So yeah, that's finally done. Only took 9 hours. More on that in a minute.
First off, the kid. She sent me a video yesterday of someone driving down her road the night of the fire. There was a comic book/collectible card store next to her building and it's just blazing away. How her building managed to stay up is a miracle. And I don't use words like that lightly. We won't know the condition of the contents of her place for a while though. Odds are everything is going to be pretty messed up. After seeing the video of what was going on around her, there's no way she isn't going to be dealing with ash and smoke damage. We will cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now that looks like it will be December before they can get back in. She is staying in a room at a co-workers house and will be offering them some money to stay there for the next few weeks. Luckily, her work went WAY ABOVE and beyond. They gave her a check for $1150 to cover what she might need to rent a room for two months AND they gave her a grocery store gift card for $100 to get Thanksgiving groceries. Kindness abounds.
I did get a call yesterday from her mother. I was busy and let it go to VM. She is wanting to know what 'we can do together'. Um, nothing? I got it covered on my end. Thanks. Go live your life and I will live mind. Pain in my ass.
Now, back to the adventure from hell. NEVER AGAIN. A quick recap of the week:
Monday
Movers show up on time (amazing) but unlike the last ones can't seem to get their truck into the spot and end up parking on the street. This adds a delay as they have to take everything an extra 150-200 feet. Doesn't seem much, but when you're carrying a couch, it makes a difference. Plus the fucking moving company told the driver "2 bedroom apartment" even after I told them I had the equivalent of a multi-room home. When the driver showed to look around he immediately was like 'um this is more than I was expecting'. No fucking shit buddy. The problem? The local guys sent him to helpers that were older than me. They were bitching and moaning the whole time and taking like one box at a time. I could have done a faster job. So what should have taken 3 hours took 6. Lovely. But they got it done. When I asked when he thought he would drop off, he said it might not be until the 26th because of Thanksgiving? Are you serious??? I was told the 20th and now you're pushing it out a fucking WEEK?? Ugh. So pissed off about that. After they left, we organized are stuff to go in the car and got to bed early.
Tuesday
Got up and started loading the car. That was frustrating. Things didn't fit where I wanted them. Had to redo things multiple times to get everything working. Then had to get the fish in and setup their power. Then the cats. Whoo boy, the cats. Within the first twenty minutes one had shat themselves and then thrown up. That put a damper on our start. By the time we really started rolling it was after 4:30am. Fun times when you have 900 miles to go. Day one took us through OR, WA, and MT. MT was pretty and pretty boring. Snow, open road, 80 mile an hour stretches. Got to the hotel really late, got everyone inside, and crashed hard.
Wednesday
Day two was a little better. Day two was MT, ND, and MN. Again more empty open roads. We picked up some dramamine for the cats Tuesday night and that helped A LOT to keep them calm. Some early morning issues, but much better day in general. 850 miles total that day. Got to Eagan earlier than the day before. The hotel there had been open only a week and was perfect. They went above and beyond in terms of service. Even so much as loading us up with water and food when we checked out in the morning and not a single charge. I was very pleased with that.
Thursday
Last day of travel. 700 miles through MN, IL, IN, and MI. IL sucked because we had to go right through Chicago and it was bad. Even at noon when we hit it the traffic was a nightmare. We drugged the cats again which helped. We also hit a snowstorm when we hit IN. I was so worried about everything up above the car. I had computer shit in there that I kept stressing over. Got to the house around 6:30pm EST. What a trip. We didn't have much time to really take everything in. My first priorities were cats, fish, then computers. By the time I got all that in it was 9pm and B setup the air mattress and we collapsed. We had planned on bringing our real bed but it wouldn't fit. We ended up bringing our 22" air mattress which is better than nothing, but not so good we didn't look around yesterday for a real mattress. We need one for the guest room anyway.
How's the house? Acceptable. I am having to learn that basements are not 'finished' to my standards especially in a house this old. By that I mean the electrical is wonky, some of the ceiling tiles don't match (it was finished in stages, you can tell), and there's little construction issues that make me go huh? But I love the upstairs. I just wish it had furniture in it. With nothing in it and hardwood floors, it echoes and is cold. It's still snowing here and that's not helping things. But the space is amazing and more importantly, it's silent. Like dear god is it silent. I couldn't ask for anything better. I can't hear shit outside and I love it. My office is an oasis of darkness and silence. People could use it as an isolation chamber. It's awesome.
Friday
Ah yesterday. AT&T was scheduled to be here at 9 so at 7 we went and did some grocery shopping. We stopped for some breakfast and then came back to wait. B went out to get a rocking chair from her mother and some stuff at petsmart. Her dad left us a 30 gallon tank setup and I got the fish all situated in that. AT&T guy showed at 9 on the dot. Impressive. He then looked around, figured out where to drop the fiber, and went to work. Took him a few hours outside as he had to run a brand new drop from the pole and the main box. He got it in, ran it through the ceiling for me, and was ready to go. Until it didn't work. Long story short, his people fucked up and gave him an ONT (the modem) that was still assigned to another customer and wouldn't recognize us. He had tried swapping out multiple things, resetting, rewiring, etc. Finally he got it resolved around 5:30 after being here all day. I gave him the cash in my pocket (about $15) because I felt so bad. He almost wouldn't take it, but I made him. He was thankful and that made me feel good. We did lose the entire day unfortunately. We then tried to go to Walmart for some more household stuff. Never doing that again. This area is truly a 'people of Walmart' world. I hated every fucking second of it. Got what we needed and got the hell out. We then tried to find a mattress somewhere. No luck on that because we wanted it delivered today and it was too late for most stores. We will try again today to see if we can find one. Wish us luck.
First though, we are taking the cats to the vet. One cat has a tooth problem that needs to be resolved now. It's grown into her bottom lip and needs to come out. She is in pain and cranky from it. B has a friend who works in a vet office about 30 minutes away and we're taking the cat there. That's how I will spend my Saturday.
Oh and through all this? I was working. I answered a ton of emails, booked a flight to TN, handled manuals being ordered, dealt with clients and our CBT guy, etc. I told my boss that he owed me one day of non-PTO for this week and he agreed. Instead of taking 8 days for this, I only have to put down 7. Cool. I can handle that.
Time to shower and see about turning on some heat in this place.
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