days just to process the account information! Get it together AT&T!), enjoying Texas weather and getting some sun. The sad part is that I keep seeing little things here and there that remind me of my mom. I was cooking dinner and started getting teary-eyed because I thought, my mom should be standing here cooking. This is her kitchen, not mine. Earlier, I had been cleaning out one of the refrigerators because my dad turned it off to clean it and never got to it before he left for PA. So I was throwing stuff away and came upon my mom's stash of cake frosting and the little frosting flowers she was practicing making. They were so cute - little pink flowers and hearts. I hated throwing them away. I could picture Mom making them. Her hobby - cake decorating. She was so proud of her cakes. I still couldn't bear to throw it all away. How long does purple frosting last? Hopefully forever. I drove by Walgreens on the way to my dad's house and got teary-eyed, just remembering when I would take my mom to there or CVS to pick up her arthritis prescriptions.
My dad and I stopped by her grave today after the meeting so we could check on it. The gravestone must have just been installed. It's very nice. It says, "Precious in the sight of the Lord." I'm hoping that in a few weeks, the grass will have been planted and the grave area cleaned up. Then Es is supposed to help put some flowers in. Okay, now I'm getting weepy again so I'll type more some other time.