My sympathies to all my old friends in the Pacific Northwest.  Snow, cold, and gray.  The commute to work would have been horrible if we had still been living there--I definitely wouldn't have been biking in it.

I hope you won't take this journal entry the wrong way.  Sure, I'm enjoying the sun, warm temperature, and all the light in Arizona.  I'm sure if we're still here in summer, I'll be cursing the heat.  Honestly, we picked the right winter for being in Arizona.  And I'll be thankful for it while it lasts.

Stay warm and dry y'all.

Finally obtained some Internet access (at a library) and here I am with a quick update. 

OryCon was a welcome break to packing.  Saying goodbye was a little more awkward than I had expected.  Didn't seem like we were leaving at all, seemed like there would be another Con around the corner and we'd be seeing these very same people.  There is a good chance that we will be seeing them at a Con, but we are now at the opposite end of the country.  Still missed out on seeing a lot of people at the convention, in particular some fellow Eugene residents.  Where the hell was everyone?  It was great to attend devonmonk 's book launch party.  We got a picture and autograph and everything!

The movers that loaded the piano and most of the boxes on Monday morning were great.  Seemed like we might be on the road by noon.  Alas, the last ten percent plus the cleaning took hours.  If frightens me to think of how long it would have been without some wonderful help from floatingtide .  She was great.  In fact, when we would shout at the ceiling "Whose idea was this anyway?" she said we could blame her only after she was gone and we were on the road.  Well, we never had the heart to blame the idea on her.

We didn't get on the road until four in the afternoon.  The apartment didn't get a thorough cleaning so we don't expect much back in the way of the deposit.  We drove until Reno, Nevada where we stayed with a friend and former Wordo, Brian Wade.  We got there around one or two in the morning.  It was great to visit with Brian for awhile and I would never regret that, even though we got a late start on Tuesday morning.

We drove through the Nevada desert on Tuesday, through obnoxious Las Vegas lit up in the night, through the Hoover Dam.  Security is tight at the Hoover Dam.  We had to open the back and be inspected before driving over the damn.  I'll always remember the line from the security officer as he points his flashing light at our stacks of boxes and junk (already informed that we were moving) and says, "So, what do you have in here?" 

We arrived in Phoenix at two am Wednesday morning.  X and I switched driving every two hours.  Sometimes a little longer.  This was a great way to do it.  We were able to get some sleep between shifts.  And to comfort the cats.

The cats, in fact, seemed to know that we had reached the end of the road at my brother's place in Chandler.  Back in Reno, when we let them out at Brian's place they had been freaked and cautious.  In Chandler, they relaxed.  They were a little more normal.  Some how they knew by our body language that we had arrived.  They no longer had to ride in a carrier in a cab of a truck.

We caught up on sleep over the next couple of days.  Felt some jet lag on Thanksgiving.  Mom is doing well and we're ready to help out in any way needed.

Today is Sunday.  Tomorrow is Monday.  X will be going to a temp agency tomorrow and I'll be writing in the morning.  It will be good to get back into some kind of routine.

More to report later!

Looks like we're moving to Arizona (Phoenix area) in a few weeks, right after Orycon.  That's the short version. 

It's like this: one day at the end of September my mom fainted outside and hit her head.  She's in her seventies and head injuries can be problematic for anyone of any age.  I talked to her on the phone not long after the accident and she sounds fine.  Since then, she's gone into occupational therapy and released.  She walks on her own power.  She talks fine.  There is a problem with memory and also her motivation is low.  It's hard to get her up and going to do anything--this could be part of the head injury or a depression thing, or probably a bit of both.  She won't be able to drive.

So she needs round the clock observation because of the memory problems and in case she faints again.  Now I have a brother down there and aunts and uncles.  My brother has been great dealing with all this and probably overwhelmed.  There's some more big stuff down the road.  The doctors have suggested assisted living care, so that means we'll need to move our mom out of her apartment eventually.  Help would be greatly appreciated to everyone down there because it's hard to have someone there with mom all hours of the day (especially during the day working hours).  My brother stays at mom's every night.

One option for me and Ximena was one or both of us fly down there and stay a few weeks, but then we'd have to come back for our jobs.  The other option was to bite the bullet and start our move early, meaning a move to the Twin Cities via Arizona.  We're moving with as little as possible (but we'll still need an U-haul or some such vehicle) and we can stay at my brother's apartment.  We won't have to pay rent, so our expenses will be low.  We'll stay until March.  We'll get part time jobs at the very least.  We'll want to save up some money for the move to the  Twin Cities.  I thought the second option would be best since my brother (and mom) will need help beyond a simple few weeks.

As long as our expenses are low I think this should work.  All the moving makes it seem like it would be more expensive but with flying back and forth and missed work time and an Oregon apartment needing a rent payment, well, it doesn't seem all that expensive.  I also have an added problem of being summoned for jury duty on November 5.  Oh boy.

It's been a long week as we agonized over this decision.  When we finally made a decision I felt the weight off my shoulders.  Now we're doing something and we have a plan.

We were going to cancel out of Orycon, but this is our last and since we're moving in three weeks there's not a lot of time to see everyone before we go.  We'll go to Orycon, move on the Monday afterwards, be in Arizona the day before Thanksgiving.

As for OryCon, we'll be getting up there early Saturday morning so we'll have just two days of the con.  Hope to see you there!

It will be a busy few weeks with packing and getting rid of the non-essentials.  It's all scary and exciting at the same time, really.  We really want to help my brother out.  In the back of mind I keep thinking my mom is fine and what is wrong with her are things I have no power to fix.  That may sound cold and blunt.  Or I'm too far away from the situation.  What we do know is that we can help my brother out.  That at least I can do.