When through fiery trials, I cause thee to come...

We’re moving on Friday, si Dios quiere. For those keeping score, it’s move #6 of our ten-year marriage, move #4 of Edith’s seven years, and depending on how you count, move #12, 13 or 14 for me since graduating from college fourteen years ago—and it was starting to feel suspiciously easy by our standards.

Sure, Tom was scheduled to be out of the country and away from all communication technologies for the ten days before the move. The temperatures were forecast to be about 15 degrees above normal for the same period. We had limited childcare (enough to make the driving onerous without providing many free hours between drop-off and pick-up), and the girls are at an age where they fight constantly. But except the last piece, most of that was within the bounds of our previous moving adventures.

Tom did a bunch of packing and logistical work before leaving the country, the movers were scheduled to pack all the breakables, and I seemed to be making slow but steady headway on the rest. It looked like we might be set to go by the time the truck arrived this Friday, all with relatively little pain.

That was unacceptable to the moving gods.

It appears that one must choose a moving scenario commensurate with one’s experience level for it to count towards one's Final Moving Score in the great cosmic scheme.

So first we tried a day in the ER, after a nighttime bout of pain in the right flank on an order that I was worried would make me pass out, leaving two sleeping children with no conscious adult. But I didn’t have anyone to call; not only Tom, but all our friends seems to be out of town, if not out of the country. The next morning the acute pain returned, and I got Edith to camp and Alice to daycare before driving myself to the doctor, who sent me to the hospital. A day of tests, and fortunately it turned out not to be appendicitis, ectopic pregnancy, ovarian cysts, or anything else requiring surgery. Of course not: Surgery presumably would be a big enough interruption to halt the regularly scheduled move.

Instead, a clean urine test, an unenlightening blood test, a day of calling people from the ER to find back-up childcare, a CT scan, and seven hours later, I was diagnosed with a renal infection easily treatable with antibiotics, allowing me to walk out the door at 5pm, pick up both kids from their respective caretakers, and (so the moving gods implied) resume with the regularly scheduled list of moving tasks.

But it turns out one day lost isn’t a sufficient challenge at our level in the moving game either.

So what about…a wildfire? an emergency evacuation of the town at 3 a.m.? sleeping on the office floor with the kids? record-breaking temperatures? two days displaced with sleepless, strung-out children? watching the fires grow from one’s street corner?

FYI, all this is a possibility when you hit Level 6 in the Family Moving Game.

Not sure if there are any curve balls left this week. Stay tuned. 

Please hold a good thought for those fighting fires in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.  Oh, and if Florida or the Upper Midwest wants to send any deluges, we’ll gladly swap you for bright sun, 100 degrees, and 10% humidity. Thanks for all the concern and kind words from far and near.

Pictures taken from our block on Day 3 of the fire, after we were allowed to return home, during a break in the smoky haze: