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October, as so many of us know, is “PCS season”. And this year, we are on the move. Odd-”On the Move” is also Big Sarge’s company motto. He is in transportation, where at the school, they teach soldiers how to put 5 cubic meters of memories into 3 cubic meters of space with no damage. I’m serious. When moving up to Virginia when Big Sarge was in Korea, our mutual friend (and also a member of the transportation corps) came over to pack my car. Everything fit. I am half-convinced that one of the skills they teach in transportation school is touching things and making them magically smaller.
Since we have spent the requisite amount of time at this duty station, it is time to move on again. In the midst of college, kindergarten, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and attending transportation briefs alone- I have to get a plan in place for moving to Alaska. My thoughts jump from one subject to another like cupcake-fed toddlers on a hopscotch path. “I’ll have to rent a car for a few days, since the Army is packing my car, right?” “Oh, snap, that means I can’t have the Army pack car seats.” “Do rent-a-car places rent car seats?” “I can’t travel 2 days before Christmas!” And at that point, I pour myself a large glass of Chardonnay and vow to think about it tomorrow.
I recently scheduled both the PPM (which is the new acronym for DITY) and our household goods move. It is done on computers here at Fort Benning, and let me tell you it was insanely nervewracking. I thought for sure I was going to hit the wrong buttons and we would end up at war with Russian. (We aren’t, by the way.) With Big Sarge up in Virginia, I was frantically texting him silly questions such as, “How much weight will be in your car?” and “How much does the rest of our stuff weigh, factoring in my mini-library?” and “Do you have concurrent travel orders yet?” That last question might have been more frantic than all the others.
But in all this chaos, a few rays of hope. Izzy’s principal is kindly letting her out of school a week early so that we don’t have to travel two days before Christmas. I don’t have to get rid of any of my Stephen King books before we move. Amazon sells car seat bags that have straps like a backpack for easy carrying into the airport. I learned how to crochet so that I can have something to do on the plane ride. And perhaps the biggest ray of hope yet- Others have moved from Georgia to Alaska and survived. We can do it as well.