Moving is a disease, part II
In my haste to get a post up last night I forgot to mention a very amusing part of the cleaning and painting fun on Friday. I realized I hadn't cleaned the drip pans under the burners so I stuck them in the dishwasher. After 10-15 minutes the dishwasher started spewing soapy water. Hey, at least it helped clean the floor!
So when I left off yesterday I had driven about 14 hours (including gas and bathroom breaks), 10 of which were without a radio or mp3 player. My car needed a jump for some unknown reason and traffic around NYC was a little heavier than I expected for a Sunday afternoon. I guess people were going back home after a weekend in the city. I fell asleep around 9p and woke up at 7a to be ready for the movers.

The movers showed up at 9ish, just two this time. The lead guy was the same but the other guy was different from the Michigan crew. They complained about all my stuff some more. I know I have a lot of stuff (I'll need help going through it when I move again) and some of it is heavy as large pieces of furniture often are, but come on. I told the moving company what I had as best I could---they asked me if I had a DVD player and VCR, an ironing board, etc but weren't interested in my small kitchen appliances. Weird. And really this is their chosen profession. So there were stairs on one end. Boo hoo.

I'm in the second floor of an old townhouse, it's nice and newly renovated. It's also bigger than my old place, although closet space is smaller so I need to do some rearranging on that front. The only problem with the stairs is that they aren't a straight shot, there's a turn at the bottom. So my queen box spring and sleeper sofa couldn't make it up. My landlord took out a window so they could get the box spring up but the sofa is currently in the barn. It'll have to go up the same way but moving special services needs to take care of that. MSS also took care of breaking down my desk for some reason. It's just a bunch of cams. The movers took apart my bed frame and dining room table. Once again I'm a little fuzzy on the line between standard and special services here. I wasn't even expecting the table to come apart at all and yet the desk was a special service.

So Monday was a bit of a trial. My landlords are nice though, an older couple. The house is on 5 acres and the nearest neighbor is the landlady's daughter. The whole area is very rural/low population suburban. Almost everyone at Pfizer is at least 10 years older than me (or at least they look it). So this is definitely not going to be the college town atmosphere I'm used to. Not that I went out a lot but when I wanted to there were people to see and things to do.

Yesterday I unpacked most of the day. Comcast came to set up the cable, internet and phone. That was frustrating because he couldn't split the line in the living room again for cable and internet because it had already been split in the basement and I would lose signal. There was a cable jack in the bedroom but he wasn't allowed to run cables through/over doorways. So I had him set up internet and phone in the living room and cable in the bedroom and then just ran the cable myself when he left. At the same time the MSS guy was assembling the desk and assessing the couch. If they take off the legs and take out the bed hoisting it should be easy. I guess I have a bigger couch than normal. I didn't think about it very much, I figured someone must have had a couch up here and professional movers could make it work.

I also found out yesterday, on my way in to work to collect my badge, parking pass and laptop, that my car died again. Fantastic. The battery is only 2 years old so it shouldn't be a problem. Unless I got a bad one or something. So I didn't get any of that stuff yet. I also didn't get a whole lot unpacked because I spent so much time setting up my desk and entertainment center. I still haven't found the power strip for the entertainment center so I can't plug everything in yet. God only knows what box that's in.

I did get caught up on TV yesterday and today I plan to start catching up on my web comics and blogs. I hope to get unpacked completely by the end of the weekend. I hate living out of boxes.

Labels: bad times, good times, moving

- posted by meg @ 10:22 AM

 
Moving is a disease, part I
The movers came on Friday; it took one packer and two carriers 6 hours to pack my entire place and load it on the truck. That's about what I expected. I have a lot of stuff. I went through a lot of it but I think the next time I move I'll have to be more thorough. I'll also consider packing myself (unless like this time it was paid for) because as I'm unpacking I'm having a hard time finding things I need. For example, I would chose to pack the power cord with the corresponding item or all together in one box. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Friday evening I cleaned and put primer on my painted walls with the indispensible help of Chris and Ashley. That actually went pretty well. The beer and paint fumes were great for morale and the red walls only needed two coats of primer. I think the point I realized I needed to actually stand in front of the open door was when I thought it was REALLY funny that Ashley was trying to blow the water out of Chris's beard.

Saturday I packed up my fridge and freezer, packed my car, and did the last of the vacuuming and cleaning. Then I watched the football game with C&A and got on my way. It was really sad leaving town but I have to say that I'm glad I'm not the last one out. I'm going to really try to be good about keeping in touch with everyone since my friends mean a great deal to me.

About 2 hours out of town my car stereo died. I felt like Homer Simpson that time he and Lisa did the sensory deprivation tank thing. Driving along the dark Ohio/Pennsylvania stretches of I80 with no one to talk to or radio to sing along to. It wasn't too bad, I amused myself somehow. I stopped for the night near Punxsatawny hoping to stop in town really quickly before moving on. But my car had other ideas. It did not start and I needed to call my car insurance company to send me someone to jump it. Luckily, Progressive offers roadside assistance. I got going later than I intended to so I skipped the side trip. It might be better to not ruin Groundhog Day with the real thing.

The rest of the trip was ok, except for some heavy traffic between Newark and NYC. That actually wasn't too bad considering how bad I think it could be; it took me about an hour/hour and a half to do that stretch. I got to my new apartment around 7. I brought a few things up from my car and basically crashed.

In the next segment, the movers arrive!

Labels: frustration, good times, moving

- posted by meg @ 6:11 PM