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earlgreytea68The lease signed--somewhat dubiously--I turned my attention to the million-and-one balls that must be juggled in order to coordinate a move. I move a lot. I don't know why. It just seems to be my life. It's not like I enjoy it, but I guess I've never learned the art of staying in one place, which in some cases is more of an art than moving around is. So I've done this a lot, and I'm pretty good, I think, at remembering all the things that have to happen: utilities in both places, and forwarding of mail, and changing addresses at banks and credit cards and magazines.
What I have also learned from moving a lot is that no matter how much you do ahead of time, the last couple of days before a move are going to be hell. So I resolved not to kill myself trying to pack a lot ahead of time. I had the month of July entirely off, and I spent it relishing all the things about my life that were about to change. We had my kind of July in New England. There was one day the whole month that I didn't get up and immediately put my bathing suit on. I spent a lot of time lounging around with my sisters and parents and grandmother and nephew and whatever random neighbors and relatives happened to stop by to use the swimming pool. I know many families scatter all over the place. My family is pretty much located in Rhode Island. I am considered highly unusual for having moved away, and it was nice for us to all be in one place for a long period of time, hanging out with each other and enjoying each other, before I move even farther away. I had a picture-perfect month, with lots of swimming and good food and periodic breaks to go back to Boston to see my friends there. Whenever I was in Boston, I packed a few boxes, and then otherwise ignored the packing. My plan was to do all the packing in the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before the movers arrived on Monday.
This was actually a decent plan. The only problem was that the weekend coincided with intense triple-degree heat in Boston. Boston has hot summers, but triple digits are unusual. It was extremely hot and it was extremely humid and my apartment didn't have air conditioning. I think I accidentally gave myself heatstroke. God knows I felt terrible. I ended up dragging myself out of bed one night around 6 a.m. and dozing a couple more hours on the loveseat on my porch (my porch was accessible only by my apartment, so this was totally safe). It was much cooler outside the house than it was inside the house, so after every box I packed I would go outside to get some air and drink some water. Yes. I was going outside into triple-digit heat to cool down from my house. It wasn't the best timing, this heatwave. I love heat, but I love laying by the pool in it, not packing!
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arctacuda and bscotchpuma were totally awesome and came over on Sunday night, after the weather had broken, to finish up the packing. Arctacuda is way better at packing than I am. I suffer from a lack of spatial thinking. I am TERRIBLE at gauging the size of things. I just can't do it. I am awful at imagining how furniture will fit in a room, or guessing how much food will fit in a given container, or figuring out how things could fit in boxes in the most efficient manner. So arctacuda corrected all my mispacked boxes and we taped many of them up, until we figured out that the entire city of Cambridge was apparently out of packing tape. Ah, well.
I stayed at arctacuda's and bscotchpuma's house on Sunday night, as my house was entirely packed up. The cable company was coming between 8 and 11, so I got up at 7 and left their house at 7:30. I stopped at Dunkin' Donuts to get iced tea and a chocolate glazed doughnut, and then I went to my house. The cable guy got there at 9, which meant I lost my Internet access. Meanwhile, the movers weren't supposed to get there until 10. I sat there and wrote my ABCs of Boston entry. Until the movers finally showed up. At 11. A full hour late.
Everything in my house was packed except for the kitchen, which I was paying for them to pack (I consider this so worth it; china is such a pain to pack properly, especially for a long journey). There were three guys, and somehow they took FOREVER. I have a decent amount of stuff for a single person, but it's not like I'm a hoarder or anything. I'm just a person who has lived 31 years and has acquired some stuff as a result, including some fairly standard furniture. Nice furniture, but it's not like they're rare antiques or anything, they're all mass-produced pieces. These people were, like, befuddled by them. I was trying not to micro-manage, but it was seriously ridiculous, how long they were taking.
To make things worse, my landlady had decided that she needed to be there during the move. This was ridiculous, because it meant I had to make awkward small talk with her for HOURS. And, when I wasn't making awkward small talk with her, she was just in my way. The moving company told me that they couldn't transport liquids, a problem because I had 15 bottles of wine in my house (I said nothing about all the bathroom liquids I'd already packed into boxes...), so I began to carry the wine out to my car, dodging around the landlady, who was just milling about. And then, at one point, the realtor who'd rented me the Boston apartment randomly showed up because apparently the landlady had scheduled a meeting in my apartment on the day I was moving out. They were like, "Can we use your couch?" and the movers were like, "No, we're moving this couch." I was like, ???? Who tries to schedule business meetings in the middle of someone else's moving day? So strange.
I have this armoire that I bought at Pottery Barn years ago. I love this armoire, but it's not like it's the world's most unique piece of furniture or anything. It took the movers over an hour just to move this armoire out of the building, and when they were done it looked as if a war had happened. Seriously, there were huge holes in the walls, all the way down the stairwell. I've never seen anything like this. I was like, "Uh, you have to pay for this..." And they agreed but also said it was impossible to move the armoire without doing that. I was like, "Well, it moved in without this kind of damage." There was damage when they moved the armoire in, but it was nothing like this. It looked like an action movie had filmed in there. (Incidentally, I would have used the movers who had moved me last time, except their quote was literally four times what everybody else's quotes were. I guess that's because they're competent...).
The movers ended up not leaving until 8 pm. By then it was pouring, and I hadn't eaten anything since 7:30 that morning, and I was starving and exhausted and just wanted to get in my car, and the landlady wanted to do a check of the apartment. I guess this was nice, because it confirmed that there was no damage, except for the damage in the stairwell, which she said she would pay out of my security deposit unless I could get the moving company to pay for it. Which they said they would, so I wasn't overly concerned about that issue.
I finally got in my car at 8:30 and drove to the one drive-through fast-food restaurant I could think of in the Boston area. I almost never eat fast food, but I was STARVING and had no other options. I ended up trying to eat it while also driving on Boston's narrow highways in the pouring rain. Possibly not the safest drive of my life. But whatever. I eventually made it back to my parents' house at around 10 p.m., and then I collapsed. LITTLE DID I KNOW THAT WOULD BE THE EASIEST PART OF THE MOVE.
I had a stupid week gap between when I had to leave my Boston apartment and when I could get into the New Orleans apartment. This was due to the absurdity of the landlords on both ends. The New Orleans apartment was available earlier, and I offered to pay to get in earlier, but they idiotically didn't get back to me until after I'd already booked all of my arrangements to not be there until August 1. I asked my landlady if I could move out of my Boston apartment a couple of days later, to try to get rid of this gap, but she told me no, because she wanted to have a couple of days to clean the apartment before the next tenants moved in. Fine. Except that she told me later that the new tenants weren't moving in until August 8. So I could have moved out much later. Her: "Yeah, it sounds like moving out earlier was really inconvenient for you. Sorry about that." ...
Anyway, I wasn't leaving to drive down to New Orleans until Friday night, so I spent the week in Rhode Island doing things like getting pedicures and having all the Rhode Island foods and experiences I would soon be denied (doughboys by the beach, etc.). I also contacted the moving company about submitting a claim. They said I needed to send photos. I asked my landlady and the condo association of the old place to send me photos.
Please note that as of the writing of this blog entry, nearly a full two weeks later, I have still not received any photos. Despite my multiple e-mails requesting them. Sigh.
What I have also learned from moving a lot is that no matter how much you do ahead of time, the last couple of days before a move are going to be hell. So I resolved not to kill myself trying to pack a lot ahead of time. I had the month of July entirely off, and I spent it relishing all the things about my life that were about to change. We had my kind of July in New England. There was one day the whole month that I didn't get up and immediately put my bathing suit on. I spent a lot of time lounging around with my sisters and parents and grandmother and nephew and whatever random neighbors and relatives happened to stop by to use the swimming pool. I know many families scatter all over the place. My family is pretty much located in Rhode Island. I am considered highly unusual for having moved away, and it was nice for us to all be in one place for a long period of time, hanging out with each other and enjoying each other, before I move even farther away. I had a picture-perfect month, with lots of swimming and good food and periodic breaks to go back to Boston to see my friends there. Whenever I was in Boston, I packed a few boxes, and then otherwise ignored the packing. My plan was to do all the packing in the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before the movers arrived on Monday.
This was actually a decent plan. The only problem was that the weekend coincided with intense triple-degree heat in Boston. Boston has hot summers, but triple digits are unusual. It was extremely hot and it was extremely humid and my apartment didn't have air conditioning. I think I accidentally gave myself heatstroke. God knows I felt terrible. I ended up dragging myself out of bed one night around 6 a.m. and dozing a couple more hours on the loveseat on my porch (my porch was accessible only by my apartment, so this was totally safe). It was much cooler outside the house than it was inside the house, so after every box I packed I would go outside to get some air and drink some water. Yes. I was going outside into triple-digit heat to cool down from my house. It wasn't the best timing, this heatwave. I love heat, but I love laying by the pool in it, not packing!
Anyway,
arctacuda and bscotchpuma were totally awesome and came over on Sunday night, after the weather had broken, to finish up the packing. Arctacuda is way better at packing than I am. I suffer from a lack of spatial thinking. I am TERRIBLE at gauging the size of things. I just can't do it. I am awful at imagining how furniture will fit in a room, or guessing how much food will fit in a given container, or figuring out how things could fit in boxes in the most efficient manner. So arctacuda corrected all my mispacked boxes and we taped many of them up, until we figured out that the entire city of Cambridge was apparently out of packing tape. Ah, well. I stayed at arctacuda's and bscotchpuma's house on Sunday night, as my house was entirely packed up. The cable company was coming between 8 and 11, so I got up at 7 and left their house at 7:30. I stopped at Dunkin' Donuts to get iced tea and a chocolate glazed doughnut, and then I went to my house. The cable guy got there at 9, which meant I lost my Internet access. Meanwhile, the movers weren't supposed to get there until 10. I sat there and wrote my ABCs of Boston entry. Until the movers finally showed up. At 11. A full hour late.
Everything in my house was packed except for the kitchen, which I was paying for them to pack (I consider this so worth it; china is such a pain to pack properly, especially for a long journey). There were three guys, and somehow they took FOREVER. I have a decent amount of stuff for a single person, but it's not like I'm a hoarder or anything. I'm just a person who has lived 31 years and has acquired some stuff as a result, including some fairly standard furniture. Nice furniture, but it's not like they're rare antiques or anything, they're all mass-produced pieces. These people were, like, befuddled by them. I was trying not to micro-manage, but it was seriously ridiculous, how long they were taking.
To make things worse, my landlady had decided that she needed to be there during the move. This was ridiculous, because it meant I had to make awkward small talk with her for HOURS. And, when I wasn't making awkward small talk with her, she was just in my way. The moving company told me that they couldn't transport liquids, a problem because I had 15 bottles of wine in my house (I said nothing about all the bathroom liquids I'd already packed into boxes...), so I began to carry the wine out to my car, dodging around the landlady, who was just milling about. And then, at one point, the realtor who'd rented me the Boston apartment randomly showed up because apparently the landlady had scheduled a meeting in my apartment on the day I was moving out. They were like, "Can we use your couch?" and the movers were like, "No, we're moving this couch." I was like, ???? Who tries to schedule business meetings in the middle of someone else's moving day? So strange.
I have this armoire that I bought at Pottery Barn years ago. I love this armoire, but it's not like it's the world's most unique piece of furniture or anything. It took the movers over an hour just to move this armoire out of the building, and when they were done it looked as if a war had happened. Seriously, there were huge holes in the walls, all the way down the stairwell. I've never seen anything like this. I was like, "Uh, you have to pay for this..." And they agreed but also said it was impossible to move the armoire without doing that. I was like, "Well, it moved in without this kind of damage." There was damage when they moved the armoire in, but it was nothing like this. It looked like an action movie had filmed in there. (Incidentally, I would have used the movers who had moved me last time, except their quote was literally four times what everybody else's quotes were. I guess that's because they're competent...).
The movers ended up not leaving until 8 pm. By then it was pouring, and I hadn't eaten anything since 7:30 that morning, and I was starving and exhausted and just wanted to get in my car, and the landlady wanted to do a check of the apartment. I guess this was nice, because it confirmed that there was no damage, except for the damage in the stairwell, which she said she would pay out of my security deposit unless I could get the moving company to pay for it. Which they said they would, so I wasn't overly concerned about that issue.
I finally got in my car at 8:30 and drove to the one drive-through fast-food restaurant I could think of in the Boston area. I almost never eat fast food, but I was STARVING and had no other options. I ended up trying to eat it while also driving on Boston's narrow highways in the pouring rain. Possibly not the safest drive of my life. But whatever. I eventually made it back to my parents' house at around 10 p.m., and then I collapsed. LITTLE DID I KNOW THAT WOULD BE THE EASIEST PART OF THE MOVE.
I had a stupid week gap between when I had to leave my Boston apartment and when I could get into the New Orleans apartment. This was due to the absurdity of the landlords on both ends. The New Orleans apartment was available earlier, and I offered to pay to get in earlier, but they idiotically didn't get back to me until after I'd already booked all of my arrangements to not be there until August 1. I asked my landlady if I could move out of my Boston apartment a couple of days later, to try to get rid of this gap, but she told me no, because she wanted to have a couple of days to clean the apartment before the next tenants moved in. Fine. Except that she told me later that the new tenants weren't moving in until August 8. So I could have moved out much later. Her: "Yeah, it sounds like moving out earlier was really inconvenient for you. Sorry about that." ...
Anyway, I wasn't leaving to drive down to New Orleans until Friday night, so I spent the week in Rhode Island doing things like getting pedicures and having all the Rhode Island foods and experiences I would soon be denied (doughboys by the beach, etc.). I also contacted the moving company about submitting a claim. They said I needed to send photos. I asked my landlady and the condo association of the old place to send me photos.
Please note that as of the writing of this blog entry, nearly a full two weeks later, I have still not received any photos. Despite my multiple e-mails requesting them. Sigh.
Next Time: I drive through many states.
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-07 11:46 pm (UTC)For some reason, this mental image cracks me up. That's just a special kind of awkward. Hours? What did you talk about, your neighbors' weird habits, and how the absence of them might sort of make you appreciate this move?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-09 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-08 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-09 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-08 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-09 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-08 05:55 am (UTC)Can't wait to hear about the drive... I can only imagine that the hell that is driving around Atlanta is included?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-09 03:29 am (UTC)And we didn't drive through Atlanta, we moved west immediately. Is Atlanta miserable?