Moving: the rest of the story

I know most of you got the email about the big move yesterday (it was crazy hot, we were miserable, it rained, we had to bring everything all the way around the side building and then up 17 steps, REALLY LONG AND STEEP STEPS, to get it inside the new place). Here, though, are some extra details, details I didn't necessarily want to share with people like my dad and grandparents.

1) You know what sucks even more than moving? Having the majority of your moving crew show up late because they decided to go out the night before and celebrate the first week of school by getting schnockered on vodka and playing Partini all night (although hell, you all know *I* would have been there if I wasn't the Final Countdown to moving). We had to start loading the truck at 8 am because we needed to be TOTALLY done by 2:30 to return the truck (plus, you know, we needed to make a fast getaway at my old place, but more on that in a minute); unfortunately, even though we've had this lined up for a couple of months now, Andy (Hot Teacher) was the only one who showed up on time (uncoincidentally, he was NOT at last night's gathering); in fact, he even went with us to pick up the truck. Mike showed up about an hour and a half later, just as we were finishing up at my place (we had planned to be out of there much early than that, obviously, but we were down 3 men at the time), and then the other two rolled over just as we were starting to unload at the new place. Normally I would bitch about them getting there for the "easy" part (why DOES unloading always take an eighth of the time?), but in our case unloading was equally a bitch, due in part to THIS:

This picture doesn't do The Stairway to Heaven justice; you can only clearly see like 7 steps before it kind of blurs together at the bottom, but keep in mind that altogether, it has **17**. And it's STEEP. And narrow.

2) Here's a brief overview of my haul from the old place. I took the bookcase and 2 dressers that I was going to pay him an extra $100 for. At April's urging (actually, begging, cuz she loved it), we also took the suede (or suede like) cream loveseat, to which we assigned a rather generous $200 value. I left him a note explaining that this was in place of the $300 he took from me and DIDN'T give to the electric company.

However, that $300 past due balance wasn't even the FULL AMOUNT DUE. Oh no, on closer reading, that was just the amount needed to get the power turned back on. If he didn't pay it by a certain date, than the full amount would be due. With that in mind (and also the fact that this was only ONE utility that we knew about, not to mention the money I was giving him in rent even though he'd stopped paying the mortgage, AND the food I lost in the fridge when the power was turned off), we also took a runner (for you men out there, it's one of those long and thin rugs) for our hallway, this ionic air purifier for me (to help with the dog), a water purifier from the kitchen sink, and this really nice picture for our wall. I had to be careful; my friends wanted me to clean him out, but as I told Nikki, there's a fine line between "taking what I am owed" and "grand larceny." Still, I feel like I was pretty reasonable, although this was NOT a cheap piece of art that we snagged. (It looks awesome in the new place though, snicker snicker).

We are like 80% unpacked and settled already, due to staying up till 4 am last night, so pictures are coming soon. This is BY FAR the nicest, most grown up place I've ever lived--and I actually contributed to quite a few things to the place! I had more than I thought I did. Until then, here's a picture of our entrance (just inside the door is our Stairway to Heaven, which leads straight up to our place--our whole apartment is upstairs, we just have that private entrance and staircase to get there. It's not a 2-level place or anything).

Oh, and PS--Renee, tell John to bite me. You both know why. ;)