We're In

Moving went as well as could be expected - given that "moving" is synonymous with "pain in the ass". Look in any thesaurus.

Having said that, we are used to BIG international moves. "Big International Moves" are synonymous with "killing of thousands of acres of rain forest" since everything, down to the most unassuming butter knife, is wrapped in seventeen layers of protective paper so that the ocean voyage does not harm it. Local moves are vastly different. They did pack our kitchen delicately - but most of the furniture was simply shrink wrapped in mega saran wrap. Pretty cool stuff.

Day One entailed moving everything that we were "keeping" in to our new place. They started at 8:00a.m. and finished unloading the last of the stuff from trip #2 at around 7:45 p.m. Day Two entailed packing up everything that we were "storing" and taking it to places unknown where it will sit in the dark until we call it back home sometime in the faraway future. They finished at a more reasonable hour of 6:00 p.m. Good Irishmen, all of them. We celebrated with a couple of beers at then. Like I said, Good Irishmen.

The very nicest thing about this move (and also kind of the very not nicest thing) was that we have arrived to our new home with the minimal amount of goods necessary to live over the next someteen months. The result is that unpacking was a walk in the park compared to previous moves. The downsides are as follows:

• I am already finding that there were things we should have brought, but didn't. Rugs are on the top of the list. Why? This house is constructed entirely of hardwood and glass. Can you say echo chamber (echo chamber, echo chamber, echo chamber...)?
• While Day Two found me managing movers at the other house, George the Elder stayed home to unpack and organize new home. When I finished at old house, I returned to new house to find that not only had George the Elder unpacked all of the boxes, but that he had also found the time to annihilate (he says trim) a tree in the front of the house that was "blocking his view". Setting aside his gardening skills, the problem here is that usually it takes a good piece longer to unpack a house. I think he was feeling measurably smug and oddly curious as to why the hell I have bitched in the past about what load of scutwork moving is. To my credit, his idea of "unpacking" was to get the crap out of the boxes and place them on various open surfaces so that I could place them in their final destination - but still. I'm wondering whether or not he is reassessing his traditional "move gift" to me of the day at the Spa given as compensation for all my labors? Hence, I should have packed more crap.

Other than that, things progress as things do in a move. I have purchased the "new mop" - as old mops can not transfer locations. I believe that evil spirits are transfered with mops from one place to another (no really, I just don't like to handle crusty germ infested mop heads for extended periods of time...) I also managed to fix the toilet in the master bedroom that was not running continuously - - but going off every 20-30 minutes or so as a result of a sloooooow leak in the flapper. Have you any idea how your sleep is effected when the silence of the night is loudly fractured by the sound of a 50 year old toilet trying to fill itself (please hearken back to lack of rugs and other noise absorbing household accoutrements such as artwork)? It was two nights of hell and an argument with George the Elder about the pros and cons of fixing a toilet that will be entirely removed during the renovations (that will start at some unknown point in the future, so the cost benefit analysis was working in my favor). I fixed the damn thing.

And last, I have managed to squeeze my scant amount of kitchen whatnot in to the world's most ineffectively, inefficiently and just plain stupidly designed kitchen. If I ever run in to the person who designed this space, I will happily strike him down with the large pot that will not fit in to a single kitchen cabinet and instead will be stored in a hall closet. Do you think that the woman who lived here had only a 2 qt saucepan and one small skillet? Improbable, but I am flummoxed about where she put her stuff. A question never to be answered but pondered for the ensuing months till the whole kitchen becomes dumpster fodder. Alas.