There is the great scene in the movie “Caddyshack” where Ted Baxter (as the odious Judge Eilhu Smails) tries to rush along the young caddy Danny Noonan to make the key putt that could win the big golf match.  Baxter, who was never funnier than in this movie, does the amazing comic face with his mug and with the exasperation that every single human being has known more than once delivers the simple line with classic comic genius:

“Well?  We’re waiting!”

Baxter holds the letter “g” at the end of the word waiting just long enough to be exaggerated, without being too much.  I’ve seen the movie a hundred times and this scene never fails to crack me up.

Though to be honest, the whole movie still makes me laugh out loud.  I’m pretty convinced that at various points in a man’s life, we pretty much all are one of the characters in the movie.

Some more than others.

I mention this because for the past two weeks it wouldn’t be unreasonable for anyone I know to have delivered their own version of the Judge Smails exasperation to yours truly.  Not that I am playing golf, mind you.  (That’s actually prohibited by law in most states due to some prior incidents which we can’t really discuss because of some court orders involved.)

No, it is just between the announcement of the pending move to Cincinnati, the Thanksgiving day holiday and the weekend that followed, and a birthday last week–I’ve been a little preoccupied with…well, pretty much everything.

The birthday may have been the thing that really got me off track the most.

One of my favorite sports books of all time is “I Can’t wait until tomorrow, ‘Cause I get better looking every day.”  It is by the legendary Joe Namath (with help from the equally legendary Dick Schaap).  Namath, of course, is the man who guaranteed a victory by his underdog New York Jets against the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.  The game turned out to be one of the most storied in the history of pro football and for a time in the 1960′s, Joe Willie Namath embodied all that was hip and cool about the US of A to the tune of about a dozen fictional Don Drapers, all rolled into one larger than life figure.

Fast forward seventeen Super Bowls later, and I would have a brief chance to meet the man, who was equal parts myth and legend by then, when riding an elevator in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Orleans, next to the Superdome (where the Chicago Bears would crush the New England Patriots, 46-10).

I was riding the elevator with a couple of colleagues from a still emerging sports network known as ESPN.  We were there to cover the week of Super Bowl hype with a eager crew of about two dozen (to give you an idea of how times have changed, the network now deploys about ten times as many people to cover the event.)

The elevator stopped on a floor, the doors opened and Joe Namath, THE Joe Namath, stepped on.  Not before flashing us a smile and saying “Hello, boys”.  One of us, I don’t remember who, was able to stammer out a “Hi Joe” in return.

We dared not speak any further, and besides what the hell would we say to him? This was Joe Willie Namath for cryin’ out loud.  We were honored to be in the presence of the great man.  We probably should have gotten off the elevator and let him ride by himself.

The elevator got to the ground floor and the doors opened.  We walked off behind Namath and watch as the sea of humanity seemed to part before him as he walked across the lobby, noticing that every woman smiled at the guy in a way that mere mortal men just don’t ever see.  Yep, the guy was still a chick magnet and he hadn’t played a down of football in years.

All of this is relevant to my current situation because I saw Namath on television recently and the guy has aged more than a little bit.  But for that matter, so the heck have I, so who am I to criticize?

I only mention Joe Willie here because these days, I would use a slight variation of his book title for my own status in life which right now would be:  ”I can’t wait until tomorrow because I barely can get through today.”

Which is to say that if I haven’t gotten back to your phone call, email or other communication to me over the past couple of weeks–I’m not being a jerk, honest.

I’m just taking way too long to line up the next putt.

Important safety tip to self:  In the future, avoid making major life changing announcements on Thanksgiving Week.

It’s been just a week since we’ve told folks that we’re moving from Connecticut to Cincinnati. It feels like months somehow.

The tidal wave of emotions just keeps rolling in, much like when you are a child and you experience a really rough day at the beach.  You just get pounded by the waves to the point that you forget you are supposed to be having a good time.  You could get out of the water, but somehow you can’t and you just keep thinking that it will let up any minute now.

And it doesn’t.

So you just hang on and ride it out, because this is supposed to be fun.  Really.

Don’t misunderstand, everyone has been great about it.  People at both ends of the situation have been just amazing with well wishes and offers of help. Questions about how the decision came about feel genuine and new, no matter how many times you feel like you’re giving the same answers.

The other part of this situation is that the holiday has brought our daughters home and while it is always great to see them, it is impossible not to feel like we are ripping their childhood home away from them.  Naturally, they have been fabulous about it all, making it clear that while there are memories galore here, and we may be celebrating many things here for the last time, the fact is–their future lies elsewhere.

And we won’t even talk about the house.  If the prospect of moving is most overwhelming in any one single way, it is the physical manifestation of this 27 year-old, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom contemporary house in the woods.  Inside of which there is twelve years of our stuff to deal with and try to whittle down to a manageable amount to load a truck and take to another, probably smaller place, that we will call home.

(All of which would also be much easier if yours truly wasn’t just a little shy of being eligible for an episode of that TV show “Hoarders”.  A call for some kind of dumpster is imminent.)

Speaking of TV shows, let us give special thanks to HGTV and its endless marathon of television shows that have us completely uncertain about how to proceed on selling our humble abode.  Aside from the obvious work that has to be done in very short order to get our life’s major investment ready to go on the market, there are more tips about staging and selling that we know what to do with.  (Insert Stewie Griffin voice here: “Damn you, infernally perky HGTV hosts and your endless drivel of selling your home in a week for a thousand dollars!”)

All of that which seemed simply interesting a week ago, now feels like a never-ending list of crucial decisions that if mishandled even in the slightest fashion, will cost us everything we own.

Of course this is in a housing market that is more than a little uncertain to begin with.  So it could take weeks to sell.  Or months. This is when a really cold chill rolls up our spine. And we’re standing in the middle of a heated living room.

Plus–there is that whole question of where we might end up living on the other end.  Thanks to the internet, that search is already in full virtual swing, with only the occasional panic that we will end up with three mortgages or homeless and living “in a van, down by the river.”  Either seems completely plausible, depending on what moment we are talking about.

Did I mention this is supposed to be a holiday weekend?  So one might forgive the main feeling, which is of course just to put everything off until next week. But that can’t be done because now we are committed to this move, which is still exciting and full of promise.

When it isn’t just terrifying and overwhelming.

Fortunately the holiday has provided a temporary prescription for all this.  The consumption of massive quantities of food and drink somehow makes it all a little easier.

Aside from creating just one more thing we have to avoid for the moment.

The bathroom scale.  That has to be among the first items that needs to be packed up, wouldn’t you say?