All the things happened this week starting with the delivery of the container on Monday. (I have a long story about ordering the container that you can ask me about later but for now i just need to catch up on what the heck is going on so you’ll just have to wait). It was a pretty tight fit. They need 60 ft of clear space and we have 57 feet from the alley to the back of the house. I discussed it with the sales person and they figured with the alley width it would be fine. It was hard work and after i bent the post for the chainlink fence and told the guy to just drive over it, he managed to get it in. The container is 20 feet long. I tried to get a 16 but they didn’t have any and i didn’t think that a 10′ trailer was going to work. I think it is the right choice though, it just won’t be packed to the rafters.
In a fit of exuberance i loaded the crap out of the basement on Monday night. Not all the crap mind you because that would be crazy, but a big chunk of it so that we have a lot more clear space. This made a pretty huge difference in the basement and i am tripping over a lot less stuff down there now. I also wanted to clear out the stuff we know for sure we aren’t moving so that it is less confusing on the weekend when we move.
Tuesday the guy showed up to put in the hydro pole. Have i told you about the hydro pole yet? Well, we had planned on a temporary pole but unfortunately we can’t go that route. Our power line comes off mid-span, not at a pole. This means that it is limited to how long the run can be with our power upgrade. I think it has something to do with the gauge and weight of the wire. Anyway… the long and the short of it is, we have to plant a pole in the garden and it will stay forever. We are trying to look on the bright side though as we had planned on putting in a pole for a laundry line, and, well, now we have it! It is our pole so we can do what we want with it. We also decided that we will run the services to the house underground. This gives us a bit more flexibility for where the power comes in and since we have the excavators here anyway, it won’t add a lot. This also prevents us from having a mast on the back of the house. Our current one is wrapped in chicken wire to prevent the pigeons from roosting there anyway and it is pretty ugly.
Wednesday Dylan the electrician showed up to do his prep for cutting the power over from the house to the new pole. He installed a mast and space for an electric meter and built a shelter for the breaker box and plugs. This all has to be inspected before we can cut the power over but it looks mighty official.
Have i mentioned how much i hate moving?
Saturday was a shit show of the first order. Sometime in this crazy week i missed a message from U-Haul that they had changed the pick up time for the truck from 10 am to 6 pm. Those are totally different parts of the day. I did see a message come through from them but that was after i updated my request to get an appliance dolly so i didn’t actually read it. I think when i added a dolly to my order, they shifted when i could get the truck. Anyway, i got up early to eat and enjoy my coffee before our busy day started. Carrie arrived early to start packing the kitchen which was not really packed at all but was pretty self explanatory. Everything we weren’t taking/didn’t need was already out. She got stuck in with Sarah and i and headed over to get my truck a little early full of optimism , positivity, a latte, a fried egg sandwich, and toast and marmalade. Everything was right with the world. Even the rain was holding off and wasn’t due until the afternoon.. I was going to get the truck and be ready when James arrived with his girlfriends teenage son’s to help us pack and move. I waited patiently in line thinking how great it was going to be to just load the truck, drive a block and unload. With the new landlords away we can just park out back and with a small crew and efficiency we will be done in 4 hours tops. Easy peasy. I got the front of the line and the nice woman looked up my order. No truck. Truck reservation is for 6. No truck reservation is for 10, here is my email. Well Traffic changed your reservation and they would have emailed you. What? No call? This is a pretty major change. Oh. There’s the email. Argh. What do you have on the lot that’s available. Nothing sir. What do you mean nothing. What about that truck down by the road. Reserved sir. I can’t let you have it. Well what can you do? i can get you a pickup at 2 PM if you want to drive out to banjo country to get it and then pay an arm and a leg for the mileage charges.
I was quite proud of how i handled this. I could feel myself flush and felt the rage building. My entire plan fell to pieces in a few minutes. It was not this woman’s fault though so i didn’t take it out on her. I should have paid attention to my emails. I think my anger came from the realization that i had messed up. You can bet though that if i had read that email i would have called this mysterious “Traffic” department and given them a piece of my mind. When i realized that there were no trucks forthcoming from U-Haul i went back to my car and sat there for a bit collecting my thoughts. I couldn’t ask everyone to come back in 8 hours. The sky was clear and i have the trailer so i guess we will just have to do it that way.
I got home and spread the happy news about how i didn’t go to jail for losing my shit at U-Haul. No one seemed to think that was much of a victory. No one seemed thrilled about the change of plans either, but everyone swung into action. Our friends the FitzTankards (a mashup of each of their last names) showed up and Heather suggested they check to see if there was a pickup available from Modo. She pulled out her trusty app and hopped in their Kia with Jeremy and whipped across town to get a Modo pickup and they were back with a truck and a can-do attitude like the super heroes they are. It worked out amazingly well in the end despite being a lot less efficient. In the time it took us to load one vehicle, the other was unloading so there was always one team at each place. The teenagers were a god send and were super helpful moving a couple of total strangers. Carrie packed and unpacked the kitchen in the new place. Jeremy gamely shuttled stuff in the Modo truck until the last possible moment when they had to get it back across town and Ric, James and Heather toted and lifted and kept me from exploding with stress. Even the rain held out. We would be lost without our friends and it reinforces our decision to build a kitchen and dining area for hosting those we love. I was exhausted emotionally and physically by the end of the day.
Sunday dawned a new day with a new chore. In order to save $2000 on the demolition and asbestos abatement, i agreed to gut the kitchen before Ray comes to deal with the floor, plumbing, and ducts. Luckily Ric has been looking forward to this for a few years now and is 25 years younger than me and came back to help. I wouldn’t say we made short work of it, but we got through it pretty quickly. The cabinets were all “custom” but what does that even mean in a 95 year old house? They were solid wood and solidly built but no match for our sledge hammer. We also discovered that under the counter top was another counter top on top of a 24″ wide plank. We saved the bottom layer and i hope to be able to salvage that wood for something.
I hurt everywhere.
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