So on Saturday morning I got up at my usual absurdly early hour -- six -- and was glad to see that the cable was still working, because it was already weird enough, a mostly empty apartment except for the stuff stacked along one wall, no place to sit except K's desk chair, which she'd moved into the living room the night before. She'd also left me a set of keys, so a little after seven, I set out towards the coffee shop I'd seen next to the Metro entrance. It's called Sirius Coffee -- heh heh.But no Remus bagels. Anyway, the place didn't open until eight (BOO! HISS!) but there was a group of women standing there, all with coffee cups, so I asked them where they got them and they told me and it was gooooood coffee. I walked back, maybe a quarter-mile walk, and even though it wasn't hot at all, I was already covered in sweat, because it's not a climate fit for humans. But it wasn't raining, so that was mega-cool. Inside, I pulled my one chair over to the window and used the ledge as a breakfast bar and had my cereal and banana that I'd brought with me. K had said she'd wake up early, no later than 9:30 (ah, perspective) and she did, as did her roommate. Then the miracle started to work.
The three of us (mostly them, of course) packed up what was left and moved everything but the beds and boxsprings into the living room where the rest of the stuff was. I disassembled K's bedframe. And whatever we did, it seemed, one of us was a step behind, cleaning. As they took their stuff out of the bathroom, I wiped down the sink and countertop, and then swept the floor. While I was emptying the dustpan, one of them went in and mopped the floor. As I stood up the bedframe parts against the wall, one of them came behind me and cleaned the floor under where the bed had been. By 10:30 -- one hour! -- it was all done and ready to be moved.
Miracle stage two: The girl that these two were moving in with -- so this is someone who wasn't even moving herself -- came with her car and her boyfriend, and the four kids started loading up the car with everything that would fit. It took a long time, because the old apartment is on the 10th floor of a big building, so they were waiting for the elevator a lot. At 11:00, K and I left the two girls and the one boyfriend to keep moving stuff, and headed off by Metro to pick up the U-Haul.
No problem getting there at all, although by the time we stepped out of Union Station it was plenty hot and very sunny. Since the prediction had been for rain all day, this was fine by us. By 12:30 we were in the van and hoping that we wouldn't get too lost getting back to the apartment. They had given us directions, which it turned out were right on target! If only there hadn't been poorly marked traffic circles in D.C., but we just went around a few times and there we were. Turned out to be easy.
And by the time we got back, so had the car people, after dropping off the first load (actually I think they'd had time to take two loads over) and they started on the beds and dresser and desk and stuff. As they moved stuff out, I loaded up the next dolly and cleaned the floor underneath. The one guy was super, a kind of lean scrawny type who just knew how to move stuff. How do men know that? Because I think they all do, and how to pack a car or van, too. He was great. It took less than an hour and a half.
And then over to the new place, which is on the first floor, and damn if these four kids didn't empty that van in 15 minutes flat. They were incredible. And when everything was done, the boyfriend just said "Well, bye!" and walked off home! Didn't even stay for pizza; neither did the girlfriend who had done so much when she wasn't even moving herself. Turns out she was going home for the evening -- her parents live less than an hour away -- but before she left, she put clean sheets on her bed so that I could sleep there instead of having to blow up the Aero-Bed and sleep on that.
K and the roommate she moved with -- they're still sharing a room -- then set about getting everything put away and put in place. I helped where I could, but by this time the heat/humidity was getting to me, and anyway, only they would know where they wanted stuff. I put boxed food into cabinets, and shirts onto hangers as K unpacked them, but the two of them just charged on, and we didn't even order the pizza until almost 9:00 at night. By then all three of us looked like death on a stick, and we ate our fill and collapsed into bed. We hadn't eaten anything since breakast except for a brief life-giving stop for ice cream at 5:00, on the way back from dropping off the van.
So K is in place, and best of all, with two nice girls for apartment-mates. And to her great joy, two cats, belonging to the nice girl with the moving-boyfriend:
.jpg)
This one is a big Maine Coon, beautiful
.jpg)
And this sweet boy who looks a lot like my own Q, just black instead of gray.
Next: Sunday
