Apartment pictures

I moved all my boxes into my room but that's as far as any of us have gotten unpacking.

My room.

veiw from the bed:

Look at that lovely purple wall I painted.


This is the dining room right outside my room. We're just going to use it as a second living room though.



The "kitchen"


and pantry.


bathroom.


Other living room.

Look, a green thing outside the window! much better than alley parking lot.

That last post was REALLY long. If you TL;DR it, that's fine.

Today (the day after the move), I woke up earlier than I wanted to, thinking I had a Saturday event to work at school.

Turns out I didn't, which I did not discover until I was at school, running between the buildings trying to find where everyone was.

I was a little annoyed about coming all the way downtown for nothing, but then I remembered that today was the Chipotle Festival! I texted up Anna to see if she wanted to go, then took a nap in the lounge while I waited for her to get out of rehersal.

The festival was fun, even though it was sooo chilly today (I was in tights). We bought a locally grown apple for $1, tried some local wine, ate some new Chipotle soft tacos, and went to all the food-informative stands to get our pamphlets stamped (so we could get a free burrito!). We also got our picture taken:

and a free tomato seed in a little paper pot, and a t-shirt that I was supposed to paint, but didn't because the tables were too crowded. On the way out, someone gave us a sample of applesauce on the go (applesauce in a bag with a spout thing).

Then we went to Art Effect to look at pretty things and try stuff on for fun, and did the same at Ragstock, though I bought some thick knitted tights there. (Pictures to come.) We got dinner at CBA, yum.

On the train back toward the loop, at a stop, I happened to glance up out the window towards the people sitting on the opposite platform, and who should be waving at me but Amanda! She and her old roomie Sarah were on their way back from the festival as well, and I got to look like a weirdo waving at them from the train.

Then I came home and got my internet hooked up, wheeee!

The Move

Almost all my things had been packed by Friday, with the exception of my bedding (still needing to be washed first) and a pile of likewise dirty clothes. Friday morning I got up earlier than usual (as I had on Thursday as well) to start the laundry before going off to my classes (of which most of the homework had not been done, my time occupied solely by packing). I barely managed to stay awake during morning class, and then, a fortuitous stroke of luck cancelled afternoon class, and I was able to go home early to finish packing and clean the apartment.

I had just started to sweep and scrub the cubby where the litterbox was when the landlord arrived with one of the new tenants requesting that he be allowed to move his stuff into our basement. We were not given any prior warning, and we didn't feel rude enough to turn away his giant moving truck, although we felt this situation fairly inappropriate. Then I had to clean while staying out of the way of the guy, and later when some movers and his girlfriend showed up, I had to keep telling them to stop boxing in all of Michelle's things in the basement because she needs to get those out later.

Anyway. At 3:00 Emily and I bussed over to U-haul to pick up our rapist moving van and somehow managed to make it into the alley without hitting anything. We loaded up as many boxes from the kitchen and our bedrooms as would fit plus some little random things that weren't boxed up.

Then we had to move the cat. We decided to move him first just to get it out of the way. Lacking a proper cat carrier, we decided to fashion one out of a box with some holes stabbed in it. Mapplethorpe was locked in the bathroom to prevent escape attempts while the front door was left open, so I took the holey box in and plopped him in it. He tried to jump out immediately, and I had to close the flaps quickly. Theses boxes, however, leave a little gap sometimes between the flaps, and if he could get one nose sticking out, apparently he could get his head sticking out. Cats are deceptively good at fitting through tiny spaces.

"Emily, I need help!" I yelled through the bathroom door, trying to squish the cat back down through the box flaps.

We couldn't find any tape fast enough, and he eventually broke free. In fact, we couldn't find the tape at all, but we had a large roll of contact paper, so we thought we'd give it another go.

Mapplethorpe promptly forgot that we just tried to stuff him in a box, and rubbed all over our legs as we prepared the contact paper in advance. I tried to lure him into the box with food but he seemed sceptical, so I had to put him in there again. I was prepared with the flaps this time, and Emily pasted on the contact paper as soon as they were down. Then she pressed down in the middle where the cat was trying to bust free while I applied more strips to thicken the contact paper shield.

We had forgotten to tape the bottom of the box (it was just folded), so we had to carry him out to the van with another, flattened box blocking the bottom escape route.

Once in the van (I was to drive, but apparently I take too long to figure out how to drive a van, and Emily took over), we had not even reached the end of the alley when the cat broke free of the box.

"Welp.. he's out." I said
"At least he's in the van," said Emily.

Of course he was not a happy cat, riding in the back of a big scary moving vehicle, even if he got to climb all over the boxes (his favorite thing to do in the living room).

"Please don't pee on anything," said Emily. She also said, "I like how we're so used to his annoying meowing that we're just ignoring it." and "I bet he'd like Adele, since he's such a prissy cat. Maybe that would calm him down."

When we got to the new apartment, I unlocked and opened the front doors, and opened the side door ready to grab the cat and carry him up.
We couldn't find the cat. He meowed at us a few times but we couldn't pinpoint his location. I thought perhaps he was on the other side of the boxes, so I climbed up to look but he wasn't there.

"Uh. Mapplethorpe?"

Then I heard a meow right by my knee, and when I moved a box there he was smashed in between four boxes. I helped him wriggle free, and took him upstairs where I locked him in the bathroom again with his litterbox for the duration of the move.

It poured and hailed as we were finishing, and we had to sit in the car and wait it out because Emily didn't want to hydroplane on the road. (It rained on and off the whole night.)

Michelle was home when we got back to the old apartment, which was good because Emily's full-size bed needed to be moved and I certainly didn't have the arm strength to be much use. I helped her move the box springs, which was hard enough. The bed barely fit in the van, and had to be shoved through the doors at an angle.

Turns out all three of us were what was needed for the top mattress, and just barely. We loaded up my mattress and it's broken down frame, Emily's darkbox, and the futon from the living room.

I sat in the middle between the seats for the drive, and much effort was exuded to get all that heavy stuff out of the van and up the stairs into the apartment. We promised ourselves burger king when we were done, and Emily promised to buy us milkshakes for helping move her bed.

The last load was the living room chair a few last odds and ends and mostly Michelle's things. In the middle of loading, the new tenant girl showed up with her cat, wanting to move her in. Michelle had to clear out of the basement so that she could do that.

Our pause in working lasted longer, however: the neighbors, who share our parking lot, requested that we back up the van to let them into their spot (we were parked perpendicular). At the exact same time, the neighbors across the alley wanted us to move so that they could back their van out of their garage and leave.

After some mild confusing, we finally got the tenant girl to move her car a little away from our van so that the garage van people could back directly out into our parking lot, and then turn left and exit, which would free us up to back up and let the neighbor van people in. Simple, right?

Try expalining that to 3 sets of idiots, two of which don't speak english.

After multiple yelling and hand gestures, we got the garage van people to back up, but instead of turning left they turned right, which was the way blocked by the neighbor van! We were like WTF are you doing!?, because they were not able to do a full turn, and their back half of the car was blocking our path, making us unable to back up making the neighbor van people unable to go in which meant the garage people couldn't go forword.

THIS SITUATION LASTED FOR 10 MINUTES. These stupid people would NOT resolve the situation. The neighbor van lady started talking to us in Spanish, even after we told her twice, "WE DON'T SPEAK SPANISH". I tried mollifying the neighbor van lady that we were doing what we could (she seemed to speak English better), but I don't think she really understood. The only option was for the garage van to be able to back up further before they turn, which they couldn't do because the new girl was in the way. It took her forever to figure this out, and after she moved down to the end of the alley, we slowly got everything straightened out, much to our EXTREME annoyance.

Then when everything was loaded, we cleaned everything else that needed to be cleaned, and called the landlord over.

P.S. the new people locked the door to the basement (I guess they thought we were going to steal their stuff or something), and there's not key to that door, and I got to laugh at them for it, though they were kind of freaking out because all their things and their pets (cat and two rats, ew) were in there. Landlord's 9-year-old broke in with a credit card later, fyi.

So we passed inspection well enough, and got our full deposit back, wooooooo. Then we got to leave forever!!!

It was super exciting to get the last of the stuff up and in the apartment. The cat got let out, and after making sure we had sheets for when we came home, we set off for Burger King! and to return the van.

Well, turns out burger king closes at 10, and as we didn't get done until a little after 10, that screwed up that plan.
We thought to just try McDonald's instead (not as good), but the van place was in Chinatown, and as we discovered later, Chinatown does not have any Mcdonalds. We ended up picking a random chinese restaurant (hot pot), which was also the one where all the workers are especially bad with english, even for chinatown. It was a night filled with bad communication.

We got home a little after midnight, where I promptly fell asleep, forgoing a shower, though I needed it badly.

Stay tuned for part 2? The Unpacking...