« Fret, fret, fret, fret, fret... | Main | Dumb cats, bad dogs, good dogs. All animals, all the time. »
May 02, 2000
All moved in!
I bit my tongue at lunch today. It really hurts. And now I'm lisping because it's really painful when I talk.
The move went really well -- better than I had expected. I discovered on Friday that Bell Atlantic had gotten overzealous and turned our phone off a day early, so we were without phone or e-mail all day. Saturday morning, I met Barry's mother and stepfather at the U-Haul place (Barry's stepfather was driving the truck, since Barry doesn't have a license and there was no way I was going to drive that thing). After waiting in line for seventeen years (well, twenty minutes -- it just felt like seventeen years) we finally got a clerk's attention. Twenty minutes after that, we were on our way back to load up. I put the cat into the bedroom and shut the door, and she howled like she was being tortured until we were finished and it was time to get her into the kitty carrier. She sobbed all the way to the new place, where we put her in the back bedroom and shut the door. After that, she was fine. I sat in the room with her for a while (while the men-folk did the unloading of heavy objects) and she was okay, sniffing around. She had a brief fright when the landlord's big, goofy, friendly yellow lab (Buddy) came and woofed in the window at her, but other than that, she was fine. She hid in the closet for an hour or so until she realized that no one was paying attention to her, so she came out. She loves the new place, as do we. It's nice and bright, with lots of windows for her to look out. Barry even heard a woodpecker Sunday morning.
Our landlord is way too nice. Too nice for words. He's been so helpful. He's even giving us an old rowing machine that was in his basement.
We're pretty well settled in already -- I keep looking for light switches in the wrong places, and turning the wrong way in the kitchen to try to go to the sink, and I haven't been sleeping well. The noises are all different, and the shadows are all unfamiliar. Plus we have a new bed, and that feels different. The cat waits until I have fallen asleep, and then jumps on my head.
I didn't want to come to work at all today, the new place is so nice. It's very colorful -- the living room is a mint green, with white trim. The doorway between the living room and dining room is flanked by waist-high walls, with white columns going up to the ceiling. The dining room is a sort of pink/peach color, with white and light brown trim (That looks a lot better than it sounds, here.) The bathroom is a very pale taupe, the hallway between the bedroom and bathroom is sky blue, and the kitchen is off-white and yellow. From the bed, you can look through the dining room into the living room and out the window.
I'm just loving this place already. The neighborhood is nice and quiet, with lots of dogs and cats and, judging from the toy-filled yards, kids.
The only real drawback is, there's no grocery store close enough to walk to. (There are, however, a McDonald's, a Dunkin' Donuts, two pizza places, a deli, and a chinese place three blocks away. Was that bad grammar? Sorry.) We did the online grocery shopping thing, which took forever (our internet connection at home now is way too slow) and our order was slightly off -- they sent us some pasta sauce we didn't order, a can of dog food instead of cat food, and they didn't send my ice cream. No ice cream! They didn't charge me for it, but still. I wanted ice cream, dammit.
And I didn't manage to quit smoking ('cause I got ONE e-mail giving encouragement. ONE. I am sulking. And plugging for e-mail, shamelessly.) I'm still planning to. I think that free rowing machine will help with that.
Posted by Mary Ellen at May 2, 2000 02:09 PM