Prioritization

So anyway…

The move went off without a hitch, unless you want to count the inconvenience of having to stuff somewhere on the order of 80-90 boxes plus a host of assorted paraphernalia into my new place.  The movers were friendly, punctual and totally professional (now that I have my Internet back, I hope to drop a line to the owner and tell him so);  they arrived at 7:30 AM, and the whole job, soup to nuts, was done before noon.   They had no problems with any of my stuff, except for the boxes of books, which were the first things I packed, and which I knew were way heavier than they should have been.  They suggested politely that next time I use smaller boxes for those, and I was appropriately chastised, and that was that.  The one mover took the remains of Heart Reborn, which I had put out for recycling, for himself, to chop up for parts.   I gave him my blessing.

When they were done loading into my new place at Shadetree and had gone on their way, I crossed the street to the Kosher Market and got a lemonade, then drove immediately back to Sealand to finish the cleaning and be done with Widow Heathcliff’s place.  I had been cleaning it all along as I packed (and honestly, I wasn’t there long enough to really mess it up), so there wasn’t much to do.  I vacuumed and picked up Jack’s scattered marbles and Legos and rubber bands, wiped off the counters, cleaned the fridge.  There were some marks that just wouldn’t come out of the “stainless” steel sink, but then, I cleaned all the black mold out of the soap dish in the tub that they missed cleaning before they handed it off to me, so I counted that as net zero (knowing that they won’t).  Then I threw the vacuum and the odds and ends into the back of Gloria, handed back the keys and walked out.  I said goodbye to Carmine, next door, before I left, and also tried to go see Leticia down at the bank, since she was the first person in Sealand who ever helped me, and since she remained happy to see me every time I encountered her over the next seven years.  I had planned to give her the silk flower out of Gloria, the one I found lying on the sidewalk at Fifth Street. But the flower fell apart in my hand as I tried to take it out of Gloria’s vent, which I took to mean Gloria was annoyed at me for trying to remove it, and Leticia wasn’t there anyway, so I left it where it was and burned rubber.   The Widow and her daughter have 30 days to get my security deposit back to me.  I would be surprised if they didn’t find something to charge me for, something really stupid or outrageous, but then again, maybe not.  Just no way to tell. You wouldn’t have thought they would’ve evicted me either, and they did.

Since that time, outside of walking Jack to school, it’s been all about unpacking boxes and infrastructure.  The biggest drawback (and greatest irony) in play right now is that I have no air conditioning:  the unit that was supposed to come with the apartment has not been delivered, and the unit that I brought with me is still in its box, on account of how the windows here have weird metal flanges around them, and on account of how the bedroom window, which is where I would be inclined to put it, is four feet wide, making the installation an engineering project that I am at a loss to handle.  Plus the heat has gone back up to the mid-90s F.  So I sit in front of my little black Vornado fan and sweat prodigiously (shut-up Neuro), drinking cold fluids, and lying down when it just gets to be too much.  I also have no blinds, nor curtains, nor any hardware extant on the wall that would allow me to hang blinds or curtains.  Therefore the plan for this morning, roughly speaking, is to measure everything within an inch of its life, go to Home Despot, get whatever kind of wood I think I might need to put my air-conditioner in the living room window, add some wall hooks and/or curtain rods, and also maybe acquire some kind of transparent contact vinyl that I could put in the bathroom window, inside the shower.  And then do whatever is necessary to cool this place down and create a space where I can at least change my clothes without direct observation.

I do have a rather lovely shower curtain that I got from Bed Bath and Beyond.  (And a rather less lovely shower curtain liner.  And some rad, double-sided shower hooks.)  And a bizarre metal object reminiscent of a trash can built into the bathroom wall, which turns out to be a hamper.  I do not, however, have a toilet paper rod.

And I have FIOS now, fulfilling my ancient vow, and upon which many other things were waiting.  After a rough start, it seems to be working correctly. But that’s probably a separate post…