Itinerary
Monday - Run around like insane people trying to get everything done. Celebrate birthday.
Tuesday - Run around like insane people trying to get everything done, possibly break to entertain Renee's sister and mother; if the mother spends the entire visit telling us how stupid and irresponsible we are for moving, kill, hide body.
Wednesday - Run around like insane people trying to get everything done; take three unhappy cats to the vet.
Thursday - Absolutely brain melting insanity. Take cats to airport first thing in the morning, be paranoid all day that something might happen to them. Come home. Movers come, empty apartment. Walk our checked baggage over to Penn Station, likely to take several trips. Check into hotel room for the night. Collapse in exhaustion.
Friday - Take light rail to Penn Station. Gratefully wave fuck off to this city for the last time. Spend day on the train.
Saturday - Spend a few hours in Chicago having a meal with a friend of Renee's. Get on another train.
Sunday - Spend day on the train. Try not to go crazy with boredom or lack of sleep.
Monday - Arrive in Portland. Fuck around for a few hours. Take train into Eugene. Reunite with cats. Home free.
Tuesday - Hole up in new apartment. Recover from insanity.
Sounds like a grand time, don't it? Oh it will be totally worth its done and we're out there, but right now I'm just praying this all doesn't make me sick. I've been on the cusp of something for a while now, since its been stressful for months. Its already fucking with my sleep in small ways and my temper is shortening.
The cats know something is up. Discord has been very clingy with me lately, Renee says Ferrari is the same. Gods, they are going to be so angry. I hope they get over it well enough. I hope they just do the usual thing they do when we go away for a few days and just cling like glue for a week or two. Hope there is no additional reprisal for sending them on an airplane and into a strange environment with strange people for a few days ahead of time. Especially with Nattie, since she's terrified of other people and doesn't deal with stress very well.
Amtrak's phone system is populated by idiots. Not something I've ever really had to deal with before because everything I've booked with them has been really straight forward, no extra questions or complications. Two different people on the phone told us that we can not, ever, under any circumstances, check baggage at Baltimore's Penn Station. That's not true (and was confirmed by people working at Penn Station), you certainly can on a train that allows it, we don't need to go into Washington DC first. Also three people told us it would be perfectly okay for us to check our huge Rubbermaid tupperware containers on the train (which we had been happy about, our tubs are pretty big, can hold a lot of stuff). No, actually plastic containers are expressly forbidden, it says so in no uncertain terms in their rule manual, which the fourth person finally thought to read to us (and the woman at Penn Station told us without our even having to ask, like they've had several people trying to check those lately and so feel a need to say so up front, and gee I wonder why). I fucking hate people that shoot their mouths off like they know what they're talking about when they very clearly don't; if you don't know the answer to something then fucking look it up, don't just make one up so you sound competant. There has been far too much of us making plans based on someone telling us something is possible when it in fact is not.
Bank of America sucks diseased ass. If you don't have an account with them, for the love of the gods, don't get one. Them and their fucking retardedness made my father transfering that money to us more ridiculously difficult than anything should be. This would not be the first time they've made life needlessly difficult, but right now we really didn't need it, and my father didn't need it either. Definitely going to have to shop around for another bank when we get to Eugene (or Renee will, I maintain my account at a small company that doesn't exist outside the county I grew up in and have no intentions of ever returning to; it can be a bit of a pain but I'll make it work until someone offers me as good a deal as they have and that hasn't happened yet; not going to leave them for a national bank that's going to steal money from me left and right in fees every I want any of my money and all but punish me for wanting to use cash instead of a debit card alone, which Bank of America does).
On the plus side, the deposit we'll need to put on the apartment is a lot less than we thought it was going to be. Plus our rent is being prorated for this month both there and here. Saving money already. :-)
Today is my birthday, 29. We're not going to have much time to do anything in between lots of insane running around. But we'll do something. Renee made me a necklace and gave it to me yesterday. We'll have a nice dinner and, if we get a few spare minutes (likely not, but if) we might go out somewhere.
Almost done now. Almost now. :-)
Tuesday - Run around like insane people trying to get everything done, possibly break to entertain Renee's sister and mother; if the mother spends the entire visit telling us how stupid and irresponsible we are for moving, kill, hide body.
Wednesday - Run around like insane people trying to get everything done; take three unhappy cats to the vet.
Thursday - Absolutely brain melting insanity. Take cats to airport first thing in the morning, be paranoid all day that something might happen to them. Come home. Movers come, empty apartment. Walk our checked baggage over to Penn Station, likely to take several trips. Check into hotel room for the night. Collapse in exhaustion.
Friday - Take light rail to Penn Station. Gratefully wave fuck off to this city for the last time. Spend day on the train.
Saturday - Spend a few hours in Chicago having a meal with a friend of Renee's. Get on another train.
Sunday - Spend day on the train. Try not to go crazy with boredom or lack of sleep.
Monday - Arrive in Portland. Fuck around for a few hours. Take train into Eugene. Reunite with cats. Home free.
Tuesday - Hole up in new apartment. Recover from insanity.
Sounds like a grand time, don't it? Oh it will be totally worth its done and we're out there, but right now I'm just praying this all doesn't make me sick. I've been on the cusp of something for a while now, since its been stressful for months. Its already fucking with my sleep in small ways and my temper is shortening.
The cats know something is up. Discord has been very clingy with me lately, Renee says Ferrari is the same. Gods, they are going to be so angry. I hope they get over it well enough. I hope they just do the usual thing they do when we go away for a few days and just cling like glue for a week or two. Hope there is no additional reprisal for sending them on an airplane and into a strange environment with strange people for a few days ahead of time. Especially with Nattie, since she's terrified of other people and doesn't deal with stress very well.
Amtrak's phone system is populated by idiots. Not something I've ever really had to deal with before because everything I've booked with them has been really straight forward, no extra questions or complications. Two different people on the phone told us that we can not, ever, under any circumstances, check baggage at Baltimore's Penn Station. That's not true (and was confirmed by people working at Penn Station), you certainly can on a train that allows it, we don't need to go into Washington DC first. Also three people told us it would be perfectly okay for us to check our huge Rubbermaid tupperware containers on the train (which we had been happy about, our tubs are pretty big, can hold a lot of stuff). No, actually plastic containers are expressly forbidden, it says so in no uncertain terms in their rule manual, which the fourth person finally thought to read to us (and the woman at Penn Station told us without our even having to ask, like they've had several people trying to check those lately and so feel a need to say so up front, and gee I wonder why). I fucking hate people that shoot their mouths off like they know what they're talking about when they very clearly don't; if you don't know the answer to something then fucking look it up, don't just make one up so you sound competant. There has been far too much of us making plans based on someone telling us something is possible when it in fact is not.
Bank of America sucks diseased ass. If you don't have an account with them, for the love of the gods, don't get one. Them and their fucking retardedness made my father transfering that money to us more ridiculously difficult than anything should be. This would not be the first time they've made life needlessly difficult, but right now we really didn't need it, and my father didn't need it either. Definitely going to have to shop around for another bank when we get to Eugene (or Renee will, I maintain my account at a small company that doesn't exist outside the county I grew up in and have no intentions of ever returning to; it can be a bit of a pain but I'll make it work until someone offers me as good a deal as they have and that hasn't happened yet; not going to leave them for a national bank that's going to steal money from me left and right in fees every I want any of my money and all but punish me for wanting to use cash instead of a debit card alone, which Bank of America does).
On the plus side, the deposit we'll need to put on the apartment is a lot less than we thought it was going to be. Plus our rent is being prorated for this month both there and here. Saving money already. :-)
Today is my birthday, 29. We're not going to have much time to do anything in between lots of insane running around. But we'll do something. Renee made me a necklace and gave it to me yesterday. We'll have a nice dinner and, if we get a few spare minutes (likely not, but if) we might go out somewhere.
Almost done now. Almost now. :-)