So, we made a trip back across the pond briefly.
It was a stressful trip and filled with things that just kept going wrong, wrong, wrong!
Instead of getting the shorter 7 hour flight into Chicago, we had to fly into Dallas, which was a 10 hour flight. We then had to catch a 2 hour flight into Fort Wayne, instead of the 40 minute flight into Chicago. So, this was us in the Dallas airport.
We made it to our house really late at night. We found out immediately that we did not have any water. When we first moved to the UK, it took me some time to get the bills automatically paid. I had meant to do it before we left, but I was not able to since we received a 5 hour notice that we were leaving. So, we had our water turned off for non-payment. I contacted the water company and got it all straightened out as soon as I could. I then had our water bills automatically deducted from our account. In the meantime, they did not return to my house to turn the water back on. Adding to this frustration is the calls that I would occasionally receive from the water company asking if they could come and inspect my water meter (which is inside my home) because they were afraid that it was broken. After being on hold as both the emergency costumer service department and then the serviceman ‘investigated’ my problem, my water was turned back on by early Sunday afternoon.
The rest of the day went great. My Fabulous Mother In Law drove in and she brought our little dog, Cricket. I also found one of our kitties, our tuxedo kitty, Tux. No only did he remember us, he was thrilled to see us. He licked us, rubbed us and even nipped at us a little as to scold us for being gone so long! Sadly, we did not find our other kitty, Coco. It seems that she has been forcibly adopted by another family. The neighbor that had been taking care of her noticed that one day she arrived with a collar on. They thought it strange and removed it. When she was again gone for a long time, they called the vet number on the collar to explain that they were caring for her during my absence and that she was microchipped. The vet cited privacy laws and would not share where she was, they said they would contact the new owners with the information and if they choose to contact my neighbors it was their choice.
While I am happy that she is obviously in a happy home, I am very bitter how it occurred and my inability to contact them to at least see her once more. I miss my dear, wiggly-butt, Coco kitty.
The packers were scheduled to show up the day after Memorial Day. They arrived over a week later then scheduled. This caused us to have to separate. Super Handsome took Oldest Son home to England on Sunday, Oldest Son had a test that he could not miss.
When we were getting ready to leave, we could not find the all important backpack that contained our passports, Super Handsome’s Ipad, his super expensive ear phones, our newly purchased Game of Thrones on blue ray.... it turned out that the donation company that had come to pick up things, took the backpack, even though I told them no and moved it out of the room. The backpack, ipad and passports were recovered. The earphones, US money and the Blue rays were not.
Super Handsome left and I soldiered on. The packers came and the house was packed up and things were put into storage and shipped to France. I did what I could and when I left, there were still a lot of loose ends. I am working to get them taken care of the best that I can from here.
I was really glad to do what I could to get the Fort Wayne portion of our lives wrapped up. I am ready to stop living with one foot here and one foot there. I am looking forward to just having France to worry about in the future!
