Transition

We moved Meredith (Lori's Mom) to an assisted living home this week. Meredith had been diligently downsizing for quite some time in anticipation. An apartment had become available a week or so ago...perhaps not the one she wanted, but she deemed it satisfactory 'temporarily'.

Monday Lori's brother Ivan, Lori's friend Mary, Meredith and I started the big move. Lori and her Mom attended to downsizing details. Ivan and I loaded the furniture making the move. All in all things went very well. Some of the furniture was heavy, but not so heavy we could not move it. Meredith moved to the new apartment with the first trip. First and most important item in was her Couch...her nest is how she refers to it. The last item of furniture to be loaded was the sewing cabinet Lori's Dad had built. This went to Sister Joyce Wednesday afternoon. We loaded up the roll top desk into Ivan's van along with most of the things related to genealogy. The huge (analog) TV went to Mary for her kindergarten classroom. We were tired, but everyone seemed happy with the move.

Tuesday Lori and I went back to the old apartment to do the finishing touches. We sold the bedroom suite to an antique dealer. Then we started the final cleaning touches. I made several trips to Goodwill with unneeded items, while Lori sorted things...we filled the trash bins available to us (two smallish bins) and hauled some more to the dumpster at the Middle School. Lori and I both worked harder Tuesday than we did Monday, surprisingly.

Wednesday we did the Final final cleaning and carting. We had a nice visit with Joyce when we delivered the sewing cabinet to her. It looks good in it's new home.

Setting up DSL for Meredith took some extra time. First I had to learn how to get to the right people answering questions to a computer. I more or less got that handled. Then a tech lady led me through the procedure, and after about an hour of trying this and that we had success!

Until I hung up the phone. The DSL disconnected as well! So back to talking to the computer...answered something wrong and went a long way the wrong way to a dead end. So I tried one more time! I carefully answered the questions and finally reached another tech lady...who promptly told me she could not help! But who also directed me to someone who could.

He and I went through the whole procedure again...but first he had to act like a jerk. He asked me what color the lights on the DSL modem were...and when I started to tell him, he shouted at me I NEED YOU TO ACTUALLY GO OVER AND LOOK AT THE MODEM! (I was!) With some difficulty I did Not react to his disrespect. I decided not to make his problem my problem... Finally we discovered the problem. I had plugged the DSL into the filter but not the phone! I thought the DSL was what needed filtering, but no, it is the phone that needs filtering. I believe we could have saved a half hour (and a whole bunch of shouting) if he would have listened to what I was trying to tell him. I guess the only way to do things is to go through the Whole procedure everytime...obviously the customer doesn't have any important information!

But DSL is up and running and as I type this Meredith's new cell phone is charging so maybe tomorrow I can deal with another AT&T helper....

Meredith is enjoying her new surroundings and getting acquainted with the other residents.

I believe this will prove to be a beneficial transition.