"Joshua Und Andrew Heraus!"

Andrew and I rose very, very early this morning in order to clean our small apartment from top to bottom and to wash all of our clothing and bedding.

Today is our final day in the apartment. In a short while, we will be turning the apartment over to Andrew’s brother and moving to Andrew’s parents’ house for the next five days.

Other than cleaning everything, our move does not involve much more than taking our clothes with us.

We are leaving behind our furniture, such as it is, as well as our computer, our sound system and even our books and discs. Even our cookware, dinnerware and tableware are remaining behind for Alex to use, as are our bath towels, dish towels, sheets and blankets.

The move will be very simple for Alex, too. All he need do is bring over his clothes and his television, and settle right in. Everything else he needs is already here for him, clean as a whistle, polished to show-room perfection.

In August, our move to Boston will be equally efficient. Alex’s cookware and dinnerware remain boxed up over at Andrew’s parents’ house, as are his towels and bedding and even his computer. When we return from Britain, Andrew and I will stamp new shipping labels on those unpacked boxes and ship them to Boston for our own use of the contents.

We planned all this back in May, before Andrew and I even headed out to Denver to help Alex prepare for his move home. We did so in order for all three of us to save hours and hours of aggravation involved in our moves. Effectively, only one moving project was involved for the three of us: Alex’s stuff gets shipped to Boston after a short stopover in Minneapolis.

I think this has been very efficient!

Over the course of the next few weeks, Alex will take a few of our books or discs over to his parents’ house every time he goes over for a visit, leave them behind, and bring a few of his own books and discs back with him.

I think this is very efficient as well.

Today Andrew and I hung the three Hans Rudi Erdt lithographs on our apartment walls. It is kind of ironic that we waited until our final day in the apartment to put anything on the walls.

However, we do not want to take the lithographs with us to Boston, and Alex likes them, and he will enjoy having them on the apartment walls.

The alternative was to store them at Andrew’s parents’ house, but we wanted them to be seen and enjoyed and not shoved into a closet. (I don’t think Andrew’s mother would want the lithographs to be hung in her house—she appreciates their artistry, but she is not, all in all, particularly keen on displaying lithographs of The Kaiser’s U-Boats.)

The most well-known of our lithographs is “U Boote Heraus!”, which in English means “The U-Boats Are Out!”

The most beautiful of the lithographs is “Bei Unseren Blaujacken”. Translated into English, its title is “With Our Boys In Blue”.

The most controversial of the lithographs is “Der Magische Gurtel”. A literal translation is “The Magic Girdle”, but a truer translation is “The Enchanted Circle”. It refers to and depicts the ring of U-Boats that circled and threatened Britain during the war.

Something tells me that Andrew’s mother would not want to hang “Der Magische Gurtel” in her living room or in her dining room or on one of her stairwells, where her guests might see it.

So “U Boote Heraus!” and its two companions shall remain here, in what will soon be Andrew’s and my old apartment, for Alex to enjoy.

“U Boote Heraus!”

And “Joshua Und Andrew Heraus!”, too.