Saying goodby to the garbage man and other stories.

If People magazine thinks Matthew Mcconaughey is the sexiest man alive it is only because they haven't met my garbage man.

Having followed his truck up and down the street for the last four years, Mo and I have come to know him quite well. Two years ago his wife had twins - a boy and a girl. (I can't believe how big they're getting!) He has a masters degree in bio-chemestry and a masters degree in education. He left teaching because he makes more mone and gets better benefits driving a garbage truck. Plus, it gives him time to think.

Plus, plus, he's gorgeous.

Today Mo decided that he wanted to give the garbage man a hat. We are getting ready to move and, despite the fact that we have neither found a new house or put ours on the market, Mo has decided that he needs to give some things away to help people remember him. Yesterday he wanted to give his friend Eddie Haskell a chair and I had to nix that but a hat to the garbage man sounded like a fine idea.

When we heard the truck we raced outside, hat in hand, to present the gift. Mo was richly repaid with a personal tour of the truck interior and tutorial on how to operate the hydrolic claw. Good stuff.

It made me realize just how hard it is to move. If saying goodbye to the garbage man is this hard I'm really not sure how I'm going to handle the next two months.

I thought that one way to make it easier would be to share my moving stories with you and that maybe you could share some of yours with me. Sound like fun?

I'll start:

My misson is to transform our home into a bland, soulless, your name here type of place. That means that the explosion at the crayola factory theme has to be toned down a bit.

I decided to start with the kitchen -- the room most in need of blandization, I disassembled the cabinetry and hit the paint store in seach of white. "No, not that white. I need a green based white. That's close but I really need a green based white that trends more towards yellow than blue. Now we're getting somewhere! Oh yeah -- you'd better give me some primer too. Lots of primer."

The next morning was a little cloudy so I laid out the cabinet doors on the floor of the garage and put down a coat of primer. Later I added another coat. What could possibly go wrong?

So what went wrong? Biscuit, the non-murderous hunter cat brought a live bird into the garage, that's what. Release. Catch. Release. Catch. It took a few minutes for me to grope through the fur and feathers to hit the garage door opener. That startled Biscuit and the bird made a break for it. I scooped up the cat and put her in the house. The bird landed on the driveway to collect itself. After a few minutes it peep-peeped and flew away.

A happy ending expect for my cabinets. Luckily they were nearly dry so I was able to dust them off with only a little damage. I put down another coat of primer for good measure.

Finally finished with stage one I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down to admire my handiwork when Mo wanders in, arms akimbo, takes a look at the cabinet doors and says in total seriousness "Mom. That color is hideous."

Today was a bit better.

But I'm really going to miss my garbage man.