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October 10, 2006
Moving In
As everyone knows, the most important part of any home is the place the food is kept, and so we hauled our newly-purchased diminutive fridge up the stairs and put it, according to plan, in the exact spot pictured below. Robbi and I actually managed to bring it up the stairs ourselves with no help from Bob. It was probably an ill-advised decision, but fortunately it worked out. Such was our enthusiasm to have a place to put the cold drinks, we could not wait for his return from wherever it was he was.
We thought better of trying to move the couch without his help. Here it is. Iggy is doing her darndest to protest our chosen location for the couch. I'll fill you in on the rest of the story: she loses.
But is resilient.
Our worldly belongings were either in the storage unit outside of town or at Bob and Seiko's house (which has recently resembled a storage unit). We had used a very large truck to move everything from Baltimore into storage. Lacking a very large truck this particular Tuesday morning, we used Bob's trusty van.
Here witness feats of strength as Bob and I move the rustic workbench (soon to be our kitchen counter) up the stairs.
Triumph.
Next we moved my desk and chair into the nook that was to become my office. Notice that I am not to be contented with one soft leather chair. The black one on wheels is for ordinary, everyday sitting, thining, typing, writing, etc. The overstuffed grey recliner is for really deep thoughts, ideas, writings, naps, etc.
Throughout the day, vanload by vanload, we just kept moving stuff up the stairs and into our new space.
Not to be outdone, Robbi insisted that we bring her desk up, too. Note that this is but one of Robbi's three desks (the girl needs her space), but we were so anxious to get back online that the moment the first desk was set up, the computer soon followed. Look how discontent Robbi is with the computer's failure to communicate with the internet. Look how indifferent the black cat Lily is to Robbi's plight.
I don't remember how much we managed to move in that first day. We didn't take a picture. I remember that the rest of the week was a blur. Eventually most of our furniture was in, along with a lot of our miscelaneous "stuff."
It looked kind of like this:
Or this:
Lots of things in the middle of the room needing to be put away. Lots of art to be hung.
Iggy was exhausted at the prospect, depressed even.
I must share one episode from the first day of moving. We were determined to sleep in the barn Tuesday night, which meant that we had to move the mattress and box spring. My first apartment in Baltimore was reachable only via a narrow stairwell through which a queen sized box spring could not possibly pass. So we have a split box spring that makes moving it a breeze. The mattress, on the other hand, is a bulky sucker. It's not overly heavy, but it's awkward, and Robbi and I had some difficulty moving it from the storage unit into the van. At first, we couldn't get it into the van at all, even through the back gate. But we realized that if we positioned it at an angle to the door, and pushed really hard, it might just go in. So we positioned it just right. And pushed. And the mattress got caught at the corners. But it seemed that just a bit more pushing might do the trick. So we pushed. And pushed. And suddenly the whole thing slid right through the back gate into the van. I was delighted. But Robbi was gone. She had disappeared entirely. Suddenly I noticed a pair of green shoes sticking out from under the mattress. I had flashbacks to my childhood on the prairie in Kansas, remembering the day that house landed on that witch, killing her and saving our oppressed people.
I heared the muffled cries of my outraged wife. I lifted the mattress to find...Robbi. Squashed, livid Robbi.
But we did manage to get the mattress in the car. And we did manage to sleep in the barn that night. It was just before bed that it hit me: I hadn't gone to work that day, and I wouldn't be going back again.
Posted by bogenamp at October 10, 2006 01:29 PM