Previously on 24:
It has been 11 days since our stuff was picked up by the moving truck and we left Chicago. We are exhausted from horrible trips to Philadelphia, followed by living in an empty apartment for over a week. We’ve been told that our stuff will arrive on Sunday morning at 10:00 after already being delayed several times. On Sunday we reach the driver, Troy, again and are told it will be more like 2:00. At 2:00 we are told it will be 4:00. At 4:00 when we have heard nothing we call the driver again and are told by his sidekick, Pops (seriously, he went by Pops) that they now have a flat tire and have no money in their account to get it fixed. We are told that the truck will arrive Monday morning at 10:00am. We wonder how a person who drives across the country for a living can have no funds for situations like this. Expecting several days to go by without ever seeing our belongings, Hubby’s parents take us out to get us a TV so that we can at least have something more to do than play cards on the floor (they were there visiting to help with Sam while the movers were there. So much for that.). We come home and hook it up only to find out that the cable does not work. Hubby nearly has a breakdown…

The following takes place between 6:00am and 7:00am:
Monday morning Sam gets bitten by a horsefly while I am changing his diaper. We still have no internet, no cable, no air conditioning, and still no furniture. Nothing can be done about any of the utilities since it is Memorial Day weekend. Sam hasn’t slept at all because he is constantly sweating so much that his bed is wet.

The following takes place between 10:00am and 11:00am:
Troy calls and says they are still in D.C. with another stop to make. He intends to arrive later in the afternoon.

The following takes place between 1:00pm and 2:00pm:
Troy calls and says they are about 20 minutes away.

The following takes place between 2:00pm and 3:00pm:
The truck actually arrives (much to my amazement – I was sure they come up with some new excuse to get through to at least Wednesday), but Troy says that the truck can’t get up to our building because the parking lot is too narrow.

The following takes place between 3:00pm and 4:00pm:
I call my mom to have her give me phone numbers for every truck rental place in the area (remember, no internet). After several calls a truck is reserved for the purpose of shuttling our belongings between the big truck out on the street and our apartment building.

The following takes place between 4:00pm and 5:00pm:
Troy and Pops are loading the new little truck from the huge one, as we discover that the elevator in our building is out, as is most of the electricity. It is up to about 86 degrees in the apartment.

The following takes place between 5:00pm and 6:00pm:
Pops indicates that he is very concerned about how they are going to get all of our stuff up the stairs without an elevator. They have been told by maintenance that the elevator will not be working for at least 2 hours. Hubby and I point out that we could have lived in a building without an elevator at all. What would have happened then? We just moved out of a third floor apartment in Chicago and we had no elevator there for the movers.

The following takes place at 5:58pm:
Miraculously, the elevator is fixed. It begins.

The following takes place between 10:00pm and 11:00pm:
Despite a working elevator, and the fact that it only took two trips between the two trucks to get all of our stuff to the building, it takes Pops and Troy, with Hubby’s help, 6 hours to unload our stuff (no, we do not have all that much stuff. We live in a two bedroom apartment, how much can we have?). My dresser is broken, as is a shelf unit, a glass door to a bathroom storage cabinet, the ironing board and several boxes appear to have been crushed. But it is all there. At 11:00pm they left our apartment full of our furniture, clothes, and boxes.

The following takes place between 6:00am and 7:00am:
We wake up in our own bed.

Later on 24:
The air conditioning gets fixed just as Sam really starts to lose it from lack of sleep. Several other items are broken. Hubby has it out with our moving “coordinator” and gets a call from the big honcho at the moving company. He doesn’t answer this call so that he can better prepare. The internet gets connected finally around 9:00pm but goes in and out in its connection. We’ll see if I am even able to post this. The cable got fixed at 5:00 but has just gone out again as I write this. Hubby is now laying on the floor staring at the ceiling rubbing his forehead, periodically sitting up and turning the TV on to see if the screen is still black. It is.

I keep asking myself: Did we make the right decision when we decided to move to Philadelphia?

Labels: Tales

Wow, where to begin? We’re in Philadelphia and have been since Sunday. Our stuff still is not here. As of yesterday it was scheduled to arrive tonight. Then this morning it was pushed back to tomorrow. I was not surprised, but actually thankful that they were willing to bring it to us on a Sunday and not wait until Tuesday with Memorial Day and all. That’s what I’d expected when they started saying it wouldn’t be until the evening. I guess I’ll believe it will be here when I see it though.

Hubby, Sam, our two cats and I have been living on the floor of our very spacious apartment for a full week now. I’m sure it will look lovely with furniture. We still have no internet service. That won’t work until Tuesday. I am writing this on the laptop and then tonight we are going to go back to this sandwich place where we had lunch because we realized while sitting there that they had free wireless. I have to say, not having the internet may be just as bad as not having our furniture. This is for two reasons primarily. One is that it is extremely difficult to find one’s way around a new city without the web. I didn’t realize how dependent on it we were. And two: I have really, really missed blogging. Not only writing and posting, but reading everyone’s and commenting as well…and checking comments of course. Again, a dependency I had not quite realized had taken such hold so soon.

There was something nice about knowing I might sit down and write each night. I paid more attention to things maybe, knowing I’d be taking that time to reflect later. I was better able to organize my thoughts and the goings on of the day, especially anything in relation to Sam. I lost that for the past two weeks and have missed it terribly. Everything has been scattered. And yes, I know that is mainly due to the ridiculous situations in which I have found myself, like arriving to the apartment after driving with a screaming Sam for three hours, only to find out that the key they gave us to the bottom lock doesn’t actually work. Sometimes it has all just felt like too much, and I can’t help but think that had I been unloading and uploading some of it throughout this process I maybe could have handled it better. And certainly having a cheering section would have felt good too. I felt better after writing the post that shared some of the details of the moving day and reading your comments made me feel even better after that, so thank you all for that.

And then I was cut off. I’d written my 80’s Sunday ahead of time and just posted it up the morning we left, fully believing I’d be back by about Tuesday to write more and read more. But no, that’s not how it happened. And now my thoughts are so disorganized I can’t even narrow down anything to say. When I realized we’d be able to go back to the sandwich place and get online (as long as we were willing to have the same sandwiches for dinner that we’d had for lunch) I was totally overwhelmed. What to post with such a short amount of time? Do I do one of the tags that I still need to do from a few days before I left? Do I write about the new place? Complain more about all the crap that has happened in the past week? Post an early 80’s Sunday challenge for fear that I won’t get to put one up on Sunday since the movers are supposedly coming tomorrow? Write about what it feels like to be in a new place? I still have no idea what this post is about and it’s already ridiculously long. What do I need to say? Because we write these for ourselves, right? Boy, that’s a post all its own…I guess I’ll try and do a little of everything.

I’ve learned some things in the past 2 weeks. I want to get them all out. That’s more important to me right now than paragraphs with transition sentences.

1) I have “control issues.” I do not handle it well when I feel that things are beyond my control. I’ve always known this, but finding out that all of your belongings are not even on their way to where you are and no one is doing anything about it and you can’t do anything either has a special way of really bringing out these…issues. Recall two posts ago when I wanted to scream or sleep. Yeah, that’s been a continuing theme.

2) My son is the sweatiest baby ever. He sweats when he eats, when he sleeps, when he plays, when he smiles. This kid sweats. We’re talking wet through the clothes, visible dampness on the bed. And I have to tell you, it’s not that hot.

3) Having a washer/dryer in my apartment is just as great as I’d imagined.

4) Having trees outside one’s windows is exponentially better for one’s psyche than looking at a gas station and highway.

5) Moving from a very flat place, like Chicago, to a very hilly place, like Philadelphia, is very hard on one’s calves. I think I need new shoes with better arch support.

6) While in many ways it is good to recognize that many people do not do what they say they are going to do and that often things go wrong, expecting that to always be the case is not a nice way to live; it feels bad. I want to be more optimistic, especially for Sam and for Hubby, who always manages to look on the bright side and generally trusts people.

And now I think I’ll go ahead and post a meme that Rachelle tagged me with like 2 weeks ago, maybe even more, I can’t even remember. I have one more meme for her and one from Cmommy coming up. I promise I won’t drop the ball, it’s just taking a long time for fairly obvious reasons.

Four jobs I’ve had:
Arts Education Program Manager, Actor – Got paid $10 per show so technically it was a job, right?, Café Barista (latter 2 were simultaneous – you do the math), Teacher

Four movies I watch over and over:
Clue, Sense and Sensibility, Amelie, Dead Poets Society

Four places I have lived:
Texas, Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Chicago, Philadelphia

Four TV shows I love to watch:
The Office (did you see that finale!?), 24 (missed this finale due to TV being in storage in Illinois), American Idol (again, no TV but I know who won.), Survivor (saw this finale but wish I hadn’t. So lame.)

Four places I have been on vacation:
Alaska, Bermuda, Grand Cayman, London

Four Places I’d Love to Go to On Vacation:
Thailand, Greece, Italy, Great Barrier Reef

Four websites I visit often:
My blog, your blog, others’ blogs, weather channel

Four favorite foods:
Sushi, chocolate chip cookies, doughnuts, my mom’s chicken and dumplings

Four Places I would like to be right now:
About 2 feet higher, then I wouldn’t be on the floor but on my couch, which is hopefully at least in the right state by now; in my bed, see above and know that Hubby and I have been on an air mattress for 6 nights now; my tree house from childhood; back in Chicago.

I’m not sure who to tag because I’ve been so out of the loop that I don’t know who has not done this one yet. And I know Hubby is not going to sit in the sandwich place while I go through everyone’s blogs – that would be dangerous anyway since I’d probably want to sit and read everyone’s posts for the past week. So for now, if you have not done this meme yet and would like to, consider yourself it!

And last but not least, for those of you still reading this horrifically long post: 80’s Sunday, That’s My Fun Day. Yes, I realize it is Saturday but if I don’t post this today then I’ll miss it altogether since I am sure that tomorrow I will not be returning for more sandwiches in the midst of the movers finally bringing me my bed. And I’d rather get to have the 80’s challenge early than to not have it at all. Next week I will be back on track and on schedule…at least I hope so…nothing else could possibly go wrong, right? Right? So obviously I can’t see your comments here, but I will read them when I get to the internet sandwich place to see if anyone guessed that last week’s song was “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by Kim Wilde. Oh, the dance routines I had to that one…I think one involved me hanging on to an imaginary rope…ahem anyway, if you were the first to guess it then congrats to you!

Below are the lyrics to a popular 80’s song. Be the first to guess the song and artist and name them in your comment. First to do so correctly is deemed 80’s Goddess Divine for the week (or God Divine, I suppose. Pretty sure the only males that have ever seen this site are Hubby and my Dad). Here goes:

You know I call you

I call you on the telephone

I’m only hoping that you’re home

So I can hear you

When you say those words to me
And whisper so softly

Signing off until who knows when. Can’t wait to read everyone again!

Labels: Uncategorized

Congratulations to Kate for guessing last week’s 80’s tune and “artist” correctly, and to ABC Momma for a close second. Oh, Rick Astley, did you have any other songs? So here we go with week two, and it looks like we’ve got a competition going here so bring your A-game ladies.

Below are the lyrics to a popular 80’s song. Without using the internet as a resource, guess the song and artist and name them in your comment. First to do so correctly, wins. I’m signing off for a few days as we head out to the barren apartment, and I’m not sure how long it will take to get our internet going there. I look forward to seeing the results and checking in on your blogs soon. Enjoy!

You say although we broke up
you still just wanna be friends
but how can we still be friends
when seeing you only breaks my heart again

Labels: Uncategorized

Did you ever feel like things were so out of control that there was nothing left to do but go somehwhere and scream? Or curl up in bed and sleep? The activities surrounding this move have not been going well. Nothing ridiculous has happened I guess, but no aspect has gone without a hitch, at least not yet. Here are some highlights…

Our flight out: I was flying out to Connecticut to stay with my in-laws with Sam on Tuesday afternoon. I had two seats for us so that he wouldn’t have to sit on my lap the whole 3 hours. I was told I would have assistance transporting the car seat to the gate from check-in. When I called the day before to arrange for this assistance I was told that “they don’t do that.” Skip to the end of that argumentative conversation. I was told that if we arrived early enough we could potentially get a pass that would allow Hubby to come with us to the gate to help with the stuff. We arrive super early only to find out that the parking lot is full and we would have to park in the “Remote Parking.” By Remote they mean so far away you shouldn’t have bothered to drive. We would have had to take the shuttle after backtracking and by the time we got there the whole get there early thing would have been moot. Fine. I’ll work it out and get to the gate on my own. I’ll rent one of the little cart things. Hubby comes in to at least help check the bags before pulling away from the curb. I am off to security check. Hmm…no carts. Ok. I’ll drag the car seat while pushing Sam in the stroller while carrying the backpack. And that is what I did, all the way to the gate, where we had arrived 2 hours early (remember the whole “get there early” thing? Well, we did) leaving me to entertain Sam at the gate before the flight had even boarded. I speak to the check in lady and am told there is no early boarding so that I can install the carseat. Again, not what I had been told before purchasing the tickets. Fine. Can I get help transporting the car seat onto the plane? No. Fine. How about holding the baby while I install the car seat? No. Fine. Has anyone person helped me at all? No. Ok, after an intense battle as I buckle in the seat while holding Sam on the other seat with my knee we’re installed. Sam is done screaming. Surrounding passengers are done moaning and then, “I’m really sorry to do this to you, but I need you to change seats. You see, we can’t have a carseat installed in the rows before or after the exit row, so I need you to switch with the people behind you and reinstall your seat.” F.I.N.E.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago: Hubby was dealing with the movers and then driving to Philly with our 2 cats before driving on to CT to join us at his Dad’s. (That’s right, I stayed with my Father-in-law, just us, for 3 days. Awkward? Um, yeah, I’d say so.) While I don’t know all the details, I do know of a few little tidbits, the best of which is as follows. Hubby packed the keys to our storage unit in one of the boxes. This is the storage unit we rented so that we could start packing our stuff 2 months ago and get it out of our apartment. It was totally full. The keys were packed and loaded onto the truck. He doesn’t realize this until it is time to take the movers over to the storage place. That’s fine. Hubby goes to Home Depot and is told he needs a hack saw to cut through the lock. Fine. Comes back with hack saw which does absolutely nothing. Fine. On to Ace hardware where, after being given a hard time because his license doesn’t have his current address, he rents huge cutters, which do the trick and then need to be returned. He doesn’t get out of the city until 4:30 that afternoon with cats yelling and puking in the car and who need to be snuck into a Best Western in Ohio that night.

3 days later, in CT: Today we find out that our apartment manager in Chicago wouldn’t hand over the keys to the subletter we found at THEIR REQUEST because we hadn’t signed some form, even though we had already been told that we had done everything they needed us to do. So now we are faxing and signing and causing grief for this poor subletter who isn’t being given the keys to our place. This process gets delayed because in its midst we also happen to put a little call in to our moving company to find out if they have a better sense of when our stuff will be arriving in Philly. Well, you see, it didn’t get onto the truck that was supposed to take it yesterday because they misjudged how much stuff someone else had and ours wouldn’t fit. It’s in their warehouse still. She’ll check and see when it can be reloaded onto a truck and taken over. The answer: Monday. Our stuff has been in storage since Wednesday and will get out and BEGIN the trip Monday. It will arrive…SATURDAY, as in a week from TOMORROW. Hubby’s Bar review class begins this Monday, that’s the whole reason we did the move so soon after his graduation. So now we get to choose between staying here for another week while he misses a week of his classes and our cats sit in an empty apartment, or we can all go and live in the empty apartment together for the week. Oh yeah, and Sam has a fever again. Please excuse me as I try to find a helmet strong enough to hold my head together.

Labels: Tales

In the great windy city
There was a Picasso
and a park by Gehry
and a pizza that
was stuffed with pepperoni.
And there were Chicago Bears
and a tower called Sears
and lots of police
and buildings by Mies
and pretty street blocks
and a team with white Sox
and the Cubs
and the El
and a Beluga whale
and a bad old governor who was going to jail

Goodbye City
Goodbye pepperoni
Goodbye pizza stuffed with pepperoni
Goodbye schools and the park by Gehry
Goodbye Bears, goodbye Sears
Goodbye police and goodbye Mies
Goodbye river bends and goodbye great friends
Goodbye pretty blocks and goodbye Sox
Goodbye Cubs and goodbye El
Goodbye everybody, goodbye whale
And goodbye to the old Governor going to jail
Goodbye park, goodbye Drake
Goodbye city by the lake.

Labels: Uncategorized

Welcome to the first ever “80’s Sunday, That’s My Fun Day.” I experimented with this last week and have decided to make it a regular addition to my site every Sunday.

Below are the lyrics to a popular 80’s song. Without using the internet as a resource (and we’re on the HONOR SYSTEM here, ladies), guess the song and artist and name them in your comment. First to do so correctly wins. You win nothing, but if you beat ABC Momma you will win my applause and respect – she’s your competition, and also the inspiration behind this little challenge. Enjoy!

We’ve known each other for so long
Your heart’s been aching but you’re too shy to say it
Inside we both know what’s been going on
We know the game and we’re gonna play it

Labels: Uncategorized

So everything here is officially insane. Family is in, Hubby’s graduation is Sunday, and we move to Philly on Tuesday. Insane. Needless to say I will be a bit out of the loop for a little while, but I didn’t want to go without leaving a little something, so get ready for the naming of tunes.

This Sunday will be the first “80’s Sunday, That’s My Fun Day.” This will be a chance for you, yes, you to read the lyrics of an 80’s song and try to guess it before ABC Momma, a true 80’s expert. You will win nothing, you will lose nothing. Prepare to blast to the past, and be sure to bring your hair pick and banana barrettes.

Labels: Uncategorized