1176 Miles Behind Us

Last week we were in Birmingham living in our house, with the convenient dog door, tucked away litter box, happily sitting on our couch watching tv. My how those simple conveniences seem like the were so long ago. Our moving adventure started last Monday when Mom and Dad came to the house to help box up and remove all of the things that would not fit in our Boston apartment. It is amazing that in two years of marriage you can collect so much stuff! The moving company came in on Tuesday and Wednesday to pack and then move all of our things that made the "cut" and they are probably somewhere around Pennsylvania right now.

We rented a car to make our journey, since we will be car less for our time in Boston, and started to cram all of our necessities and pets into the back. Moving Revelation #1 :  Unless you would use it camping it is NOT a necessity. Since we would be dropping off Matt's car in Virginia, where his brother and sister in law so graciously let us crash with our pets, we would have to drive the 9 hours separately. I took the rental car and the Fat Man (cat) and Matt took Ramen Noodle (dog) and his car. Moving Revelation #2: Tranquilizing the cat will only make the situation worse! It was like transporting a pissed off, obnoxious, and half comatose adolescent that was just small and furry. I have very little patience for drunks but since I induced it (per veterinary advice) I couldn't complain too much.

Next leg of our trip was from Virginia to Boston. Matt drove the entire way...I think he thought he was making up for the cat madness from the day before. Fat Man was chilling in the back the whole time and barely made a peep until we had to put him in his carrier. Ramen Noodle rode in my lap the whole way with her nose shoved into the a/c vent, which is her favorite part of a rode trip. Moving Revelation #3: Turnpikes are not like regular interstates and if you get off it is a pain in the ass to get back on. Not your zip on and off I65 in Alabama. We get to our street and have our game plan for quickly putting the Fat Man and the Noodle in the apartment bathroom until we get the rest of the car unloaded. We get to the door and turn the key and the lock won't budge. I am thinking this place is old and maybe it is just hard to open. Nope. Key doesn't work to the outside door!! I call our property manager's phone number and get an answering service that is used to page them during non-office hours. I page, I page, I page again 20 minutes later still outside and no response. I had called our rental broker, Sarah Glovsky, and she called me back immediately. She is probably the only rental agent that would call someone back at 10:30 on a Sunday night!!! She is awesome! However, we still couldn't manage to get in the door. A couple walks up and looks at Matt like he is a crazy homeless man with a cat in a carrier. He tells them the story and pleads with them to let us in to door. They say "if we are burglars, we sure are sophisticated". We get up to the apartment door and hold our breath to see if this key works. It does!! We open the door and BAM--110 degrees of stale heat smack us in the face. Our apartment does not have central air and there is a bit of a heat wave in Boston. After opening all the windows we get it down to a cool 90 degrees and start to blow up the air mattress. Since we cant risk getting locked out of the building we unload the car one at the time and take turns holding the door open. We finally get everything inside take an ice cold shower, water down the pets, and go to sleep.

Tomorrow we will wake up and start to explore our new big city......

Matt's reaction to the Fat Man's restroom break