Get'er done

Five years. That's how long I had stayed at the previous location. And the previous one was something of the same order. I haven't moved a lot in the last ten years or so, probably because I had moved so much in the previous six. It gets to you after a while. While the place might not be fantastic, you make due with it, adapt to it's limitations, even tho, deep down, you really need to move on. All kinds of reasons pop up for not doing it, like jobs, lack of money, the perennial "well, its not so bad", which sounds like the kind of excuses one come up with to stick with an abusive relationship.

But I'm not codependent, I'm just a procrastinator, with the attention span of a Corvid (Ooh! Shiny!)

So the new place got selected, we dealt with the fun bit of getting a truck and a crew together. We started out by looking up the truck, a nasty business, as in this neck of the woods, its mass moving time, which means increasing fees and depleting availability the closer you get to the moving date. Mover are considered, and rejected, given the rates they charge. We settled on renting a cube, and it was a scramble. Dropping the heavy deposit and locking the credit card was making the whole process a squeeze, but you just gotta roll with it. We posted a call for help to friends, and while some answered positively, a few turned it down, with good reasons (like that they had committed to help someone else move already), and some did not even answer. But in the end, we got a crew.

Because my employer owns a shop that does deliveries, I figured, what the hell, why not ask him for a truck? And he agreed. So back to scrambling to cancel the rental in time, to avoid penalties. And then scramble for boxes for the packing process early on, as the mountain of boxes kept mounting, and still there seemed to be more to pack away. I though that a culling was in order, but you can only cull so much, and after a while, you have to readjust your priorities and you just end up dumping stuff in boxes, to be dealt with later.

I kept reminding my employer about the truck, but he wasn't setting things up with precision, which is a pain in the ass when you're trying to set things up like, say, a schedule, or your drivers. On the eve of the move, I ask him again about the truck, at which point he asks me "what day I'm moving again?" He had it set that I was moving a day later than reality, so the wait for the arrangement to go through was actually the most stressful part of the whole ordeal. When I hear back from him, I get to find out that I was getting the twelve-feet cube, not the sixteen that I had expected. Okay, pain it the ass, but can deal. Call the drivers and get things organized.

The next day starts early. Seven in the morning early. Mostly because there are still things to be packed away, some cleaning needs to be done, the usual moving chaos. While we are packing the two vans, the movers show up for the new tenant. Woopie! Now that it matters much, as we have already set room aside for them to move her stuff in anyways, but someone will have to stay to make sure that nothing shifty takes place. And it does. While we were out, the movers tried to dig into my tool box without asking, at which point our watchdog wailed into them. Considering that a good proportion of movers are ex-cons, let that be a warning for those who were thinking of dealing with them.

The vans packed, a crew is left behind to continue with the process, while we get the truck and dump the first van's load. We have to search around for awhile to figure out who to talk to, only to find out that we're actually getting a twenty-feet truck, which is awesome. And to highlight my status in the company, the boss came out of a meeting to wish me good luck and to see how things were going. The truck finally arriving, the driver takes it up and returns to the old apartment, while I go with the van to the new place to unload. While there is an elevator here, its moving time for several people, so we pretty much elect to bring the boxes up three flights of stairs by hand, which is a long and tedious process.

We return to the old place, and continue loading the truck. The fridge and stove we dumped in the alley earlier we already picked up by scrap metal men, or used appliance shops looking for free stuff. Either way, its a good thing. By seven thirty, we are done loading, the old place has been sweeped through to make sure nothing's been left behind, and away we go! Given that its been a long day already, we elect to park the vehicles and go for our well-deserved dinner. Conveniently, there's a decent bbq chicken place just up the street, at a reasonable price.

After dinner, we return to the apt, where we are joined by Kate and Dom for the big push. Its nine pm already and we have both a truck full of furniture and boxes, plus a van full to unload. Luckily, we now have the elevator to ourselves. Along with a pair of dollies, its makes the process a lot less tedious and more efficient. It still takes us till well past midnight to finish up, but eventually, everything's unloaded. The truck gets returned at something like one-thirty AM, so that by the time we're back home, we're bushed. Especially since that both me and Natasha had to get up to work in the morning. Yay us!

According to my buddy Dang, this was one of the smoothest and least troublesome move he's been involved in. I just was happy to be done with the whole process. I am thankful for all of those who have helped us, if only by providing good vibes, as every little bit helps.