Valentine’s Day…That’s the One With Arrows, Right?

I was living with my sister and her husband when I bought my current house. I closed on a Thursday in late October; my brother-in-law, who literally did a lot of the heavy lifting, told me that he would move me into my home the following Tuesday.

I was fine with this.

Overnight, the power went out. Not just at my sister’s house; it was out all over town.

My brother-in-law woke up on Friday morning and discovered that he wasn’t going to be able to work—not at home, and not at his workplace, because of the power outage. He came home at 8 am and announced, “I’m moving you today.”

I threw things in boxes all day, while Adam and an assortment of draftees (also presumably unable to work because of the power outage) loaded up his minivan and pickup truck and hauled my things to the new house. They worked all day Friday and Saturday.

Saturday was Halloween night, and it was the first night I spent in my new home. My sister had power by Saturday night. I did not. I spent the spooky holiday of Halloween in my home in the dark.

It was an omen; a sign of things to come, and I should have caught it.

Thanksgiving was not normal, because of COVID. We did not travel, like we normally would have, to spend Thanksgiving with my parents and my brother. But—again, because Adam and I were both off work—we did travel. We went to Alabama to retrieve my things that I had left there in storage. We drove down in a rented economy car and back in a rented truck.

Rented trucks, as it turned out, were a hot commodity by Thanksgiving, 2020. I had reserved mine far in advance, so I didn’t realize what a rare thing it was. When we saw the Budget rental truck pull up at a shopping center on Black Friday, we thought “Now that’s the way to Christmas shop!” Then a brown-uniformed UPS driver got out, picked up a load of packages from one of the stores, and went on to the next store. “Of course!” we realized. “Christmas season plus COVID equals massive demand for package delivery services!” Every 15-foot box truck in America, it seemed, had been rented by UPS or FedEx or DHL or the Postal Service to try to deal with the uptick in demand for delivery. I found this out when I went to pick up my 20-foot rental truck, and waited while a parade of foot traffic and phone callers discovered that if they hadn’t made a reservation a month earlier, there were no trucks or trailers of any size to be had in all of north Alabama.

So, that was what I had to be thankful for, my first Thanksgiving in my new home (which I did not actually spend in my new home): a twenty-foot UHaul. Not the usual thing, but one needs what one needs.

For Christmas, I was planning to travel again. My daughter had gone at the beginning of Christmas break to visit her dad, and I was picking her up in Alabama on Christmas day. Christmas Eve, I dropped off the dog with my sister and turned in early, alone in my empty house, planning to leave first thing the next morning. But I had difficulty falling asleep early, so I was still awake at 11:30…

…When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

The matter was that the neighbor’s fir tree had fallen onto my house.

I expect to hear things on my roof on Christmas Eve…but not that!

New Year’s Eve was so quiet and calm that I honestly wonder if it truly counts as a holiday. If so, it may be my new favorite. It was the first holiday in my new home to be free from strange mishaps and unusual goings-on. But it’s almost February, and that means Valentine’s Day is coming. I have to say, the way holidays seem to go in this house, I’m a little concerned.

Isn’t Valentine’s Day the one with the arrows?

Stay tuned; whatever happens, I’m sure I’ll just love it!