Eh! Wot? There really is nothing that describes this.

A Moving Story, Part 2

Posted by Mike

Part 1 of the story is here.
Part 3 of the story is here.

Apparently Destiny didn't put up much of a fight or the colander on Jeff's head had some extra-ordinary properties that gave him an edge in battle. +1 vs one of the Endless? Either way we ended up being doomed to pack and move our shit ourselves. On top of that, my landlady announced we had to repaint the place before we could leave; we (I) had done some renovations to the place (mostly just some new paint and ceiling fans) and I most certainly was NOT going to spend my weekend and money repainting those walls over. I was ready to just duck out on when when my next door neighbor saved the day. It turns out that Robin was moving in, she liked the paint job, and she wanted it as is. Our landlady warned her she would have to paint it when she left but apparently she was planning to duck out much like I was. I guess that's classified as a win/win/lose.

Now one of the reasons we ended up moving ourselves was Jeff's debit card got stolen (and abused) over the weekend so financing the move became extremely tricky. We tried contacting a discount place, Two Men and a Mule, but never got an estimate. Maybe they were on siesta, maybe they didn't move gringos, maybe they weren't even Mexican. Most likely they didn't like the sound of "moving from a two story townhouse to third floor loft" because I know I sure as hell didn't. Damn my honesty.

The morning of the move dawned clear and cool so we we headed over to UHaul to snag a truck. It put us a bit behind schedule; apparently discussing your boss's colonoscopy is more important that helping customers. With the help of our dedicated friend Park we began loading the 24 foot UHaul at around 11.

And continued loading.
And loaded some more.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that we had slightly underestimated exactly how much junk we had to move. I gave away my queen sized bed frame, mattresses, futon, and futon chair and we STILL had too much. I even went so far as to throw my coffee table and nightstand into a dumpster which was probably "rescued" by some of my old neighbors as soon as we drove out of site. I was that desperate about not wanting to move it. By the time it was all loaded and we drove to the new place it was almost four and people were expected to show at six to help us unload. We were dirty, stinky, and exhausted from carrying things down from the second floor of the townhouse: the last thing we wanted to do was carry it up to the third floor at the new place by ourselves. We drove the UHaul over, made a few car trips to get last minute bits and settled down for a break. My sister showed up not too long after so we hit the store for steak and beer to bribe my future unpackers with...

A Moving Story, Part 1

Posted by Mike

Editor's Note: Sadly this post was funnier with pictures, but they've since been lost to the fickleness of the internet and bad harddrives (because I was a chump and not using Flickr back then). I'm still trying to find old copies to put back in.

Part 2 of the story is here.
Part 3 of the story is here.

I've talked about my neighbors before; we have a semi-classic love hate relationship: I love to hate them. I probably shouldn't make such a broad statement as some of them have been pretty good, but the really bad ones are really, really bad. Midtown began sliding down the slippery slope of ghetto-ness in the three years since I've moved here so it's finally time to move on. I've ignored it as long as possible as I hate moving with a passion. It always tends to end up becoming a deep spring (fall) cleaning because I'm too lazy to take everything with me. I say fall cleaning because without fail I always seem to move then. It's also come to be associated with massive upheaval in my life with what I can only assume is something similar to Army brat syndrome.

Since I've lived here, I've seen:

• 1 fight in the parking lot over food stamps (With real police action.)
• 1 bounty hunter taking a guy away while his four year old daughter stood there and cried.
• Countless screaming matches (Now with and without police!)
• One wreck in the parking lot. The girl's brakes failed and she managed to clip my old convertible before slamming into the front brick wall and collapsing half. (Once again guest starring the police!)
• One hurricane (I was at the office most of the time so no problems there. Unsure if the police came, but there were a lot of people sitting on their porches)
• One guy arrested for various things, some real some not. (Yes police came, and yes it was me)
• One guy arrested for murder of a gay man at another apartment complex.
• One guy arrested for failing to register as a sex offender. (This was not me)
• One family of raccoons run out and shot for setting off a burglar alarm constantly.
• One tree falling into the building as three idiots tried to cut it down and managed to pull it INTO the building instead of away.
• One lesbian couple making up after one of the screaming matches mentioned above.
• I got a roommate.

It's been an unforgettable three years to say the least, though not in a Nat King Cole kind of way mind you, more of a post-9/11 sort of unforgettable. I think the word "traumatic" sums it up nicely. I've said I always try to live my life with no regrets and I definitely do not regret living here. Had the neighborhood not steadily declined I might have stayed longer.

So the packing has begun. It seems like Jeff was just moving in. I can't believe it was six short months ago. We were originally planning to move it all ourselves (with help from friends to unpack) but after realized that the new place was on the third floor, and that it's going to rain on the moving day it became increasingly clear fate was pushing us toward hiring movers so who am I to fight destiny?