Tessa comes back to Texas

It has been another long while since I posted. Jamie, Tessa and I just got back from moving Tessa from Nashville to Houston. I'm so glad she's back with family but am sad that we are moving in a little more than week. Tessa is in the process of moving in with Jamie.

Tessa came home to visit and realized that it is too much of a financial struggle right now to go to school and pay rent, etc., at the same time. Her rent and utilities are too high and even though she has a roommate, the roommate travels quite a bit and doesn't want to help with utilities. So Tessa decided during her visit to come back. It had more to do with the fact that I can't really afford to her financially anymore, so she really didn't have a choice. It was sad for her and for me, too, because I know how much she loves Nashville and how many great friends she has made there. But the school choices there aren't so good for what she wants to do. Tessa flew back to Nashville last week and Jamie and I flew there on Monday to help her pack and get ready. We planned to load up her personal belongings - her clothes, keyboard, amp, mandolin, shoes, handbags, etc., into her car - as much as we could fit and make the drive back to Houston. She planned to give her bedroom furniture to a friend. We were packed full to the top of the trunk and half the backseat. I mentioned more than once how fortunate it is that she has a bigger 4-door car with a full backseat.

Speaking of the car, a 1993 Mazda 929 with only one owner (a family member) prior to Tessa getting it: the tires are only a little over a year old and she hasn't driven the car more than about 3,000 miles in the last year. The wheels are new, too, and the battery is fairly new. She walked most places during her time in Nashville so it wasn't driven much. During the winter break last year when she was home, someone broke a back window and stole her radio/cd player and antenna, so we knew we wouldn't have music or radio during the trip. She had the window replaced when she got back from winter break. Together, we decided that we would get the oil changed and all the fluid levels and belts checked, etc. We had lots of errands to run on Monday after Jamie and I arrived. Tessa had been telling me all along that her car was running poorly and I was worried about it making the 800 mile trip from Nashville to Houston. I noticed that, as we were driving around, the car shimmied when it reached 55 mph or above. I also noticed that the a/c wasn't working very well, and I was stuck in the backseat trying to catch a breath of air. So we hurried through the list of errands, which included lunch at Calypso Cafe. We had the oil changed at a Firestone (I had a coupon for $14.99) and while we waited, we went to McKay's bookstore, a great store with tons of used books. I bought 8 books - 6 for me and 1 for Jamie and 1 for Tessa, for a little over $8. When we returned to the Firestone to pickup the car, the guys said the tires were shot and not road worthy, dry rotted, down to the last of their useful life. I told him we just bought those about 18 months ago and they didn't have more than 20,000 miles (they actually had 21,000 miles on them). The tires were higher-end Michelins with an 80,000 mile warranty and were expensive! We hurried out of there, thinking that the guys were trying to sham us, but headed to the closest Discount Tire (25 miles away) to have them checked. The tires weren't dry-rotted but they were completely worn down. All the tire guys came out to look at 80,000 mile Michelins worn to the nub at 21,000 miles. They gave me a $300 credit and I paid $80 to have a new set of 70,000 mile tires installed. The last two errands for the evening before heading off to a fine dinner at Wendy's was to pickup a can of freon with a guage so we could re-charge the a/c (keeping fingers crossed that it fixed the problem) and find a Goodwill or other drop box so we could donate 4 bags of clothes and shoes, etc. We couldn't find the freon, but finally found a goodwill office and put the bags on the front walk. There wasn't a donation box. I hope they picked up the clothes.

The next morning, we packed up the car and managed to fit everything in except a few clothes hangers. While I had my second weekly phone session with my new therapist (another story), Jamie and Tessa ran out to find some freon and to see if Tessa could sell some of her used textbooks. Jamie recharged the a/c herself. I was amazed at how much she has learned about cars from watching her Dad over the years. Her knowledge was to come in handy on the trip. The freon did the trick and we still had half a can left, so we tucked it in among the overstuffed car and hit the road, the four of us together - Jamie, Tessa, me and Margot, Tessa's kitten. Up to this point, I had been pretty stressed with trying to get everything done and watching my budget for the trip fly out the window. But my therapist helped me step back and realize that we could have lots of fun on the road trip. We drove until late afternoon and in Arkansas, decided to leave I30 and head north toward Hot Springs. I thought that, even though it wasn't in my budget, we should have some relaxed fun as this may be the last time the 3 of us can do something like this for a while. We stayed downtown at the Park Hotel and walked around looking at the bath houses and sticking our hands and feet in the (very) hot springs in various locations around town. We thought about trying to sneak Margot in but decided to just pay the pet deposit. I'm glad we did because the a/c wasn't working and they had to come check it out. We were so hot from walking around town (102 degrees/80% humidity) and when we got back that evening and the room was still stifling hot, it seemed that we had made a bad decision. But eventually, the a/c started working. We had dinner at a little place called Angel's. I think between us we drank about 2 gallons of water.

We got up early the next morning and totally repacked the car because there wasn't enough room in the backseat. We headed out again. The drive back to I30 (down a different highway) was even more beautiful than the day before. We laughed and had a lot of fun along the way. We stopped for ice cream twice. Ice cream and road trips go hand-in-hand. I checked the mileage after our first fillup and was disappointed to find that the car only got 16 mpg. The car was running a little sluggishly and knocking a little, but I remembered that it ran on premium unleaded instead of regular, so at the next fillup, I bought the premium. It ran a little better after that and got 18 mpg. After the second full tank of premium, it ran great and averaged 19 mpg. Tessa had been buying regular unleaded all year, too.

We got back to Houston just in time for 5 o'clock traffic, but it wasn't so bad. We went straight to Jamie's so we could unload the car and introduce Margot to Diego, Little Dog and P-Pants. P-Pants hissed and growled, Margot hissed and growled and walked around with a permanent arch in her back and hair sticking up all over, Little Dog jumped around and barked at it all and Diego just plopped down right in front of Margot and acted like he'd known her forever. He's such a great dog.

Tessa and I met David halfway and we each went home. Yesterday, David picked up the trailer from storage and we took Tessa's furniture to her. She decided to take Mother's desk/dresser, my old pink sewing machine and the full size four-poster bed, and Jamie decided she wanted the shabby chic ladder back chairs for her atrium. We also took AJ's bar b que pit to him since it was still at our house. On the trip over with the furniture, David and I ran out of gas (arrgh, I was so mad and frustrated and tired, hot, hungry and thirsty). Jamie and Tessa came to get me and we picked up a gas can and some gas (I figure this gas cost me $11 a gallon after paying for the gas can) and some pizzas for dinner. We unloaded everything and put together the bed, etc., and got home about midnight last night.

At least we have made some headway toward our downsizing prior to our move on August 11. We sold a sofa, two big chairs, two tvs and a side table. We donated the proceeds to the Tessa-starts-over fund and it went toward her late rent on her old apartment in Nashville. We have a Uhaul trucked reserved for August 11 for our move. I can't figure out why we always end up moving during the hottest time of the year.