Tuesday, October 6, 2009

A Moving Experience

I know that statistically, TFMD and I are still on the young side of midlife, but we like to joke about being old and crotchety. Turns out, a move that would have taken twenty hours had we attempted it the old fashioned way (and resulted in none of our friends ever speaking to us again) was done in less than nine hours and spared us both our bodies and our friendships. It wasn't cheap, but it was well worth the expense, especially since we now get to unpack boxes and rearrange furniture until the cows come home (something that would've been impossible had we done the major moving ourselves).

We unpacked just enough to find some clothes and toiletries before rushing off to Bellingham for the weekend. The first public performance of Buzzkill Bride was, appropriately enough, at a wedding. Without electricity. Fortunately my gigging weapon of choice is a nice loud Ovation, and the woman has a fine set of pipes. So we were set. And because the DJ could not play the processional music, I just strummed a few bars of the song we sang later in the ceremony.

It was apparently well received, and we got lots of nice comments. Not a bad debut. Followed by a vegetarian buffet by lantern light, and, once the power came back on around 9PM, some drunken booty-shakin'. The weekend seemed to be crammed full of small annoyances that, when lumped together, made for a kinda cranky time. But I think it was a good reminder that we have each other and not to sweat the small stuff.

We got back home to await the arrival of our realtor with the new house keys. In talking with the neighbor just to the south of us, we discovered that the two neighbors across the street are both fellow Twelfth Nighters. Small town, West Seattle.

And thus begins life in the new place. My stepmom came over last night and helped organize the pantry, while Rae and I walked down to the new QFC at the Alaska Junction to get dinner stuff. Made a nice meal of soups (butternut squash, chicken noodle), salad and rosemary bread. If I'm not home unpacking, I'm running to the hardware store or Target for storage options. Today someone is supposed to come check out the leaky washer downstairs (we need clean clothes!), and tomorrow the cable guy comes to hook us back up while the contractors start framing a wall and door for Tyler's room and running a new water line so we can move the fridge.

We just need to have the rewiring done before the wedding. Heh.

3 comments:

Noelley B said...

Hi, I'm Noelle, Mark Biddlecom's sister-in-law.

Um, I live at your old house, and "Raechelle Downing" just had a package from Bed, Bath and Beyond delivered here, and we thought that we could just let you know, rather than go through the extra trouble and time of calling UPS. I'm pretty embarrassed to admit this, but when we decided to move toward buying your house, we googled you and found this blog. We read it during the whole buying process. I wanted to confess for a while, and this seemed a good time to do it.

So, yeah, come get the package, or you could send me a message and we'll return it to UPS.

TD said...

Hi Noelle,
Isn't this bizarre, making such a huge transaction through agents and escrow people without ever actually meeting? I so appreciate the note, and we'd be happy to come by and pick up the package today. If you think it wouldn't be awkward, we'd love to meet you and say hi. Or you could just leave it out and we'll pick it up without disturbing you.

I'm glad you got my house. It was a wonderful home for my family for 15 years. I'd be happy to give you the lowdown on the neighborhood too. :)

Cheers!

Noelley B said...

I think it would be great to meet you. Come over whenever.