Sunday, September 26, 1999 · Day 809. Four days to go.

Typing this on Kerri's computer, at Kerri's kitchen table, with Kerri's coffee. Ours went in a box a week ago.

We passed the housing inspection Friday. The inspector ran his finger along the top of the refrigerator and inside the oven and looked at the window tracks with a flashlight and then signed the paper, and I went out to the car and cried, which seems to be my main hobby this month. The house is somebody else's now. A family from San Diego gets it next week. I left them a note on the counter: where the snakes like to sit, which outlet trips the breaker, and that the lady two doors down makes the best red rice on the island and they should be nice to her.

We're at the Navy Lodge again, same as when we came. Same kind of room. Same kitchenette. The kids think it's a vacation. Taylor is six and a half, and doesn't remember the first time we were here, when she asked me every day when we were going home. Max was fifteen months old and screamed from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

This morning we went to Mass with the Estrellas one last time, and then to Auntie Nieves's for lunch, and Fred stood up and said a few words, and I'm not going to try to write them down because I'll get them wrong. Then Andy said a few words and got about four into them. Max fell asleep on Auntie's lap, same as at the first fiesta.

Something funny. Tonight I sat down with a calendar to figure out the days, the way I used to do it, and I found out that on my fourth day here, when I wrote my very first entry at the Lodge, there were 809 days left until we'd leave. I didn't know that then, of course. Today is day 809, and there are four left. I don't know what that means. Probably nothing. I liked it anyway.

It's Sunday morning in Ohio right now. Mom's probably getting ready for church. Hi, Mom. Thursday we fly, and Friday, if the airlines cooperate, we'll be in your kitchen. Save me a seat.

And to Guam: Si Yu'os ma'ase'. Thank you. I didn't want to come, and now I don't want to go, and I guess that's the best thing I can say about anywhere.

Wednesday, September 22, 1999 · Eight days to go.

The trucks pulled away at two this afternoon. Our whole life is in big wooden crates on its way to the port, and it'll get to Virginia sometime around Thanksgiving if we're lucky.

The house echoes. We're back on the Navy's loaner furniture for two nights: two beds, a table, four chairs, one lamp. Taylor says it's like camping. Max walked into the empty living room and yelled "HELLO" just to hear it come back.

Tomorrow and Friday morning I clean. Base housing has to be cleaned to inspection: every window track, the oven, the stove hood filter, behind the refrigerator, the light fixtures, the tub. Kerri is lending me her secret weapon, which turns out to be a toothbrush and a bottle of vinegar. Cynthia is bringing lunch. Fred has promised to "supervise," which means sit in a lawn chair in the carport and tell stories.

I typed this at Kerri's. My computer is in a crate somewhere, wrapped in a moving blanket, with a sticker on it that says FRAGILE in two places.

Monday, September 20, 1999 · Ten days to go.

Pack-out, day one.

Four movers showed up at eight with about a mile of brown paper and started wrapping everything we own, one thing at a time, fast. They don't ask. You learn this. If you don't want it packed, you lock it in the bathroom, or it goes. Kerri's first move, they packed her trash can with the trash still in it. I put a sign on our trash can that says NO, and a sign on the bathroom door that says DO NOT PACK, and everything going with us on the plane is in there with the toilet: suitcases, the kids' backpacks, the shot records, the orders, Andy's list from the kitchen cabinet, which I took down this morning and put in my purse.

By lunch the kitchen was boxes. By three, the kids' room was boxes. Max sat on the couch, which was wrapped like a mummy, and cried because they packed his dump truck, the one Santa brought the Christmas after the typhoon. I told him the truck is going on a big ship across the ocean, and he'll see it in Virginia. He stopped crying and said, "Like Daddy's ship?" Like Daddy's ship.

They come back Wednesday to crate it all and load it.

Friday, September 17, 1999 · Thirteen days to go.

We've been watching Hurricane Floyd on CNN all week, going up the East Coast, huge, right over the part of the world we're moving to. Mom called at her bedtime, which was our lunchtime today, to ask if we're sure we want to go to Virginia. I told her, Mom, we lived through a typhoon. A hurricane is just a typhoon on the other side of the world. That calmed her down for about a minute.

Andy's new sponsor in Norfolk e-mailed this morning to say he's fine and his family's fine and his street is fine, just a lot of water. He also sent a list of apartment complexes and a map of the base, and Andy printed it all out and stuck it on the wall, and Taylor looks at it every day, trying to figure out which square is her new school.

Today I sorted what goes where. There are three piles for a move overseas: the express shipment, which is a few boxes that fly and get there first (pots, sheets, a few toys, the computer, I hope); the household goods, which go on the ship; and storage, for things we can't use until we're settled. And then there's the fourth pile, which is "suitcase," and the fifth pile, which is "sell it." The dehumidifier sold at the yard sale Saturday to a brand-new Navy wife who'd been here five days. She looked so tired. I gave her my phone number and told her about the shoes in the closet. Somebody did that for me once.

Monday, September 6, 1999 · Twenty-four days to go.

Labor Day. Our last beach day, both families, at the beach under the cliffs at the north end, the one we found in February. We went early. Kerri brought a cooler and I brought red rice, which was a little sticky again, and nobody said so.

The kids built a sand fort that took up half the beach, and Andy and Kerri's husband floated out on their backs past the little waves and talked for an hour about whatever men talk about out there. Kerri and I sat in the shade and didn't say much. Every few minutes one of us would say, "Well," and then not finish.

Taylor found a shell, a white one with brown spots, and asked if she could take it to Virginia. I said yes. Then she asked if she could take the beach. I said no. She thought about that and asked if she could take Kerri, and Kerri started laughing and couldn't stop, and then neither could I, and then we were both crying, on Labor Day, at the beach, in our sunglasses, and the kids went right on building the fort.

The car goes to the port Wednesday. It'll meet us in Virginia sometime in November. Until we leave, the Estrellas are lending us their old truck.

Sunday, August 29, 1999 · Thirty-two days to go.

The Estrellas threw us a going-away party at Auntie Nieves's, and it was a fiesta in everything but the saint.

Same tent in the yard. Same two long tables. Half the village came, people I've met once or twice, and every one of them shook Andy's hand and hugged me and told me to come back. I made the red rice. I made it in Auntie's big pot in Auntie's kitchen while she sat on a stool and watched me and didn't say one word. When it was done she took a spoonful, and thought about it a long time, and said, "Good."

I'm not going to pretend I didn't cry. Cynthia cried too. Fred said, "Oh, here we go," and went outside to check on the barbecue.

Before we left Auntie gave me a little jar with a screw lid, full of dried achote seeds, and told me they keep forever if I keep them dry. "In Virginia," she said, "you make red rice, people come." Then she gave Taylor and Max each a kiss on the head and told them to be good for their mother, and they said "Yes, Auntie," like they'd been saying it all their lives. Which, for Max, they have.

Tuesday, August 10, 1999 · Fifty-one days to go.

Taylor starts first grade next week here, and will finish first grade in Virginia. She doesn't understand why she can't take her teacher. Neither do I.

Things I did today: called the port about shipping the car, got a list of everything I have to clean in the house before the inspection (the list is two pages long), booked the kids for their checkups, filled out four forms, and bought a calendar for the wall just for the move. Every square has something written in it now. The last square says FLY in red marker.

Also: the Estrellas' son found another boonie dog, a little brown one with a curly tail, and brought it over to see if we'd like a dog to take to Virginia. Max has not stopped asking since. The answer is still no. I'll admit it took me longer to say it this time.

Wednesday, July 21, 1999 · Seventy-one days to go.

Our last Liberation Day. Fifty-five years since 1944.

Same curb, same cooler, same Estrellas, same Auntie Nieves in the same lawn chair. When the veterans went by, the old men who were here, there were fewer of them than last year. She stood up. We all stood up. Taylor stood up without being told, and put her hand on her heart, because she learned that at school, and Auntie saw her do it and reached over and squeezed her hand.

Max, who is three, informed me the parade was "the best day of my life," which he also said about a bag of chips last week, but I'll take it.

Friday, July 2, 1999 · Ninety days to go.

Ninety days. I didn't plan to start counting again. I sat down at the transportation office today for our moving appointment, and the lady circled our dates on a calendar, and I did the math in my head before I could stop myself.

It's different this time. Two years ago I was counting toward something. Now I'm counting away from something, and I'm trying to count slow.

The appointment, for anybody who's never done an overseas move: you sit with a nice lady who's done this nine thousand times, and she tells you your weight allowance, and what goes in the express shipment, and what goes in the big shipment, and what goes in storage, and when the car goes to the port, and you nod and write it all down and forget it on the way to the parking lot. Then you go home and call your friend who has done this five times, and she tells you all over again, and this time you remember.

Fourth of July plans: fireworks with Kerri's family and the Estrellas. The last Fourth here. I'm going to say "the last" a lot this summer. Bear with me.

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