I mentioned in my last post here that this is the time of year that apparently at least some Omaha people refer to as "sauna season." They call it that because stepping outside feels like you're walking into a sauna. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that as well -- the humidity here is terrible, or at least it has been this past week. In Kansas, I never had to deal with humidity that much in the summers. Yes, the summer did reach 110-115 sometimes, but it was a dry heat for the most part -- and after it gets above 100, it's too hot to notice it getting any hotter anyhow.
Here? Hell, it's only been in the high 80s this week, and anytime I've been outside I've felt like I'm going to drown while breathing. I remember the heat in Omaha last summer too, on my visits up here to Daisy's parents' place, but it'll effect me much more now -- if I want to smoke, I do it outside on the balcony and nowhere else. I will say, though, that as far as I could see on the lease yesterday when I (finally) signed it, there's nothing in the lease that says you can't smoke in the building. I'm not going to, of course -- I actually like having white walls and not having my clothing and cats smell like smoke all the time -- I just found it interesting. My overall point is that whether I want to or not, wherever I end up working and no matter what I end up doing, I'm going to be outside a lot, both in the cold winters and the hot summers.
Since moving up here (I've lived here now, officially, for a week) my allergies are different than they were in Kansas. Yes, I still have allergies, though I think being out of my dust-and-smoke-filled house in Newton has helped them out quite a bit. The weather patterns here, however, are very different than those of Kansas. It reminds me of when I moved to Kansas from Missouri, and the adjustment time I needed then. Moving up here basically hit the reset button on my allergies, and now they have to recalibrate themselves. The off-and-on rain and storms we've had nearly every day since moving in hasn't helped that a lot, either, as each time a new front moves through, it wrecks my sinuses anew.
As for everything else?
I'm having an incredibly hard time sleeping. As in, at all. It's been many years since I've lived in a building with other people around me. And other people -- especially their children -- make noise. At all hours of the day and night. It's not that they have yelling matches or blast music, no. It's just noise in general -- people walking back and forth above us, people walking up and down the halls, people opening and closing doors, running water, going up and down the stairs. It freaks out the cats as well, especially as they're not used to hearing anyone but me. They're getting used to it, though, and are paying it no mind more and more by the day -- but me? People walking above us or entering the hallway from the big metal door situated in the building directly behind our bed will wake me up. Once it gets light outside in the mornings, as our bedroom window faces east toward the rising sun, I wake up because even with the blinds down and shut tightly, it's still too bright.
Once I'm awake, I'm awake. I can't do anything about it. I've been averaging about three or four hours of sleep -- at the most -- every night since moving in here. Last night I slept for about two hours before Daisy came home, at 4AM, from finishing packing/cleaning her room at her parents' house, and the noise woke me up. As you may recall, Daisy works night shifts. 4AM is her afternoon. The same is not true for me. I've been continually exhausted, my back has been screaming at me (because unless I get real, comfortable, and restful sleep, it will just continually hurt) and I'm completely burnt-out. I have no energy left for most tasks, not even with the amount of coffee I've been drinking just to keep myself upright. Daisy, because she's been packing and cleaning out her old room, was awake for almost two days straight -- she slept a little while yesterday morning before we went over to the clubhouse so I could sign the lease and other paperwork for this place -- but she is now able to sleep.
This afternoon, we went to get the marriage license (after she and I both slept, of course) and I found out that Parker can't make it to the wedding. At all. As Parker was the financing and transportation for basically the entire bachelor party, this threw basically everything we'd planned into upheaval. Parker doesn't drink, so he was going to be the designated driver for all of us. Parker was also basically in charge of taking care of the organization of and the paying for things, as he'd alluded to the fact that the "bachelor party" was basically his contribution to the wedding, the wedding gift, etc etc.
He has his reasons, of course, and I understand and accept them, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm not somewhat bitter and a little angry, frustrated, and disappointed. On short notice it's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to reconcile for, or make alternate plans for. I have no money to plan and finance the night out with the members of my groom's party who will be here; I'd planned for that to be taken care of, and to help out if necessary where necessary, but after the move I am basically broke until I get a job or until wedding money starts pouring in -- if it does. All of the cash I have to my name now is already spoken for when it comes to bills I will have to pay, bills that will come in from my last month of living in Newton. I paid the electric bill and $300 of my Discover bill yesterday (the latter taking me almost back to where I was before we rented the truck and moved up here), and I've still got the last water bill and my Citi Card bill which will come in soon as well, not to mention the new cable bill which arrived in the mail here today. So, while Daisy and I sort out all of our finances for utilities and wedding costs, both of us are basically broke.
On the plus side, we got on automatic payments at a fixed rate for the electric bill, which waives the huge "turn the lights on" deposit, and we've already paid the rent for June (we did that yesterday when I signed the lease).
People are slowly filtering into town for the wedding; one of Daisy's cousins is already here, and Rae arrives tonight. She's probably in town now as I type this, actually. My parents are already halfway here, having stopped in Illinois for the night. Everyone else arrives either tomorrow during the day/evening or on Friday. April and her husband are doing an in-and-out sort of affair, only being here basically for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding itself, and Jane gets here sometime on Friday. For the most part, everything is coming together. It's just a lot of work and a lot of hectic stuff to do all at once.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Homaha, Part III
We didn't have to return the U-Haul until Thursday; our three-day rental covered it until then. However, we were done with it, and it took up three spaces in the apartment's parking lot, so we wanted to just drop it off and be done with it.
This was easier said than done.
Why? Well...
U-Haul works in strange ways. Even though there's an actual U-Haul depot down the street from our new place -- like, five blocks away -- the return locations listed for drop-off were scattered all over the city in different areas, and not one of them was an actual U-Haul depot. They were places like gas stations, smoke shops, convenience stores, etc. Why? Who knows. It doesn't make any sense to me either. None whatsoever. The location they gave us (well, the one we picked as it wasn't in a terrible part of town) was one of those aforementioned smoke shops, but it was basically across the city from where we are. I told Daisy beforehand that even if it was in a questionable or "bad" part of town, it's not like we had to be there long -- we just had to drop off the truck, get back into the car, and go back home. That's it.
However, even though she's been living here for ten years, Daisy herself doesn't know Omaha like the back of her hand, or anything like that. She knows how to get around on the west and northwest side of the city, and part of the central city (we live in what is colloquially referred to as "central Omaha" according to the maps, because we're further east into the city than her parents are), but she doesn't know much else when it comes to getting us around. This means she had to GPS the drop-off place and have me follow her in her car. At this point, my Monte Carlo was still parked in the parents' driveway, where it had been for five days or so.
So, she plotted the route, and we went. It was...interesting. The truck drove terribly -- it had no acceleration, it was very slow to brake, and it had a massive turning radius. Because it was a 17-foot box truck (essentially), all of its mirrors were about useless. It's hard enough getting the truck through traffic on interstates and highways, but downtown Omaha weekday city traffic is something else altogether. And, of course, if I don't follow her, I don't know where we're going. Because of this, I had to run a red light to be able to stay behind her, and she had to pull over after another light that I had to wait through in order for me to be able to continue to follow her through residential streets which were somewhat winding and confusing.
The drop-off process itself? It was, as I mentioned before, at a smoke shop. It consisted to us handing the guy there the keys, him typing the number into the system and getting our confirmation information, and doing a very quick once-over of the truck to make sure everything was there and that it was in good working order. Seriously, that's it. We went back inside and one of the guys behind the counter told me "You've returned everything in good condition, it's all here, the gas levels are above what they need to be, and you have no further charges today. Your receipt has been e-mailed to you."
*blink*
Okay.
He was right; the receipt was emailed to me, but that's all the drop-off consisted of -- I didn't have to sign anything, I didn't have to do a point-by-point inspection of the truck with anyone, just drop it off and go. So that's what we did.
The grand total to rent the truck, not including the gas we had to put in it? $374.03. Daisy easily put over $150 of gas in it as well -- when we stopped for gas in Concordia, it took a full $100 before the pump automatically shut off at that point -- it could've taken more. It's 200 miles from Concordia to Omaha (almost exactly), which brought the tank down to under half by the time we were done. Putting that into perspective, a U-Haul gets roughly the same gas mileage as my Monte Carlo does -- about 19-22mpg. I'm not sure whether that's good for a truck that size, or really terrible for my Monte Carlo.
So, the U-Haul was dropped off, but that doesn't mean we were done. Daisy still had to move some stuff over from her parents' place (a process which she's still doing today and tonight, even) and even though everything of mine was here, it still needed to be unpacked, sorted, and put away. The latter was a much larger task than I'd anticipated, as...well...between the two of us, we have a lot of shit. I'd done a lot of my packing long before Daisy had found us this place, sealing up boxes of things beginning well over a year ago -- with the assumption that wherever I ended up, I'd have room for all of it. That simply ended up not being the case. Our apartment has a LOT of space, yes, but it's all open space -- there's no storage space for anything. We have very little cupboard or closet space (comparatively speaking, for all of our stuff), but we have giant rooms. We no longer have a pantry for dry food, which we had in my place in Newton. The closets in the bedrooms are nice and big, but with everything I brought with me -- a house full of stuff -- cramming it into a much smaller-than-the-house apartment, even a large apartment...it's difficult, obviously. There were many things I packed that I looked at once I unpacked and said "yeah, I don't need that," and tossed it in the trash -- simply because there was nowhere to put it.
The unpacking process took almost a full two days. All of the closets are full of things that must later be organized and really be put away/in their places once the wedding is over, but as we have people coming in rather soon, it all just has to be shoved into closets right now, for the moment. It also doesn't really help that Daisy has just as much stuff as I do, and she's still bringing bag after bag, box after box of it over from her parents' place.
While unpacking of everything important is done, there are still a few boxes in the dining room and a few more here in the computer room that I need to find a place for. The closets and storage areas in the house are already filled -- these boxes may just have to sit where they are for a while.
As for the internet and this computer room? The internet was installed without incident early on Saturday afternoon, and the computer room has both of our desks in it, Daisy's side of the room being more bare than my own because she doesn't have nearly as many nerdy things as I do. As for me? Eh, I'm fine. I'm really tired, and even five days later my muscles and body are both trying to finish recovering from the move. I also have as many gripes about our new place as I do likes of it; for example, I hate the showers. There's no water pressure to them. The kitchen cabinets are small and shallow, and the doors won't stay all the way shut on them. It was a bitch and a half to hook up the washer and dryer, because the dryer's exhaust hose was too short and we needed to get an extension for it. Etc. Little things like that. However, I really like the balcony, I really like the area, and the people who live in the building/complex all seem genuinely nice thus far. We're a five-minute drive away from the parents' house, and a three-minute drive from Daisy's office. The cats love it. I like having an automatic ice maker in the freezer. I mean, there's going to be good and bad in any place, but the good is good and the bad I can learn to deal with and accept, as we'll probably be living here for a while.
As we broke the massive bed frame while moving it (the cheap wooden slats in the center snapped in half), we simply had to throw it away once we got here to Omaha. This means that the mattress and box springs -- until we get a new frame -- are just on the floor in the bedroom. This isn't a huge deal, of course; I slept on that bed without a frame for a long time until I got one, but it's different than what I'm used to. And it makes the bed so much harder to sit up in and get out of in the morning. On the plus side, it makes it so much easier for the cats to sleep with us.
So, really, that's how things stand now. Daisy is still loading up/packing/trashing everything from her room, basement, and garage at her parents' house, something that she needs to finish by tonight before people start getting here for the wedding. It's been rainy and stormy here off and on, and when it's not, it's incredibly humid and muggy -- the beginning of what Omaha people refer to as "sauna season," apparently. It's an apt description. We were going to go see the new X-Men movie tonight, but both of us are really tired and have been near-constantly busy and/or poor, so I doubt that's going to happen.
This was easier said than done.
Why? Well...
U-Haul works in strange ways. Even though there's an actual U-Haul depot down the street from our new place -- like, five blocks away -- the return locations listed for drop-off were scattered all over the city in different areas, and not one of them was an actual U-Haul depot. They were places like gas stations, smoke shops, convenience stores, etc. Why? Who knows. It doesn't make any sense to me either. None whatsoever. The location they gave us (well, the one we picked as it wasn't in a terrible part of town) was one of those aforementioned smoke shops, but it was basically across the city from where we are. I told Daisy beforehand that even if it was in a questionable or "bad" part of town, it's not like we had to be there long -- we just had to drop off the truck, get back into the car, and go back home. That's it.
However, even though she's been living here for ten years, Daisy herself doesn't know Omaha like the back of her hand, or anything like that. She knows how to get around on the west and northwest side of the city, and part of the central city (we live in what is colloquially referred to as "central Omaha" according to the maps, because we're further east into the city than her parents are), but she doesn't know much else when it comes to getting us around. This means she had to GPS the drop-off place and have me follow her in her car. At this point, my Monte Carlo was still parked in the parents' driveway, where it had been for five days or so.
So, she plotted the route, and we went. It was...interesting. The truck drove terribly -- it had no acceleration, it was very slow to brake, and it had a massive turning radius. Because it was a 17-foot box truck (essentially), all of its mirrors were about useless. It's hard enough getting the truck through traffic on interstates and highways, but downtown Omaha weekday city traffic is something else altogether. And, of course, if I don't follow her, I don't know where we're going. Because of this, I had to run a red light to be able to stay behind her, and she had to pull over after another light that I had to wait through in order for me to be able to continue to follow her through residential streets which were somewhat winding and confusing.
The drop-off process itself? It was, as I mentioned before, at a smoke shop. It consisted to us handing the guy there the keys, him typing the number into the system and getting our confirmation information, and doing a very quick once-over of the truck to make sure everything was there and that it was in good working order. Seriously, that's it. We went back inside and one of the guys behind the counter told me "You've returned everything in good condition, it's all here, the gas levels are above what they need to be, and you have no further charges today. Your receipt has been e-mailed to you."
*blink*
Okay.
He was right; the receipt was emailed to me, but that's all the drop-off consisted of -- I didn't have to sign anything, I didn't have to do a point-by-point inspection of the truck with anyone, just drop it off and go. So that's what we did.
The grand total to rent the truck, not including the gas we had to put in it? $374.03. Daisy easily put over $150 of gas in it as well -- when we stopped for gas in Concordia, it took a full $100 before the pump automatically shut off at that point -- it could've taken more. It's 200 miles from Concordia to Omaha (almost exactly), which brought the tank down to under half by the time we were done. Putting that into perspective, a U-Haul gets roughly the same gas mileage as my Monte Carlo does -- about 19-22mpg. I'm not sure whether that's good for a truck that size, or really terrible for my Monte Carlo.
So, the U-Haul was dropped off, but that doesn't mean we were done. Daisy still had to move some stuff over from her parents' place (a process which she's still doing today and tonight, even) and even though everything of mine was here, it still needed to be unpacked, sorted, and put away. The latter was a much larger task than I'd anticipated, as...well...between the two of us, we have a lot of shit. I'd done a lot of my packing long before Daisy had found us this place, sealing up boxes of things beginning well over a year ago -- with the assumption that wherever I ended up, I'd have room for all of it. That simply ended up not being the case. Our apartment has a LOT of space, yes, but it's all open space -- there's no storage space for anything. We have very little cupboard or closet space (comparatively speaking, for all of our stuff), but we have giant rooms. We no longer have a pantry for dry food, which we had in my place in Newton. The closets in the bedrooms are nice and big, but with everything I brought with me -- a house full of stuff -- cramming it into a much smaller-than-the-house apartment, even a large apartment...it's difficult, obviously. There were many things I packed that I looked at once I unpacked and said "yeah, I don't need that," and tossed it in the trash -- simply because there was nowhere to put it.
The unpacking process took almost a full two days. All of the closets are full of things that must later be organized and really be put away/in their places once the wedding is over, but as we have people coming in rather soon, it all just has to be shoved into closets right now, for the moment. It also doesn't really help that Daisy has just as much stuff as I do, and she's still bringing bag after bag, box after box of it over from her parents' place.
While unpacking of everything important is done, there are still a few boxes in the dining room and a few more here in the computer room that I need to find a place for. The closets and storage areas in the house are already filled -- these boxes may just have to sit where they are for a while.
As for the internet and this computer room? The internet was installed without incident early on Saturday afternoon, and the computer room has both of our desks in it, Daisy's side of the room being more bare than my own because she doesn't have nearly as many nerdy things as I do. As for me? Eh, I'm fine. I'm really tired, and even five days later my muscles and body are both trying to finish recovering from the move. I also have as many gripes about our new place as I do likes of it; for example, I hate the showers. There's no water pressure to them. The kitchen cabinets are small and shallow, and the doors won't stay all the way shut on them. It was a bitch and a half to hook up the washer and dryer, because the dryer's exhaust hose was too short and we needed to get an extension for it. Etc. Little things like that. However, I really like the balcony, I really like the area, and the people who live in the building/complex all seem genuinely nice thus far. We're a five-minute drive away from the parents' house, and a three-minute drive from Daisy's office. The cats love it. I like having an automatic ice maker in the freezer. I mean, there's going to be good and bad in any place, but the good is good and the bad I can learn to deal with and accept, as we'll probably be living here for a while.
As we broke the massive bed frame while moving it (the cheap wooden slats in the center snapped in half), we simply had to throw it away once we got here to Omaha. This means that the mattress and box springs -- until we get a new frame -- are just on the floor in the bedroom. This isn't a huge deal, of course; I slept on that bed without a frame for a long time until I got one, but it's different than what I'm used to. And it makes the bed so much harder to sit up in and get out of in the morning. On the plus side, it makes it so much easier for the cats to sleep with us.
So, really, that's how things stand now. Daisy is still loading up/packing/trashing everything from her room, basement, and garage at her parents' house, something that she needs to finish by tonight before people start getting here for the wedding. It's been rainy and stormy here off and on, and when it's not, it's incredibly humid and muggy -- the beginning of what Omaha people refer to as "sauna season," apparently. It's an apt description. We were going to go see the new X-Men movie tonight, but both of us are really tired and have been near-constantly busy and/or poor, so I doubt that's going to happen.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Homaha, Part II
I should also mention one little detail before moving further into the story.
How many of you have ever driven a truck into a house before? Show of hands?
Nobody?
Okay, fine.
So it's just me then.
While backing the truck into the driveway (trying to get it straighter) I went a little too far, the gas pedal was where the brake should be, and I rammed it into the balcony of the house in Newton. Not too hard, mind you, but enough to break/splinter the already falling apart wood of the balcony in one little place, and bend up the metal sheeting under the carpet on said balcony. It was barely noticeable, and didn't even mark the truck. The balcony was always rotting and half-falling apart anyway, and had been since I moved in.
No, I didn't mention it to the landlord. You wouldn't notice it unless you stared right at it or were looking for it, and if he does notice it sooner or later, he'll never know when or how it got there (since he wasn't around when it happened, and is so rarely in the neighborhood anyway). It was very minor. Eh. If I lose some more of the deposit for that, it's totally on me and my own stupidity. If I don't? Huzzah.
Also, before I go forward, I'd also like to say that my allergies have kicked in full-force tonight, four days after moving here, as a somewhat large cold front has moved in and brought rain with it. My sinuses are feeling terrible -- like, sinus-infection terrible -- and they're steadily getting worse as the night moves onward and the rain begins to fall. My face and teeth hurt again, and I don't like it. It's that nasty nerve pain from swollen sinuses around my teeth that just isn't pleasant no matter how you slice it, and it's more than likely been spurred on by the move, the lack of sleep, the amount of work I've been doing (all of which wears down my immune system) and the different weather systems/climates here in Nebraska compared to Kansas. I've taken what pills I can for it, but it's really not getting any better or lessening any. It's rather unlike me to develop a full-blown sinus infection in less than twelve hours (as I was okay this morning when I got up), so I hope it's just weather-related and that it passes quickly. I can't be bogged down by sickness when I have so many other things to do in the next week.
Anyway. To continue the story...
The drive to Nebraska was a very long one, punctuated by the fact that it was already getting hot when we left Kansas and nothing could be done about it. You can run the air conditioner in the car all you want, but when it's sunny and that sun hits the back seat where you have cats in their carriers, no amount of air conditioning on an almost six-hour-long drive will keep them cool. Pete was panting by the time we reached Concordia, the 1/3-of-the-way point, and there was nothing I could do. They still had to be in their carriers for several more hours even then. We stopped briefly there and in York, as per the usual, but luckily we did catch a break -- it became more and more overcast the further north we drove, and the cats got a reprieve from the sun once the cloud cover took over.
As for the cats themselves, each time I stopped or started the car's movement, Sadie would cry out and howl a little, and then I'd talk to her for a few minutes and she would stop and be okay. Maggie slept almost the whole way, as did Pete. I think all of them were the cat equivalent of being shell-shocked; they were already scared and somewhat traumatized as it was from all of the things happening around them. Mind you, this was to be expected -- they hadn't been anywhere but inside the Newton house for five years. They probably don't remember the other places they lived before then, and if they do, it's a very faint memory. They haven't been in the car or the carriers since moving in there, either, and it was probably really scary for them to see their home emptied...and then to be boxed up and taken away from that home forever, even though it was me and Daisy who were taking them.
When we arrived in Omaha at our new place, it was mid-afternoon -- around 3PM or so. Daisy's father and one of our friends helped us unload everything, something that took many, many stressful and work-filled hours. Mama was here as well; she put together our table for us and kept an eye on the apartment while we left its door open for easy in-and-out access with all of the furniture and dolly loads. By around 10:30 or so, hours after the parents and our friend had left, we had everything in the apartment -- entire rooms filled with boxes from floor to ceiling, furniture haphazardly arranged just so we could get it in there and worry about it later, yes, but we had it in there -- and we went to put the ramp up on the truck and close it up for the night.
Now, I'd rented a 17-foot U-Haul, and had paid full price for it (almost $400 total, not counting gas -- Daisy got the gas for it) and with a 17-foot U-Haul truck loaded to the brim (because it was), to get things in and out it has a retractable steel ramp. A big, heavy, retractable steel ramp. The ramp has to be out at all times when you're loading and unloading, because well, otherwise you can't really load or unload anything. And the truck's back door won't close when the ramp is down and extended. So we had to put the ramp up, close it up, and then park it in our complex's parking lot for the night before we could take it to the drop-off point in the morning.
The ramp wouldn't go up. It was stuck.
Motherfucker. What can go wrong *will* go wrong, right?
We tried wiggling it. We tried moving it up and down. We tried pushing up and pushing down on it, shaking it side to side, getting underneath it and messing with the latches. No dice. The ramp wouldn't budge.
By this point it was getting really late, and Daisy and I were doubly exhausted from working for essentially 48 hours straight and making the drives down and back up here.
"There's a U-Haul place down the street," I said, which was true -- about a mile away there's a big U-Haul location. "Call them and see if there's someone there who can come up here and fix the ramp on the truck, or at least see if there's something actually wrong with it or not."
Because, of course, it's not like we can take it down there.
What I really wanted to say was don't tell them we broke it, don't give them my account number or the truck number, just ask if there's someone who can come up and fix it. The truck had already cost enough money -- if we had someone come up here, I didn't want them knowing anything about me or knowing my account number for the rental, as that would give them a way to remotely charge us more for a "service call" or some shit like that.
She called somebody at U-Haul, got transferred around several times, and then her phone battery died. She plugged it in and called back, and got a guy who told her that it sounded like the ramp had gotten off-track. We went downstairs and he walked us through how to check it and what to do to get it back on-track if it was indeed off. While she was on the phone with him and I was following the directions he relayed, the ramp dropped down and locked back into place, and I was able to slide it back up and in under the truck.
"We're not touching that damned ramp again," I said, almost crying with relief and fatigue.
Daisy thanked the guy on the phone very graciously and hung up.
And we were then done.
She moved the truck across the parking lot, and we went back upstairs. A wave of great relief washed over me. It was over. This terrible, painful move -- in which I'd suffered a facial injury due to a doorjamb, had injured my shoulder/bicep badly (and then re-injured it twice more during continued moving) and had backed a truck into a house...it was all over. Everything was inside. It was done. I'd barely slept. Aside from a handful of almonds and that aforementioned (in the last post) Subway sub, I hadn't eaten anything in 48 hours. I was very addled, very sweaty and achy, and the most physically tired I'd been in a very, very long time.
As for the cats? We'd made sure everything they could get into was closed up, but they were still so scared and traumatized that they didn't want to get out of their carriers even though they'd been opened and they'd been "free" to roam about the laundry room, get food and water, use their pan, etc since around 3PM. Pete actually got out of his carrier and snuggled up with Sadie in hers. They didn't want to move. At all. I felt so bad for the poor little babies.
We did have to move them into the bathroom and put them in the tub, in their carriers, when we had to bring in the washer and dryer (the last two things we unloaded), but we moved them back into the laundry room afterward. They still didn't want to move. We left them in there with the door shut, as there was still stuff strewn around the house and we were pretty sure at least Sadie had peed on herself inside her carrier due to fright, and we went out to get Night Flight Pizza for dinner. At 1AM.
Because I'd been so stressed out and so busy, with very little sleep, my hunger didn't kick in until it was all done. That's how my body and mind works a lot of the time, to be honest with you -- if there's something to be done, and it's a lot of work or stress to do, everything else is shut out or turned off, physically and psychologically, until that task is completed. That's why I couldn't sleep even though I was extremely tired and sore. That's why I hadn't been hungry even though I hadn't eaten in two days. Those urges get pushed aside when nothing else can be done but the task at hand. Since the task at hand -- at least the hard part of it -- had been completed, my hunger and fatigue came roaring back. Daisy said she wanted Night Flight (which I probably would've suggested anyway) and so that's what we did.
Upon returning home, we made sure the cats would be clean and safe in the new place by...well...giving them baths. Individually. We needed to do this because of the pee issue. Pete didn't pee in his cage (Pete was the best of all three of them, actually, at adjusting to everything going on) but we were pretty sure the girls had, at least one of them anyway. So we gave them gentle, warm-water baths in the bathtub in "my" bathroom, only using a thumbtack-sized bit of body wash to lather them up and rub them down. They were really good; they took it well. I think it's because they were so tired, scared, and stressed anyway that they didn't want to put up a fight.
After we held them and let them dry (again, individually), we rubbed them down to remove any excess water and hair, talked to them sweetly to help calm their nerves, and we let them out one by one to explore their new home and gather their composure.
Let me tell you -- they adjusted really well, really quickly. Once they were dry (or dry enough, anyway) they got comfortable in the house really fast. They love the new furniture that Daisy got, and they found new sleeping spots and hidey-holes really quickly without us having to worry about them. Also, interestingly enough, they haven't fought once since moving in, and they've been more lovey than ever -- especially with Daisy, which was incredibly surprising to me. It's a night and day difference compared to how they felt during the move and during our bringing things in and out of both places. Now, several days later, they know where everything is, know where they can hide and sleep comfortably, and have once more become completely normal and at ease.
However, even though everything was in the house and safe/secure, we still had to take back the U-Haul and we still had to unpack everything. How did that turn out? Well, that's a story for the next post.
How many of you have ever driven a truck into a house before? Show of hands?
Nobody?
Okay, fine.
So it's just me then.
While backing the truck into the driveway (trying to get it straighter) I went a little too far, the gas pedal was where the brake should be, and I rammed it into the balcony of the house in Newton. Not too hard, mind you, but enough to break/splinter the already falling apart wood of the balcony in one little place, and bend up the metal sheeting under the carpet on said balcony. It was barely noticeable, and didn't even mark the truck. The balcony was always rotting and half-falling apart anyway, and had been since I moved in.
No, I didn't mention it to the landlord. You wouldn't notice it unless you stared right at it or were looking for it, and if he does notice it sooner or later, he'll never know when or how it got there (since he wasn't around when it happened, and is so rarely in the neighborhood anyway). It was very minor. Eh. If I lose some more of the deposit for that, it's totally on me and my own stupidity. If I don't? Huzzah.
Also, before I go forward, I'd also like to say that my allergies have kicked in full-force tonight, four days after moving here, as a somewhat large cold front has moved in and brought rain with it. My sinuses are feeling terrible -- like, sinus-infection terrible -- and they're steadily getting worse as the night moves onward and the rain begins to fall. My face and teeth hurt again, and I don't like it. It's that nasty nerve pain from swollen sinuses around my teeth that just isn't pleasant no matter how you slice it, and it's more than likely been spurred on by the move, the lack of sleep, the amount of work I've been doing (all of which wears down my immune system) and the different weather systems/climates here in Nebraska compared to Kansas. I've taken what pills I can for it, but it's really not getting any better or lessening any. It's rather unlike me to develop a full-blown sinus infection in less than twelve hours (as I was okay this morning when I got up), so I hope it's just weather-related and that it passes quickly. I can't be bogged down by sickness when I have so many other things to do in the next week.
Anyway. To continue the story...
The drive to Nebraska was a very long one, punctuated by the fact that it was already getting hot when we left Kansas and nothing could be done about it. You can run the air conditioner in the car all you want, but when it's sunny and that sun hits the back seat where you have cats in their carriers, no amount of air conditioning on an almost six-hour-long drive will keep them cool. Pete was panting by the time we reached Concordia, the 1/3-of-the-way point, and there was nothing I could do. They still had to be in their carriers for several more hours even then. We stopped briefly there and in York, as per the usual, but luckily we did catch a break -- it became more and more overcast the further north we drove, and the cats got a reprieve from the sun once the cloud cover took over.
As for the cats themselves, each time I stopped or started the car's movement, Sadie would cry out and howl a little, and then I'd talk to her for a few minutes and she would stop and be okay. Maggie slept almost the whole way, as did Pete. I think all of them were the cat equivalent of being shell-shocked; they were already scared and somewhat traumatized as it was from all of the things happening around them. Mind you, this was to be expected -- they hadn't been anywhere but inside the Newton house for five years. They probably don't remember the other places they lived before then, and if they do, it's a very faint memory. They haven't been in the car or the carriers since moving in there, either, and it was probably really scary for them to see their home emptied...and then to be boxed up and taken away from that home forever, even though it was me and Daisy who were taking them.
When we arrived in Omaha at our new place, it was mid-afternoon -- around 3PM or so. Daisy's father and one of our friends helped us unload everything, something that took many, many stressful and work-filled hours. Mama was here as well; she put together our table for us and kept an eye on the apartment while we left its door open for easy in-and-out access with all of the furniture and dolly loads. By around 10:30 or so, hours after the parents and our friend had left, we had everything in the apartment -- entire rooms filled with boxes from floor to ceiling, furniture haphazardly arranged just so we could get it in there and worry about it later, yes, but we had it in there -- and we went to put the ramp up on the truck and close it up for the night.
Now, I'd rented a 17-foot U-Haul, and had paid full price for it (almost $400 total, not counting gas -- Daisy got the gas for it) and with a 17-foot U-Haul truck loaded to the brim (because it was), to get things in and out it has a retractable steel ramp. A big, heavy, retractable steel ramp. The ramp has to be out at all times when you're loading and unloading, because well, otherwise you can't really load or unload anything. And the truck's back door won't close when the ramp is down and extended. So we had to put the ramp up, close it up, and then park it in our complex's parking lot for the night before we could take it to the drop-off point in the morning.
The ramp wouldn't go up. It was stuck.
Motherfucker. What can go wrong *will* go wrong, right?
We tried wiggling it. We tried moving it up and down. We tried pushing up and pushing down on it, shaking it side to side, getting underneath it and messing with the latches. No dice. The ramp wouldn't budge.
By this point it was getting really late, and Daisy and I were doubly exhausted from working for essentially 48 hours straight and making the drives down and back up here.
"There's a U-Haul place down the street," I said, which was true -- about a mile away there's a big U-Haul location. "Call them and see if there's someone there who can come up here and fix the ramp on the truck, or at least see if there's something actually wrong with it or not."
Because, of course, it's not like we can take it down there.
What I really wanted to say was don't tell them we broke it, don't give them my account number or the truck number, just ask if there's someone who can come up and fix it. The truck had already cost enough money -- if we had someone come up here, I didn't want them knowing anything about me or knowing my account number for the rental, as that would give them a way to remotely charge us more for a "service call" or some shit like that.
She called somebody at U-Haul, got transferred around several times, and then her phone battery died. She plugged it in and called back, and got a guy who told her that it sounded like the ramp had gotten off-track. We went downstairs and he walked us through how to check it and what to do to get it back on-track if it was indeed off. While she was on the phone with him and I was following the directions he relayed, the ramp dropped down and locked back into place, and I was able to slide it back up and in under the truck.
"We're not touching that damned ramp again," I said, almost crying with relief and fatigue.
Daisy thanked the guy on the phone very graciously and hung up.
And we were then done.
She moved the truck across the parking lot, and we went back upstairs. A wave of great relief washed over me. It was over. This terrible, painful move -- in which I'd suffered a facial injury due to a doorjamb, had injured my shoulder/bicep badly (and then re-injured it twice more during continued moving) and had backed a truck into a house...it was all over. Everything was inside. It was done. I'd barely slept. Aside from a handful of almonds and that aforementioned (in the last post) Subway sub, I hadn't eaten anything in 48 hours. I was very addled, very sweaty and achy, and the most physically tired I'd been in a very, very long time.
As for the cats? We'd made sure everything they could get into was closed up, but they were still so scared and traumatized that they didn't want to get out of their carriers even though they'd been opened and they'd been "free" to roam about the laundry room, get food and water, use their pan, etc since around 3PM. Pete actually got out of his carrier and snuggled up with Sadie in hers. They didn't want to move. At all. I felt so bad for the poor little babies.
We did have to move them into the bathroom and put them in the tub, in their carriers, when we had to bring in the washer and dryer (the last two things we unloaded), but we moved them back into the laundry room afterward. They still didn't want to move. We left them in there with the door shut, as there was still stuff strewn around the house and we were pretty sure at least Sadie had peed on herself inside her carrier due to fright, and we went out to get Night Flight Pizza for dinner. At 1AM.
Because I'd been so stressed out and so busy, with very little sleep, my hunger didn't kick in until it was all done. That's how my body and mind works a lot of the time, to be honest with you -- if there's something to be done, and it's a lot of work or stress to do, everything else is shut out or turned off, physically and psychologically, until that task is completed. That's why I couldn't sleep even though I was extremely tired and sore. That's why I hadn't been hungry even though I hadn't eaten in two days. Those urges get pushed aside when nothing else can be done but the task at hand. Since the task at hand -- at least the hard part of it -- had been completed, my hunger and fatigue came roaring back. Daisy said she wanted Night Flight (which I probably would've suggested anyway) and so that's what we did.
Upon returning home, we made sure the cats would be clean and safe in the new place by...well...giving them baths. Individually. We needed to do this because of the pee issue. Pete didn't pee in his cage (Pete was the best of all three of them, actually, at adjusting to everything going on) but we were pretty sure the girls had, at least one of them anyway. So we gave them gentle, warm-water baths in the bathtub in "my" bathroom, only using a thumbtack-sized bit of body wash to lather them up and rub them down. They were really good; they took it well. I think it's because they were so tired, scared, and stressed anyway that they didn't want to put up a fight.
After we held them and let them dry (again, individually), we rubbed them down to remove any excess water and hair, talked to them sweetly to help calm their nerves, and we let them out one by one to explore their new home and gather their composure.
Let me tell you -- they adjusted really well, really quickly. Once they were dry (or dry enough, anyway) they got comfortable in the house really fast. They love the new furniture that Daisy got, and they found new sleeping spots and hidey-holes really quickly without us having to worry about them. Also, interestingly enough, they haven't fought once since moving in, and they've been more lovey than ever -- especially with Daisy, which was incredibly surprising to me. It's a night and day difference compared to how they felt during the move and during our bringing things in and out of both places. Now, several days later, they know where everything is, know where they can hide and sleep comfortably, and have once more become completely normal and at ease.
However, even though everything was in the house and safe/secure, we still had to take back the U-Haul and we still had to unpack everything. How did that turn out? Well, that's a story for the next post.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Homaha, Part I
So. Here I am.
The internet was installed here this morning. It maybe took an hour's work at most from the cable guy -- he got here earlier than the original expected time, he put it in and turned it on, and then he left. And, miraculously, internet restored.
The move? Well...
I'll say here and now that everything is in the house that was coming into the house, I have put away about 90% of the stuff, I have hooked up all pertinent electronics, and finally, after sleeping here for three nights, the place is beginning to feel more and more like a home. But the road here wasn't easy -- both literally and figuratively. So, I'll start from the beginning. Buckle in, folks. This will be a long one.
When I last left you on Sunday night (with my last post here), we were getting ready to go to bed. We had been told that our U-Haul truck wouldn't be available until noon on Monday, and as much of the stuff had already been packed and readied, we were trying to wear ourselves down as much as possible in order to get decent sleep and be energized for the next three days ahead of us -- days which would be grueling and terrible and deal with. So, upon our return to Kansas that Sunday night, we stopped at Subway. I got a footlong Philly cheesesteak and a Coke.
How much work was it? That -- aside from a handful of almonds, some coffee/soda, and some water -- was my only meal for over 48 hours straight. I didn't sit down and actually eat after Sunday night until about 2AM on Wednesday morning, when we were (finally) done with everything.
Yeah. I'm not kidding.
We picked up the truck at noon on Monday, brought it back up to the house, and loaded it from then until well after dark, busting our asses. The washer and dryer, as well as the bed and bed frame (which we had to disassemble -- and broke -- in the process) were very difficult to load, as were some of the other large boxes and furniture. During the moving of the mattress, Daisy was trying to turn it one way and I was trying to turn it the other, which led me to lunge forward to catch it...and made me bash my face on the downstairs doorjamb, cutting open the bridge of my nose and making it bleed. I also slipped and fell down the interior stairs while carrying a large, heavy box of stuff, and badly injured my bicep/shoulder/etc. For a time I thought I'd pulled it out, then snapped it back into, the socket.
Battle wounds.
By around 10PM we had loaded most of the stuff into the truck, and closed it up for the night...and then spent until 2AM cleaning the house, only getting it partially cleaned (probably, oh, 1/3 cleaned) before we were completely out of energy. This process was expedited by the fact that we couldn't get the steam cleaner to work (as it's the old-school kind that connects to a sink faucet, and we didn't have the right sized adapter), so we just had to say "screw it" and give up on that.
Throughout all of the packing and cleaning, the cats were locked into the downstairs bathroom, where they seemed traumatized by all of the moving, banging, and cleaning noises (vacuums and the like). We basically had to catch them and throw them in there, slamming the door shut quickly, as they aren't exactly fans of being cooped up anywhere, let alone in a tiny little bathroom with some food and litter. I gave them some tuna when we put them in there, but it took them hours to actually eat it, and they were so nervous and frazzled that they pooped on the floor (instead of the pan) in two different places. Poor scared little babies. I could hear them fighting too, on occasion. I would stop by the door every once in a while and tell them that everything was okay, and that I'd let them out soon.
During the packing of the truck, at Daisy's insistence, I'd called my landlord to set up a time for him to come over in the morning to do his final walkthrough and inspection of everything. Daisy also wanted to get out of Newton as early as possible on Tuesday morning, as in doing so we could possibly unload everything that day/night and be done, taking the truck back to drop it off on Wednesday. Well, he wanted to come at 8:30 AM, which was good for Daisy as she wanted to leave Kansas around 9 or so, but was terrible for us overall because it meant we'd get no real sleep whatsoever -- not that we really had anywhere to sleep anyhow as the bed and almost all of the other furniture had already been loaded into the truck. I had an air mattress and two different comforters we left out, and the spare room was the only room that didn't really need to be cleaned and still had some stuff in it, so that's where we chose to go. I inflated the mattress and put the comforters on the floor, and we had two side-by-side makeshift beds. Beds which, of course, weren't comfortable at all, and were even less so after working all goddamned day and night.
Of course, we would only get a few hours' sleep anyway -- because we didn't wrap up our cleaning enough to let the cats out and go to sleep until around 2, and because the landlord was coming by around 8:30, we had to set the alarm for 6 to finish as much cleaning as we could and finish getting everything else on the truck by the time he got there. We wanted to be done, have everything swept out and on the truck, and be ready to go once he was done with his walkthrough.
This was also easier said than done. We were both exhausted, we could barely sleep, the cats were freaked out because everything in the house was gone, so they huddled around us in the spare room all night on our uncomfortable beds and meowed, crawling on top of us trying to make sense of things, but to no real avail. I couldn't really rest at all -- I dozed off for maybe an hour at a time, getting no real REM sleep and no actual rest, just downtime where I wasn't lifting, carrying, or moving anything. There's little that could be done about that.
In the morning, I will say that I was rapidly reaching my "fuck it" point when we resumed cleaning -- the point where I just wanted to say "fuck it, this isn't getting any better than it already is." And to a certain extent, I did reach that point. I rapidly cleaned the cat room out as much as I could, Daisy wiped down the fridge and freezer, and we loaded the last of what needed to be in the truck into the truck just as the landlord arrived at 8:30.
It was an awkward visit, that's for sure. Look, my landlord liked me -- I didn't give him any shit the entire time I lived there, his wife adored me, I always paid my rent on time, and if there was a major issue I was always sure to let him know (on the few times I had to do that, of course). I also (to my knowledge, anyway) never generated any complaints about noise or music or anything along those lines, as I'm sure I would've heard about it if I had. So, he came, he put the "for rent" sign in the un-mowed yard (as I hadn't had time to mow it and I'd also sold the mower at the yard sale to the people across the street), and we went through the house. I also gave him my work list, the list of stuff I'd compiled that needed to be worked on or otherwise fixed, but weren't major issues, and that also included the list of stuff I'd already done to help out. He did tell me that overall, the house looked pretty good, pretty clean...and then he got to the Man Cave -- where I smoked for five years, and despite attempts by both myself and Daisy to scrub down the walls, was still awful -- and asked "what happened in here?"
My response: "uhhhhh...."
Yeah. I totally avoided the question, though it was pretty clear what the answer was. Tobacco. Lots of tobacco happened in there. Five years' worth, in fact.
Overall, the verdict was pretty good (at least I think so, anyway). He told me there would be some charges off my deposit, but insinuated that they wouldn't be major ones. We'll see, of course, when I get what's left of my deposit back in the mail sometime eventually. I told Daisy this afternoon that whatever I got back, I wasn't going to dispute it -- I mean, the house was a wreck in certain spots, and while I did what I could to make it better in the weeks and days before moving out, I would fully understand and accept it if he took a large chunk out of it for repairs and remodeling of certain rooms and spaces, namely my Man Cave. I expect to get at least a decent amount back, I think, though one way or the other it's all behind me now. I mean, literally and figuratively -- I no longer live there.
So we handed over the keys, I shook his hand and we wished each other well, he wished us well on the wedding and marriage, and left. About ten minutes later, once we had the cats situated in their carriers in the back of Daisy's car, I got buckled in and she got into the truck...and we left my former home in Newton behind forever.
What happened next? Well, that's a story for part II.
The internet was installed here this morning. It maybe took an hour's work at most from the cable guy -- he got here earlier than the original expected time, he put it in and turned it on, and then he left. And, miraculously, internet restored.
The move? Well...
I'll say here and now that everything is in the house that was coming into the house, I have put away about 90% of the stuff, I have hooked up all pertinent electronics, and finally, after sleeping here for three nights, the place is beginning to feel more and more like a home. But the road here wasn't easy -- both literally and figuratively. So, I'll start from the beginning. Buckle in, folks. This will be a long one.
When I last left you on Sunday night (with my last post here), we were getting ready to go to bed. We had been told that our U-Haul truck wouldn't be available until noon on Monday, and as much of the stuff had already been packed and readied, we were trying to wear ourselves down as much as possible in order to get decent sleep and be energized for the next three days ahead of us -- days which would be grueling and terrible and deal with. So, upon our return to Kansas that Sunday night, we stopped at Subway. I got a footlong Philly cheesesteak and a Coke.
How much work was it? That -- aside from a handful of almonds, some coffee/soda, and some water -- was my only meal for over 48 hours straight. I didn't sit down and actually eat after Sunday night until about 2AM on Wednesday morning, when we were (finally) done with everything.
Yeah. I'm not kidding.
We picked up the truck at noon on Monday, brought it back up to the house, and loaded it from then until well after dark, busting our asses. The washer and dryer, as well as the bed and bed frame (which we had to disassemble -- and broke -- in the process) were very difficult to load, as were some of the other large boxes and furniture. During the moving of the mattress, Daisy was trying to turn it one way and I was trying to turn it the other, which led me to lunge forward to catch it...and made me bash my face on the downstairs doorjamb, cutting open the bridge of my nose and making it bleed. I also slipped and fell down the interior stairs while carrying a large, heavy box of stuff, and badly injured my bicep/shoulder/etc. For a time I thought I'd pulled it out, then snapped it back into, the socket.
Battle wounds.
By around 10PM we had loaded most of the stuff into the truck, and closed it up for the night...and then spent until 2AM cleaning the house, only getting it partially cleaned (probably, oh, 1/3 cleaned) before we were completely out of energy. This process was expedited by the fact that we couldn't get the steam cleaner to work (as it's the old-school kind that connects to a sink faucet, and we didn't have the right sized adapter), so we just had to say "screw it" and give up on that.
Throughout all of the packing and cleaning, the cats were locked into the downstairs bathroom, where they seemed traumatized by all of the moving, banging, and cleaning noises (vacuums and the like). We basically had to catch them and throw them in there, slamming the door shut quickly, as they aren't exactly fans of being cooped up anywhere, let alone in a tiny little bathroom with some food and litter. I gave them some tuna when we put them in there, but it took them hours to actually eat it, and they were so nervous and frazzled that they pooped on the floor (instead of the pan) in two different places. Poor scared little babies. I could hear them fighting too, on occasion. I would stop by the door every once in a while and tell them that everything was okay, and that I'd let them out soon.
During the packing of the truck, at Daisy's insistence, I'd called my landlord to set up a time for him to come over in the morning to do his final walkthrough and inspection of everything. Daisy also wanted to get out of Newton as early as possible on Tuesday morning, as in doing so we could possibly unload everything that day/night and be done, taking the truck back to drop it off on Wednesday. Well, he wanted to come at 8:30 AM, which was good for Daisy as she wanted to leave Kansas around 9 or so, but was terrible for us overall because it meant we'd get no real sleep whatsoever -- not that we really had anywhere to sleep anyhow as the bed and almost all of the other furniture had already been loaded into the truck. I had an air mattress and two different comforters we left out, and the spare room was the only room that didn't really need to be cleaned and still had some stuff in it, so that's where we chose to go. I inflated the mattress and put the comforters on the floor, and we had two side-by-side makeshift beds. Beds which, of course, weren't comfortable at all, and were even less so after working all goddamned day and night.
Of course, we would only get a few hours' sleep anyway -- because we didn't wrap up our cleaning enough to let the cats out and go to sleep until around 2, and because the landlord was coming by around 8:30, we had to set the alarm for 6 to finish as much cleaning as we could and finish getting everything else on the truck by the time he got there. We wanted to be done, have everything swept out and on the truck, and be ready to go once he was done with his walkthrough.
This was also easier said than done. We were both exhausted, we could barely sleep, the cats were freaked out because everything in the house was gone, so they huddled around us in the spare room all night on our uncomfortable beds and meowed, crawling on top of us trying to make sense of things, but to no real avail. I couldn't really rest at all -- I dozed off for maybe an hour at a time, getting no real REM sleep and no actual rest, just downtime where I wasn't lifting, carrying, or moving anything. There's little that could be done about that.
In the morning, I will say that I was rapidly reaching my "fuck it" point when we resumed cleaning -- the point where I just wanted to say "fuck it, this isn't getting any better than it already is." And to a certain extent, I did reach that point. I rapidly cleaned the cat room out as much as I could, Daisy wiped down the fridge and freezer, and we loaded the last of what needed to be in the truck into the truck just as the landlord arrived at 8:30.
It was an awkward visit, that's for sure. Look, my landlord liked me -- I didn't give him any shit the entire time I lived there, his wife adored me, I always paid my rent on time, and if there was a major issue I was always sure to let him know (on the few times I had to do that, of course). I also (to my knowledge, anyway) never generated any complaints about noise or music or anything along those lines, as I'm sure I would've heard about it if I had. So, he came, he put the "for rent" sign in the un-mowed yard (as I hadn't had time to mow it and I'd also sold the mower at the yard sale to the people across the street), and we went through the house. I also gave him my work list, the list of stuff I'd compiled that needed to be worked on or otherwise fixed, but weren't major issues, and that also included the list of stuff I'd already done to help out. He did tell me that overall, the house looked pretty good, pretty clean...and then he got to the Man Cave -- where I smoked for five years, and despite attempts by both myself and Daisy to scrub down the walls, was still awful -- and asked "what happened in here?"
My response: "uhhhhh...."
Yeah. I totally avoided the question, though it was pretty clear what the answer was. Tobacco. Lots of tobacco happened in there. Five years' worth, in fact.
Overall, the verdict was pretty good (at least I think so, anyway). He told me there would be some charges off my deposit, but insinuated that they wouldn't be major ones. We'll see, of course, when I get what's left of my deposit back in the mail sometime eventually. I told Daisy this afternoon that whatever I got back, I wasn't going to dispute it -- I mean, the house was a wreck in certain spots, and while I did what I could to make it better in the weeks and days before moving out, I would fully understand and accept it if he took a large chunk out of it for repairs and remodeling of certain rooms and spaces, namely my Man Cave. I expect to get at least a decent amount back, I think, though one way or the other it's all behind me now. I mean, literally and figuratively -- I no longer live there.
So we handed over the keys, I shook his hand and we wished each other well, he wished us well on the wedding and marriage, and left. About ten minutes later, once we had the cats situated in their carriers in the back of Daisy's car, I got buckled in and she got into the truck...and we left my former home in Newton behind forever.
What happened next? Well, that's a story for part II.
Monday, May 19, 2014
New Beginnings, Part II: Radio Silence
It is 11:20 PM on Sunday night, and we're back in Newton safely. We pick up the U-Haul tomorrow at noon, which was the earliest time they could schedule it for us. Daisy is downstairs sleeping.
Yesterday afternoon, I left the house here shortly before 2 and began my drive north in the Monte Carlo. I stopped in the usual spots -- Concordia for gas and a soda, York to get out and stretch my legs at the Walmart -- and made it to the parents' house in Omaha around 7:30PM. Damn good timing, if I say so myself.
The Monte Carlo was wonderful. She drove impeccably, didn't get hot or overheat, didn't give me any shit, didn't blow any parts, etc. It was the furthest I've ever driven the car in one session before, and she performed so, so well. I even think, because of it being almost entirely highway driving, she was even getting better than the 20mpg average. Right now she's parked in the parents' driveway 300 miles away, getting some well-deserved rest. We came back down this afternoon in Daisy's Hyundai.
I got to see the new place for the first time last night -- it's huge. Well, relatively, anyway. It's in a decent part of town (not the best, but decent), it's one building in a large complex of buildings -- each building has its own name -- and the apartment itself is second-floor, very spacious in the rooms with the exception of the kitchen and bathrooms (which are about the same size as the ones I have here) and with a sliding glass door, screen door, balcony, etc. It's nice. It's more than big enough for me, Daisy, and the cats, and the master bedroom is probably twice the size of my Man Cave here even before you account for the two big closets and attached master bathroom suite. I just wish it wasn't as expensive as it is -- we're paying a lot more for it per month than I paid here for this entire house in Newton. That's the price of living in the city, I suppose.
Anyway. We picked up the good vacuum and the carpet steam cleaner from the apartment and the parents' house, respectively, got the parents' dolly, and came back down here this afternoon. We stopped at Subway for dinner (because I have no food in the house anymore that isn't packed/boxed up or little things like American cheese singles and ketchup) and came back to my house...where we almost immediately took out the heavy, cumbersome fold-out loveseat, the broken futon, my two old broken chairs, and the big metal recycling bin (which we have no place for anymore) to the curb for large item pickup -- they have to be out there by 7AM.
It was too dark to do anything else, really, and both of us are already exhausted; just moving that stuff was heavy and strenuous enough, especially the fold-out loveseat.
Here's the plan for tomorrow:
My internet gets turned off tomorrow sometime; I don't know when. It could cut me off at midnight tonight (so, nine minutes from now) or sometime tomorrow. I have no clue, really. That's why I'm writing/typing this all out now. Suffice it to say that once that happens, I will be in radio silence until after the move is over, and possibly until after I get the internet turned on (Saturday afternoon) in the new place. In the interim, to pass the time when bored, I will probably be writing backlogged posts to put on here later, or I'll at least attempt to, anyway.
[EDIT: The internet gets turned off on the 20th, Tuesday, not the 19th, today.]
The work will be long and difficult, and it won't be helped by the temperatures -- while on Saturday morning it was struggling to get out of the 40s, and last night in Omaha it was probably only in the low 40s, 24 hours later in the middle of the night it's in the mid-60s, and the highs today and tomorrow are supposed to be 89 and 98, respectively -- no, I'm not kidding. It's going to be fun moving heavy shit and big boxes, not to mention cleaning this place top to bottom, when it's that hot and muggy outside. You folks know at this point, as I haven't made it a secret, how this house becomes a greenhouse when it's hot outside. And keep in mind we're steam cleaning most of the carpets.
We have Gatorade and fresh filtered water on hand already, believe me.
The cats are already sufficiently freaked out over all of the banging and doors opening/closing/etc. I had to lock Pete in the bathroom when we were taking the large pick-up items downstairs and outside simply because he's the kind of cat who will get under our feet and/or will try to run out the door. It's going to be a pain in the ass in itself to get them in their carriers and to move them, believe me. Again, they like to wail when they're in their carriers in any vehicle. I purchased cans of tuna to lure them into the bathroom tomorrow when we have to shut them in there for a long time for the moving process, as that should fill their bellies and make them stay docile for a good stretch of time. I hate to shut them up anywhere, but we don't have a choice -- we'll have to do the same thing once we get them to Omaha.
[Fast-forward to the morning hours...]
"Your landlord has keys to the house, right?" Daisy asked me.
"Well yes, of course," I said.
"Do you think he'll want to do a real walkthrough, then? If not, we could just call him and tell him we're done and leaving, and we could lock the keys inside on the counter."
That's true, really.
"It's up to him," I said. "I don't really care either way, but it's whatever he wants to do."
Daisy and I are both of the opinion that the more we get done today, the less we'll have to do tomorrow and the sooner we can just get in the vehicles and go. And she's right, obviously. All of the utilities here (with the exception of the electric) get turned off tomorrow or later in the week. Mail should start being forwarded after tomorrow (I still haven't heard anything about the jury duty thing, either).
So, until the move is over, this will be my last post, folks -- and the last one written from Kansas period. When you next see a post here, it will be from our new place in Nebraska. Wish us well, and I'll get back to you on the flip side. So to speak.
Yesterday afternoon, I left the house here shortly before 2 and began my drive north in the Monte Carlo. I stopped in the usual spots -- Concordia for gas and a soda, York to get out and stretch my legs at the Walmart -- and made it to the parents' house in Omaha around 7:30PM. Damn good timing, if I say so myself.
The Monte Carlo was wonderful. She drove impeccably, didn't get hot or overheat, didn't give me any shit, didn't blow any parts, etc. It was the furthest I've ever driven the car in one session before, and she performed so, so well. I even think, because of it being almost entirely highway driving, she was even getting better than the 20mpg average. Right now she's parked in the parents' driveway 300 miles away, getting some well-deserved rest. We came back down this afternoon in Daisy's Hyundai.
I got to see the new place for the first time last night -- it's huge. Well, relatively, anyway. It's in a decent part of town (not the best, but decent), it's one building in a large complex of buildings -- each building has its own name -- and the apartment itself is second-floor, very spacious in the rooms with the exception of the kitchen and bathrooms (which are about the same size as the ones I have here) and with a sliding glass door, screen door, balcony, etc. It's nice. It's more than big enough for me, Daisy, and the cats, and the master bedroom is probably twice the size of my Man Cave here even before you account for the two big closets and attached master bathroom suite. I just wish it wasn't as expensive as it is -- we're paying a lot more for it per month than I paid here for this entire house in Newton. That's the price of living in the city, I suppose.
Anyway. We picked up the good vacuum and the carpet steam cleaner from the apartment and the parents' house, respectively, got the parents' dolly, and came back down here this afternoon. We stopped at Subway for dinner (because I have no food in the house anymore that isn't packed/boxed up or little things like American cheese singles and ketchup) and came back to my house...where we almost immediately took out the heavy, cumbersome fold-out loveseat, the broken futon, my two old broken chairs, and the big metal recycling bin (which we have no place for anymore) to the curb for large item pickup -- they have to be out there by 7AM.
It was too dark to do anything else, really, and both of us are already exhausted; just moving that stuff was heavy and strenuous enough, especially the fold-out loveseat.
Here's the plan for tomorrow:
- Get up early
- Take out trash, clean out the garage (sweep it out, get rid of the leaves and dirt and mess); while I'm doing that, Daisy is going to try to figure out how to disassemble the bed frame
- Move everything we can downstairs, gut my Man Cave completely
- Run final loads in the dishwasher and washer/dryer of stuff that needs to be washed
- Go get the moving truck at noon
- Lock the cats in the bathroom and begin loading the truck
- Let them out when we're done loading it up (2-4 hours, probably)
- Clean the house -- this involves steam-cleaning the carpets, wiping down walls/sinks/counters/etc. This will take much longer than the loading of the truck.
- Eat, sleep, get up Tuesday morning, finish whatever cleaning is left, and then call landlord to do final walkthrough and handing-over-of-keys, handshakes, final goodbyes, etc.
- ...and then drive it all to Omaha and do it all in reverse. Again.
My internet gets turned off tomorrow sometime; I don't know when. It could cut me off at midnight tonight (so, nine minutes from now) or sometime tomorrow. I have no clue, really. That's why I'm writing/typing this all out now. Suffice it to say that once that happens, I will be in radio silence until after the move is over, and possibly until after I get the internet turned on (Saturday afternoon) in the new place. In the interim, to pass the time when bored, I will probably be writing backlogged posts to put on here later, or I'll at least attempt to, anyway.
[EDIT: The internet gets turned off on the 20th, Tuesday, not the 19th, today.]
The work will be long and difficult, and it won't be helped by the temperatures -- while on Saturday morning it was struggling to get out of the 40s, and last night in Omaha it was probably only in the low 40s, 24 hours later in the middle of the night it's in the mid-60s, and the highs today and tomorrow are supposed to be 89 and 98, respectively -- no, I'm not kidding. It's going to be fun moving heavy shit and big boxes, not to mention cleaning this place top to bottom, when it's that hot and muggy outside. You folks know at this point, as I haven't made it a secret, how this house becomes a greenhouse when it's hot outside. And keep in mind we're steam cleaning most of the carpets.
We have Gatorade and fresh filtered water on hand already, believe me.
The cats are already sufficiently freaked out over all of the banging and doors opening/closing/etc. I had to lock Pete in the bathroom when we were taking the large pick-up items downstairs and outside simply because he's the kind of cat who will get under our feet and/or will try to run out the door. It's going to be a pain in the ass in itself to get them in their carriers and to move them, believe me. Again, they like to wail when they're in their carriers in any vehicle. I purchased cans of tuna to lure them into the bathroom tomorrow when we have to shut them in there for a long time for the moving process, as that should fill their bellies and make them stay docile for a good stretch of time. I hate to shut them up anywhere, but we don't have a choice -- we'll have to do the same thing once we get them to Omaha.
[Fast-forward to the morning hours...]
"Your landlord has keys to the house, right?" Daisy asked me.
"Well yes, of course," I said.
"Do you think he'll want to do a real walkthrough, then? If not, we could just call him and tell him we're done and leaving, and we could lock the keys inside on the counter."
That's true, really.
"It's up to him," I said. "I don't really care either way, but it's whatever he wants to do."
Daisy and I are both of the opinion that the more we get done today, the less we'll have to do tomorrow and the sooner we can just get in the vehicles and go. And she's right, obviously. All of the utilities here (with the exception of the electric) get turned off tomorrow or later in the week. Mail should start being forwarded after tomorrow (I still haven't heard anything about the jury duty thing, either).
So, until the move is over, this will be my last post, folks -- and the last one written from Kansas period. When you next see a post here, it will be from our new place in Nebraska. Wish us well, and I'll get back to you on the flip side. So to speak.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
New Beginnings, Part I
It's 8AM on Saturday morning. I've been awake since before 7 -- not of my own accord, mind you, but because I could sleep no longer. I find this highly ironic, as I mentioned in my last post that last night was the very last night I'll sleep here in this house alone, in my bed, in its normal place before the move. It's not that I couldn't sleep, mind you -- I slept fine while I was actually asleep. I just woke up this morning and once I was awake, I was awake.
Because Daisy got tonight off, and thus I don't have to worry about getting there in the very early morning hours when she would normally be getting off work, I plan to set off for Omaha in the Monte Carlo this afternoon sometime. Depending on when I leave, I could end up getting there around nightfall or shortly thereafter if I time things right, which would allow me to relax with the parents for a bit before bed tonight. Hopefully, this time tomorrow morning, we'll be getting up and having breakfast before coming back down here. There's a lot that must be done here between now and the actual move, and I desperately need some help getting that stuff done -- such as moving all the boxes and furniture downstairs from the upstairs of the house, which is near-impossible without a dolly and someone else to help, unless I want to badly injure my back and be so sore/stiff I can't physically move before I have to load all of my stuff into the truck.
I originally thought I'd have a lot to do here today before I went up there, but really, I don't. Again, there's not much else I can pack, clean, or move until the actual move itself -- until rooms start getting emptied. I have to run at least one or two more dishwasher loads, and at least one or two more loads of laundry (so that I can pack up the rest of the clothes/bedsheets/etc) but really, that's about it. I can't clean the rooms until the furniture is moved out of them. I can't clean said furniture until everything on it is unhooked and packed up. I can't pack the stuff on the furniture (like this computer, my coffee pot, my TV/Blu-ray player) because it'll be in use until it gets packed up. So, for now, it's a waiting game. It's a torturous waiting game, but it's a waiting game nonetheless.
I'm going to be in radio silence for several days here on the blog, and I'll also be off the internet in general -- the internet gets turned off here on Monday, and it doesn't get turned on at our new place in Omaha until a week from today, next Saturday. Between now and then we'll be hustlin' to get everything done and moved.
This means that anything I need to do on the computer between now and then will either be done quickly before I lose the internet here, or will be done on the parents' wifi at their house with my laptop in the interim. My laptop is nowhere near as fast or nice as my desktop is, so I'm hoping I don't have to do too much on it.
And, of course, before I box everything up I will be making every backup possible of all of my data and files in case something happens and/or my desktop here gets smashed in the move, or something. That is one thing I can do this morning before I ready myself for the drive to Omaha.
Right now, Daisy is at our new apartment, unpacking and organizing things. She hasn't slept yet. I know she has to be tired, especially since she worked last night and worked a busy night at that. I told her not to overexert herself, and that she should try to rest before I get there tonight. When I go to Omaha, it's always an event -- even though it really shouldn't be (at least I don't think so). The parents are always delighted to see me and spend time with me, and Daisy herself is always excited to have me there with her. No, none of that really changes once I'm up there for good, but right now it's still an exciting event, punctuated with the fact that this time I'm taking the car up there myself.
Last night, as a sort of final send-off of Newton, I got a text from a few friends who said they were at an awesome restaurant here called The Breadbasket, and they wanted me to come meet them for dinner. Okay. So I did. I drove the whopping mile and a half from my house to the restaurant and ate a big, German buffet dinner with them. In the process, this near-priceless photo was taken of me while I was trying to eat ice cream:
Because Daisy got tonight off, and thus I don't have to worry about getting there in the very early morning hours when she would normally be getting off work, I plan to set off for Omaha in the Monte Carlo this afternoon sometime. Depending on when I leave, I could end up getting there around nightfall or shortly thereafter if I time things right, which would allow me to relax with the parents for a bit before bed tonight. Hopefully, this time tomorrow morning, we'll be getting up and having breakfast before coming back down here. There's a lot that must be done here between now and the actual move, and I desperately need some help getting that stuff done -- such as moving all the boxes and furniture downstairs from the upstairs of the house, which is near-impossible without a dolly and someone else to help, unless I want to badly injure my back and be so sore/stiff I can't physically move before I have to load all of my stuff into the truck.
I originally thought I'd have a lot to do here today before I went up there, but really, I don't. Again, there's not much else I can pack, clean, or move until the actual move itself -- until rooms start getting emptied. I have to run at least one or two more dishwasher loads, and at least one or two more loads of laundry (so that I can pack up the rest of the clothes/bedsheets/etc) but really, that's about it. I can't clean the rooms until the furniture is moved out of them. I can't clean said furniture until everything on it is unhooked and packed up. I can't pack the stuff on the furniture (like this computer, my coffee pot, my TV/Blu-ray player) because it'll be in use until it gets packed up. So, for now, it's a waiting game. It's a torturous waiting game, but it's a waiting game nonetheless.
I'm going to be in radio silence for several days here on the blog, and I'll also be off the internet in general -- the internet gets turned off here on Monday, and it doesn't get turned on at our new place in Omaha until a week from today, next Saturday. Between now and then we'll be hustlin' to get everything done and moved.
This means that anything I need to do on the computer between now and then will either be done quickly before I lose the internet here, or will be done on the parents' wifi at their house with my laptop in the interim. My laptop is nowhere near as fast or nice as my desktop is, so I'm hoping I don't have to do too much on it.
And, of course, before I box everything up I will be making every backup possible of all of my data and files in case something happens and/or my desktop here gets smashed in the move, or something. That is one thing I can do this morning before I ready myself for the drive to Omaha.
Right now, Daisy is at our new apartment, unpacking and organizing things. She hasn't slept yet. I know she has to be tired, especially since she worked last night and worked a busy night at that. I told her not to overexert herself, and that she should try to rest before I get there tonight. When I go to Omaha, it's always an event -- even though it really shouldn't be (at least I don't think so). The parents are always delighted to see me and spend time with me, and Daisy herself is always excited to have me there with her. No, none of that really changes once I'm up there for good, but right now it's still an exciting event, punctuated with the fact that this time I'm taking the car up there myself.
Last night, as a sort of final send-off of Newton, I got a text from a few friends who said they were at an awesome restaurant here called The Breadbasket, and they wanted me to come meet them for dinner. Okay. So I did. I drove the whopping mile and a half from my house to the restaurant and ate a big, German buffet dinner with them. In the process, this near-priceless photo was taken of me while I was trying to eat ice cream:
You know what? How about you try to eat an ice cream cone when you have facial hair like mine, and see what happens?
Yeah. It's not pretty. It was only after posting/sharing this photo that I realized how easily it could be photoshopped into something very, very dirty. I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks there.
Anyway. After I came home I did some more minor cleaning and packing of things, but not much else. I set up the bed (which I'd stripped to wash the blankets and sheets) enough to sleep on, made a late-night snack at around midnight and watched an episode or two of Scrubs, and then went downstairs to pass out. I'm tired this morning, but I'm not super-tired, to the point where I'd just want to go back to bed. No, I'm pretty normal. It's chilly outside (46) so I do wish it was a bit warmer, but I'm awake and alert. The cooler weather is good for the car, though -- it means she probably won't get hot while driving such a long way. Probably. I did top off the coolant and put in almost two full quarts of fresh oil yesterday afternoon, so I'm guessing that's as good as she'll get for such a trip.
There are a few things I have to do today before I leave, obviously, but none of them are too major. I have to print out the paper directions to Daisy's parents' house in case my GPS stops working, as it's at least seven or eight years old (I'm perfectly fine until I get about ten miles away...and then I enter the city proper and the roads/exits get confusing as fuck), and I need to write a letter to my grandmother, who wrote me a letter about two weeks ago and wants to know my/our new address in Omaha. Oh, and I need to charge my phone, too.
So, really, I'd better get on those things. If you don't hear from me again before the move, you will hear from me after it as soon as I have internet access again. Until then, folks? Wish me luck.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Eaten Alive, Part II
Spring semester and finals week officially over
Graduation Day
A year ago on this day I graduated with my MFA, as several of my friends and colleagues are doing today. That night, I got white-girl drunk with Daisy at the graduation party, and we didn't come home until after 2AM.
A year later, I am busy cleaning up and boxing up my house in preparation for a move to Omaha in four days. Tonight will be the last real night of sleep I get alone here in this house, in my normal bed in its normal spot, ever. Tomorrow night I drive the car up to Omaha, Sunday night Daisy and I will sleep quickly once we come back down here, and by Monday night the bed will already be loaded into the truck. By Tuesday night it'll be set up in the new place.
Yesterday afternoon, as I had (and still have) very little in the house to eat, since I don't want to have to take anything with me that's unnecessary, I drove over to Meridian again to get some stuff to munch on over the course of the next few days. I ended up getting some snacks and a couple bowls of instant noodle soup, some microwave popcorn, etc. It was the last time I'll get to shop over there, and ironically they had a ton of stuff I would've gotten were I not moving out of this house in a few days. I kept myself under control, and only got the bare necessities. I did not end up getting any more K-cups, as I have a ton of the tea ones already and the coffee ones were the same price there as they are in grocery stores/Walmart. I topped off my gas tank on the way home so that the car would be ready for its nighttime drive to Omaha, and this afternoon I will refill it with oil and coolant to make sure it's completely ready to go.
As the week rolls on, the house is beginning to look more and more like a mess, though a well-organized mess. There are boxes and furniture everywhere, dust and dirt (which needs to be cleaned) has been fully exposed, and the cats give me more quizzical looks by the day. Today I have the wonderful duty of trying to pre-vacuum what I can before we bring down the good vacuum, washing the sheets and blankets, and boxing up some of the last remaining things that I won't use between now and Monday. There's also a good bit of trash I need to take out, as well, and I need to ready the cat carriers and wash their spare litter pans. Task after task after task, most of which just has to be done one after another after another.
I sent my landlord an email this afternoon detailing the timeframe of the moving so that he can free up some time on Tuesday to come over and do his final walkthrough, pick up the keys and see us on our way, etc. Last night I also wrote out a detailed, itemized list of not only things I've done to help out in regards to repairs and other issues, but things that need to be worked on or fixed (so that he doesn't have to discover them all himself, and so he knows I'm on top of things and not trying to hide anything from him). Daisy said that was really sweet of me -- and it is, probably, more than most renters would do -- but I want to be fully transparent with the landlord and his wife as they've been so good to me over the years. I'll leave this house in much better condition than a lot of other renters leave places, that's for damn sure, even with whatever gripes or arched eyebrows they may have about any number of little things they could take off for from my security deposit.
I'm constantly tired, folks. It feels like I can never get enough sleep and I can never get enough things done. I haven't showered in two days because, well, if I'm going to get all dirty, dusty, and sweaty while cleaning and packing anyway, what's the point? The shower, at least, is already clean, but few other things are. I can't do much about it. I've basically packed up everything already that won't be used in the next 72 hours; I can't pack up the rest until Monday or I will be, quite literally, sitting here with absolutely nothing else to do. I can't unhook the TV or I will have no TV. I can't unhook the computer, or I will have no computer. I can't unhook the microwave, coffee pot, or pack up the lamps, or I'll have no way to cook my food, make coffee, or see the food and the coffee I'd be making and eating/drinking. I can't unhook and clean off my fans to stick in a box because otherwise there's no air circulating in the house. It's maddening when there's stuff that needs to be done but it can't be done yet -- or until literally the last day I'm here.
Daisy is taking off tomorrow night as well, so that she can finish moving her own stuff over to the new place, something that's been stressing her out like crazy because she hasn't had enough time to do so. That means I'll be able to drive up there earlier than the middle of the night (probably in the early evening), we'd both be able to sleep normal hours tomorrow night, and we could come back down here earlier than the late-night hours on Sunday (meaning we could sleep on Sunday night instead of getting up in the evening, driving back down here, and immediately working for like 24-48 hours straight) -- all of this would be wonderful in regards to the timing of both of our moves, and I wouldn't have to worry about getting stranded in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night if something happens to the car (which I doubt will happen, but still). It also means I don't have to force myself to stay awake tonight in the overnight hours until the point of absolute exhaustion just so I can rest enough tomorrow before the drive.
My allergies have been going nuts today; it's because it's only in the 50s and it's overcast/rainy. They're probably not helped by all the dust I'm kicking up in the house, either, while I'm packing/cleaning/vacuuming.
Graduation Day
A year ago on this day I graduated with my MFA, as several of my friends and colleagues are doing today. That night, I got white-girl drunk with Daisy at the graduation party, and we didn't come home until after 2AM.
A year later, I am busy cleaning up and boxing up my house in preparation for a move to Omaha in four days. Tonight will be the last real night of sleep I get alone here in this house, in my normal bed in its normal spot, ever. Tomorrow night I drive the car up to Omaha, Sunday night Daisy and I will sleep quickly once we come back down here, and by Monday night the bed will already be loaded into the truck. By Tuesday night it'll be set up in the new place.
Yesterday afternoon, as I had (and still have) very little in the house to eat, since I don't want to have to take anything with me that's unnecessary, I drove over to Meridian again to get some stuff to munch on over the course of the next few days. I ended up getting some snacks and a couple bowls of instant noodle soup, some microwave popcorn, etc. It was the last time I'll get to shop over there, and ironically they had a ton of stuff I would've gotten were I not moving out of this house in a few days. I kept myself under control, and only got the bare necessities. I did not end up getting any more K-cups, as I have a ton of the tea ones already and the coffee ones were the same price there as they are in grocery stores/Walmart. I topped off my gas tank on the way home so that the car would be ready for its nighttime drive to Omaha, and this afternoon I will refill it with oil and coolant to make sure it's completely ready to go.
As the week rolls on, the house is beginning to look more and more like a mess, though a well-organized mess. There are boxes and furniture everywhere, dust and dirt (which needs to be cleaned) has been fully exposed, and the cats give me more quizzical looks by the day. Today I have the wonderful duty of trying to pre-vacuum what I can before we bring down the good vacuum, washing the sheets and blankets, and boxing up some of the last remaining things that I won't use between now and Monday. There's also a good bit of trash I need to take out, as well, and I need to ready the cat carriers and wash their spare litter pans. Task after task after task, most of which just has to be done one after another after another.
I sent my landlord an email this afternoon detailing the timeframe of the moving so that he can free up some time on Tuesday to come over and do his final walkthrough, pick up the keys and see us on our way, etc. Last night I also wrote out a detailed, itemized list of not only things I've done to help out in regards to repairs and other issues, but things that need to be worked on or fixed (so that he doesn't have to discover them all himself, and so he knows I'm on top of things and not trying to hide anything from him). Daisy said that was really sweet of me -- and it is, probably, more than most renters would do -- but I want to be fully transparent with the landlord and his wife as they've been so good to me over the years. I'll leave this house in much better condition than a lot of other renters leave places, that's for damn sure, even with whatever gripes or arched eyebrows they may have about any number of little things they could take off for from my security deposit.
I'm constantly tired, folks. It feels like I can never get enough sleep and I can never get enough things done. I haven't showered in two days because, well, if I'm going to get all dirty, dusty, and sweaty while cleaning and packing anyway, what's the point? The shower, at least, is already clean, but few other things are. I can't do much about it. I've basically packed up everything already that won't be used in the next 72 hours; I can't pack up the rest until Monday or I will be, quite literally, sitting here with absolutely nothing else to do. I can't unhook the TV or I will have no TV. I can't unhook the computer, or I will have no computer. I can't unhook the microwave, coffee pot, or pack up the lamps, or I'll have no way to cook my food, make coffee, or see the food and the coffee I'd be making and eating/drinking. I can't unhook and clean off my fans to stick in a box because otherwise there's no air circulating in the house. It's maddening when there's stuff that needs to be done but it can't be done yet -- or until literally the last day I'm here.
Daisy is taking off tomorrow night as well, so that she can finish moving her own stuff over to the new place, something that's been stressing her out like crazy because she hasn't had enough time to do so. That means I'll be able to drive up there earlier than the middle of the night (probably in the early evening), we'd both be able to sleep normal hours tomorrow night, and we could come back down here earlier than the late-night hours on Sunday (meaning we could sleep on Sunday night instead of getting up in the evening, driving back down here, and immediately working for like 24-48 hours straight) -- all of this would be wonderful in regards to the timing of both of our moves, and I wouldn't have to worry about getting stranded in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night if something happens to the car (which I doubt will happen, but still). It also means I don't have to force myself to stay awake tonight in the overnight hours until the point of absolute exhaustion just so I can rest enough tomorrow before the drive.
My allergies have been going nuts today; it's because it's only in the 50s and it's overcast/rainy. They're probably not helped by all the dust I'm kicking up in the house, either, while I'm packing/cleaning/vacuuming.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Eaten Alive
Spring semester: day eighty-three
Finals week: day five
Stress and other issues are slowly eating me alive. There's so much to do and so little time to do it, and all of you know how much that overwhelms me.
Yes, I'm keeping it together. Barely. It's a process.
Part of it is that I'm so frazzled and tired, and have no real "break" where there's nothing to be done. Even once I get to Omaha and get everything unpacked and unloaded, and get everything set up in the new place, I still have to go about signing off on the lease, we have to get our marriage license (eventually), I have to figure out how to register my car in Nebraska and get a Nebraska license, and then there's the wedding and job-searching and everything else that absolutely must be dealt with ASAFP, one thing after another.
And I sit here in my gutted room on the computer, after almost everything but my daily pocket/on-my-person stuff (keys, wallet, sunglasses, etc) has been boxed away, a big ball of stress and mess. It's simple fatigue and dread, along with stress and nervousness. A night's sleep does wonders, but right now I'm such a ball of nerves that it's so hard not to be twitchy or apprehensive about every little thing in the world, every little thing that can and/or will pop up to throw a wrench into our very specific, timed plans for the move and for everything afterwards.
I mentioned before that on Saturday night -- that's two nights from now -- I'm driving the Monte Carlo up to Omaha in the overnight hours to drop it off there before we come back down here in Daisy's car the next day after we both sleep and ready ourselves for the move itself. While I have gotten my, ahem, "maintenance fluids" such as new oil and coolant to put into the car to keep it in the best shape I can before that drive, I am also apprehensive about its ability to make said drive -- that's why I'm doing it in the overnight hours when it's not hot and there's no sun beating down on me. No traffic, much less of a danger of overheating, and nothing but me and the wide-open road for five and a half hours. Yeah, well, I can prepare all I want, but if that car blows a major part or otherwise breaks down during that trip, I'm well and truly fucked -- about 80% of the trip is through wide-open fields and countryside, and for a large portion of it I'm in a cell-phone dead zone where if something happens, I am absolutely truly stranded out there. In the middle of the night. With nobody around.
Am I confident the car can make it? Yes, mostly. Checking the weather, it should be ideal driving conditions, and with a full tank of gas, I should only have to get gas once (my car only gets about 20-22 mpg on a good day, which it should easily get on what amounts to a straight-stretch, continuous highway drive for a long time at night). It is almost exactly 300 miles between here and there, and while I don't necessarily have to, I always fill up my car around the 200 point on my trip meter as the gas gauge is a little wonky at times. As long as my old girl doesn't get too hot, everything should be fine.
As an aside, after working just fine for two years, my radio randomly no longer works in the car. It'll come on and display the graphic equalizer stuff normally, but no sound will come out of the speakers whatsoever -- no matter what I do to try to tweak its settings and the like. It looks like my drive will be a silent one. I'll probably put my earbuds in and listen to podcasts just to be able to stay awake. I never have a problem staying awake and alert while driving, but doing it for five and a half hours with nothing to entertain me will make the drive seem so much longer than it actually is. If I can time everything right, I will arrive there in Omaha when Daisy gets off work for the night around 5AM, and then we can just go to bed. It's also the best night to do it -- it's not like I'll have to fight rush hour traffic for the last ten miles or so of the trip at 5AM on a Sunday morning. Luckily, even though Omaha is a goddamn confusing city to drive into, I have my GPS to get me through those last ten miles or so. If nothing else, it will be a small adventure.
The cats are at least vaguely aware that something's going on, as is evidenced by their investigation of boxes and moved furniture in new places in the house. I sprayed down my end tables with Pledge and polished them last night, and after I did so, I moved them to the living room -- which was new to them. I still have to move my bookcase out of here and do the same thing to it, as well as the bookcase/coffee table/shelves in the living room.
The Newton trash people, after I made my large item pickup appointment for Monday, called to bitch at me and left a three-minute voicemail detailing that they need to know exactly what they're picking up, instead of me saying "some furniture and other odds and ends." Fuck you people; bring the truck and haul away whatever's there. I shouldn't have to give them a detailed, itemized list of everything. Apparently there's a "five item limit." Okay, well, I went back in and made another appointment (as I was told to do) and listed five items -- two couches, two chairs, and a metal recycling bin (which Daisy says we don't have room for). In reality I'm going to put everything out there I have, whether it goes over five items or not, and they'll either take it or they won't -- I don't give a shit, to be honest with you, as the next day I'm gone from this town for good and the trash service leaves my name.
I'm not generally an asshole about this sort of thing, but seriously, if there's something out there and I've called for a large item pickup, just take it. Don't ask me to describe everything or give you a list. I've paid the water and trash service here a fuckton of money over the years -- much more than I've ever paid living anywhere else for water and trash service, and I've never called for a large item pickup before -- just fucking take it.
In other news, after some crowdsourcing and finagling, I found the wedding present I wanted to get for Daisy. She said she got me something too, though it's sort of unnecessary (I mean, our presents to each other are supposed to be, well, the fact that we gain our other half in the wedding, right?), but I had an idea several days ago and went about putting it into action -- there was a certain item I was looking for, and it's something she'll never expect or see coming. This afternoon I found someone with said item, offered them money for it, and they accepted -- it gets mailed tomorrow, and I've already mailed said money to them for payment. I even gave them an extra $5 to help cover mailing costs. It was a little more than I wanted to spend, but...provided everything works out, she'll love it.
All of the bills I have now are paid for the month; I'll get my last utility bills once I move to Omaha, and once I pay them I'll have a lull where I won't have to personally pay utilities (out of my own bank account, anyway) for a month or so. I get my last paycheck of the semester a week from tomorrow. All of my credit card addresses have been changed, all of my addresses for everything but Amazon and my car insurance have been changed (I can't change my car insurance address until I register the car in Nebraska, and there's no reason to delete/change my addresses on Amazon until I have to order something else). This means that almost ALL of my "administrative" stuff regarding the move is now done. I even filled out the post office's change of address card, which takes effect on Wednesday (the day after I leave here) for seamless mail transition.
Finals week: day five
Stress and other issues are slowly eating me alive. There's so much to do and so little time to do it, and all of you know how much that overwhelms me.
Yes, I'm keeping it together. Barely. It's a process.
Part of it is that I'm so frazzled and tired, and have no real "break" where there's nothing to be done. Even once I get to Omaha and get everything unpacked and unloaded, and get everything set up in the new place, I still have to go about signing off on the lease, we have to get our marriage license (eventually), I have to figure out how to register my car in Nebraska and get a Nebraska license, and then there's the wedding and job-searching and everything else that absolutely must be dealt with ASAFP, one thing after another.
And I sit here in my gutted room on the computer, after almost everything but my daily pocket/on-my-person stuff (keys, wallet, sunglasses, etc) has been boxed away, a big ball of stress and mess. It's simple fatigue and dread, along with stress and nervousness. A night's sleep does wonders, but right now I'm such a ball of nerves that it's so hard not to be twitchy or apprehensive about every little thing in the world, every little thing that can and/or will pop up to throw a wrench into our very specific, timed plans for the move and for everything afterwards.
I mentioned before that on Saturday night -- that's two nights from now -- I'm driving the Monte Carlo up to Omaha in the overnight hours to drop it off there before we come back down here in Daisy's car the next day after we both sleep and ready ourselves for the move itself. While I have gotten my, ahem, "maintenance fluids" such as new oil and coolant to put into the car to keep it in the best shape I can before that drive, I am also apprehensive about its ability to make said drive -- that's why I'm doing it in the overnight hours when it's not hot and there's no sun beating down on me. No traffic, much less of a danger of overheating, and nothing but me and the wide-open road for five and a half hours. Yeah, well, I can prepare all I want, but if that car blows a major part or otherwise breaks down during that trip, I'm well and truly fucked -- about 80% of the trip is through wide-open fields and countryside, and for a large portion of it I'm in a cell-phone dead zone where if something happens, I am absolutely truly stranded out there. In the middle of the night. With nobody around.
Am I confident the car can make it? Yes, mostly. Checking the weather, it should be ideal driving conditions, and with a full tank of gas, I should only have to get gas once (my car only gets about 20-22 mpg on a good day, which it should easily get on what amounts to a straight-stretch, continuous highway drive for a long time at night). It is almost exactly 300 miles between here and there, and while I don't necessarily have to, I always fill up my car around the 200 point on my trip meter as the gas gauge is a little wonky at times. As long as my old girl doesn't get too hot, everything should be fine.
As an aside, after working just fine for two years, my radio randomly no longer works in the car. It'll come on and display the graphic equalizer stuff normally, but no sound will come out of the speakers whatsoever -- no matter what I do to try to tweak its settings and the like. It looks like my drive will be a silent one. I'll probably put my earbuds in and listen to podcasts just to be able to stay awake. I never have a problem staying awake and alert while driving, but doing it for five and a half hours with nothing to entertain me will make the drive seem so much longer than it actually is. If I can time everything right, I will arrive there in Omaha when Daisy gets off work for the night around 5AM, and then we can just go to bed. It's also the best night to do it -- it's not like I'll have to fight rush hour traffic for the last ten miles or so of the trip at 5AM on a Sunday morning. Luckily, even though Omaha is a goddamn confusing city to drive into, I have my GPS to get me through those last ten miles or so. If nothing else, it will be a small adventure.
The cats are at least vaguely aware that something's going on, as is evidenced by their investigation of boxes and moved furniture in new places in the house. I sprayed down my end tables with Pledge and polished them last night, and after I did so, I moved them to the living room -- which was new to them. I still have to move my bookcase out of here and do the same thing to it, as well as the bookcase/coffee table/shelves in the living room.
The Newton trash people, after I made my large item pickup appointment for Monday, called to bitch at me and left a three-minute voicemail detailing that they need to know exactly what they're picking up, instead of me saying "some furniture and other odds and ends." Fuck you people; bring the truck and haul away whatever's there. I shouldn't have to give them a detailed, itemized list of everything. Apparently there's a "five item limit." Okay, well, I went back in and made another appointment (as I was told to do) and listed five items -- two couches, two chairs, and a metal recycling bin (which Daisy says we don't have room for). In reality I'm going to put everything out there I have, whether it goes over five items or not, and they'll either take it or they won't -- I don't give a shit, to be honest with you, as the next day I'm gone from this town for good and the trash service leaves my name.
I'm not generally an asshole about this sort of thing, but seriously, if there's something out there and I've called for a large item pickup, just take it. Don't ask me to describe everything or give you a list. I've paid the water and trash service here a fuckton of money over the years -- much more than I've ever paid living anywhere else for water and trash service, and I've never called for a large item pickup before -- just fucking take it.
In other news, after some crowdsourcing and finagling, I found the wedding present I wanted to get for Daisy. She said she got me something too, though it's sort of unnecessary (I mean, our presents to each other are supposed to be, well, the fact that we gain our other half in the wedding, right?), but I had an idea several days ago and went about putting it into action -- there was a certain item I was looking for, and it's something she'll never expect or see coming. This afternoon I found someone with said item, offered them money for it, and they accepted -- it gets mailed tomorrow, and I've already mailed said money to them for payment. I even gave them an extra $5 to help cover mailing costs. It was a little more than I wanted to spend, but...provided everything works out, she'll love it.
All of the bills I have now are paid for the month; I'll get my last utility bills once I move to Omaha, and once I pay them I'll have a lull where I won't have to personally pay utilities (out of my own bank account, anyway) for a month or so. I get my last paycheck of the semester a week from tomorrow. All of my credit card addresses have been changed, all of my addresses for everything but Amazon and my car insurance have been changed (I can't change my car insurance address until I register the car in Nebraska, and there's no reason to delete/change my addresses on Amazon until I have to order something else). This means that almost ALL of my "administrative" stuff regarding the move is now done. I even filled out the post office's change of address card, which takes effect on Wednesday (the day after I leave here) for seamless mail transition.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
End of an Era
Spring semester: day eighty-two
Finals week: day four
It's over. It's all over.
Last night, around 10PM, I put my office keys in an envelope with my forwarding address in Omaha, stuck them in the administrator's box, put my graded exams and filled tally sheets in my friend Amanda's box for her to grade/fill in and drop off, and gathered all of my possessions into a paper ream box. I took my stuff downstairs, through the empty building, smoked a final cigarette on the back landing, and then carried the box a good half-mile out to my car, leaving campus to more than likely never return again.
It's a strange, sad feeling, really. I don't know how to describe it. I feel really...well...empty. For the past five semester years, my life has been defined by academia, both as a graduate student for three years of that and as a professor ever since. I lived my life according to school schedules, according to work for the school that had to be done in its proper times and proper places. As I sat in the front of my 011 classroom for the last time last night, watching them take their final exam, I realized that it would certainly be the last time I ever held sway over a class on that campus, if not for the rest of my life.
That university has meant a lot to me over the years -- it has acted as an insular bubble at times, yes, but it also gave me direction in life. When I first started there as a graduate student, it was a means to an end more than anything else. I was working for the local newspaper up until that point, doing a job that I loved, yes, and a job that I wanted, but a job that would not last forever (it didn't; the paper's staff was overhauled and all laid off, basically, less than a year after I left). Grad school, and the university in general, gave me a purpose in life. It let me focus my energies towards something positive. It showed me that yes, my life had meaning, and yes, I could make a difference in the world -- even if that difference was a small one. This feeling amplified after graduation and after my return as an actual professor (though the lowest-ranked, lowest-paid one on the proverbial totem pole).
And now, a short year later, it's all over. All over at least here, anyway, in person. I still have to upload final grades for one of my classes (the aforementioned 011 class I gave the exam to last night) but everything else is done. I know that I saw many people in the department for quite possibly the last time ever yesterday, and there are many more I'll never see in person again. I may never teach another class again anywhere. I may never have a student call me "professor" ever again. If being a professor made me rise above the rank and file of normal people and students, I have now been knocked down to a simple rank-and-file citizen again. In saying that I mean that many people, especially those not in academia, look up to professors; it's a class similar to police officer or someone who has done military service -- there's an immediate level of respect given because it's something not everyone does or can do, and so as I leave that profession behind me for the time being, I just feel...normal again. Saying "well, I used to be a professor" when asked what I do for a living compared to "I'm an English professor at [University]" sounds different, it feels different. It doesn't command the same level of respect.
At the end of every semester -- especially at the end of spring semesters, when there's always a three-month gap, I feel listless and lost. I tend to get depressed when all of my responsibility and power just, well, goes away. It's a cycle, really. When you get used to giving something your all day in, day out for many months (or years) on end, only to have it stop suddenly, it's like a metaphorical punch to the gut. I got really depressed for a long time last summer because I'd just graduated, I couldn't get anyone to hire me, and my academic life at the time was completely over -- I didn't know then if I'd ever teach again, either. Adjuncting at the university for this past year was a safety net that I didn't know, at the time, would hold if I was forced to fall into it.
Taking stock of everything, not much is different now than it was a year ago at this time. A year ago I was graduating with no job lined up for me, crossing my fingers that my car would just hold up until the end of the semester (I'm still crossing my fingers for my car to keep running now), and I was applying for jobs everywhere hoping that I'd get that magical call and would be able to uproot myself and begin teaching somewhere else, even somewhere completely different where I'd never lived before. I even packed probably fifteen boxes or so of things in preparation for such a move -- they've remained packed in the spare room with all of the ones I've filled since, of course. Last year at this time I was so poor I could barely afford to eat a lot of the time, and I ended up dropping a good amount of weight over the summer. This year I'm not too poor to eat, I just don't really have anything in the house because anything I buy and don't finish obviously has to come with me to Omaha in the move, and that's a pain in the ass.
In retrospect, I should've uprooted myself last summer and moved to Omaha then. I could've been living with Daisy for all this time and I could've been making more money, more than likely. But I wouldn't have been teaching. It was when I had this thought that I realized I stayed here and kept myself in poverty here because teaching meant so much to me. It's not about the money (which, really, is slave wages) but it was about comfort and doing something I wanted to do, instead of something I had to do.
Well, part of it was about lack of money, I suppose. I didn't have the money then (and barely have it now) to go anywhere or do anything else. Someplace else could've hired me, yes, but after a certain point of the summer I would've had to say "yes, I would love to work for your university, but I have $100 to my name right now and unless you're willing to pay for moving costs and can secure me a new home in your city as part of the deal..." etc.
So, for the moment, my profession ends. I have one more paycheck coming, and after that, I am officially unemployed again. That paycheck will come next Friday, after I've already moved to Omaha. It'll be the last income I receive until I get a new job, not counting whatever money we get for the wedding (which I don't expect to be a lot).
The countdown is on now, by the way; today is Wednesday. By Saturday night, when I'll drive up to Omaha to drop off the Monte Carlo, I'll need to have the majority of my stuff ready to go and ready to be loaded into the truck. That means I'll be moving furniture, cleaning it off with various cleaners (like Pledge) and will be packing boxes full of absolutely everything that will be non-essential between now and next week. I'll be washing things, hosing things down, throwing away everything I can that I don't need, and will generally be busting my ass for the next three days straight. Monday is truck day and cleaning day, after all. All of my attention and efforts are focused on those things, with no room or time for much else. Add to this that I'm really cold today -- it's barely 70 outside, but it's so much cooler in the house and I've had goosebumps/a chill all day, so doing stuff outdoors involving hosing things down isn't exactly something I'm a fan of right now.
Finals week: day four
It's over. It's all over.
Last night, around 10PM, I put my office keys in an envelope with my forwarding address in Omaha, stuck them in the administrator's box, put my graded exams and filled tally sheets in my friend Amanda's box for her to grade/fill in and drop off, and gathered all of my possessions into a paper ream box. I took my stuff downstairs, through the empty building, smoked a final cigarette on the back landing, and then carried the box a good half-mile out to my car, leaving campus to more than likely never return again.
It's a strange, sad feeling, really. I don't know how to describe it. I feel really...well...empty. For the past five semester years, my life has been defined by academia, both as a graduate student for three years of that and as a professor ever since. I lived my life according to school schedules, according to work for the school that had to be done in its proper times and proper places. As I sat in the front of my 011 classroom for the last time last night, watching them take their final exam, I realized that it would certainly be the last time I ever held sway over a class on that campus, if not for the rest of my life.
That university has meant a lot to me over the years -- it has acted as an insular bubble at times, yes, but it also gave me direction in life. When I first started there as a graduate student, it was a means to an end more than anything else. I was working for the local newspaper up until that point, doing a job that I loved, yes, and a job that I wanted, but a job that would not last forever (it didn't; the paper's staff was overhauled and all laid off, basically, less than a year after I left). Grad school, and the university in general, gave me a purpose in life. It let me focus my energies towards something positive. It showed me that yes, my life had meaning, and yes, I could make a difference in the world -- even if that difference was a small one. This feeling amplified after graduation and after my return as an actual professor (though the lowest-ranked, lowest-paid one on the proverbial totem pole).
And now, a short year later, it's all over. All over at least here, anyway, in person. I still have to upload final grades for one of my classes (the aforementioned 011 class I gave the exam to last night) but everything else is done. I know that I saw many people in the department for quite possibly the last time ever yesterday, and there are many more I'll never see in person again. I may never teach another class again anywhere. I may never have a student call me "professor" ever again. If being a professor made me rise above the rank and file of normal people and students, I have now been knocked down to a simple rank-and-file citizen again. In saying that I mean that many people, especially those not in academia, look up to professors; it's a class similar to police officer or someone who has done military service -- there's an immediate level of respect given because it's something not everyone does or can do, and so as I leave that profession behind me for the time being, I just feel...normal again. Saying "well, I used to be a professor" when asked what I do for a living compared to "I'm an English professor at [University]" sounds different, it feels different. It doesn't command the same level of respect.
At the end of every semester -- especially at the end of spring semesters, when there's always a three-month gap, I feel listless and lost. I tend to get depressed when all of my responsibility and power just, well, goes away. It's a cycle, really. When you get used to giving something your all day in, day out for many months (or years) on end, only to have it stop suddenly, it's like a metaphorical punch to the gut. I got really depressed for a long time last summer because I'd just graduated, I couldn't get anyone to hire me, and my academic life at the time was completely over -- I didn't know then if I'd ever teach again, either. Adjuncting at the university for this past year was a safety net that I didn't know, at the time, would hold if I was forced to fall into it.
Taking stock of everything, not much is different now than it was a year ago at this time. A year ago I was graduating with no job lined up for me, crossing my fingers that my car would just hold up until the end of the semester (I'm still crossing my fingers for my car to keep running now), and I was applying for jobs everywhere hoping that I'd get that magical call and would be able to uproot myself and begin teaching somewhere else, even somewhere completely different where I'd never lived before. I even packed probably fifteen boxes or so of things in preparation for such a move -- they've remained packed in the spare room with all of the ones I've filled since, of course. Last year at this time I was so poor I could barely afford to eat a lot of the time, and I ended up dropping a good amount of weight over the summer. This year I'm not too poor to eat, I just don't really have anything in the house because anything I buy and don't finish obviously has to come with me to Omaha in the move, and that's a pain in the ass.
In retrospect, I should've uprooted myself last summer and moved to Omaha then. I could've been living with Daisy for all this time and I could've been making more money, more than likely. But I wouldn't have been teaching. It was when I had this thought that I realized I stayed here and kept myself in poverty here because teaching meant so much to me. It's not about the money (which, really, is slave wages) but it was about comfort and doing something I wanted to do, instead of something I had to do.
Well, part of it was about lack of money, I suppose. I didn't have the money then (and barely have it now) to go anywhere or do anything else. Someplace else could've hired me, yes, but after a certain point of the summer I would've had to say "yes, I would love to work for your university, but I have $100 to my name right now and unless you're willing to pay for moving costs and can secure me a new home in your city as part of the deal..." etc.
So, for the moment, my profession ends. I have one more paycheck coming, and after that, I am officially unemployed again. That paycheck will come next Friday, after I've already moved to Omaha. It'll be the last income I receive until I get a new job, not counting whatever money we get for the wedding (which I don't expect to be a lot).
The countdown is on now, by the way; today is Wednesday. By Saturday night, when I'll drive up to Omaha to drop off the Monte Carlo, I'll need to have the majority of my stuff ready to go and ready to be loaded into the truck. That means I'll be moving furniture, cleaning it off with various cleaners (like Pledge) and will be packing boxes full of absolutely everything that will be non-essential between now and next week. I'll be washing things, hosing things down, throwing away everything I can that I don't need, and will generally be busting my ass for the next three days straight. Monday is truck day and cleaning day, after all. All of my attention and efforts are focused on those things, with no room or time for much else. Add to this that I'm really cold today -- it's barely 70 outside, but it's so much cooler in the house and I've had goosebumps/a chill all day, so doing stuff outdoors involving hosing things down isn't exactly something I'm a fan of right now.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
The Final Day(s) of Academia
Spring semester: day eighty-one
Finals week: day three
I awoke this morning at 5AM. I was in bed last night before it was even fully dark here -- I probably went to bed around 9 or so. I slept the entire night with my kitties by my side and on my feet, and only awoke so early this morning because I had to pee and couldn't hold it in any longer.
Unfortunately for me, I woke up and got to the computer a mere twenty minutes after Daisy went to bed for her "night," so I more than likely won't get to talk to her today at all.
Today is a very long day for me regardless of what happens. My 011 students' final is at 7:40 PM on campus, so in order for me to get everything done beforehand, I need to get there around 3 or so (due to parking issues and stuff I'll have to do around the office). When it comes to parking during finals week, anything goes -- you'll either show up and there will be a ton of spaces in the lot, or there will be none. It's a roll of the dice; different students have different finals at different times, and there's no predicting anything until you get there and see for yourself.
Of course, during finals week last spring, I was able to park in a lot adjacent to my building...a lot that is no longer there and hasn't been there for the past eleven months due to the university's brilliant idea to build a new dorm there. Note the dripping sarcasm.
Anyway.
I emailed my friend Amanda, who is in my wedding and is also my 011 grading partner, to begin making plans for the day. Here's the thing -- if I can get everything done today/tonight before I come home, I won't have to go back down there tomorrow...or ever again. She gave her final exams yesterday at the normal time, as she has a daytime class, but I don't have that luxury (which is yet another reason that a once a week night class of 011 is a bad idea; it fucks over the professors, too). My exam starts at 7:40, and I only have eight or nine students who will take it...and none of them, I would imagine, will take the entire time. I told her that if she wants to get all of this done tonight and call it finished, my exam is in our building already -- I could easily go back upstairs, she could come in and we could grade through them quickly, and I could turn them in, drop off my keys and take all of my office stuff with me, and not have to come back in anymore. Again, she's in my wedding, and she knows the timeframe of my move and all the shit I have to do within the next week before the move itself, so it's likely that she'll do whatever she can to help if she's able.
Plus, y'know, if I didn't have to drive back down there again tomorrow, it would save me the time, energy, and 48 miles' worth of gas from the round trip. As I have to fill the car with gas again before I drive it up to drop it off in Omaha this weekend, that would save me quite a bit of money overall. And it would let me actually relax and get some sleep tonight when I'll need it after my long day today. If she can't or doesn't want to meet up tonight, it's fine -- I won't be mad at her or anything -- but it's just so much easier for me to be in and out with no extra fuss. It also eliminates the need for tearful, awkward goodbyes if I'm not in there tomorrow -- once I'm gone, I'm gone.
Anyway, I'll find out later today what she wants to do and how she wants to do it. I have to be in there this afternoon regardless, after all -- I need to turn in the exams for my 102s, who took their exams almost two weeks ago, and I need to upload their final grades to the Banner system to finalize everything. Plus, it'll take at least a little bit of time to pack up the stuff in my office, even though there's not a whole lot of anything really there aside from my laptop, my spare monitor, and some other odds-and-ends. That stuff will be heavy enough to carry out to the car even if I get to park relatively close to the building this afternoon.
Yesterday, while I was busy scrubbing the bathroom (and afterwards, trying not to fall asleep), Daisy was doing her first household supplies shopping trip for our new place, picking up things like shoe racks, shower caddies, a new showerhead, floor mats and the like. I found it slightly amusing; she takes such childlike delight and excitement in setting up the household, setting up our cohabitation space and readying for the wedding, decorating her own space for us...and I realized that she was so excited not just for our lives together, but because she's never done this before. Daisy has never lived anywhere else but with her parents -- she's never been out on her own. She's never had an apartment before, she didn't live in the dorms when she was in college, and (probably most importantly) aside from her father, she's never lived with a man. She has this boundless, unstoppable optimism and excitement about it because it's entirely new to her. It's independence, but it's also about becoming a wife, all wrapped up in a bouncy, bubbly ball of energy inside her. Because of this, it's really hard for her to understand my (comparatively speaking) somewhat lack of excitement or enthusiasm.
Don't get me wrong -- I am indeed happy and excited to start my life anew with Daisy as my wife, but for me it's more of a contentment thing, and not an excitement thing. She's never not lived with her parents -- I moved out of my parents' house in 2006. She's never lived with a man before -- I lived with my longtime ex for five years through four different apartments/homes, and have been living alone with the cats since 2011. All of this stuff that's completely new to her is stuff I did six, seven, eight years ago. I'm relieved and at ease, mentally and spiritually, to be settling down and starting my life with my wife, as I know that part of my search for lifelong contentment is now over...but she's thrilled, bouncing and happy and more excited about everything happening than I thought possible. It's just different perspectives, that's all. Being independent, living away from my parents, and living with a woman in a place of our own is nothing new to me, and all of it is very new and exciting to her. I try not to downplay how important or exciting it is to her when we talk about it, but it's not like I can fake the fact that I know what it entails and that the only part of it that's new to me is the fact that we'll be married.
Because of that apparent lack of enthusiasm, I've been asked the question "Aren't you excited?!" numerous times by Daisy over the course of the past month or two, and my answer is always "Yes love, of course," flatly and without bouncing emotion -- because really, that's how I feel. Yes, I'm excited. Yes, I'm happy. But I'm not jumping up and down about it because I have a different perspective on this sort of thing than Daisy herself does. I'm not going to start flailing my arms and screaming in happiness, because I don't express my emotions that way, and it's a different kind of happiness.
Plus, not to be a debbie downer about it, but it's all really stressful, expensive, and requires a lot of work and energy, especially the moving part itself. Regardless of how excited or chipper we may be when we start moving boxes and furniture, I would imagine we'll both be so tired and stressed out that by the end of the move we'll be snapping and squabbling back and forth until both of us can be done and rest. It's almost inevitable. I'm already tired just thinking about it. I don't think there's anything that can give me enough energy to easily perform what amounts to 36 hours of hardcore cardio and heavy lifting, which is what the move will be -- not when a long day at work means my body needs to sleep for 10-12 hours to recover and feel human again afterwards. I only wish I had the money to hire movers and cleaners, but I don't. It was expensive enough just to get the moving truck rented, let alone deal with everything else.
I also have no idea how we're getting the bed frame out of the house without disassembling it. I don't even know how to disassemble it. Once it's disassembled, I don't know how to get it back together, either. It can't fit through the door in one piece just from measurements alone.
Writing about this just stresses me out more about it and makes me more exhausted. When I'm already so tired all the time and never can feel like I'm getting enough rest anyway, I dread anything involving physical labor. It makes me dread being awake. And that's so incredibly depressing.
I worry about how the cats will fare with the move; yes, they've moved before (several times) and have generally adjusted at least decently well rather quickly when they have, but they haven't moved in five years. I'm pretty sure it will be at least somewhat traumatizing for them, especially the drive up there. They don't like being in their carriers; they tend to howl or cry about it. A lot. That means it'll be a long drive up to Omaha with wailing cats in the car, especially if it's hot and sunny. It can't be avoided, of course, but I don't want to put them through any more stress than I have to, you know? Those cats are my babies, they are my children.
Ahem. Anyway.
I have already showered this morning (in part because it's chilly outside and thus chilly in the house as well, and am considering going back to sleep for a nap. I think I need it if I want to be able to get everything done tonight that I need to get done.
Finals week: day three
I awoke this morning at 5AM. I was in bed last night before it was even fully dark here -- I probably went to bed around 9 or so. I slept the entire night with my kitties by my side and on my feet, and only awoke so early this morning because I had to pee and couldn't hold it in any longer.
Unfortunately for me, I woke up and got to the computer a mere twenty minutes after Daisy went to bed for her "night," so I more than likely won't get to talk to her today at all.
Today is a very long day for me regardless of what happens. My 011 students' final is at 7:40 PM on campus, so in order for me to get everything done beforehand, I need to get there around 3 or so (due to parking issues and stuff I'll have to do around the office). When it comes to parking during finals week, anything goes -- you'll either show up and there will be a ton of spaces in the lot, or there will be none. It's a roll of the dice; different students have different finals at different times, and there's no predicting anything until you get there and see for yourself.
Of course, during finals week last spring, I was able to park in a lot adjacent to my building...a lot that is no longer there and hasn't been there for the past eleven months due to the university's brilliant idea to build a new dorm there. Note the dripping sarcasm.
Anyway.
I emailed my friend Amanda, who is in my wedding and is also my 011 grading partner, to begin making plans for the day. Here's the thing -- if I can get everything done today/tonight before I come home, I won't have to go back down there tomorrow...or ever again. She gave her final exams yesterday at the normal time, as she has a daytime class, but I don't have that luxury (which is yet another reason that a once a week night class of 011 is a bad idea; it fucks over the professors, too). My exam starts at 7:40, and I only have eight or nine students who will take it...and none of them, I would imagine, will take the entire time. I told her that if she wants to get all of this done tonight and call it finished, my exam is in our building already -- I could easily go back upstairs, she could come in and we could grade through them quickly, and I could turn them in, drop off my keys and take all of my office stuff with me, and not have to come back in anymore. Again, she's in my wedding, and she knows the timeframe of my move and all the shit I have to do within the next week before the move itself, so it's likely that she'll do whatever she can to help if she's able.
Plus, y'know, if I didn't have to drive back down there again tomorrow, it would save me the time, energy, and 48 miles' worth of gas from the round trip. As I have to fill the car with gas again before I drive it up to drop it off in Omaha this weekend, that would save me quite a bit of money overall. And it would let me actually relax and get some sleep tonight when I'll need it after my long day today. If she can't or doesn't want to meet up tonight, it's fine -- I won't be mad at her or anything -- but it's just so much easier for me to be in and out with no extra fuss. It also eliminates the need for tearful, awkward goodbyes if I'm not in there tomorrow -- once I'm gone, I'm gone.
Anyway, I'll find out later today what she wants to do and how she wants to do it. I have to be in there this afternoon regardless, after all -- I need to turn in the exams for my 102s, who took their exams almost two weeks ago, and I need to upload their final grades to the Banner system to finalize everything. Plus, it'll take at least a little bit of time to pack up the stuff in my office, even though there's not a whole lot of anything really there aside from my laptop, my spare monitor, and some other odds-and-ends. That stuff will be heavy enough to carry out to the car even if I get to park relatively close to the building this afternoon.
Yesterday, while I was busy scrubbing the bathroom (and afterwards, trying not to fall asleep), Daisy was doing her first household supplies shopping trip for our new place, picking up things like shoe racks, shower caddies, a new showerhead, floor mats and the like. I found it slightly amusing; she takes such childlike delight and excitement in setting up the household, setting up our cohabitation space and readying for the wedding, decorating her own space for us...and I realized that she was so excited not just for our lives together, but because she's never done this before. Daisy has never lived anywhere else but with her parents -- she's never been out on her own. She's never had an apartment before, she didn't live in the dorms when she was in college, and (probably most importantly) aside from her father, she's never lived with a man. She has this boundless, unstoppable optimism and excitement about it because it's entirely new to her. It's independence, but it's also about becoming a wife, all wrapped up in a bouncy, bubbly ball of energy inside her. Because of this, it's really hard for her to understand my (comparatively speaking) somewhat lack of excitement or enthusiasm.
Don't get me wrong -- I am indeed happy and excited to start my life anew with Daisy as my wife, but for me it's more of a contentment thing, and not an excitement thing. She's never not lived with her parents -- I moved out of my parents' house in 2006. She's never lived with a man before -- I lived with my longtime ex for five years through four different apartments/homes, and have been living alone with the cats since 2011. All of this stuff that's completely new to her is stuff I did six, seven, eight years ago. I'm relieved and at ease, mentally and spiritually, to be settling down and starting my life with my wife, as I know that part of my search for lifelong contentment is now over...but she's thrilled, bouncing and happy and more excited about everything happening than I thought possible. It's just different perspectives, that's all. Being independent, living away from my parents, and living with a woman in a place of our own is nothing new to me, and all of it is very new and exciting to her. I try not to downplay how important or exciting it is to her when we talk about it, but it's not like I can fake the fact that I know what it entails and that the only part of it that's new to me is the fact that we'll be married.
Because of that apparent lack of enthusiasm, I've been asked the question "Aren't you excited?!" numerous times by Daisy over the course of the past month or two, and my answer is always "Yes love, of course," flatly and without bouncing emotion -- because really, that's how I feel. Yes, I'm excited. Yes, I'm happy. But I'm not jumping up and down about it because I have a different perspective on this sort of thing than Daisy herself does. I'm not going to start flailing my arms and screaming in happiness, because I don't express my emotions that way, and it's a different kind of happiness.
Plus, not to be a debbie downer about it, but it's all really stressful, expensive, and requires a lot of work and energy, especially the moving part itself. Regardless of how excited or chipper we may be when we start moving boxes and furniture, I would imagine we'll both be so tired and stressed out that by the end of the move we'll be snapping and squabbling back and forth until both of us can be done and rest. It's almost inevitable. I'm already tired just thinking about it. I don't think there's anything that can give me enough energy to easily perform what amounts to 36 hours of hardcore cardio and heavy lifting, which is what the move will be -- not when a long day at work means my body needs to sleep for 10-12 hours to recover and feel human again afterwards. I only wish I had the money to hire movers and cleaners, but I don't. It was expensive enough just to get the moving truck rented, let alone deal with everything else.
I also have no idea how we're getting the bed frame out of the house without disassembling it. I don't even know how to disassemble it. Once it's disassembled, I don't know how to get it back together, either. It can't fit through the door in one piece just from measurements alone.
Writing about this just stresses me out more about it and makes me more exhausted. When I'm already so tired all the time and never can feel like I'm getting enough rest anyway, I dread anything involving physical labor. It makes me dread being awake. And that's so incredibly depressing.
I worry about how the cats will fare with the move; yes, they've moved before (several times) and have generally adjusted at least decently well rather quickly when they have, but they haven't moved in five years. I'm pretty sure it will be at least somewhat traumatizing for them, especially the drive up there. They don't like being in their carriers; they tend to howl or cry about it. A lot. That means it'll be a long drive up to Omaha with wailing cats in the car, especially if it's hot and sunny. It can't be avoided, of course, but I don't want to put them through any more stress than I have to, you know? Those cats are my babies, they are my children.
Ahem. Anyway.
I have already showered this morning (in part because it's chilly outside and thus chilly in the house as well, and am considering going back to sleep for a nap. I think I need it if I want to be able to get everything done tonight that I need to get done.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Our Collective Nightmare, Part II
when we last left our intrepid heroes....
I wanted to take a moment to point out that yes, I did attempt to call my mother yesterday for Mother's Day, but I heard little more than "Hello" and "I can't hear you" before the call cut out. My parents are at their beach house this weekend (because, yes, they have a beach house) and phone reception there is, apparently, spotty. I texted her Happy Mother's Day and emailed her afterwards to follow up just in case the text didn't go through either. She got it and texted me back later in the afternoon. I did send a card, of course, and I do have a Mother's Day gift for her (which she'll get when she comes in for the wedding in several weeks).
I didn't have to call Mama, of course, as I'd spent a topless, sweaty lunch with her via Skype -- but I also sent Mama a card last week and bought her a blueberry bush which Daisy took back with her on her last visit down here a few weeks ago. I don't know where or if Mama planted it, as it was the kind that can grow in a pot, specifically bred for small spaces.
So. Anyway.
Once I was done cleaning and taking care of the labor-intensive, sweaty things around the house, it began to get dark. Like, really dark, outside. I was expecting this, of course -- mind you, they'd been calling for severe storms for days on end, and because of the sun and heat yesterday morning, the atmosphere was ripe for some pretty heavy shit. Plus, there was this:
Vaguely phallic graphics aside, we knew what was coming. It wasn't exactly a secret. Plus, I'd been watching the radar and knew that a ton of severe storms were firing up to the west of me. By "the west of me," I mean "like, 200 miles away." It was all slow-moving, and didn't necessarily concern me that much. I mean, I had shit to do -- I was cleaning and packing, and barely paying attention.
Barely paying attention until Daisy told me that her entire family was in the basement because tornadoes were hitting Omaha.
Yeah.
I'd messaged her beforehand, of course, to tell her that tornadoes were forming just northwest of Lincoln (about, oh, 60 miles away), and were moving northeast towards the Omaha area. At the time, there were seven different, unique tornadoes reported. Still, the area around Lincoln is much what one would expect when one thinks of stereotypical Nebraska -- lots of plains, lots of open space, and some small scattered towns broken up by lots of farmland with the occasional windmill, cell tower, and/or cow field. It's all wide-open countryside, so it's not exactly surprising that's where tornadoes form. Kansas is much the same, by the way.
Well, apparently those tornadoes and the severe storms accompanying them all stuck together, and around 6:45 or so they moved into the Omaha area -- hitting Daisy's part of town first. Therefore, the siren was sounded, they were put under a tornado warning until 7:30, and Daisy and her parents moved down into the basement.
I'm not sure what actually happened there, as I'm not there, but at least a few weak tornadoes (and the storms) tore up a good chunk of the city. Here's a photo from within a mile or three from Daisy's house:
They were fine, at least in their part of town; the tornado warning was eventually called off, and they went back upstairs and resumed their lives as per the usual. Daisy had been moving stuff and had been awake most of the day, so once everything had settled, she went to bed rather early -- before 10PM or so.
However, the fun was just beginning for me.
Around the time Daisy went to bed, tornadoes started popping up all over my area -- directly to the west and northwest of me. When I say "directly," I do mean that -- within 20-25 miles of my house, moving slowly, coming towards me. At night, so it's not like you could physically see them coming until they were right on top of you. Naturally I kept a very close eye on the weather and on the radar. I didn't really have much of a choice there, if I wanted to -- y'know -- live.
Luckily, the tornadoes dissipated before getting much closer, and the "primary threat" was downgraded to golf-ball sized hail and 70mph winds, which wasn't exactly better by any stretch of the imagination. The last severe thunderstorm we had like that, last summer, destroyed half the trees in town and blew in people's garage doors, snapped power lines, smashed people's cars with large tree branches, etc. So I waited. I followed the radar, and I waited.
The first storm was meh. Yeah, there was a little wind, and there was some hard rain, but the hail was pea-sized and there was very little of it. It moved through in about ten minutes, and after all the buildup...yeah, gotta admit, I was a little disappointed. You know me -- I get a weather boner for anything exciting that happens (or is supposed to happen). It was pretty, but there was almost no real thunder and/or lightning that was close enough to be scary and/or dangerous. It was a letdown.
Until half an hour later, when round two hit.
The second storm didn't bring a ton of rain, hail, or wind with it (the rain was pretty steady throughout), but it did bring some really close lightning and incredibly loud thunder for about half an hour, made my electricity flicker, knocked out my internet for a bit, and rattled the windows. The cats were scared, hiding under my desk with me and trying to, I can only assume, crawl inside my feet, which is (obviously) physically impossible.
Round two lasted for close to two hours. Eventually I got bored with it and went to bed, though it's not like I slept that well -- the front moving through gave me one of the worst pressure/sinus/cluster headaches I've had in years, and because everything is boxed up and sealed, I couldn't take any medicine for it. I went to bed at 1AM -- I'm not sure I was able to sleep peacefully (instead of drifting in and out of a half-conscious state) until around 4, when the headache finally subsided.
I woke up around noon, again dazed and groggy. It's only in the 50s today (it was 91 yesterday, so that's a welcome change) and it's still dark and gray. It's only supposed to be in the 50s and 60s for the rest of the week, only to start warming up -- you guessed it -- into the high 80s and 90s again on the days we'll be moving, because Kansas couldn't let me go quietly and comfortably, apparently. Brandon has to do something outside? Something labor-intensive? Let's make him hate it even more than he normally would!
I mean, I totally should've expected this.
Anyway.
Because of my lack of comfortable, normal-feeling sleep, I've been having a rough time motivating myself or finding energy to do a whole lot today. This is bad, I've found -- I need as much good, quality sleep and rest as I can get when I'm preparing to uproot myself and my entire life to move to Omaha within a week, as time is a factor (obviously). To those ends, I did finish cleaning the upstairs bathroom, completely, mopping the floors and scrubbing the hell out of the toilet until I reached what I like to call my "fuck it limit" -- which roughly translates to fuck it, it's not getting any cleaner than this, and I'm sick of inhaling bleach fumes. The bathroom is clean. It's as clean as it's getting. I'll probably wipe it down with some Clorox disinfecting wipes a week from today, but I'm not going to actively clean it any more than it's already been cleaned, except for to put up a new shower curtain when I leave.
On that note, even though it's barely dark yet, I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted and my poor sleep last night isn't helping that any.
I wanted to take a moment to point out that yes, I did attempt to call my mother yesterday for Mother's Day, but I heard little more than "Hello" and "I can't hear you" before the call cut out. My parents are at their beach house this weekend (because, yes, they have a beach house) and phone reception there is, apparently, spotty. I texted her Happy Mother's Day and emailed her afterwards to follow up just in case the text didn't go through either. She got it and texted me back later in the afternoon. I did send a card, of course, and I do have a Mother's Day gift for her (which she'll get when she comes in for the wedding in several weeks).
I didn't have to call Mama, of course, as I'd spent a topless, sweaty lunch with her via Skype -- but I also sent Mama a card last week and bought her a blueberry bush which Daisy took back with her on her last visit down here a few weeks ago. I don't know where or if Mama planted it, as it was the kind that can grow in a pot, specifically bred for small spaces.
So. Anyway.
Once I was done cleaning and taking care of the labor-intensive, sweaty things around the house, it began to get dark. Like, really dark, outside. I was expecting this, of course -- mind you, they'd been calling for severe storms for days on end, and because of the sun and heat yesterday morning, the atmosphere was ripe for some pretty heavy shit. Plus, there was this:
Vaguely phallic graphics aside, we knew what was coming. It wasn't exactly a secret. Plus, I'd been watching the radar and knew that a ton of severe storms were firing up to the west of me. By "the west of me," I mean "like, 200 miles away." It was all slow-moving, and didn't necessarily concern me that much. I mean, I had shit to do -- I was cleaning and packing, and barely paying attention.
Barely paying attention until Daisy told me that her entire family was in the basement because tornadoes were hitting Omaha.
Yeah.
I'd messaged her beforehand, of course, to tell her that tornadoes were forming just northwest of Lincoln (about, oh, 60 miles away), and were moving northeast towards the Omaha area. At the time, there were seven different, unique tornadoes reported. Still, the area around Lincoln is much what one would expect when one thinks of stereotypical Nebraska -- lots of plains, lots of open space, and some small scattered towns broken up by lots of farmland with the occasional windmill, cell tower, and/or cow field. It's all wide-open countryside, so it's not exactly surprising that's where tornadoes form. Kansas is much the same, by the way.
Well, apparently those tornadoes and the severe storms accompanying them all stuck together, and around 6:45 or so they moved into the Omaha area -- hitting Daisy's part of town first. Therefore, the siren was sounded, they were put under a tornado warning until 7:30, and Daisy and her parents moved down into the basement.
I'm not sure what actually happened there, as I'm not there, but at least a few weak tornadoes (and the storms) tore up a good chunk of the city. Here's a photo from within a mile or three from Daisy's house:
They were fine, at least in their part of town; the tornado warning was eventually called off, and they went back upstairs and resumed their lives as per the usual. Daisy had been moving stuff and had been awake most of the day, so once everything had settled, she went to bed rather early -- before 10PM or so.
However, the fun was just beginning for me.
Around the time Daisy went to bed, tornadoes started popping up all over my area -- directly to the west and northwest of me. When I say "directly," I do mean that -- within 20-25 miles of my house, moving slowly, coming towards me. At night, so it's not like you could physically see them coming until they were right on top of you. Naturally I kept a very close eye on the weather and on the radar. I didn't really have much of a choice there, if I wanted to -- y'know -- live.
Luckily, the tornadoes dissipated before getting much closer, and the "primary threat" was downgraded to golf-ball sized hail and 70mph winds, which wasn't exactly better by any stretch of the imagination. The last severe thunderstorm we had like that, last summer, destroyed half the trees in town and blew in people's garage doors, snapped power lines, smashed people's cars with large tree branches, etc. So I waited. I followed the radar, and I waited.
The first storm was meh. Yeah, there was a little wind, and there was some hard rain, but the hail was pea-sized and there was very little of it. It moved through in about ten minutes, and after all the buildup...yeah, gotta admit, I was a little disappointed. You know me -- I get a weather boner for anything exciting that happens (or is supposed to happen). It was pretty, but there was almost no real thunder and/or lightning that was close enough to be scary and/or dangerous. It was a letdown.
Until half an hour later, when round two hit.
The second storm didn't bring a ton of rain, hail, or wind with it (the rain was pretty steady throughout), but it did bring some really close lightning and incredibly loud thunder for about half an hour, made my electricity flicker, knocked out my internet for a bit, and rattled the windows. The cats were scared, hiding under my desk with me and trying to, I can only assume, crawl inside my feet, which is (obviously) physically impossible.
Round two lasted for close to two hours. Eventually I got bored with it and went to bed, though it's not like I slept that well -- the front moving through gave me one of the worst pressure/sinus/cluster headaches I've had in years, and because everything is boxed up and sealed, I couldn't take any medicine for it. I went to bed at 1AM -- I'm not sure I was able to sleep peacefully (instead of drifting in and out of a half-conscious state) until around 4, when the headache finally subsided.
I woke up around noon, again dazed and groggy. It's only in the 50s today (it was 91 yesterday, so that's a welcome change) and it's still dark and gray. It's only supposed to be in the 50s and 60s for the rest of the week, only to start warming up -- you guessed it -- into the high 80s and 90s again on the days we'll be moving, because Kansas couldn't let me go quietly and comfortably, apparently. Brandon has to do something outside? Something labor-intensive? Let's make him hate it even more than he normally would!
I mean, I totally should've expected this.
Anyway.
Because of my lack of comfortable, normal-feeling sleep, I've been having a rough time motivating myself or finding energy to do a whole lot today. This is bad, I've found -- I need as much good, quality sleep and rest as I can get when I'm preparing to uproot myself and my entire life to move to Omaha within a week, as time is a factor (obviously). To those ends, I did finish cleaning the upstairs bathroom, completely, mopping the floors and scrubbing the hell out of the toilet until I reached what I like to call my "fuck it limit" -- which roughly translates to fuck it, it's not getting any cleaner than this, and I'm sick of inhaling bleach fumes. The bathroom is clean. It's as clean as it's getting. I'll probably wipe it down with some Clorox disinfecting wipes a week from today, but I'm not going to actively clean it any more than it's already been cleaned, except for to put up a new shower curtain when I leave.
On that note, even though it's barely dark yet, I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted and my poor sleep last night isn't helping that any.
Our Collective Nightmare, Part I
Spring semester: day eighty
Finals week: day two
On Saturday, I boxed up every dish and plate in the cabinets, as well as all cooking utensils (spatulas, ladles and the like), and boxed up all of the shelf-stable food in the cupboard that I won't eat between now and next weekend. I have five or six bowls left, all of the silverware (which I'll use a fair amount of between now and then), two glasses, and three coffee mugs left in the cupboards. They look bare. Everything else has been boxed away and readied for moving.
I also cleaned the sink and cabinets in the bathroom and scrubbed them down hardcore. I used the "bag and vinegar" trick on the showerhead so that it would dissolve any mineral deposits in it. I used two different bleach-containing cleaners to spray down the shower with, and have been waiting for it to all foam up and drain so that I can, y'know, actually shower and rinse it off the walls as well. Cleaning that shower/bathroom is a nightmare. It's not well-ventilated at all; there's only one fan in it, and it's up near the ceiling -- to turn it on, you have to stand on the tub/toilet and plug it in manually. As a result, I can only be in the bathroom for a few minutes at a time before the bleach fumes start burning my eyes and nostrils, and I have to go in and out if I want to get anything done and be able to breathe. Between now and the move, I'll spray it down with vinegar and water, but that's about all the extra cleaning it'll get after today. I have enough shit to clean in the rest of the house. I have to sponge-mop the bathroom floor and scrub down the toilet, too -- something that I'll probably wait to do until the day before the move, more than likely, as I don't want to waste time re-cleaning it again and again because of normal bathroom use. The sink and mirrors I can keep relatively clean.
Here's the other problem, though -- when the bathroom is full of bleach fumes, I can't use it. There's the second bathroom downstairs, yes, but it's had bleach in the toilet bowl for the past three weeks so that I can easily clean it (that toilet's never been cleaned since I've lived here, because it's so rarely used -- as a result, it has a ton of calcium deposits/hard water stains in it from just basically sitting there). Of course, I have to clean out the downstairs bathroom as well, and that will be one of the last things done before the move also (because that's where the cats' food/litter is, and the room we'll have to lock them up in once we start the moving in and out of the house).
Welcome to my life, folks.
The kitchen's pots and pans will be boxed up this afternoon, as well as most of the silverware I won't use between now and the move. There are tons of various little tasks I have to take care of as well, such as vacuuming and emptying the shredder, shredding all of the nonessential stuff I've collected over the years, etc. Tomorrow's also the only trash day between now and the moving day itself, so I need to get everything out that I can. All of this translates to a good chunk of work for me for the rest of the day and into the night -- but it's work that has to be done whether I want it to be done or not.
The past two days have been interesting, that's for sure.
I spent a rather large amount of time in the kitchen on Saturday night, as mentioned before, boxing things up. As I sealed the box full of dishes, I used the very last of the duct tape I had for any of my boxes. This meant (obviously) that I couldn't box anything else up whether I wanted to or not. I looked at the clock. It was 8:30 or so.
As you may know, and as I mentioned here before, some nasty severe storms were predicted for the weekend. We've actually had a good chance of them every day for the past week or so, really, but on Saturday night they were beginning to fire up everywhere. I also mentioned before that I had to go to Walmart at some point (I'd originally planned it for after the donut meet-up on Friday, but decided to just come home and go to bed), so I was in a conundrum -- either be done for the night (which wouldn't have been a great idea), or go out right then before the storms made their way up here, as my car was already in the driveway and not the garage.
So, of course, I left for Walmart. Apparently, on the night before Mother's Day, when storms were coming, everyone else in town had the same idea. As I drove the three miles or so to get there, I watched lightning light up huge cumulonimbus clouds on what appeared to be all sides of me. I burned into the parking lot, got out, ran inside the store, and attempted to hustle like mad through my shopping -- no small task considering that for some reason, on a Saturday night after 9PM, the store was crazy busy.
I was getting everything I needed and was on the way to the checkout when I ran into a former student of mine -- a particularly "talk your ear off" former student, at that. She also used to work there, but doesn't anymore. There was no getting in a hurry anyway; six or seven registers were open and each one had a good five or six people in line, the lines stretching back into the womens' clothing section. I overheard one of the Walmart workers saying that they'd lost four or five cashiers in the past week -- the people had just had enough and quit.
That explains a lot, I thought. I can only check out through the "express" lane, aisle 15, anyhow -- it's the only register through which one can get cigarettes. Throughout the entire waiting-in-line and checkout process (which was a longer wait than the time it took me to actually do all of my shopping), I was also having my ear talked off by said student.
Finally, I checked out and got out of there, and we went our separate ways. The lightning was brighter and the thunder was audible now, and I got splashed by a few big, wet drops of rain as I was basically throwing everything into the car. I've lived in Kansas a long time; I know that when the thunder/lightning is that close, it's mere minutes at best before the sky opens up hell on you. As I'd seen photos of golf-ball-sized hail earlier in the day and knew that was coming my way, I wanted to get the Monte Carlo home and into the garage before said hail started falling, as I already have a chip in my windshield -- a few direct hits of large hail in the vicinity of that chip, and I'll no longer have auto glass in my car.
I careened into my driveway and threw open the garage door, and pulled the car into the safety of the underground, protected garage. As I put the door back down and began moving stuff into the house, the thunder rattled the windows.
And nothing happened.
No, seriously.
I watched the radar; it all went just north and west of me, and east and north of me -- splitting into two big cells that dissipated the further they went north and east. Nothing. Not a drop of rain on me aside from the few drops I'd been hit with in the Walmart parking lot. While the lightning was pretty, it very quickly disappeared. And it remained hot, muggy, and nasty, with no relief. WTF, Kansas.
I finished my packing and cleaning for the night, made some food, and went to bed. Because it had been so muggy and hot and the rain didn't come, the house felt like a greenhouse, even downstairs. It was the uncomfortable kind of mugginess that you can get no relief from no matter what you do -- turning on the fan (even on its lowest setting) was too uncomfortable/chilly, and leaving it off meant everything remained stifling. I had a hard time falling asleep, as you could probably guess.
Yesterday morning I awoke in a daze, sweaty and surrounded by cats. I had nowhere to be, no, but I had a lot to do. Once I was sufficiently awake, I finished cleaning the bathroom -- or at least the shower and the like -- which I had to do while shirtless and in my underwear due to the copious amounts of bleach in use. This led to a sweaty, shirtless Mother's Day family lunch with Daisy and her parents, where I was "seated" at the table with them via Skype and Daisy's laptop.
Look, I'm one of those people who cares not who sees him naked (or partially naked, what-have-you, especially around family), but Skype only shows me from the chest up. And I was sweaty and shirtless at the dinner table with Daisy and her parents, which was (at the very least) slightly inappropriate and embarrassing, even via computer. Some guys look good when sweaty and topless. I am not one of those guys. When I'm sweaty and topless I look like a corpse dragged out of the river. I'm sure they didn't care, but still. I am the guy who's marrying their daughter in a few weeks.
After our Mother's Day lunch was over, I got back to work. The kitchen is now completely packed up with the exception of a few odds and ends and the smaller appliances (toaster, popcorn popper, microwave, dehydrator). I cleaned out the fridge and freezer, getting rid of everything I wouldn't need or take with me, and I refilled the filtered water bottles for the last time. In the coming days I will pack what's left and what's coming with me, and will clean everything else. As for the "large item pickup" for the trash next week, I can schedule that online but can't do it before tomorrow, as they set it up for your next trash pickup day and don't give you the option to schedule it in advance for a certain date. If I would've scheduled it this weekend, they would've tried to do it today...before I can move everything I need to throw out down to the road.
Of course, my actual cleanup and finishing-of-packing days are cut down to but three days this week -- today, Thursday, and Friday (with a bit on Saturday, probably), as tomorrow and Wednesday I'll have to be on campus for final exams, grading, and moving everything out of my office. This is mostly fine, as there's a lot of stuff I can't pack until later in the week anyhow (like most of the stuff here in my Man Cave -- my computer, my desk stuff, coffee pot, furniture, etc).
The schedule for the move is, indeed, a tight one:
This week:
- Today: pack and clean some more various stuff
- Tomorrow: 011 final exam tomorrow night, getting on campus in the afternoon
- Wednesday: returning to campus to grade, enter grades, drop off keys, collect my belongings
- Thursday: see today.
- Friday: cleaning bathroom floors, wiping down walls and windows where I can
- Saturday: sleeping in as long as possible, moving larger furniture out of rooms and into easily-accessible places for truck loading, filling the car with gas and driving it to Omaha that night to drop it off (that'll be fun)
- Sunday: getting up with Daisy, driving back down here in her car, readying everything else we can to be easily moved into the truck, cleaning what we can before the heavy lifting
- Monday: Hardcore work day #1 -- picking up the U-Haul in the morning ASAP, loading everything we can into it until we can no longer physically move, putting the large items out for large item trash pickup, and probably sleeping on the floor that night
- Tuesday: Hardcore work day #2 -- putting everything else in the truck that needs to be in there early in the morning and sealing it up, steam-cleaning carpets and cleaning the rest of the house a "passable" amount, calling landlord to do final walkthrough and hand-over of keys, and leaving Kansas for good with the cats in tow
- Wednesday: Hardcore work day #3 -- unloading the truck and moving everything into the new apartment piece by piece, box by box, morning until night, until it's all done and in there. SLEEP.
- Thursday: filling the truck with gas and dropping it off, move complete. Unpack some stuff with whatever energy we have left. SLEEP.
- Friday: SLEEP. Daisy works that night. Unpack whatever I can or want while she works.
- Saturday: Internet gets turned on in new place between 1-3 PM.
As you can see, yes, it's a tight schedule with a lot of stuff to be done and a slow winding-down afterwards. And again, I look around me and see how much I have left to do...but I also see what has been done already because I've been busting my ass for the past several weeks on my days off. I do have a to-do list of little things that I can't forget to do between now and the move, and I'm slowly working my way through them, so that's a plus.
Anyway.
What happened after the Mother's Day lunch yesterday? Well, that's another adventure in itself...
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