A few posts back I described events that unfolded in our lives between 2/14/2009 and 3/29/2009  - the chaotic move to a new house followed by weeks of the “regular” flu.  At that time, lying on the couch in our new basement, surrounded by unpacked boxes and barely able to breathe without coughing, I drew to mind the words that my Grandfather once bitterly announced to our family “I fail to see the humor in this.”  If memory serves, he was referring to some mishap that occurred on a family vacation.  However, the internal optimist in me (thank you M.J. Fox), did have some small hope that I would be able to look back and note some moments of humor within our ordeal.  I have had a few weeks to recover in a number of ways and have pinpointed 5 such moments. 

Humorous Moment #1:  As we are moving our belongings into the new house, we broke a mirror in the common area that is shared with our next door neighbor.  We humbly knocked on her door, introduced ourselves, profusely apologized and offered to replace it ASAP.  The very next day as we are unpacking she knocks on our door to a: ask if we’d had a chance to get a new mirror yet because the entryway looks “weird without it” and b: to review a list of things that we should be aware of so that we don’t “irritate her.”   And no,  I am not paraphrasing.  She then followed that sentence by “Oh honey, you look like you’re going to cry… I’m not mad at you.” 

The New Mirror

Humorous Moment #2:  Roughly 6 days before our move,  I called our utility and insurance companies to switch our respective home services over to the new place.  It was a pretty simple process with most companies, except for Comcast.  Admittedly our absolute least favorite utility company to encounter, Comcast managed to activate our new account at our old address. Not a big shock – -nor was it a huge shock that the installation technician (who arrived 2 hours late) was not authorized to install our internet connection, leaving Justin on the phone with Comcast “customer service” for 4 hours.  Three days later when we received a bill for close to $400, having just sent in a payment of nearly $200, Justin took a deep breath and dared to have a coherent conversation with a customer service representative.   45 minutes later I was typing away to the Better Business Bureau and hear Justin say “I don’t think that we’re really getting anywhere and I’d like to speak with a supervisor.”  The representative (from what I could assume) asked why he felt a supervisor was required.  ”You want to know why?  Here’s why (raises voice significantly) ” AT THIS POINT I’M READY TO ACCEPT SERVICE FROM A COMPANY THAT WOULD PROVIDE ME WITH TWO TIN CANS AND A FUCKING BALL OF STRING SO THAT I DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH COMCAST ANYMORE.  GET ME A GOD -DAMN SUPERVISOR ON THE PHONE, PLEASE.  We have now been credited for our troubles… twice.

Humorous Moment #3: The day after the big physical move occurred we awoke from the air mattress in our old apartment, packed up the final odds and ends, cleaned and returned to the new place – - where ALL of our belongings were now located on the main floor.  The carpets had been cleaned the day that we moved in, making it impossible to walk on them, much-less store furniture and boxes.  And so that next day we rolled up our sleeves and began moving boxes from one floor to another, weeding through the sea of complete chaos that had been created the night before.  By 5PM we had cleared a path big enough to move our box spring mattresses upstairs – - we have two twin sized to fit under a king top mattress.  No problem.  We then moved the bed frame in pieces.  No problem. Dressers (3).  Done.  Dresser Drawers. Done.  Huff Huff… now for the mattress. Still covered in plastic, the mattress slid easily across the hardwood floor to the base of the stairs that lead to the bedroom.  We lifted, we pushed, we pulled. Then we switched positions and repeated.  Then we took off the plastic and tried again. Then we turned the mattress a different directions and returned to step 1.  Then we switched positions again and tried with all of our strength to fit that mattress up the stairwell.  Oh… we failed.  Our defining moment of failure came when I realized that I was probably going to shit my pants if I tried to push that mattress any harder than I was.  And, I started to cry – - it wasn’t what I would call “real crying.”  It was the “boo hoo” crying that comes with complete exhaustion and frustration.  And, in that moment, I let go of the top end of the mattress, letting all 150 – 200 pounds of it fall into Justin’s arms.  ”DORI!” he said.  ”Dori, hey you – you need to stop crying!”  ”God-dammit this mattress is heavy and you have to stop crying and help me.”  ”HEY – pull yourself together.  This is absolutely not the time for this.”  He turned into some type of drill sergeant/coach, which ironically was the absolute right approach that I needed to cease the tears and help return the mattress back to it’s original position in the dining room.  Hmmm.  At that point, Justin decided to “go for a walk” uttering the words “multi-thousand dollar mistake” under his breath.  I assumed he was talking about the cost of our mattress and not my wedding band and promptly called in the Ryan’s for mattress back-up assistance.

We just needed a little help from the Ryan's

p.s. on #3 – we were also missing 1 very critical bolt that held the end of the bed together and could only be replaced by going to an actual IKEA store.  We now have 5 extra bolts, just in case.

Humorous Moment #4: Flashback to a combination of moments 1 & 2 above.  I am standing in the doorway, staring our our neighbor who is prattling on about the commingled recycling program when from the basement we hear “God-damn bleeeeeepity bleeeeeepers!  How do they stay in business?  They need to pull their heads out of their asses.  F’ing  bleeeeeepers!!!”  I had turned my ear to the basement to catch my husband’s latest tirade about Comcast and then slowly turned one eye back to our neighbor.  Her mouth hung open and a small noise came out “uuuehh.”  Justin, unaware that I was chatting with our new neighbor came stomping up the stairs “Mother bleeepers!  Those bleeeeeeepers have  no idea what they are  bleeeping doing. I can’t believe I’ve spent the last two bleeeeping hours on the phone with them and….(at this point Justin see’s me at the front door talking with our new neighbor and continues his sentence) they still can’t bleeping figure out what the bleeeping problem is!  Bleeeping bunch of bleeeeeping idiots!”  Typically, when Justin gets this angry over I make myself scarce.  I’ve found that it’s just better to let him vent, vent, vent by himself.  However, seeing as I was trapped by our now speechless neighbor who we were meeting for the 2nd time —  I had absolutely no where to hide.  Our neighbor, who recovered rather quickly, immediately guessed “Comcast?”  

Humorous Moment #5:  Our old apartment had these really tall industrial windows for which we purchased very long curtains from IKEA to cover: 

Floor to ceiling industrial windows

The windows in the townhouse are not even half the size of our old windows.

New & Normal (yet custom-sized) windows

So, this basically meant that we did not have curtains that were appropriate for covering our new windows.  We had the aluminum blinds, but those aren’t 100% effective at blocking out light. For the first week in the new place we were too exhausted to care.  During the second week, the intense morning light started to bother us both and we began brainstorming ways in which we could cover some of the windows – - specifically the one’s that were shedding light into the bedroom.  First we decided to buy all new curtains.  Then, we thought we could use the old curtains and deal with the fact that they are too long.  However, we quickly realized that each window has a heating vent directly beneath it and that the likelihood of the material catching fire was pretty high.  Then, we called Justin’s mom and asked her if we could send the too-long-curtains to her to be hemmed.  Of course, she agreed and we turned to the task of measuring all of the windows and washing the too-long-curtains.  In the midst of digging through our rather large assortment of curtains,  I came across a smaller set of curtains that Justin’s mom made for us when we first moved to Boston.  For one reason or another, we hadn’t ended up using that set, but kept them tucked away in a storage bin with some older curtains from our college days.   I pulled out the small curtains and held one side up to the window outside our bedroom door – - it was a perfect fit!  ”Hey! Look at that – - that will work!” I happily reported to Justin.  ”Great!” he said and pulled it’s mate out of the storage bin and unfolded it.  ”Hmmm – - which side is the fro….”  Justin stopped mid sentence and let out a “HA!” followed by some noiseless laughter for a few seconds before flipping the curtain around so I could see what triggered this moment.  And there it was… in the upper left hand corner of the curtain under a line of careful stitches was a very small ironed on patch of material covering up a tear in the fabric.  On the patch, his mom had written one word “oops.”   

You know – - – this move was pretty challenging for us physically and emotionally.  What move isn’t?  Though we tried to go with the flow and not take ourselves too seriously, our human nature took over at a certain point.  Finding that curtain, years after it had been  made with that little note was exactly what we both needed to return to ourselves.  We laughed harder, louder and longer than we had in weeks.  And then we called his mom – -who of course remembered her curtain blunder, and she laughed right along with us.

A few shots of the new place: 

Row of town homes we live in...

Our front door - 10A

Finished basement (which will eventually have a bed for our guests)

Our 1st "in unit" washer/dryer!

Potted plants on the back patio