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Escrow closed today. Maybe. I think.

Mixed signals at best. I was still getting emails with documents to sign way after closing was supposed to happen, and I never did get any confirmation. On the other hand, there’s a wire transfer for about the right amount (-ish) in my checking account, so that’s good, right?

It would help a lot if tomorrow the bank website showed a zero balance on some mortgage accounts.

I also continue to be viscous – nay, may I even say ruthless beyond recognition in continuing to throw things out. The presence of a huge trash bin out in front of the new house helps the decisions. Giving a lot of side eye to some office furniture that has seen better days – it doesn’t take a lot of doubt to find myself trying to lift things over the side of this huge bin.

Madness, I tell you.

Sleep deprivation. Adrenaline. Exhaustion. Diet Coke and Extra Strength Excedrin.

Ask for it all by name.

One day to go. Escrow closes tomorrow.

Wait… that was yesterday, wasn’t it? Well, yes and no.

The Memorial Day holiday seems to be delaying things a day. But the buyer has wire transferred the funds, I’ve filled out all of the paperwork at my end, and most importantly, we’re out of the old house.

I was expecting it to be far more emotional. Instead, exhaustion has made its presence known.

Last night I was at the old house until almost 1:00 AM. This morning I made two trips early to get the last load of stuff and two loads of trash out.

But it’s done.

Escrow closes tomorrow.

Then the major unpacking job starts.

This is why I only move every thirty years or so. (I’m hoping that the next move, in 2048 or so, will be done by robots controlled by my brain waves.)

One day to go. Escrow closes tomorrow.

I was such a fool.

I thought two or three loads with the van today and I would be done – plenty of time for a BBQ tonight.

It’s 22:30, I’m wrapping up my 7th load for the day, and there are two more to go after this.

Twelve-ish hours to go.

Death will not release me.

They’ve vanished.

It’s weird, the first week that we were here you literally could not go outside AT ALL, EVER during daylight and not have at least two or three crows barking at you and flying over to some spot above the yard to keep an eye on you. EVER!

Then we had the wounded crow, and the great shitting all over the bench on our front porch incident, at which point I put a sheet over the bench to protect it. The wounded crow refused to sit on the sheet, hopped over to the neighbor’s yard, and hasn’t been seen in three days.

But all of the other crows vanished with him.

It’s really weird.

How in THE HELL did Tom Hanks **NOT** win Best Actor in 2001 for “Cast Away?”

What was so freakin’ fantastic that it beat him out for the award?

Russell Crowe in “Gladiator?”

You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me.

As a side note, yes, it continues to be a really, really, really busy time. It reduces you to the little things, one minute at a time.

Edgar had an exciting day. He still hasn’t been seen flying, but he hops from yard to yard. When he’s in our yard he prefers the bench on the front steps, hopping from the back to the arm to the seat.

Edgar has terrible diarrhea.

If you park anywhere under a wire, Edgar’s relatives will shit all over your car in massive quantities.

Tonight we sleep in the new house.

There is still a great deal of stuff to bring from the old house to the new.

There is still a great deal of stuff at the old house that needs to go to storage.

There is still a great deal of stuff at the old house that needs to get thrown out.

The big deal is figuring out which is which and doing so in a time frame which is borderline insane.

But today we took a couple of big steps forward. All of the “big” stuff, the furniture, the beds, the dressers, the desks, the refrigerator, and so on, ALL of it is now at the new house.

Some of that stuff is too big to fit. That sucks. My office desk, for example, won’t fit down the hallway and won’t fit through the door, and when I figure out how to disassemble it, bring it in, and reassemble it, it’s going to take up about 125% of the room.

Some stuff just doesn’t work yet, particularly the internet. It seems we have a bad connection in one section of the house, so while we can watch television in a couple of rooms, there’s no signal making it through to the modem where it needs to happen. We’ll see if the tech guy can find the problem tomorrow.

I’m so freakin’ exhausted it’s not even funny. I could sleep for a month.

But tomorrow’s Monday, and it’s back to the wars

Tonight we sleep in the new house.

The general public doesn’t care about science or astronomy?

Bullshit.

For Exhibit “A” I would offer the crowds we get at Halloween when we bring the ‘scopes out while handing out candy, as well as the questions we get asked (“Where are the telescopes?!”) every Halloween when it’s cloudy and we don’t bring them out.

Exhibit “B”:

Roll one of these babies around the storage center and see how much time you spend answering questions from everyone who sees it.

Gotta make sure that it doesn’t stay in storage for long!

I’ve mentioned filk music here. Not often perhaps since it’s not a primary activity of mine these days – part of that whole “adulting” thing where we don’t get to do the things we like so much because we’re so busy doing the things we need to do. (Or so we tell ourselves.)

In brief, “filk” music is the music of science fiction and fantasy fandom. There are endless attempts to define it, but I always just defined it as “anything sung at a filksing.”

In the late 40’s and 50’s at early SF conventions, filksings were born as an activity to be pursued in the wee hours of the evening, generally in a hallway or hotel lobby, often with alcohol involved. Get a dozen friends, a couple of guitars, a comfy spot, and stay up singing weird songs until 2 AM, or 4 AM, or breakfast, and you’ve had a filksing.

Some of these songs are goofy, written in the “Mad Magazine style,” to the tune of “Greensleeves” or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or something by the Beach Boys or whatever. Some are serious. Some are about TV shows or movies or books or cons or fans or space or dragons or aliens or any of a zillion other topics. Some are written to original music and can be stunningly beautiful. Some are standard folk songs by folks like Stan Rogers or Eric Bogle, some are “found filk” like “The Battle of Evermore” from Led Zeppelin IV.

Back in the early 1980’s, before I had kids and a career and didn’t have to do “adulting” 100% of the time, I helped to start some filk conventions in Los Angeles. I also started printing a filk-based monthly fanzine, “The Philk Fee-Nom-Ee-Non,” which was nominated for a Best Fanzine Hugo Award in 1984.

Time moved on.

I had kids and started “adulting.” We went to a lot of bigger SF cons with the kids (like Westercon and Worldcon and Baycon) and did a lot of filking. We went to a lot of smaller filkcons like Consonance and ConChord. But PFNEN went the way of the dodo.

Time moved on.

I stopped running filkcons. We started not getting to Worldcon or Westercon or Baycon every year. Or even every other year. But the cons kept happening, including the filkcons, now run by new fans. I got to a filkcon every now and then.

Time moved on.

And the kids grew up and moved out – and kept in touch with cons and fandom on their own. As my demands for “adulting” became a bit less overwhelming, we started going back to filkcons and other SF cons.

Meanwhile, a group of filkers in the Toronto had started their own filkcon. Associated with FilkOntario they began, twenty-four years ago, a Filk Hall of Fame. A couple of filkers every year are inducted.

In January I got a call, informing me that I had been chosen for induction into the Filk Hall of Fame, based on my work years ago as one of the founders of ConChord and the monthly Los Angeles Filkers Anonymous house filksings as well as my publication of PFNEN.

It’s been a secret, since the inductees aren’t revealed until the HoF banquet at FilkOntario. I hadn’t ever been to a FilkOntario, but obviously I was going to make it this year.

Now we’ve had the banquet and the induction ceremonies so I can share the news.

I’m still more than a little bit amazed, despite having known about it for a couple of months. I look at the list of musicians and filkers who have already been inducted and I’m incredibly honored to be thought worthy of inclusion with all of them. I’m grateful to the nomination group and the jury which made the final picks for this year’s inductees.

So that’s why I’m in Toronto this weekend. Spending a wonderful weekend with a whole group of old friends, many new friends, singing songs, listening to amazingly talented musicians, all doing things we love just for the fun of it (believe me, no one is getting rich or even making a living doing this!).

Wow. Who would have thunk it?

It’s melting.

Spots that are in the shade most of the day aren’t showing much change, of course.

On the other hand, spots that saw a lot of sun are almost clear.

There are some big piles where snow was shoveled or plowed to get it out of the way. They’ll last for days or even weeks. But for the most part it will all be gone before we leave next week.

I understand that none of this is news, or even interesting, to those of you who live with snow. I haven’t in over 40 years, wasn’t expecting it at all now, and it’s novel.

And I’m having fun at FilkOntario! It’s a good place to be this weekend.