Well, that was five days to remember.
THURSDAY NIGHT: Three trips to drop off valuables--the last valuables to come being our cats, Streak and B.B. ("B.B" is short for "Bug Butt", because she runs around like there's one way up there. Other possible derivations: "Blonde Brain", "Beautiful Bubblehead"...well, you get the point.)
Our last move saw us cram both cats into a carrier. Streak took it stoically; B.B tried to claw my face off. So this time I took the little one in my arms for the trip over. She clung. I have divots now. Streak miaowed pathetically from her carrier and got B.B. going too...caterwauling fit to break your heart and at least one ear.
I curled up in a corner of the living room floor and started to go to sleep.
The fridge compressor came on. I peeled myself off the ceiling.
THURSDAY NIGHT, LATER: Woke up and stopped cats from killing each other.
SLIGHTLY LATER: Fridge compressor goes off. I wake up and look for the bomb crater. Went back to sleep.
FRIDAY MORNING, EARLY: Woke up and stopped cats from killing each other.
FRIDAY MORNING, LATER: Woke up and stopped cats from killing each other.
SLIGHTLY LATER: Mused to myself about throwing the fridge through the living room window.
FRIDAY MORNING, MUCH TOO FRIGGING EARLY: Alarm going off. Strongly consider using one cat to kill the other.
Awaiting the electrician, who will change the fuse box into a bunch of circuit breakers. And delivery of a futon. And the guy who's going to replace the master bedroom orange shag carpet with something considerably less tacky. And oh, yeah, our stuff.
Once the power goes off for the day, I have no clock. Time stops, then reverses out the driveway and saunters off around the block.
Where are the cats? Seventeen frantic searches around the house yield nothing. On the eighteenth I look in the drawer underneath the oven. It's decidedly furry in there. They've very temporarily stopped trying to kill each other in order to curl up together against this hostile new world. Drills are going off, sounding like ten thousand kittens being simultaneously squashed, only louder. Thuds are reverberating throughout the house like cannon fire. Oh, I pity these cats.
The stuff shows up. Not surprisingly, they've booked the wrong size truck and two trips need to be made. We're also short one mover, leaving us with two 22-year old whippersnappers who spread piss and vinegar hither and yon, but do an admirable job. I don't envy them carrying in that treadmill.
Let's try a load of wash. Hmmm. This washer's capacity is amazing: approximately nine outfits (that belong to a three-day old infant). The dryer takes, count 'em, 140 minutes to do its job.
HOMEOWNER LESSON NUMBER ONE: If the house comes with appliances, THERE'S A REASON.
SATURDAY: Up bright and early and back to the old place to clean clean clean clean clean. Then off to The Brick, who's having a convenient sale. We brought a front-load washer and dryer that cost a bit more than we wanted to spend, but will easily pay for themselves over the next two years. The washer takes half as much water, half as much energy, and half as much detergent to get your clothes twice as clean. And the dryer has a moisture sensor, so the cycle lasts only as long as it needs to. I'm impressed.
We also bought two fridges, one for upstairs and a bar fridge for the basement. No more compressor bombs.
SUNDAY: Eva's brother has kindly given us an electric lawnmower, and it's time to tackle the yards. Well, one of them; the front yard is a mix of weeds and dirt. The back yard, however, has yet to be mowed this season. So it's a jungle out there.
It's also very uneven, in the sense that the Himalayas are a chain of rolling hills.
The tree stump reveals itself within about two minutes of my turning the mower on, but much too late to avoid my hitting it. No problem: back and fill, back and fill, what the f---
It's like somebody lit the world's most prodigious fart: a huge belch of flame roars out from the underside of the mower, accompanied by a SCHMUCK!!!! noise, as if to say, you fucking SCHMUCK, you ran over the extension cord and cut it in three places!
In the sudden silence following this, my Eva storms out of the house and announces that the dryer vent has fallen off, turning the laundry room into an insta-sauna.
Off to Canadian Tire, and home with a push mower. No cord to break, no gas to fill; just walk and push.
The stripe on our Visa card has actually been observed to sweat.
"A man's home is his hassle", or so the saying goes. Still, it's nice to be here. This house is going to be a truly great place to live. Once we're unpacked and all the new furniture is together and all the appliances are up and running and the list of six million, three hundred and forty five thousand, three hundred and eighty two--no, three--things are done, I will be able to sit back, relax, and say
"Time to sell."
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