boxes of many different sizes

It struck me today that our lives are becoming more and more focused on boxes. There is the most obvious way in that we must now take only our most precious possessions and place them into boxes so that we can place those boxes into some bigger boxes, which will then be placed in some huge metal box and placed on a ship for a lovely cruise across the Atlantic. Today I packed box number 5 which contains some kimonos, a few books, a painting by Kimeko, my baseball glove and only 30 Oakland Raider hats. Yes, I have sacrificed some of my beloved hats...mostly the ugly ones from the early Nineties. I kept the cool ones.

It is true that we are really trying to get rid of stuff and only placing those extremely important items into the series of boxes. This may lead to some awkward moments when you come to visit us in the Chicago suburbs where you look around and realize that the beautiful thing that you gave us is nowhere to be found. Let me apologize now and just explain that the thing was mighty pretty indeed, but it was not more vital than my book on Swedish Death Metal, and now some German dude has the pretty thing in his house and absolutely loves it. It's a win for everyone!

We have purchased animal carriers for Catboy and Leo. These are very special boxes that the cats will live in for about a day while they enjoy their first trans-Atlantic flight. We have them set up around the house (currently on Kimeko's bed) so the cats can check them out and get comfortable with the idea that they must live in a box for a day. They seem pretty excited about the whole thing.

Our search for the biggest box of all has started to pick up steam. Jenn and I look at houses on the Internet almost every day. On Sundays we typically look at our "favorites" list to try to calculate the exact equation from the house details that will result in the home of both our dreams and our budget. We have not stumbled upon this mythical formula yet, but when we do I will be sure to sell it to you from my internet site. 
Our normal routine is:

• 08:30 - Decide that we absolutely adore a house. This is definitely the house we will live in forever and we should make an offer, even though we have not actually visited the house.
• 12: 41 - Decide that the house we loved earlier is actually too small or too big or in the wrong location or is ugly. We hate it and will remove it from our "favorites" list.
• 18:51 - Actually, that house is OK and maybe I should look at it when I am in Chicago in April.

5 more weeks to go and then I should be able to show you pictures of the suburban American dream.