We're here!

I feel like a piano landed on my head, but we're here, finally. In one piece. The car did fine, the cats survived, nothing broke.

Dealing with the movers was much more of a pain in the ass than I expected. There was a separate packing crew, to deal with packing the flat-screen TV and a few odds and ends (for insurance purposes, I wasn't allowed to pack the flat-screen TV myself). They dripped some sort of motor oil/grease/industrial lubricant ALL OVER the carpet, which means I'm now involved in an ongoing battle with their insurance company to make them pay for cleaning it up. They claim I did it and I'm trying to place the blame on them; to which I reply, I don't own anything with motor oil! Moreover, everything I own was packed in boxes before they arrived, and the drips were nowhere near those boxes. Now the apartment complex informs me that whatever the substance was, it's now actually burned through the carpet in those spots.

But eventually the movers came and took everything away, and we were able to hit the road. Goodbye, San Diego! We spent the first night in Vegas, simply because we couldn't have driven any farther after dealing with movers/carpet issues all day.

The next day we hit the road about 7 am, for a 24-hour haul to Columbia, MO. The route took us through Utah and Colorado (I-15 and I-70), which was some of the most gorgeous, uncomplicated driving I've ever been involved with. Amazing scenery, empty highway, 75-mph speed limit, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky. I never really fell in love with San Diego (weather aside), but I am a little in love with the scenery of the West. Crazy rock formations, pointy mountains, weird salt basins, national forests, the Rocky Mountains...well, you get the idea. Utah may be full of Mormons, but it's really, really beautiful, in a way that's completely unlike anything on the East Coast. Don't even get me started on the open spaces.

We hit Denver about sundown, which was fine, because we were just going to spend the next ten hours driving through Kansas anyway. I've now driven through Kansas in the summer, the winter, and at night. And if you thought it was boring during the day, let me tell you. It was EXTRA boring at night.

We got to Columbia about 7 am, slept a bit, then spent the day with family (and getting our car's first oil change!). It was great seeing everyone again, and we got to drink some of the beer my brother-in-law made for the wedding. Good times. Then we slept for 12 hours.

Back on the road again at 9 am. Remember how the previous day's driving was beautiful, and uncomplicated, and awe-inspiring? Well, then we spent 22 hours driving through Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. Then we drove through Erie, PA. Then Buffalo, NY. Then the NY State Thruway. Then the Massachusetts Turnpike. Oh, and it was pouring rain for much of that. There was nonstop roadwork. The cats were tired of being in the car and were picking fights with each other the whole time, I'd done something to my shoulder during the move and it was killing me, and the landscape made me want to stab myself in the eye with a plastic fork. Why is it that the interstates east of the Mississippi have to all look the same? The same trees, the same fields, the same truck stops and signs and grey, flat, cloudy industrial suburban byproducts. I haven't seen the sun since Denver, quite literally. If it weren't for the Mormons, I might seriously consider going straight back to Utah and setting up shop somewhere within sight of a pretty mountain, with no people around anywhere.

But lots of that was just road-weary crankiness. We got to our temporary housing in the western 'burbs of Boston around 6 am Sunday, and spent the day unpacking/sleeping/recuperating. We went grocery shopping, bought some booze, ran to Target, and got DH ready for his first day on the new job today.

Here are my first impressions of Massachusetts, in no particular order:

1. It's cloudy, grey, and already sweater weather.
2. Despite that, someone told me today--without being sarcastic--"Beautiful today, isn't it?"
3. Booze is way, WAY more expensive than in California. Like, $10 a bottle more expensive.
4. But gas is 40 cents a gallon cheaper.
5. Seafood is abundant, fresh, and cheap. That may be the saving grace of all this.
6. The urban layout is weird. The roads are oddly laid out, there's no rhyme or reason to where things are (Sam's Club in the middle of a residential neighborhood? Why not?), everything is jammed close together. Imagine New York City, only you have to have a car.
7. The cats are ecstatic to be out of the car.
8. The car now smells like cats, and not in a good way.
9. I'm not so old I can't do long-haul driving like that, but I'm definitely old enough to not want to do it.
10. The next person who says the word "moving" to me is going to get punched in the face.

However, I have three interviews tomorrow with three different staffing agencies, and I'm already making plans to hit NYC next weekend to see all my friends.

So to comfort myself, I'll make a big pot of crawfish etouffee tonight with fresh crawfish, and watch some free hotel cable, and try not to think about how long it will take for my hard-won tan to fade.

On the road again, again

Everything's packed, the car is loaded up, the refrigerator has been emptied. It's that time again: time for me (us, this time) to hit the open road in a cross-country move. We're leaving tomorrow!

After the movers take everything away, we'll spend the night in Vegas (only about five hours away, a short drive) and then take a 24-hour straight cannonball run of driving between Vegas and Columbia, MO, where we'll spend a night with family. That drive will take us through Utah and Colorado, some of my favorite (and most scenic) driving. After a night in Missouri, we'll do another 24-hour straight run of driving between there and Boston, which will take us through Indiana, Illinois and Ohio--some of my least favorite driving. We hope to wash up in Massachusetts sometime very early Sunday morning.

So I'll get a blog update up sometime Sunday or Monday; until then, watch Facebook for updates. And pray for us, and the cats. And call me, whenever. I'll be up.

"The things you own end up owning you."

A little quote from Tyler Durden in Fight Club. Here's another:

"It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything."

Why am I quoting Fight Club, you wonder? Well, mostly because my apartment looks like a box factory exploded. I'm 80% done with the packing for this move, which means pretty soon I'll be able to quit stressing about packing and can instead start stressing about driving cross-country with two cats and then finding a job. Let's recap, shall we?

Last Labor Day weekend I moved from New York to San Diego.

This Labor Day weekend I'll be moving from San Diego to Boston.

At this point, I'm almost ready to sell everything I own, just so I can quit worrying about packing. And moving. Freedom like that is a powerful drug.

But I'm not going to, and here's why.

Don't get me wrong, 50% of me would dearly love to sell everything, and go hitchhiking around South America with nothing but a backpack full of clothes (and a laptop, and a Kindle, and the new iPhone, and a much spiffier camera). At least I'd never have to move again, not like this, anyway.

The other 50% of me looks around my apartment right now and thinks (right after, "Holy crap, how did I get this much stuff?"), "Hey, I have some pretty awesome stuff. That I've dragged all around New York, to Virginia, back to New York, then to California and now to Boston. My stuff has more mileage than most people's cars."

And I look around at the things that have avoided all the purges so far. The $800 knives, the few tattered paperbacks that had too much sentimental value to relinquish, the photo albums, the red leather chair. The shoes from my wedding. That poster my friend Jenn gave to my friend Peg who gave it to me when I was in college, and is now proudly framed, next to my bed, still sporting college dorm room tape in the corners. The cast-iron skillet my mom gave me. The handmade cutting boards my sister gave me. The stained, torn road atlas that took me through last summer's road trip.

And then I look around at the stuff that's been purged, waiting for the Salvation Army to come pick it up tomorrow. So much dead weight, so much crap that the two of us somehow accumulated, thinking we couldn't live without it, and now clearly we can. (Nothing forces you to purge like having to move cross-country in two weeks.)

It makes me think about the difference between stuff, and crap. Crap is just that, crap. It's too many t-shirts, weird cleaning products you tried out and never threw away, those acid-washed jeans from high school, video games you played once or not at all, poor-quality cookware that has now officially died.

Then there's stuff. Granted, my stuff does not define me. I do not define my stuff. But right now, the thought of my stuff, safely stowed away, gives me a warm fuzzy feeling about this move. I'll be parted from my stuff for a little while, but soon, we'll have a home again. Our home will be populated with our stuff. I will have once again faced down my stuff, separated the wheat from the chaff, proven which things are important to me and which are not. Every time I do this, the same core items make the cut. The red leather chair. Those few paperbacks. The good cookware. The photos. The memories.

Deep in packing hell

The good news is that with all the offloaded furniture, and my packing skillz, our move estimate is now officially under budget. So we can have professional movers, after all. The bad news is that I have to do all the packing. So I'm packing. And purging. And running to Sam's to buy more bubble wrap and tape. And packing some more.

Holy crap I hate moving

So you'd think I'd quit doing it so much, right? Sigh. Apparently I have gypsy blood. Apparently I'm doomed to never stay long in one place (or apartment).

I guess the good news is that even though I don't want to be, I am the Packing Master.

So, to sum up: DH's new company was supposed to pay to move all our crap cross-country and put us up in temporary housing for 60 days. Meaning all we had to do was get ourselves and our car (and 60 days' worth of necessities) to Massachusetts by September 13.

Sounds easy enough, right? Oh but no.

The pre-move estimate on Friday was about 50% over the company's relo budget. Which sent me into a complete tailspin. "There's NO WAY IN HELL we can move ourselves cross-country with ten days' notice," I told myself. "Especially since if one of us is driving the moving van, and the other is driving the car (with cats), we'll have to stop and stay in hotels every night and it will take a bare minimum of a week to get from Point A to Point B." Meaning that is essentially impossible to move on that budget in that timeframe.

So calls were made, and numbers were crunched, and more panicking (on my part) ensued. But since it was already Friday afternoon, it meant I would have to get through the weekend without an answer.

So, because I hate a limbo situation, I took matters into my own hands. I started packing.

Theoretically, at least, if we pack all our own stuff, that will reduce the cost estimate. Also they included a bunch of stuff in the estimate we were already planning to get rid of. So DH and I did a massive purge. And we packed.

Here's the takeaway:

• It's amazing how much stuff goes out the door in a good purge. Most of it wasn't even my stuff, and I already feel a little lighter and freer.
• I'm getting too old for this shit. My back is killing me.
• I have perfected a method of packing which utilizes every square centimeter of box space, to produce the bare minimum number of boxes, all packed to the gills so as to prevent any possible crushage. A happy box is a full box.
• I liquidated a good bit of my pantry by returning all the unopened nonperishables to Sam's. I feel so resourceful. Plus I have a credit there now.
• I still have a bunch of food in the freezer and refrigerator, which has to be eaten up pronto.
• My cats are suspicious.
• Did I mention I'm getting too old for this shit?

Guest post at Mom-in-a-Million!

Today I have a guest post over at Mom-in-a-Million! Pay no attention to that part where she claims we were all drunk at college and saw various people in their underwear. I certainly had no part in such shenanigans.


Of course, I'll never be able to run for public office, due to certain proofs from that era. But that's another blog post entirely.

We're moving to Boston!

Sorry for the slacker-ness in both posting and keeping people informed. This was all very hush-hush until a couple of days ago. My DH has accepted a new position at a company outside of Boston, which starts September 13. So now we're moving. To Boston. In two weeks.

The last couple of days have been a whirlwind, and I have no doubt it will be a while before the dust settles. His company is moving our stuff, and putting us up in temporary housing (read: Marriott-with-kitchen) for 60 days. But we still have to drive our car and cats cross-country, taking with us everything we might need in the next two months. And God knows what kind of crappy-ass Marriott pans I'll have to cook on for two months. It's still not certain whether we'll even get a room with an oven. How can I survive that long without an oven???

Also, we'll both have to build our winter wardrobes from scratch. So there's that.

ALSO, his company is moving to Providence, RI soon. So not only will we be living in temporary housing for a while, in the outer 'burbs of Boston, then we get to move (again) to wherever they settle in Rhode Island.

AND there's the custody issue with his son. As yet unresolved.

So, anyone who has any experience with living in Boston/Rhode Island/New England in general should write me immediately and tell me what to expect. (Other than the cold. I already know I'm going to want to kill myself by January.)

My current company has offices in Boston, but no open positions at the moment. So I guess I'll start temping right away, and see what happens. It's a great opportunity for my hubby, and I have no doubts that this will be good for both of us, Rhode Island notwithstanding.

Still. I'm freaking out a little bit right now.