twanfox and cabbitattack had chosen as their "big item move-out" date. They managed to score a truck from somebody for the morning, and used that to move things like their bed, the dresser, the book shelf, things like that. So when I got up in the morning nobody was home, their bedroom was half-emptied and it was easier to walk down the hallway between the bedrooms and the living room. I spent most of my day half-heartedly packing for myself and lending a hand with their packing here and there as necessary. Eventually they called it a night and went off to their new apartment to do some unpacking and get in a warm bath since they were both feeling sore. I opted to grab my laptop and headed up North to visit with roho and enveri. Since I wasn't able to get up there for our usual lunch retreat at bd's we decided to make up for it by heading over there for dinner, which had the side benefit of settling the quandary of "Should I have one or two bowls for lunch?" since dinner rates are automatically two bowls. We got to the restaurant at around 8:00 PM, and man was that place hopping! I guess I should have figured that a place that has decent food and booze would be busy on a Saturday night, but I wasn't prepared for that by any means. When we go in at noon on Saturday the place is usually dead, with only four or five other tables seated while we're there. When we showed up it was packed and had a line of people waiting for a seat. Once we were put on the waiting list and got our buzzer we stepped outside the doors and just chatted for a while. It was that good sort of chatter that you get when you put friends together and nobody is under too immense a load of stress at that moment. You know the type of conversation I'm talking about: Idle comments that lead into colorful but not very animated discussion where the topic can range from the weather to something funny on TV and back again. I haven't gotten a lot of that lately, and the chance to indulge in it was greatly appreciated.Once we were notified that our table was ready we noticed how large the line was for the buffet and started to wonder if we had made a mistake. Luckily for us we decided to tough it out and set to making up our bowls. Low and behold, our friend Joe was on the grill that night, along with his roommate Obie (Joe and Obie are two of the folks we see every week, and they're starting to recognize us on sight). When we got up to the grill with our food Joe pointed at his watched and said in a very stern voice, "You're eight hours late! What have you got to say for yourselves?" That got a chuckle from us and set the tone for the rest of the evening. It turns out our waiter was Bill, one of Joe's other roommates. Man, I can't fathom what it's like to work and live with those guys. I'd either really enjoy myself or suffer a psychotic breakdown, one or the other. :)
Everybody was in fine form that night; the grillers were singing along to the radio and making a great deal of noise, our waiter was teasing the other patrons about their birthdays and the food was getting grilled to perfection. I decided to return to my regular routine of making food that could eat through the decking of an aircraft carrier, so both of my bowls had liberal doses of crushed red pepper and cayenne pepper. For the longest time now I've been reading the propaganda sheet that rests on every table that recommends beer for a "burning tongue" and I decided to put it to the test tonight. Surprisingly enough the MGDs I ordered did help soothe some of the burn I was experiencing, although it didn't eliminate it by any means. Between the food, the MGD and the diet cola with lemon that I was alternating with my beer I was one bloated Mongolian stir-fry tick at the end of the night. Kestral and Roho both entreated me to help them put away the apple cobbler they'd picked up as a dessert. I wanted to, oh how I wanted to, because those cobblers are absolutely to die for. But I knew if I were to try even one small spoonful I would suffer a fate similar to John Hurt's unlucky character Kane in the 1979 classic Alien. I'm sorry I passed on it, but I think it was for the best.
Once we waddled our way out of bd's we climbed into Roho's Saab and, whimpering all the way, drove home. We flopped out on the couch and proceeded to tinker with Roho's DSL portal to see if I could get my office laptop to tunnel into the network through it. While we were banging on that problem we also mixed up some drinks, using the pure cranberry juice that Roho had procured. I was a little surprised by the taste, it wasn't at all what I expected -- but I would be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what it was that I had been experiencing. The tartness was good, it complimented the Absolut quite well, but it just seemed sort of bland. I think for the price and taste factors future Cape Codders will be mixed with the generic cranberry cocktail we can get from any grocery chain.
We didn't meet with any success on the DSL/VPN issue, which left me a little frustrated, but it was good that I got a chance to check things out ahead of time. Kestral was feeling tired and the hour was growing late while Roho and I hacked our way through "Consumer-friendly" DSL appliances, so she retired shortly before we two geeks declared a loss and decided to kill time watching some episodes of The Simpsons, Season Two. I really miss the classic Simpsons of old, back before Lisa became a touchy-feely PC bitch and Homer was a lovable, well-meaning but clumsy oaf instead of a brainless monkey used to advance plots now and then. Once we finished watching "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish" Roho decided to also call it a night, so I let myself out and drove home. I could have crashed there but I figure I'll be doing that every night soon enough so I might as well go back to my place and enjoy having it to myself for the little time I have remaining.
I got up this morning at around 0900, put a pill in Ra's head and then proceeded to do my usual routine. It was odd having the apartment entirely to myself (well, if you don't count the cat, the bird or the fish). I could play my music without worrying about getting on anybody's nerves, which was nice for distraction since my TV is now completely unhooked from the cable, the DVD player is packed away and the VCR got packed away. I spent most of my day idly sifting through paperwork, slowly packing things, doing the inventory on the box, labelling the boxes and sitting on the IRC and the MUCKs. It was a nice way to spend the day, especially because I got to hang out for quite an extended period with one friend whom I don't see enough of (Although they'll be at this MFF, which is the utmost in cool). Sometime in the afternoon Twan and Cabbitattack returned to pack up some more boxes, collect the bird and whisk their food out of the fridge. I got some of my glassware packed (I don't expect any of my glasses to survive the trip), took down the blades from the ceiling fan to clean and packed up a good deal of the junk around my computer desk. Tomorrow my goal for after work is to finish packing the odds and ends from the living room and hopefully finish up the kitchen as well. Then it's on to my bedroom, which will be a task that most certainly meets the definition of "Herculean" given the vast amounts of shit that I know I have wedged away within my bedroom closet. I expect I'll be throwing a lot of stuff out.
I'm looking at all the boxes I've packed, and the rapidly dwindling number of boxes I have stashed away in my bedroom. I'm beginning to wonder if I've got enough boxes to make this move possible, and if underestimated the amount of stuff I've got to move when I rented that 24' truck from U-haul. If I go much bigger I'm going to need a frigging class-B CDL license to drive the rig! I sincerely hope that
neowolf2 has enough space in his basement for all my stuff, and that he knows how much I appreciate his generous donation of storage space.We were both too tired to sleep
