entering the new world

Well, things are just about in place for our move. I've been distracted with preparations, packing, and things to do, so I haven't had much of a chance to post lately. But, my house is pretty much packed, Michael's is the same, we have truck and friends lined up for tomorrow, and hopefully everything will go well.

We did hit one problem, finally--our apartment will not be ready for us until tomorrow afternoon, instead of in the morning. We had arranged for our lease to be begin on tomorrow's date, and made all our plans accordingly. Then I went to pick up the keys yesterday and found out about the delay. Maintenance staff are apparently not quite finished yet--they still need to clean the carpets. Thanks to some pushing on my part, they've moved the time we can have it up to 2, instead of 5 or later, and the people at the office said that they would work tomorrow to see if it can be ready even earlier. But considering our moving truck is supposed to be back at 6 it's going to be tight, and we only even have that much time because Michael was able to call UHaul and change our reservation time. Whew. Well, we'll do what we can do. Worst comes to worst I suppose we can use the truck for the furniture etc and shuttle boxes back and forth for a day or two afterwards--we're not really mandated to be out of our apartments until the 1st.

The other bad news is that I fell on the concrete steps outside my apartment yesterday, landed really strangely on my foot, and now I am limping, moving more slowly than usual, and in some pain. Wouldn't be so big a deal except I am supposed to be rushing around moving boxes tomorrow! Actually, my first thought was maybe I'd broken something in my toe or the ball of my foot, but I am assuming that if that was the case I would have got worse, rather than better, overnight, and that I would have more pain and difficulty walking. So I'm probably going to end up feeling more useless than not tomorrow.

In other news, I finally broke down and ordered a cell phone and service plan from letstalk.com today. TMobile was running a promotion through them with 1000 minutes per month included plus free nights and weekends for $39.99. The phone I chose--Motorola V600--will be free after the rebate and includes features like caller ID, voicemail and a camera. I will admit the idea of getting a camera phone was pretty fun. I actually hate the rudeness of most cell phone users, and never thought I'd get one, but the frustrating, world-is-built-for-cell-phones-and-I-don't-have-one moments got too much. Hanging around all day at home waiting for my mechanic to call, getting caught in traffic with no way to tell people I may be late to work or appointments, never being able to find a public phone, and so forth. Plus, I do a lot of solo driving, so I suppose it makes safety sense too. I was actually divided over the decision, so I guess only time will tell whether it will actually be worth it.

Weather here has been cooler. We got down to 45 degrees or lower overnight quite a few times last week, and I even had to turn on my heat for a few days! The tile flooring makes my current place cooler, and since no building plans in South Florida include basics like insulation, tight windows, or weatherstripping, you feel the cool temperatures indoors more than you do at home.

And that's the news...more updates to come after the move is over!

Here's a picture of some of the henna I did over the Christmas holidays at home. The pattern is from Arabesque, by Jessica McQueen. I love the two-toned effects!

I had my landlord over this weekend to tweak a few minor water pressure problems, and I presented him with my itemized list of damages. I think I was pretty fair. My CD player on my stereo works again--ironically, better than ever!--so I didn't include it on the list of damaged items. I also managed to rehabilitate all my damaged library books, and quite a few of my own, so I didn't have those on the total either. Grand total requested for what was apparently an event that left 2 inches of water on the floor for several hours: $271. But of course there was a lot of sidestepping. "Well, now, if you were submitting an insurance claim, you wouldn't get full replacement value; things would depreciate." (um...wasn't really aware that brand new items purchased a couple weeks prior as gifts would see so much "depreciation." And how much do pristine, like-new condition books depreciate anyway?) "So, you think that this is a fair value?" (Um, yes. As a matter of fact I think you're damn lucky I'm doing my best to minimize this total and not gleefully inventing or exaggerating damages to extort out of you.) "Well, I'll see what I can do." (Oh thank you, mighty benevolent one!)

Anyway, it's not so much money that I would hurt too much to lose it. It's the principle of the thing, mainly. You say you'll pay for damages, it would be nice if you'd actually pay for damages. Especially when, as I've said, I've done my best to keep the claim low.

In other areas, not much is going on except efforts to start my packing and get organized around the move. We have our new exact address and phone number, and so now I'm wracking my brain trying to remember everywhere I need to change it. We're also going to hopefully be able to consolidate our car insurance etc as well as our other utilities, so there's a lot of running around, phoning around, etc., around that. Michael has had some water leakage issues at his place this past week, too, so we're both really looking forward to getting out of our current situations!

Holiday weekend coming up for us...naturally, Michael and I are on opposite schedules, so I work Friday and he works Saturday, but at least we get the Sunday and Monday together. We're hoping to start packing, do some henna, and finally see The Incredibles.

Before you leave, take a look at this eBay auction item. Priceless, no?

you just can't look away

This game is so disgusting, yet, strangely, so addictive....don't go there unless you have some serious time to kill!

When you're tired of bashing, head on over to their Home page...they even have Pac-Man! Woo hoo!

my own little tsunami

Well, I'm back from my trip to Edmonton. Makes me kind of sad to be back so soon--going for the better part of two weeks always sounds like it's going to be so much time beforehand, but somehow it never works out that way. We didn't get as much wedding-related planning and running around done as we'd hoped, partly because we never made enough time to formulate specific goals and things to do before we left, and partly because it's still far enough away (and casual enough) that many things just can't be done at this stage. But, we met our officiant, talked a bit about what we want to do, and got lots of offers of help, and I think we both have the feeling that the kind of ceremony we want will be achievable. So things should work out fine.

The weather was chill, with highs of about -18 Cto -20 C being the norm most days. We also got a fair bit of fresh snow. Call me crazy but it felt great!

Seeing Anita, Rene, Randy, Heather and Mike again was great, as well as visiting all three families. Other than just being able to be at home with my parents again, highlights include finding a new gold-and-brown bellydance costume at Anita's dance studio, Isis Dance Productions, shovelling the snow on my parents' driveway, having coffee at The Second Cup, hanging out on 124th Street again, relaxing by the fire in John and Heather's basement, and sipping New Year's Champagne (oh, all right, sparkling wine) with Chris and Rick.

However, after two relaxing weeks of visiting friends and family, I got home to find my water heater had burst the night before and damaged not only my apartment, but others below and adjacent as well. My landlord did get notified by a neighbor who saw water pouring out from under my front door, and he did do a lot of work installing a new heater, cleaning the floor and hauling area rugs etc. out to dry, and I am grateful for that. However, considering that after that he essentially just left all my stuff in wet piles all over the apartment with the doors and windows shut tight, I am lucky that I got back when I did. Another day or so and I'm sure that mold would have been covering the whole place and it would have become toxic and unsafe to enter. As it is, I am attempting to dry out some books with significant water damage, and I've had to throw out others. My stereo (on the floor because I had no shelf or stand for it) will still play radio and cassettes, but not cds (the mechanism closest to the floor). And, a couple of our smaller Christmas gifts to each other got ruined. The one that hurts the most, though, is that my complete boxed set of BlackAdder videos was on the floor as well, and it's pretty much toast. The box and the video sleeves were melded together, and I tested one of the tapes and my VCR wouldn't play them. Ouch!

The good news is that I don't think that things are as bad as they first seemed. Besides the books, which are always painful to part with, much of the stuff I did have to get rid of was either unimportant (cardboard boxes and papersand the like), or things I was planning to get rid of myself anyway (like the old foamy "chairs" a friend gave me a couple years ago that I never really used because they were uncomfortable). So the overall cost to recover should be small. Also, since we're moving end of January, even if there are longer-term problems with the rupture--which wouldn't be surprising given my landlord's typically haphazard style of building maintenance--I likely won't be around to see them.

In the note that he left on my door, my landlord did say he would pay for my damages; however, when I called him and told him I was making lists of damaged items and so forth there was a lot of mumbling about "don't want to be that way, but not legally liable" and damage deposits. It was hard to have a clear coversation--I was tired from our full day of flying, and between his head cold, thick accent and cell phone transmission it was difficult for me to hear him clearly. I guess we'll find out exactly what he meant when I talk to him again.

And finally, the other good news is that, yes, our move for January has been finalized. Michael and I went to the leasing office at Atriums again this morning and signed the lease agreement for our new apartment, with a set move-in date of January 29. We agreed to pay a little bit more to get an apartment with a view of the water. I'm not sure how much light the balcony will get--it's pretty heavily shaded by trees--but I will finally actually have a balcony, and hopefully will be able to grow a few herbs and fresh lettuce. We're looking forward to it, anyway.