I am a capable adult, I swear.
Jul. 27th, 2008 12:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hermionesviolinJonah called me about twenty past noon, said, "Looking at the MBTA schedule, I would get to you about 2:30; do you think you'll still need help then?" I said, "Well, my parents are getting here in about twenty minutes and I think by 2:30 we'll be unpacking, so you probably don't need to."
Hi, I am delusional. I still had remnants of packing, which as I learned Friday night takes far longer than expected. Plus, my dad was bringing me copy paper boxes so I could box up my books (I asked for six, turned out I needed more like eight, but a lot of my boxes were only partially packed so I still managed to fit almost everything in to boxes.) so I was packing while he was taking stuff down. (My mom hurt her back recently, so she did useful stuff like packing up my breakables.) At the new house, I brought in all the boxes, which made me feel like less like a lazy procrastinating mooch of a daughter. (P.S. I am v. glad to be living on the first floor. And there are only five stairs to get up to the porch.)
My dad said I had thirty copy paper boxes and that that was fewer than last time. If I'm keeping count correctly, I culled 12 bags worth of paper (actually 13, 'cause I did another one Friday night) plus three bags of donations, but I still have too much stuff. Also, my lame closet with lots of space I can't readily see/access? Yeah. The closet in my new place is not big, but at least it doesn't continue much past where I can see, so that'll be added motivation to only keep clothes I actually wear.
4:30pm, we were still loading the truck and Sonia downstairs asked if we thought we would be done by 5:30 when her U-Haul was arriving. 5:20 her U-Haul came, 5:40 we were out (I decided I would come back Sunday or Monday and finish Swiffering my room, taking out the trash, etc.).
As we did when I moved to my last apartment, we accidentally parked in the driveway on the wrong side of the house -- i.e., a neighbor's driveway. Soon after, one of the people whose driveway that is came home. A guy I would say in his forties, stopped his jeep (or whatever it was) in the road (I live on a dead-end street now), got out, and said, "You're kidding me, right? Parking in my driveway? You're kidding me." So yeah, my dad got in the truck, backed out, and re-parked in front of my house. My dad said that the lady across the street said, "Welcome to the neighborhood," and laughed.
That was the only real badness of the moving itself, though -- other than the fact that I have a ridiculous amount of stuff and don't even know where to begin unpacking -- not helped by the fact that I can't figured out where the light switch is for the dining room, where much of my stuff is currently being stored. (I guess maybe clothes to wear on Sunday would be a good place to start. And toothbrushes and shampoo and suchlike.) Sam (my housemate's cat) is super-mellow and didn't ever try to get out the front door and also didn't try to come up and be friendly with any of us (my mom is allergic, and my dad is not-fond); he was barely ever even underfoot.
My mom suggested maybe that guy was having a bad day. And him notwithstanding, I do have a good feeling about the neighborhood. A lot of porches, and the lawns and stuff look like people take care of them and are happy to be there. Yes, I'm sure a lot of the feel is just that it feels like a distinct neighborhood because it's a short dead-end street.
It took a while to figure out how to configure the furniture in my bedroom. For the first time in ages, my bed isn't right near the window, so we'll see how that goes. All the walls have windows or doors or furniture, but I have all this open space, which is weird. People could sleep over or something. (Though eventually I should move a fair amount of my boxes into my room. I'm not sure how much storage space there is in the basement -- and while I'm hesitant to "swear" I will never move this much stuff again, since that's what I said last time, moving all this stuff is definitely an incentive to cull. I was thinking earlier -- prompted by thinking about how I really don't remember much of the actual moving process from any of my moves -- that it's like childbirth . . . you forget the pain so that you're willing to do it again.)
My mother is magic and figured out how to open up my wireless mouse so I can replace the batteries. (Oh, and I gave my parents my tv, 'cause theirs is crapping out and mine is really too big for a bedroom -- there's already a tv in my new place's living room -- and the fact that the recording no longer works is a significant problem for me. And we took the really heavy tv stand down to the curb -- because I don't know when I'll be getting a replacement tv, and the tv stand I got off of craigslist a couple years ago doesn't fit my needs all that effectively.)
I went to plug in my USB wireless adapter and because my desktop computer is old (I got it in summer 2001), the USB ports on the tower are right next to lots of other important plug-ins -- sandwiched between the power cord and the mouse and keyboard plug-ins, to be exact -- so it doesn't fit.
I freaked out (hi, all I want is a place to sleep and an Internet -- okay, and some clean clothes and food to eat and access to a shower and a toilet) and called RadioShack (phone# thanks to the receipt). They close at 9pm -- a little more than a half an hour from the present time. My parents drove me to Davis Square (a little indirectly -- we went on George to Main, then on Main a bit [hey look, there is a mini-mart nearby (Alexanders); I'd been saying I was kinda bummed that I couldn't go right around the corner and pick up quick food like I could in my old place], turned down Harvard St. and hey look, Powder House Rotary). I think I had just missed an Inbound train, and I had to wait about ten minutes for one, but I got to the Harvard Square Radio Shack about five minutes before nine. The Sales Associate (Jeremy) said they could sell me a USB extension cord but it would be like six feet (as it turned out, the only one they had was ten feet -- $29.99); I said since it seemed like my only option other than calling Comcast and asking them to install more wires in my house. He said I could get a PCI one. I had looked at that when I was browsing the shelves last time and it didn't look my computer had the port to fit it at all. He said you open up the computer and plug it in to the motherboard. I didn't think I was up for that, especially without anyone else around to help, after a long day, so I just bought both and said I'd return whichever one I didn't use. (If the guy had told me I was SOL, I was fully prepared to walk the rest of the way to work, get on to my floor with my swipe card, and log on to my work computer and bitch. I was already drafting the entry -- like I do.)
I basically wanted to drink my weight in juice, so on the way home I stopped at the Shaw's in Porter Square. I walked to Davis and found I had missed the 96 by a little over five minutes, and the next one was in about fifty minutes, so I just walked the rest of the way home -- carrying three 64 fl. oz. containers of juice, a 1/2 gallon of milk, and three pre-prepared meal-type-things ('cause they were there and looked tasty -- pierogies!). I got home and couldn't get the front door to open. When we had first arrived I couldn't get it to open but my dad got it, and of course when we were heading out to get to RadioShack before it closed I was not about to have my dad walk me through how to unlock my front door.
I called my dad, and I did what he told me, but it wasn't working, and NewHousemate didn't answer her cell, so I called my dad back 'cause he had said if necessary he would drive back. So I sat on the porch, thinking about how I was really in the mood for the cheddar cheese and Granny Smith apples I knew were in my fridge. (I had a bowl of Kellogg's Raisin Bran Crunch for breakfast around 10 and hadn't had anything besides corn chips and juice the rest of the day.) I swear I drank 2/3 of the Tropicana Raspberry Lemonade (which tastes like childhood Kool-Aid, btw) in like five minutes. From the container. While sitting on the porch.
Jane, an upstairs neighbor, came home and asked if I was okay. I explained, and she said, "Oh yeah, you just have to wiggle it," and offered to do it for me. And it worked. (When I called my parents back to say they didn't need to drive out after all, my dad suggested WD-40 to prevent this problem in the future. NewHousemate called me back later and said she'd show me how to work the key on Sunday after she got back.)
I saw Jane again downstairs when I went to do laundry, and asked her how to work the washer -- and figured it out as I was asking.
(Possibly I should check and make sure I understand how the shower works before it is first thing in the morning and I have just woken up.)
Anyway, I opened up the USB package again and this time I actually registered the little cord pack included in the package -- which, wonder of wonders, is a USB extension cord. *facepalm*
So I'm connected to the Internet. With "Very Low" signal strength, but it's mostly been staying connected. And I have been drinking milk and eating the cheddar cheese and Granny Smith apple I wanted. And I will unpack some clothes and toiletries and get my clothes and sheets from the washer/dryer and eventually go to bed. Which really should be sooner rather than later.
Hi, I am delusional. I still had remnants of packing, which as I learned Friday night takes far longer than expected. Plus, my dad was bringing me copy paper boxes so I could box up my books (I asked for six, turned out I needed more like eight, but a lot of my boxes were only partially packed so I still managed to fit almost everything in to boxes.) so I was packing while he was taking stuff down. (My mom hurt her back recently, so she did useful stuff like packing up my breakables.) At the new house, I brought in all the boxes, which made me feel like less like a lazy procrastinating mooch of a daughter. (P.S. I am v. glad to be living on the first floor. And there are only five stairs to get up to the porch.)
My dad said I had thirty copy paper boxes and that that was fewer than last time. If I'm keeping count correctly, I culled 12 bags worth of paper (actually 13, 'cause I did another one Friday night) plus three bags of donations, but I still have too much stuff. Also, my lame closet with lots of space I can't readily see/access? Yeah. The closet in my new place is not big, but at least it doesn't continue much past where I can see, so that'll be added motivation to only keep clothes I actually wear.
4:30pm, we were still loading the truck and Sonia downstairs asked if we thought we would be done by 5:30 when her U-Haul was arriving. 5:20 her U-Haul came, 5:40 we were out (I decided I would come back Sunday or Monday and finish Swiffering my room, taking out the trash, etc.).
As we did when I moved to my last apartment, we accidentally parked in the driveway on the wrong side of the house -- i.e., a neighbor's driveway. Soon after, one of the people whose driveway that is came home. A guy I would say in his forties, stopped his jeep (or whatever it was) in the road (I live on a dead-end street now), got out, and said, "You're kidding me, right? Parking in my driveway? You're kidding me." So yeah, my dad got in the truck, backed out, and re-parked in front of my house. My dad said that the lady across the street said, "Welcome to the neighborhood," and laughed.
That was the only real badness of the moving itself, though -- other than the fact that I have a ridiculous amount of stuff and don't even know where to begin unpacking -- not helped by the fact that I can't figured out where the light switch is for the dining room, where much of my stuff is currently being stored. (I guess maybe clothes to wear on Sunday would be a good place to start. And toothbrushes and shampoo and suchlike.) Sam (my housemate's cat) is super-mellow and didn't ever try to get out the front door and also didn't try to come up and be friendly with any of us (my mom is allergic, and my dad is not-fond); he was barely ever even underfoot.
My mom suggested maybe that guy was having a bad day. And him notwithstanding, I do have a good feeling about the neighborhood. A lot of porches, and the lawns and stuff look like people take care of them and are happy to be there. Yes, I'm sure a lot of the feel is just that it feels like a distinct neighborhood because it's a short dead-end street.
It took a while to figure out how to configure the furniture in my bedroom. For the first time in ages, my bed isn't right near the window, so we'll see how that goes. All the walls have windows or doors or furniture, but I have all this open space, which is weird. People could sleep over or something. (Though eventually I should move a fair amount of my boxes into my room. I'm not sure how much storage space there is in the basement -- and while I'm hesitant to "swear" I will never move this much stuff again, since that's what I said last time, moving all this stuff is definitely an incentive to cull. I was thinking earlier -- prompted by thinking about how I really don't remember much of the actual moving process from any of my moves -- that it's like childbirth . . . you forget the pain so that you're willing to do it again.)
My mother is magic and figured out how to open up my wireless mouse so I can replace the batteries. (Oh, and I gave my parents my tv, 'cause theirs is crapping out and mine is really too big for a bedroom -- there's already a tv in my new place's living room -- and the fact that the recording no longer works is a significant problem for me. And we took the really heavy tv stand down to the curb -- because I don't know when I'll be getting a replacement tv, and the tv stand I got off of craigslist a couple years ago doesn't fit my needs all that effectively.)
I went to plug in my USB wireless adapter and because my desktop computer is old (I got it in summer 2001), the USB ports on the tower are right next to lots of other important plug-ins -- sandwiched between the power cord and the mouse and keyboard plug-ins, to be exact -- so it doesn't fit.
I freaked out (hi, all I want is a place to sleep and an Internet -- okay, and some clean clothes and food to eat and access to a shower and a toilet) and called RadioShack (phone# thanks to the receipt). They close at 9pm -- a little more than a half an hour from the present time. My parents drove me to Davis Square (a little indirectly -- we went on George to Main, then on Main a bit [hey look, there is a mini-mart nearby (Alexanders); I'd been saying I was kinda bummed that I couldn't go right around the corner and pick up quick food like I could in my old place], turned down Harvard St. and hey look, Powder House Rotary). I think I had just missed an Inbound train, and I had to wait about ten minutes for one, but I got to the Harvard Square Radio Shack about five minutes before nine. The Sales Associate (Jeremy) said they could sell me a USB extension cord but it would be like six feet (as it turned out, the only one they had was ten feet -- $29.99); I said since it seemed like my only option other than calling Comcast and asking them to install more wires in my house. He said I could get a PCI one. I had looked at that when I was browsing the shelves last time and it didn't look my computer had the port to fit it at all. He said you open up the computer and plug it in to the motherboard. I didn't think I was up for that, especially without anyone else around to help, after a long day, so I just bought both and said I'd return whichever one I didn't use. (If the guy had told me I was SOL, I was fully prepared to walk the rest of the way to work, get on to my floor with my swipe card, and log on to my work computer and bitch. I was already drafting the entry -- like I do.)
I basically wanted to drink my weight in juice, so on the way home I stopped at the Shaw's in Porter Square. I walked to Davis and found I had missed the 96 by a little over five minutes, and the next one was in about fifty minutes, so I just walked the rest of the way home -- carrying three 64 fl. oz. containers of juice, a 1/2 gallon of milk, and three pre-prepared meal-type-things ('cause they were there and looked tasty -- pierogies!). I got home and couldn't get the front door to open. When we had first arrived I couldn't get it to open but my dad got it, and of course when we were heading out to get to RadioShack before it closed I was not about to have my dad walk me through how to unlock my front door.
I called my dad, and I did what he told me, but it wasn't working, and NewHousemate didn't answer her cell, so I called my dad back 'cause he had said if necessary he would drive back. So I sat on the porch, thinking about how I was really in the mood for the cheddar cheese and Granny Smith apples I knew were in my fridge. (I had a bowl of Kellogg's Raisin Bran Crunch for breakfast around 10 and hadn't had anything besides corn chips and juice the rest of the day.) I swear I drank 2/3 of the Tropicana Raspberry Lemonade (which tastes like childhood Kool-Aid, btw) in like five minutes. From the container. While sitting on the porch.
Jane, an upstairs neighbor, came home and asked if I was okay. I explained, and she said, "Oh yeah, you just have to wiggle it," and offered to do it for me. And it worked. (When I called my parents back to say they didn't need to drive out after all, my dad suggested WD-40 to prevent this problem in the future. NewHousemate called me back later and said she'd show me how to work the key on Sunday after she got back.)
I saw Jane again downstairs when I went to do laundry, and asked her how to work the washer -- and figured it out as I was asking.
(Possibly I should check and make sure I understand how the shower works before it is first thing in the morning and I have just woken up.)
Anyway, I opened up the USB package again and this time I actually registered the little cord pack included in the package -- which, wonder of wonders, is a USB extension cord. *facepalm*
So I'm connected to the Internet. With "Very Low" signal strength, but it's mostly been staying connected. And I have been drinking milk and eating the cheddar cheese and Granny Smith apple I wanted. And I will unpack some clothes and toiletries and get my clothes and sheets from the washer/dryer and eventually go to bed. Which really should be sooner rather than later.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 08:19 am (UTC)I miss my Elizabeth! Plz to be coming back and visiting me soon ;)
Actually from RAS
Date: 2008-07-27 01:48 pm (UTC)I don't think I'm going to try to set it up today. I woke up, as the saying goes, "hurting in places I didn't even know I had places." Very fortunately, none of those places are in my back. Backs heal slowly. My legs heal quickly.
I seem to have gotten a large amount of sun. Today will be an indoor day.
PS from RAS
Date: 2008-07-27 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 03:34 pm (UTC)for future reference
Date: 2008-07-28 01:11 am (UTC)