The moving truck was here first thing on Tuesday. Which right now seems about a year ago. Driver and two helpers were very efficient, pleasant, and helpful.

I let them do their thing while I dealt with a serious issue. Our main sewer line clogged and nothing would flush away. I went on line and found a local plumbing company. The lady on the phone was very pleasant and helpful. She found a crew finishing up a job nearby and promised to send them along. About half an hour later a plumber and his helper showed up.

I explained the problem and they got right to work. This area had clean out access outside the house, which is nice. It took the crew about 20 minutes to get things, uh, flowing again. They then offered the option of dropping a camera into the line to see if they could find the cause. Truth is, the plumber had a really good idea of what was going on because as we say, it wasn’t his first big job. Sure enough one of the pretty oak trees in the front yard had bored it’s way through the sewer line in search of water.

Great.

The plumber wrote up the estimate and sent it back to the office for approval and forwarding to me. Not a pleasant surprise, but I came to find out that this is not uncommon even in this neighborhood. I think that I’ll have the tree removed unless the HOA objects, which they shouldn’t since I’ll still meet the one tree requirement. I just have to find a landscaping company to do the work.

Two things that all home owners find out pretty quickly. With a house there is ALWAYS something that needs to be done. Home owners, at least the all the ones I know have an assortment of tools, develop some pretty good handy man skills, have a lot of spare screws, bolts, nuts, and other assorted hardware around the house. They also have a “Rolodex.” Even if these days it’s kept in a smart phone. For some reason, a reliable plumber who won’t over charge and will show up is always at the top of the list. An electrician is sort of a distant second as at least in my case I can change outlets, switches, lights, and even in the past ran Romex and installed new outlets where there was none before.

I have to add a handy man to the list even though for the past forty three years I was mostly my own handy man. My oldest friend was my helper and when he needed to do a job I was his. He is of course 2,000+ miles away, so not an option. He’s going to be impossible to replace. Growing up we lived five minutes from each other. We went to different colleges, but when we graduated we returned for a short while to our respective childhood homes.

In due time, we both got married and for a few years we saw each other less. Then my wife and bought a house. A couple of years later my friend and his wife bought a house in the same time. Once again we were about five minutes from each other.

Our daughters coined the term “Heterosexual Life Partners” and as funny as that sounds, it’s true.

All of which is to explain why I need a handy man to do things that my friend and I used to tackle together.

I’ll have to find a lawn company, hopefully one that can also get rid of that pesky tree. I have no intention of dropping a tree on my house by accident.

On the good side, I don’t need a guy to clear my driveway of snow. I sold my snow blower to a friend and I was very happy to wave goodbye to it. I gave away assorted shovels, driveway markers, ice scrapers, and other snow tools to a friends son in law. Again, we were both happy.

Back to moving in. Everything is unloaded, but there is still a lot to unpack. I think my wife is going to end up donating a lot of stuff to Goodwill. Despite my suggestion, she over packed and we still have about 40 boxes of the original 140 that were packed. My office is still a mess as I’m awaiting delivery of a new to me office desk. I was hesitant to buy an expensive desk, but my wife insisted it was a good deal. So, I’ll have a nice office when it’s done. And a separate TV room to relax in, but I won’t bore you with that story.

This weeks tasks include registering our vehicles in Texas and getting our drivers licenses. The latter is important because there are significant discount to property taxes we’re eligible for, however you need to prove residency and the only way to do that is with a drivers license or state ID. Oh, we’ll need those licenses in order to vote too. And we intend to vote.

Texas requires vehicles to be registered before being eligible to get a drivers license or declare that you don’t own any vehicles. There’s a process, of course.

We’re getting used to doing things differently. Doesn’t matter if we think those ways are better or worse, because we don’t expect Texas to change how they do things. I really hate the people who start out their “welcome” with some advice not to try to bring out old state ways. Yeah, I get that part and don’t know Mrs. Kravitz to tell me.

Other than that we’re getting used to no snow, warm to hot as Hades weather throughout the years. H-E-B, and everything else that goes along with living in Texas.

I miss my friends, but modern technology allows me to stay in touch.

In another week I’ll start doing what passes for work. Another thing I’ll have to figure out is how to do it all remotely. Not exactly rocket science, but just different.

Just note that the featured picture is not our house, it’s just a house picture I picked at random.