Extraction 7: Pack Day 1

Today is packing day. Here is my ebox, which will go out via air freight. It might get there before I do! It contains precious items such as my computer and cooking pots and some towels and sheets. The rest of the shipment goes by sea and usually arrives 90 days after it ships...which might not be for a couple of weeks. My biggest fear is that my shipment will be overweight which will delay all kinds of things, including processing of my exit visa.




Even though the packers were issued steel-toed work shoes, all three are working barefoot. Here two of them are rolling up one of my carpets.




WIth typical Aramco FW, there are no shipping crates available today. So the packers are putting everything in boxes and leaving it in my house! I was expecting to end this day with a mostly empty house--and to end this day with this task over. Because the packers know that they won't finish the job today, they are not particularly exercised about getting the packing done today either! They didn't even touch the stuff in the bedroom. Aramco only gives us one day off to oversee the packing. It's fortunate that my supervisor and colleagues are relatively understanding but not everyone has that luxury. What if this happened to a nurse who had to be present for her shift the next day? Aramco does spoonfeed us through this "personal effects" process but It's still at heart an Aramco process--dozens of points along the way where it can all head south in an eye blink.

Boxes, boxes everywhere.





You might be wondering where I have stashed CircusK9 today. I didn't have very much room to begin with, certainly nothing like a spare room that I could have left them all in. Each of them is in a crate right now (I really put HellBeast's crate training to the test this morning) in a corner of the living room. Azza was initially quite disturbed by the noise and commotion and HB was not at all happy at being lifted up onto a shelf. I covered them all with a sheet which had the desired calming effect. Sure, it's just as noisy as before but it's really the principle of the thing.




Azza is on the floor, Harry is in the far back corner while Mimi is next to him, and the two cats are up on the shelf.