high and mighty robot (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
distractionary) wrote2009-06-06 07:38 pm
distractionary) wrote2009-06-06 07:38 pm
... whoopsies!
so um apparently I haven't posted anywhere since last Sunday! I don't even remember what the hell I said last Sunday.
Sunday: I didn't get much done. But Rue got voted in to the rescue squad as a permanent member, and she and I & her dad &invisionary all went out for some ice cream to celebrate. The guy working at Ben & Jerry's was so obviously drunk it was kind of hysteridiculous.
Monday: involved a shit-ton of stress, and yelling at each other, and anger and frustration and all-around not-so-good; in the end, Rue & I & her dad managed to move just about all of our furniture and a fair load of boxes, & then John & Hope & Alex-the-small-child showed up to help with a load and we all went out to dinner at Buca di Beppo. Exciting! I'd never eaten there before. Sadly nobody could agree on dessert, so it got skipped. :(
Tuesday:zarhooie showed up and saved our asses, in a somewhat literal fashion. We also went to see Rue's doctor and mostly failed at packing things by ourselves, and in the morning we'd taken Rue's car in to the dealer because of problems starting the day before. (Which, of course, had only added to the yelling.) Unlike the three or so times Geraint-the-car had problems starting, for boring reasons like dead spark plugs and clogged fuel injectors, C. Daneel's problem was that, at some point in the past, someone had buried a GPS tracker deep in his wiring, so when the electronically-programmed keys were used in an attempt to start the car, the GPS was firing off signals that were confusing the shit out of his poor car brain. He's been doing better since. Meanwhile, there is absolutely no way in hell that we could have done nearly as much as we did without Kat's help. If anyone ever wants to do something nice for anyone in the world, do it for Kat.
Wednesday: Rue & I got to enjoy the Return of the Stress, as we attempted to finish up the last little bits and clean so that we could get the hell out of there only one day late. Mind you we'd been handed the rule that Jim-the-landlord had to call Rue's dad to confirm we were out or else she couldn't go to Michigan for her cousin's wedding, and her flight was supposed to be Thursday morning ... so we were kind of completely strapped for time. Miraculously, we actually did finish and get out of there, and although the car still – on Saturday evening – has stuff in it from Wednesday night, we managed to get everything out of there in the final load. (My ability to estimate volume is occasionally influenced by my father, who is well known for being Really Bad At It, esp. when this involves putting leftovers in plastic containers.)
I think the vacuum's belt may have broken at some point in here, but as I have not yet taken off the case to confirm, I'm not sure.
Thursday: We got to the airport, realized that neither of us wanted to split up quite so early, tried to talk my way in past the security checkpoint, discovered that that was up to the airline instead of Security, promptly got a guest pass to go up to the gate, had victory arms inside my head, helped Rue understand the really-confusingly-worded directions about laptops and bags for the x-ray, and then settled in at the gate for about forty-five minutes of talking.
And then they called for boarding, and I really didn't want to let go of her, and I was brave and walked away about ten feet and then turned around and watched until she'd disappeared down the boarding tunnel thing. :(
Then I tried to find the Camry Dad was trying to arrange for me. This car... uh. It's a 1996 Camry with 176,000+ miles on it, it smells like mildew, it's beige – have you ever met someone driving a beige Camry who wasn't a complete asshole? I haven't – and it's being sold by people named Charlie and Scott, which is really hysterical if you've ever paid attention to Dirty Life and mostly isn't if you haven't. Instead I may end up with a 2000 Nissan Frontier; I have never driven a pickup truck in my life and yet I would much prefer to do that than take this Camry. It has a massive heap of bad juju that I don't think I can accurately explain to my dad. :( I might also instead end up inheriting my parents' Mercury Villager, which ... idr what year it's from; 97? 96? one of those. it has 235,000 miles on it and yet I would still rather drive that.
Like I said, I tried to find the Camry... it didn't work very well, because my memory of maps is pretty good and I'd looked the place up, and then it wasn't where the maps had said it was. I went home, cleaning out my poor dead car on the way, was offered the Nissan at a ridic low price (because 3k is what we can pay, and 7k is more what the Nissan's worth) by the helpful guy I could talk about for like five minutes, made it home, checked the map, found out my memory was accurate so far as the map was concerned, noted the street address, headed back out ... and the place still wasn't where the map said it was. In fact it was about three miles down the road, where the crusty old guy at the gas station had said it was, but the sign was miniscule and on the side of the building besides, so I feel much more justified in having missed it the first time. (Also, the building looked like a garage and a laser tag place, and the car dealer was a tiny room on the far end.)
Then I went home and slept for like sixteen hours, which was ... not how that had been meant to go.
Friday, I mostly was slow to wake up and then went and babysat for John & AJ. Their kids are adorable. As a bonus, I have now (mostly) seen Cars and have finally seen all of Wall-E, instead of just pieces of it.
And today has been ... exciting; I overslept, emailed Rue who is having an exciting time RIGHT NOW at her cousin's wedding, and tried to go to Home Depot to rent a truck so that I could go pick up our mattress. It didn't work, because Home Depot had already rented out their truck, and so had the other Home Depot with a location I knew, so at that point I started going "... well, fuck, there has to be a U-Haul on Central somewhere." What there actually was was a Budget rental; I am so fucking glad that Sears is footing the bill for the rental in lieu of delivery, because I am pretty sure that the total charge was not the $20 that Home Depot would have been, but actually more like $65. And then by the time I got the mattress home, all the maintenance guys I'd been counting on to help (and was going to bribe/tip!) had left for the rest of the weekend, if they'd been here at all.
Fortunately, the mattress was in a heavy-duty bag, and so my method of flipping/rolling heavy items of furniture instead of dragging them was successful once again. Still easier to move this mattress than it was to move the chair/corner of a sectional couch that I'm currently sitting on, or the striped chair that was our first Real Shared Piece of Furniture in the old apartment. (Rue's dresser doesn't count, and I'm not sure about the dining room table, because she brought those with her! They weren't gained as a couple!)
Tomorrow: I have to go back to Budget to get the rest of my money back (fucking $150 deposit grumble), turn in the key (the guy said something about a drop box, and later examining of my contract revealed a| that he was going to charge an extra $10 and b| he'd never given me the envelope for the contract with a mileage chart on it, and the drop box was insistent about having that ... so I left the van there and took the key home with me), and get the receipt to take to Sears to get the reimbursed money back.
Plus about 63¢ in topping off the gas.
Sunday: I didn't get much done. But Rue got voted in to the rescue squad as a permanent member, and she and I & her dad &
invisionary all went out for some ice cream to celebrate. The guy working at Ben & Jerry's was so obviously drunk it was kind of hysteridiculous.Monday: involved a shit-ton of stress, and yelling at each other, and anger and frustration and all-around not-so-good; in the end, Rue & I & her dad managed to move just about all of our furniture and a fair load of boxes, & then John & Hope & Alex-the-small-child showed up to help with a load and we all went out to dinner at Buca di Beppo. Exciting! I'd never eaten there before. Sadly nobody could agree on dessert, so it got skipped. :(
Tuesday:
zarhooie showed up and saved our asses, in a somewhat literal fashion. We also went to see Rue's doctor and mostly failed at packing things by ourselves, and in the morning we'd taken Rue's car in to the dealer because of problems starting the day before. (Which, of course, had only added to the yelling.) Unlike the three or so times Geraint-the-car had problems starting, for boring reasons like dead spark plugs and clogged fuel injectors, C. Daneel's problem was that, at some point in the past, someone had buried a GPS tracker deep in his wiring, so when the electronically-programmed keys were used in an attempt to start the car, the GPS was firing off signals that were confusing the shit out of his poor car brain. He's been doing better since. Meanwhile, there is absolutely no way in hell that we could have done nearly as much as we did without Kat's help. If anyone ever wants to do something nice for anyone in the world, do it for Kat.Wednesday: Rue & I got to enjoy the Return of the Stress, as we attempted to finish up the last little bits and clean so that we could get the hell out of there only one day late. Mind you we'd been handed the rule that Jim-the-landlord had to call Rue's dad to confirm we were out or else she couldn't go to Michigan for her cousin's wedding, and her flight was supposed to be Thursday morning ... so we were kind of completely strapped for time. Miraculously, we actually did finish and get out of there, and although the car still – on Saturday evening – has stuff in it from Wednesday night, we managed to get everything out of there in the final load. (My ability to estimate volume is occasionally influenced by my father, who is well known for being Really Bad At It, esp. when this involves putting leftovers in plastic containers.)
I think the vacuum's belt may have broken at some point in here, but as I have not yet taken off the case to confirm, I'm not sure.
Thursday: We got to the airport, realized that neither of us wanted to split up quite so early, tried to talk my way in past the security checkpoint, discovered that that was up to the airline instead of Security, promptly got a guest pass to go up to the gate, had victory arms inside my head, helped Rue understand the really-confusingly-worded directions about laptops and bags for the x-ray, and then settled in at the gate for about forty-five minutes of talking.
And then they called for boarding, and I really didn't want to let go of her, and I was brave and walked away about ten feet and then turned around and watched until she'd disappeared down the boarding tunnel thing. :(
Then I tried to find the Camry Dad was trying to arrange for me. This car... uh. It's a 1996 Camry with 176,000+ miles on it, it smells like mildew, it's beige – have you ever met someone driving a beige Camry who wasn't a complete asshole? I haven't – and it's being sold by people named Charlie and Scott, which is really hysterical if you've ever paid attention to Dirty Life and mostly isn't if you haven't. Instead I may end up with a 2000 Nissan Frontier; I have never driven a pickup truck in my life and yet I would much prefer to do that than take this Camry. It has a massive heap of bad juju that I don't think I can accurately explain to my dad. :( I might also instead end up inheriting my parents' Mercury Villager, which ... idr what year it's from; 97? 96? one of those. it has 235,000 miles on it and yet I would still rather drive that.
Like I said, I tried to find the Camry... it didn't work very well, because my memory of maps is pretty good and I'd looked the place up, and then it wasn't where the maps had said it was. I went home, cleaning out my poor dead car on the way, was offered the Nissan at a ridic low price (because 3k is what we can pay, and 7k is more what the Nissan's worth) by the helpful guy I could talk about for like five minutes, made it home, checked the map, found out my memory was accurate so far as the map was concerned, noted the street address, headed back out ... and the place still wasn't where the map said it was. In fact it was about three miles down the road, where the crusty old guy at the gas station had said it was, but the sign was miniscule and on the side of the building besides, so I feel much more justified in having missed it the first time. (Also, the building looked like a garage and a laser tag place, and the car dealer was a tiny room on the far end.)
Then I went home and slept for like sixteen hours, which was ... not how that had been meant to go.
Friday, I mostly was slow to wake up and then went and babysat for John & AJ. Their kids are adorable. As a bonus, I have now (mostly) seen Cars and have finally seen all of Wall-E, instead of just pieces of it.
And today has been ... exciting; I overslept, emailed Rue who is having an exciting time RIGHT NOW at her cousin's wedding, and tried to go to Home Depot to rent a truck so that I could go pick up our mattress. It didn't work, because Home Depot had already rented out their truck, and so had the other Home Depot with a location I knew, so at that point I started going "... well, fuck, there has to be a U-Haul on Central somewhere." What there actually was was a Budget rental; I am so fucking glad that Sears is footing the bill for the rental in lieu of delivery, because I am pretty sure that the total charge was not the $20 that Home Depot would have been, but actually more like $65. And then by the time I got the mattress home, all the maintenance guys I'd been counting on to help (and was going to bribe/tip!) had left for the rest of the weekend, if they'd been here at all.
Fortunately, the mattress was in a heavy-duty bag, and so my method of flipping/rolling heavy items of furniture instead of dragging them was successful once again. Still easier to move this mattress than it was to move the chair/corner of a sectional couch that I'm currently sitting on, or the striped chair that was our first Real Shared Piece of Furniture in the old apartment. (Rue's dresser doesn't count, and I'm not sure about the dining room table, because she brought those with her! They weren't gained as a couple!)
Tomorrow: I have to go back to Budget to get the rest of my money back (fucking $150 deposit grumble), turn in the key (the guy said something about a drop box, and later examining of my contract revealed a| that he was going to charge an extra $10 and b| he'd never given me the envelope for the contract with a mileage chart on it, and the drop box was insistent about having that ... so I left the van there and took the key home with me), and get the receipt to take to Sears to get the reimbursed money back.
Plus about 63¢ in topping off the gas.