The New House. Part Trois of Quatre.
"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;mso-hansi-theme-font:
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mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">MOVING DAY
We were so tired, so drained, but the last day of the month was upon us, and we had of course not moved one box, one stick of furniture, into the new place yet. Sigh. So, once again, Jerry rounded up the troops, all his friends, and we rented a U-Haul and loaded that thing up as fast as we could. "I think," one of his friends panted, "you guys acquired more furniture since we helped you move last time?”
I was trying to help as much as I could, but I was still packing up some boxes in the kids' room. Why the hell I hadn't already done that, I have no idea. I had done such a good job packing up the rest of the house -- Jerry's friend was indeed correct, we had acquired much more stuff in the almost two years that we lived there. I was pretty proud of doing that all by myself, and packing up the rest of the house. The kids' room was the only thing I hadn't done.
While the guys were at the new house unloading the truck, I thought I'd be helpful and take apart the boys' loft bed. I've done it before by myself; I can do it again, I figured. WRONG! I don't know how, but I somehow pinched my finger between the pieces of bed frame as they fell apart, gouging a HUMONGOUS chunk out of the side of my index finger. It was one of those injuries that is so bad and when you first see how bad it is, your first reaction is not even to feel pain, but to think, "Oh crap, I really did it this time". There was no blood at first, and I totally did not recognize what I was seeing. Is that my bone? What are those white things? And THEN there was blood, and so I couldn't tell what was what anymore -- not necessarily a bad thing.
I kept a level head, though, and wrapped it in a clean rag, and held it up. I was calmly waiting for Jerry and his friends to get back, because two of them were ex-Marines and probably knew more first aid than I did. Of course I'd left my phone plugged in at the new house, because that is just so typical, so I wasn't able to call and let Jerry know what had happened. I was kind of pacing back and forth through the almost-empty apartment, waiting as best as I could, and cursing myself for fucking up my hand. "I NEED BOTH MY HANDS TODAY!!" I'd been so careful not to give myself blisters and stuff while I was painting and cleaning, because I needed my hands to be whole and undamaged to do as much work as I could -- I still had to CLEAN the apartment before handing over the keys, remember! And look what happened.
The guys came back, and I showed them my injury. Everyone was impressed. "Yeah, that's pretty substantial."
"Do you think I ought to go in and get it looked at?" I mean, I really didn't want to take time out of our busy schedule to go to the E.R., spend six hours and hundreds of dollars we don't have. Besides, there wasn't anything to do to it, really, besides clean it. There wasn't anything to stitch back together... I even looked for the piece of my finger, but I couldn't find it. I mean, it was small anyway, about the size of an entire pencil eraser, right off the thumb side of my right index finger, at the first joint. It had taken off all the flesh, so that the tendons were visible, but I could move my finger perfectly fine, so there wasn't severe trauma. It wasn't like I pinched the whole thing off. It was bad, but it wasn't. "Just clean and bandage it; that's what I'd do."
Luckily, I had a bin of bathroom stuff still at the apartment. Hmm... "Alcohol, or hydrogen peroxide?" I knew the alcohol was going to STING, so I opted for the latter. I held my hand over the sink and poured the hydrogen peroxide over the injury, patted it dry, and made a makeshift bandage with a cut-up maxi-pad and electrical tape. There. Good as new. I promptly got back to work (well, I let the guys deal with taking the bed apart). I felt good - I had a taped-up pretty bad injury, blood all over my T-shirt, but I was still working, and I wasn't sitting there crying. I hadn't cried at all, in fact. I felt like, Okay, maybe I didn't completely fuck up the moving process. There's another memento -- I've got a picture of the kids, a broken wedding ring, and a nice big hydrotrophic scar on the side of my finger.
The rest of the day was spent taking the last of the stuff to the new house, and cleaning up the apartment. I did the best I could in the time alloted, and with the hand I was able to use. I did neglect to clean the inside of the oven, but I did clean the hell out of the top of the stove and underneath the burners. I mean, we kept it pretty clean anyway. I also bleached the grout on the tile floors in the kitchen (it had been brand-new when we moved in, sparkling white, but it was somewhat dirtier after we lived there. Not a lot, mind you, but somewhat). I scrubbed the bathroom again, cleaned the windowsills and baseboards, and vacuumed the carpet. Our carpet was still really nice because we'd put area rugs down everywhere, took off our shoes when we were inside, and I'd enforced a strict NO EATING ANYWHERE EXCEPT THE KITCHEN policy. So, when we did our last walk-through with Linda, our manager, she was really impressed. "Girl, you should see how some of these units look when tenants leave. This is great!" We got almost all of our deposit back, minus the usual small "wear-and-tear" deduction, and also minus eighty bucks because I hadn't cleaned the oven. "Well, think of us, if your cousins' house doesn't work out! You're welcome back any time!"
We were really sad to leave that apartment. I still see it whenever I go to Safeway. Sometimes when I turn down the street to enter the Safeway driveway from the side, I imagine that I'm just on my way home to the apartment. And I sometimes drive around the back of Safeway, just to get a little closer to the apartment. "Hi, Linda! Hi, old apartment! I miss you!" I'll call, knowing that nobody can see or hear me, but I have to say hello, just the same.
minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">MOVING DAY
We were so tired, so drained, but the last day of the month was upon us, and we had of course not moved one box, one stick of furniture, into the new place yet. Sigh. So, once again, Jerry rounded up the troops, all his friends, and we rented a U-Haul and loaded that thing up as fast as we could. "I think," one of his friends panted, "you guys acquired more furniture since we helped you move last time?”
I was trying to help as much as I could, but I was still packing up some boxes in the kids' room. Why the hell I hadn't already done that, I have no idea. I had done such a good job packing up the rest of the house -- Jerry's friend was indeed correct, we had acquired much more stuff in the almost two years that we lived there. I was pretty proud of doing that all by myself, and packing up the rest of the house. The kids' room was the only thing I hadn't done.
While the guys were at the new house unloading the truck, I thought I'd be helpful and take apart the boys' loft bed. I've done it before by myself; I can do it again, I figured. WRONG! I don't know how, but I somehow pinched my finger between the pieces of bed frame as they fell apart, gouging a HUMONGOUS chunk out of the side of my index finger. It was one of those injuries that is so bad and when you first see how bad it is, your first reaction is not even to feel pain, but to think, "Oh crap, I really did it this time". There was no blood at first, and I totally did not recognize what I was seeing. Is that my bone? What are those white things? And THEN there was blood, and so I couldn't tell what was what anymore -- not necessarily a bad thing.
I kept a level head, though, and wrapped it in a clean rag, and held it up. I was calmly waiting for Jerry and his friends to get back, because two of them were ex-Marines and probably knew more first aid than I did. Of course I'd left my phone plugged in at the new house, because that is just so typical, so I wasn't able to call and let Jerry know what had happened. I was kind of pacing back and forth through the almost-empty apartment, waiting as best as I could, and cursing myself for fucking up my hand. "I NEED BOTH MY HANDS TODAY!!" I'd been so careful not to give myself blisters and stuff while I was painting and cleaning, because I needed my hands to be whole and undamaged to do as much work as I could -- I still had to CLEAN the apartment before handing over the keys, remember! And look what happened.
The guys came back, and I showed them my injury. Everyone was impressed. "Yeah, that's pretty substantial."
"Do you think I ought to go in and get it looked at?" I mean, I really didn't want to take time out of our busy schedule to go to the E.R., spend six hours and hundreds of dollars we don't have. Besides, there wasn't anything to do to it, really, besides clean it. There wasn't anything to stitch back together... I even looked for the piece of my finger, but I couldn't find it. I mean, it was small anyway, about the size of an entire pencil eraser, right off the thumb side of my right index finger, at the first joint. It had taken off all the flesh, so that the tendons were visible, but I could move my finger perfectly fine, so there wasn't severe trauma. It wasn't like I pinched the whole thing off. It was bad, but it wasn't. "Just clean and bandage it; that's what I'd do."
Luckily, I had a bin of bathroom stuff still at the apartment. Hmm... "Alcohol, or hydrogen peroxide?" I knew the alcohol was going to STING, so I opted for the latter. I held my hand over the sink and poured the hydrogen peroxide over the injury, patted it dry, and made a makeshift bandage with a cut-up maxi-pad and electrical tape. There. Good as new. I promptly got back to work (well, I let the guys deal with taking the bed apart). I felt good - I had a taped-up pretty bad injury, blood all over my T-shirt, but I was still working, and I wasn't sitting there crying. I hadn't cried at all, in fact. I felt like, Okay, maybe I didn't completely fuck up the moving process. There's another memento -- I've got a picture of the kids, a broken wedding ring, and a nice big hydrotrophic scar on the side of my finger.
The rest of the day was spent taking the last of the stuff to the new house, and cleaning up the apartment. I did the best I could in the time alloted, and with the hand I was able to use. I did neglect to clean the inside of the oven, but I did clean the hell out of the top of the stove and underneath the burners. I mean, we kept it pretty clean anyway. I also bleached the grout on the tile floors in the kitchen (it had been brand-new when we moved in, sparkling white, but it was somewhat dirtier after we lived there. Not a lot, mind you, but somewhat). I scrubbed the bathroom again, cleaned the windowsills and baseboards, and vacuumed the carpet. Our carpet was still really nice because we'd put area rugs down everywhere, took off our shoes when we were inside, and I'd enforced a strict NO EATING ANYWHERE EXCEPT THE KITCHEN policy. So, when we did our last walk-through with Linda, our manager, she was really impressed. "Girl, you should see how some of these units look when tenants leave. This is great!" We got almost all of our deposit back, minus the usual small "wear-and-tear" deduction, and also minus eighty bucks because I hadn't cleaned the oven. "Well, think of us, if your cousins' house doesn't work out! You're welcome back any time!"
We were really sad to leave that apartment. I still see it whenever I go to Safeway. Sometimes when I turn down the street to enter the Safeway driveway from the side, I imagine that I'm just on my way home to the apartment. And I sometimes drive around the back of Safeway, just to get a little closer to the apartment. "Hi, Linda! Hi, old apartment! I miss you!" I'll call, knowing that nobody can see or hear me, but I have to say hello, just the same.