... And here we are!
I am an Indiana resident again.
Pre-move: I'd kind of hoped to use our last week in NYC (post-job) not just for packing but also to collect some last few touristy experiences, like take etrace on the Staten Island Ferry, or to the Met or the MoMA or the Little Prince exhibit at the Morgan. When it came down to it, though, I found that I didn't care any more about making sure we did those things than I had about checking them off the list any other time in the past 2.5 months, or indeed 2.5 years. I mean I had gone to the Met (Museum, in this case, but the Opera as well) myself, but there were so many other things on my mental list of "oh, I should do this sometime" and then suddenly there were just a few days left to try and do even one or two of them, and... with the packing and the holiday, I just, well, didn't care that much anymore. Downtime was precious, and no amount of "I'll be sorry in three months that we stayed home drinking coffee and doing crosswords this morning!" was enough to lure me out of my pajamas.
But one thing I was dead set on was to get to the Social Security card office downtown and put in my name change, so on Thursday (the 11th) we did that, squeaking in just before closing -- and then since we were right there, we went to the 9/11 Memorial (one of the very few NYC landmarks etrace had real interest in seeing). From there, we walked over to Battery Park City so we could at least catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty over the Hudson, and then walked all the way up Varick St through Tribeca into the Village to meet stakebait for tasty Korean food... so at least that afternoon accomplished several goals in one sitting.
Passover: In timing the move, I had specifically wanted to stay in NYC through the seders in order to be with the community there, and so I signed up for the shul's "seder meal match" roster (pairing guests with available hosts). The first night, we were invited by the shul's executive director, who turns out to live in a charming Park Slope townhouse, for a very intimate family seder (6 people including us and one old family friend) that was mostly in English and slowly petered out after dinner as everyone else went up to bed one by one. The second night, the rabbi had invited us for what ended up being a 25-person, 5-hour extravaganza, which was awesome but a bit overwhelming for etrace, so it was good that we experienced them in that order! For the record, he was a terrific sport about the entire holiday and kept all the crazy food restrictions with me the entire time, including NO BEER, and running over to Kingston Avenue to get Passover snacks (chocolate, cookies and Coke) from the kosher superette while the movers were loading us out on Thursday.
Moving Day 1: The big day was Thursday, April 17, the first day of Chol HaMoed Pesach. I had reserved a 10' U-Haul, which I upgraded on Tuesday to a 14' as the stacks of boxes began to seem unnervingly high. (The 14' truck was not much over half full by volume, in the end, but I'm still not convinced everything would have fit in the 10' since the height and width were also noticeably smaller.) U-Haul also does this thing now where they will hook you up with "moving help" on either end, so I reserved a crew of 2 guys for 2 hours, which was precisely what we needed (they were literally carrying down the last box at like 2 hours and 1 minute). That was done at about 2:20pm, but what with lunch and last-minute cleanup and whatnot, we didn't actually pull out of the parking space until about 3:50pm... whereupon we had to drive through Lower Manhattan and out the Lincoln Tunnel, at rush hour, so that first five miles took a good hour and a half. At that point, though, it was pretty smooth sailing, and we got onto I-80 in New Jersey and basically took it all the way straight home. (Crossing into Pennsylvania through the Delaware Water Gap was extremely beautiful.)
I did all the Thursday driving, which was good because the city traffic didn't really bother me, but bad because once we were on the open highway I was terrified to go more than 60 mph and usually more like 50 depending on the stretch of road. We stopped once for gas before we got out of NJ, then never actually did stop for dinner until I started to run out of steam around 10:30pm and we started looking for where to spend the night. We pulled off in DuBois and ended up at a little roadhouse called the Hitching Post, where we were very very glad to see two steak dinners, and I located the cheapest nearby lodging (a Super 8) in Brookville, another 15 minutes west, so that's where we slept.
Moving, Day 2: I set the alarm for 8am, but between dragging ourselves into the shower, filling up the truck, and getting breakfast at Denny's, it was 11am until we got onto the road. We'd originally been hoping to make it home by around 4pm, but at that point I was convinced it was going to be more like 9pm, with 467 miles to go. Fortunately, though, etrace did all the Friday driving, which ended up being a comparable number of hours -- maybe 8 vs. my 7 -- but I think he covered 60% of the total ground, because he was much more comfortable driving the behemoth U-Haul at speed (up to 70 mph through most of Ohio). We ended up filling the 40-gallon tank something like 4 times; I haven't dared to total up the gas charges yet. We stopped for milkshakes around 2pm and then never actually stopped for real lunch either, because by the time we were getting hungry, we were only about 2 hours from home and who wants to stop for half an hour then?? Between etrace's good trucksmanship and the switch back into Central time on entering the Region (what they call our corner of NW Indiana), we ended up pulling into the driveway about 6:15pm CDT. And oh, etrace was so happy to have his dog back!!
etrace had called one or two friends to come and help us unload, in addition to his 19-year-old nephew (who has been staying here since February in order to help take care of the house and etrace's mom), so we started in earnest around 6:30pm... and to my utter surprise, the four or us had the truck completely and painlessly emptied in half an hour. Most of everything just got stacked up into the garage, aside from the few boxes and pieces that we could bring straight up into their assigned places in the house. Anyway, so then etrace and I ran out to the grocery store to get some stuff to make dinner, and some kosher wine to make kiddush on (probably should have stocked up on THAT before moving out of Crown Heights, huh? but there was a liquor store nearby that had exactly one brand of kosher wine, called Sholom, from a regional Michigan winery), and came home and lit candles and made kiddush and Shehecheyanu before making everyone roast chicken for dinner.
And on Saturday, blessedly, we slept in. Made breakfast. Played with the dog. Unpacked my closet. Returned the U-Haul. Made hamburgers for dinner. Drank rum-and-Passover-Cokes and watched the first two Season 4 episodes of Game of Thrones.
The rest of the week has been more or less like that, really. Every day a little incremental progress on unpacking: cleaning and arranging, slowly integrating my things into the house. Every day a music student or a computer client (as etrace starts to catch up on having been gone for 2+ months). But also every day sleeping in and reading and leisurely cooking and morning walks around the pond in the backyard with the dogs.
It's beginning to feel like home. Like I am already becoming the person who lives here, with etrace, and not the person who lived in Brooklyn just a week ago.
And as I said wonderingly to etrace on Sunday... "Is it weird to be this happy?"
N.B.: Cross-posted from Dreamwidth; click to view or comment on original post.
Pre-move: I'd kind of hoped to use our last week in NYC (post-job) not just for packing but also to collect some last few touristy experiences, like take etrace on the Staten Island Ferry, or to the Met or the MoMA or the Little Prince exhibit at the Morgan. When it came down to it, though, I found that I didn't care any more about making sure we did those things than I had about checking them off the list any other time in the past 2.5 months, or indeed 2.5 years. I mean I had gone to the Met (Museum, in this case, but the Opera as well) myself, but there were so many other things on my mental list of "oh, I should do this sometime" and then suddenly there were just a few days left to try and do even one or two of them, and... with the packing and the holiday, I just, well, didn't care that much anymore. Downtime was precious, and no amount of "I'll be sorry in three months that we stayed home drinking coffee and doing crosswords this morning!" was enough to lure me out of my pajamas.
But one thing I was dead set on was to get to the Social Security card office downtown and put in my name change, so on Thursday (the 11th) we did that, squeaking in just before closing -- and then since we were right there, we went to the 9/11 Memorial (one of the very few NYC landmarks etrace had real interest in seeing). From there, we walked over to Battery Park City so we could at least catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty over the Hudson, and then walked all the way up Varick St through Tribeca into the Village to meet stakebait for tasty Korean food... so at least that afternoon accomplished several goals in one sitting.
Passover: In timing the move, I had specifically wanted to stay in NYC through the seders in order to be with the community there, and so I signed up for the shul's "seder meal match" roster (pairing guests with available hosts). The first night, we were invited by the shul's executive director, who turns out to live in a charming Park Slope townhouse, for a very intimate family seder (6 people including us and one old family friend) that was mostly in English and slowly petered out after dinner as everyone else went up to bed one by one. The second night, the rabbi had invited us for what ended up being a 25-person, 5-hour extravaganza, which was awesome but a bit overwhelming for etrace, so it was good that we experienced them in that order! For the record, he was a terrific sport about the entire holiday and kept all the crazy food restrictions with me the entire time, including NO BEER, and running over to Kingston Avenue to get Passover snacks (chocolate, cookies and Coke) from the kosher superette while the movers were loading us out on Thursday.
Moving Day 1: The big day was Thursday, April 17, the first day of Chol HaMoed Pesach. I had reserved a 10' U-Haul, which I upgraded on Tuesday to a 14' as the stacks of boxes began to seem unnervingly high. (The 14' truck was not much over half full by volume, in the end, but I'm still not convinced everything would have fit in the 10' since the height and width were also noticeably smaller.) U-Haul also does this thing now where they will hook you up with "moving help" on either end, so I reserved a crew of 2 guys for 2 hours, which was precisely what we needed (they were literally carrying down the last box at like 2 hours and 1 minute). That was done at about 2:20pm, but what with lunch and last-minute cleanup and whatnot, we didn't actually pull out of the parking space until about 3:50pm... whereupon we had to drive through Lower Manhattan and out the Lincoln Tunnel, at rush hour, so that first five miles took a good hour and a half. At that point, though, it was pretty smooth sailing, and we got onto I-80 in New Jersey and basically took it all the way straight home. (Crossing into Pennsylvania through the Delaware Water Gap was extremely beautiful.)
I did all the Thursday driving, which was good because the city traffic didn't really bother me, but bad because once we were on the open highway I was terrified to go more than 60 mph and usually more like 50 depending on the stretch of road. We stopped once for gas before we got out of NJ, then never actually did stop for dinner until I started to run out of steam around 10:30pm and we started looking for where to spend the night. We pulled off in DuBois and ended up at a little roadhouse called the Hitching Post, where we were very very glad to see two steak dinners, and I located the cheapest nearby lodging (a Super 8) in Brookville, another 15 minutes west, so that's where we slept.
Moving, Day 2: I set the alarm for 8am, but between dragging ourselves into the shower, filling up the truck, and getting breakfast at Denny's, it was 11am until we got onto the road. We'd originally been hoping to make it home by around 4pm, but at that point I was convinced it was going to be more like 9pm, with 467 miles to go. Fortunately, though, etrace did all the Friday driving, which ended up being a comparable number of hours -- maybe 8 vs. my 7 -- but I think he covered 60% of the total ground, because he was much more comfortable driving the behemoth U-Haul at speed (up to 70 mph through most of Ohio). We ended up filling the 40-gallon tank something like 4 times; I haven't dared to total up the gas charges yet. We stopped for milkshakes around 2pm and then never actually stopped for real lunch either, because by the time we were getting hungry, we were only about 2 hours from home and who wants to stop for half an hour then?? Between etrace's good trucksmanship and the switch back into Central time on entering the Region (what they call our corner of NW Indiana), we ended up pulling into the driveway about 6:15pm CDT. And oh, etrace was so happy to have his dog back!!
etrace had called one or two friends to come and help us unload, in addition to his 19-year-old nephew (who has been staying here since February in order to help take care of the house and etrace's mom), so we started in earnest around 6:30pm... and to my utter surprise, the four or us had the truck completely and painlessly emptied in half an hour. Most of everything just got stacked up into the garage, aside from the few boxes and pieces that we could bring straight up into their assigned places in the house. Anyway, so then etrace and I ran out to the grocery store to get some stuff to make dinner, and some kosher wine to make kiddush on (probably should have stocked up on THAT before moving out of Crown Heights, huh? but there was a liquor store nearby that had exactly one brand of kosher wine, called Sholom, from a regional Michigan winery), and came home and lit candles and made kiddush and Shehecheyanu before making everyone roast chicken for dinner.
And on Saturday, blessedly, we slept in. Made breakfast. Played with the dog. Unpacked my closet. Returned the U-Haul. Made hamburgers for dinner. Drank rum-and-Passover-Cokes and watched the first two Season 4 episodes of Game of Thrones.
The rest of the week has been more or less like that, really. Every day a little incremental progress on unpacking: cleaning and arranging, slowly integrating my things into the house. Every day a music student or a computer client (as etrace starts to catch up on having been gone for 2+ months). But also every day sleeping in and reading and leisurely cooking and morning walks around the pond in the backyard with the dogs.
It's beginning to feel like home. Like I am already becoming the person who lives here, with etrace, and not the person who lived in Brooklyn just a week ago.
And as I said wonderingly to etrace on Sunday... "Is it weird to be this happy?"
N.B.: Cross-posted from Dreamwidth; click to view or comment on original post.