Not the last

markgritter and missista and I have arrived safely in Omaha. The house is filled with boxes. I haven't seen Grandma and Grandpa's house yet, but I expect that it's much the same. This is not the last time I'll be in Omaha, not by a long-shot -- not even the last time I'll be staying in this house, since the grands will be moving in here when my folks move up to the Cities area. So we're not doing a whirlwind of "last times" -- no last time at Wheatfield's for pecan rolls, no last time wandering through the Old Market, no last time running out to Polly's for books. Because it's not a last time.

Still. It won't be the same, and it probably won't be as often (because the grands will come up more), and it's very much the end of an era. And I'm not sure what it is that I want to have happen here, but I feel like there's something that ought to happen this weekend, some bit of Omahaness that isn't about very last times, but about changes, maybe. I don't know what, though.

MY OVEN SQUIRREL!

I found my oven squirrel! And my egg timer: I kept not buying an egg timer because I knew we had an egg timer, dammit, it was just a matter of finding the silly thing. It turns out I never moved it out of my parents' house (nor my oven squirrel). I also found some juvenilia that will be coming home with me, the last (and only) letters I got from my Gran, a Lego model of the ship we took from Stockholm to Helsinki when I was ten, and maybe something gaaldine will laugh at if I can get it cleaned up and sent for her birthday.

My parents are not big hoarders or big clutterers, but even so, we moved into this house after four previous years of one move per year, so lots of Things In Boxes have been ignored for the last 15 years they've lived here. They could theoretically continue ignoring them, but they don't really feel like paying someone to move an empty address book with geese all over it that was a gift from someone when I was 14 and will never be used by a member of our immediate family anyway.

Plans for the rest of the day include more archaeology sorting of past lives, with a break for ice cream and hot tub and playing with my cousin's kiddo, Noah, who is 2 and has Opinions.

Also, my dad is telling a story about this guy he works with being confused about the difference between hummus and haggis. We Are Amused.