On the Move... Coming Soon

The Signing of the Lease

So I finally signed the lease on my new place. I have to admit it was a relief cuz, paranoid as it sounds, I was afraid they’d find a more attractive renter that would be able to take the place immediately… rather than waiting until May when I can move. But I checked the place one last time after it was cleaned up, everything looked good, so we sat down and signed the lease.

No Luck on Early Release

We left the move-in date open…just in case I might actually be able to get out of my current lease a li’l early. Considering my previous neighbor got out of her lease because of her Peeping Tom, I thought I might have a shot at escaping the noisy smokestacks that live above me and share the wealth through mutual air vents. However, the best I got was a sit-down with our new landlord… a nice enough lady who, as it turns out, also suffers from migraines and has a similar sensitivity to cigarette smoke.

Her solution was… well, she had no solution. She suggested that the next time I hear anything untoward past 11:00 or smelled cigarette smoke in my apartment, to give her a call (anytime day or night) and she’d come to assess the situation herself. I figure: fair enough. But then every time I smelled anything, I got to second guessing myself: Is that really strong enough for anybody else to smell? Am I just being too sensitive? Is that smell just stuck in my nose?

Broken Smeller

When I finally convinced myself that I had a strong hit, I tried to call the woman. It was a Tuesday evening. I remember this because I discovered that night that she does her Mary Kay stuff on Tuesday evenings. Therefore she was obviously not home. So her hubby, also a nice enough individual, decided to try to come smell it for himself.

Unfortunately, it seems the man’s nose has been eaten off. Or some such problem. He’d had surgery on it recently, after which it started to literally rot (I got to hear the whole wonderful story). Several surgeries away, his smeller is now pretty much worthless. Needless to say, he couldn’t smell a thing. He left, saying he’d have the manager give me a call when she got in. Which she didn’t. I pretty much haven’t bothered trying to call them in again.

Time to Plan

So I’ve resigned myself to stickin it out until May. Which is actually a good thing in itself, since it gives me plenty of time to plan for the move. We decided if I couldn’t get out of my lease early, my start date would be May 16th… a Monday. This will give me a couple of weeks overlap between the old place and the new. Time to clean, time to get everything moved in relatively leisurely fashion.

My basic gameplan is to work half days for three days that week of the 16th then take Thursday and Friday off, to take care of little stuff… hire professional movers to do the bulk of the heavy moving over the weekend… take off Monday and Tuesday and half days for the rest of the week, to clean up the old place and start gettin settled into the new. Hopefully I should have JUST enough compensation time to cover all that time off.

Start Packing

My coworkers keep asking me if I’ve started packing yet. It’s probably a good idea. The move is only a little over two months away now. Now, on the one hand, that’s an interminable length of time (about the length of boot camp, which is, strangely, a somewhat apt comparison) but on the other hand, the time to get ready is gonna disappear before I realize it. I take it a week at a time, and these weeks are really rather short.

So I’ve decided that as soon as I finish up the current game of Spryo: Enter the Dragonfly (for GameCube), which I’m really close to doing, I’ll put down the Video Game Controller and start packing. Knowing my propensity to play LONG into the night and forget to do small things like eat and sleep (perfect recipe for migraines), I keep my video game indulgence to the weekends. But, as I said, I’m fortunately very close to finishing the game… should probably do so this weekend, in fact.

I’ve been collecting boxes at work… plus Mom and Pop have kept a chunk of professional moving boxes through theirs and mine and Gram’s various moves over the years. With a lot of short trips with little stuff, I should have enough for a short move a mile away.

The Search for Hired Help

Of course, I still have to call up some movers to get quotes. I researched a few online… even found a few that do small moves AND specialize in piano moving. This is a good thing to find, since pianos require special precautions. And I haven’t been very happy with the movers I hired to handle my baby the last few times.

This will be the first time I hire professional movers for the big stuff, though. Always, in past, me and Pop were able to handle my moves. Well, until that last one. We got some help from friends… including IHOP Buddy and Hubby. It was the consensus of the entire moving party, however, that I’d hire professional movers the next time. I’ve collected a LOT of shit… and none of us are getting any younger.

I know that the IHOP Family won’t be around for the fun this year, though, cuz they ended up getting a HUGE tax return this year (what with Hubby being outta commission for so long with a shattered arm), and they plan to head to DisneyWorld just as soon as school lets out. I think it’s awesome for them… though, of course, I had to give IHOP Buddy hastle that she picked that date on purpose to avoid another move… lol

Complicated Company

Oh, but I may have OTHER company for the move. Or not. Considering it’s almost time to head home, I’ll have to save the details for another day… but I have a very interesting friendship with a guy I was stationed with back in China lake during my Navy Days. I’ll call him Boomer (yeah, I’ve gotten hooked on the new Battlestar Galactica show that started on Sci Fi Channel) cuz he was an Ordinanceman in the Navy, and is fascinated by all things that go “Boom!”

Amway, we lost touch after China Lake and our lives went in different directions. But then, thanks to the wonders of the internet (and Classmates.com) Boomer found me again a couple of years ago. I will have to explain on the aforementioned later date about the friendship and circle of friends we enjoyed back then… and the interesting turn our friendship has taken, long distance, since we got back in touch again.

However, I will say for now (in a wonderfully vague, pressed-for-time way) that he has been going through a very bad personal situation during the entire time we have been reconnected. He WAS going to visit last Summer, but then his situation denied him that opportunity, and our communication kind of lagged again while he was dealing with his own struggles.

Our communication has recently perked up again, however, and he has indicated he wants to try to take a break again from his life this Summer… travel cross country and visit friends old and new. He may actually be able to do it this time. Or not. He’d like to be here to help me move… which would be great. I guess we’ll just see how it works out.

Blue Fingers

Okay, I’m now on page 8 in Microsoft Word for today’s blog offering, and I have 15 minutes before quittin time. So I need to give my fingers a break for now, wrap this up and get my happy li’l ass home. Guess I had more to write about that I thought, eh? Just as well, I suppose, not knowing when I’ll get to blog again, eh?