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The Big Move

Oh where to start. How about a recap of each of the days starting with Thursday. Here goes.

Thursday

Slept in until 9:22 am. It was my birthday so I didn�t feel guilty about getting a late start on moving day. There would be plenty more moving fun to come, so I just enjoyed the extra time in bed snoozing in the semi-darkness � wait � semi-darkness! But it is 9:22 am! SHIT! The weather people were actually right! Rain IS in the forecast. Fucking Sleezak!

In fact it did not rain during the day on Thursday as Sleezak had predicted, however it did rain all night long Thursday into Friday so he can still claim an accurate forecast. Fearing the worst, from 9:22 am on, Ryan and I quickly hauled the big furniture items from his house to mine. By 7:00 pm, the majority of his furniture had made the move, we�d done most of our laundry, dropped off the dry cleaning and other miscellaneous stuff. I insisted that at 7:30 pm, we stop working and enjoy a night on the couch in honor of my birthday. Right about then, lightning shot through the sky and thunder rolled through the streets and the winds started blowing and rain drops the size of macadamia nuts fell from the sky. That there is some good TV watching weather. My parents rolled in about 9:30 pm and marveled at our progress. Life was good.

Friday

Being the important guy he is, Ryan had to scurry back to the office to help with a major design push for his current project. Seeing that it was still raining, I rode along with my parents to scavenger about their favorite bargain barn in Kansas City. Upon entering said barn, I was reminded of my hatred for that place. Shudder. Never again. We were back in my neighborhood in time for lunch with Ryan�s parents who had just arrived. Following lunch, we had to rush to Ryan�s house to meet up with a lying cheating sonuvabee-yotch named �FuckNut� who was to haul off a fire-safe four drawer filing cabinet that was lodged in Ryan�s basement. While I was on the phone with FuckNut, hiring out his services, I specified that it was four-drawers and probably weighed more than a refrigerator and that it would need to be hauled up six stairs to get it out of the basement. He quoted me $50 for the project. Upon his arrival, he declared that the filing cabinet couldn�t possibly be removed. He said that he thought it was much smaller, a two-drawer cabinet and that it didn�t weigh very much. I repeated the description I gave him on the phone reminding him that I had said it weighed more than a fridge. He dramatically tried to move it a bit to demonstrate the weight it bore. The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Mind you my father-in-law was standing there witnessing this exchange, so I had to demonstrate massive restraint. FuckNut thought he saw an opportunity to take advantage of someone, and it became my duty to not allow that to happen. At that point, I didn�t care how that damned file cabinet got out of the basement, I wasn�t about to let this assmunch �sugar, honey� his way into more of my hard-earned cash. What really gets my goat about this whole situation is the contradictory message from this idiot. �It can�t possibly be removed� to �I can do it for $80.� Oh, the myriad of snippy retorts that circled through my brain. First and most obvious. �What about 30 extra dollars makes an impossible job, possible?� Idiot. Grrrrr.

After that incident, we got back in the business of moving. Boxes were packed and redistributed to our house. I started trying to put things where they went, though that effort quickly collapsed into �just get it over here.� Ryan has a lot of stuff. A LOT.

Friday night ended with a great meal at a local Mexican food joint with my parents, Ryan�s parents, my younger brother and his girlfriend, and Ryan. Life was pretty good, though sleeping in a room without a door when your parents and in-laws are around is kinda weird.

Saturday

The morning started when the dads, accustomed to being up before the rooster�s crow, started shuffling about with their morning routines. I think I was up and out of bed between the two moms. Quickly, the realization set in that we only had one functioning bathroom for all six people. Bleh.

Ryan was around for the day, and we set to getting all of his belongings removed from his house. A bit of background here � over the past few months, I have been accused of having too much stuff. These accusations stem from having to rearrange my stuff multiple times as we finish remodeling the second floor. I have thrown out clothes, all my furniture went to the curb, all my knickknacks to the trash � and despite these efforts, Ryan still complained that I had too much stuff. Hello, kettle? Pot. Black. These are the major categorizations of �stuff� and I�ve listed who has more next to each:

The end result of the move is that while the house may have been mine in the past, it no longer looks anything like my house. As soon as I get over everything being Ryan�s, I think we�ll have a good merger of �His� and �Mine�. Right now, I�m still trying to get over the ominous black-ness of my living room. Ryan�s furniture is all black leather � not the poofy overstuffed black pleather furniture featured at discount furniture stores, but sleek modern black leather furniture. It is incredibly well-made stuff, however, assembled in my living room, it is just to dark and �bachelor.� The walls are a nasty cream white and even the pictures that were already on the walls were black and white. If I through a splash of red or bright aqua in the room, all the cool kids at Ridgemont High would surely approve. Before we get to decorating, however, we still need to finish up the master bedroom and the two second floor bathrooms. That night, as we took turns using the one functioning bathroom, the need for finishing said second floor bathrooms received a very lovely exclamation point.

While sifting through a pile of unopened mail, I came across a baptism announcement for Mo�s beautiful son which was happening, oh, on Sunday. Holy crap, it has been a long time since I�ve hung out with my friends. Ridden with guilt, I called to RSVP at 9:00 pm the night before the baptism. I really suck. The guilt overcommeth, and the realization of what we�ve been giving up to work on this house really started to settle in along with the aches and pains of moving and the continued discomfort of sleeping in a house with your parents and in-laws when your bedroom has no door. Bleh. All in all, it was an okay day.

Sunday

I woke up in a bad mood, my neck stiff and my head twinging with the occasional shooting pain that is a potential migraine in my world. Ryan had already left to go to work, ON A SUNDAY DURING THE MOVE! I was jealous of his escape. I fucking hate moving. The parents were up and moving and still in my PJs, I helped to rearrange all the tools so that the dads could start preparations for installing a bedroom door. Immediately, it became clear that one more obnoxious task had to be done prior to working on the doors, and of course my house, being the cursed place it is, dropped another bomb further complicating that task. By the time 9:45 rolled around, my mood was piss poor. I trudged into my room to change for the baptism. I had told my mom, but forgot to tell Ryan�s mom. My mom let Ryan�s mom know of the opportunity to go to church, and we all busied ourselves with getting ready in ONE FUCKING BATHROOM! I glared as I caught my mom glancing up to check my progress as she patiently and kindly waited to use the crappy 100 year old mirror on the door of the closet on the stairway landing. I was quiet and my forehead crumpled in a grimace as we drove to the church. No one deserved my mood, but I was too selfish to put it aside to make the day more pleasant for everyone. Too selfish.

The baptism was lovely, and by the end of the services, I had sunk even further into the guilt that is focusing too much on one thing and foregoing everything else. Rather than looking ahead to how I could better balance the remodel and enjoying time with my friends and family, I focused in on how the weekend�s activities were keeping me from spending time with my friends. I made a few snide comments about how Ryan "got out of the hard stuff" by having to work this weekend, while I knew that he really had little choice. In his line of work, he has to either be at the office to do the work required of the big projects, or design strip malls for the rest of his life. I know that, but as I stood on my porch surveying his crap and not knowing what to do with all of it, it was a hard fact to swallow.

A few deep breaths on the porch and a reminder that the day would end regardless of what happened in between, I slowly improved my mood. In fact, I chose to tackle the assembly of the shelving for my new closet, and time started to fly by. Time went so fast, I hardly had time to change out of my work clothes in time to take the moms to get their delayed Mother�s Day treats. We drove to the nearby day spa and as I settled in with a cup of green tea to receive my pedicure, I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Deep breaths, in and out. I really wish I could�ve been a better person and not been so pissy on Sunday. It is impossible to think that my bad mood went unnoticed. Worst yet, all of the parents were there to help and they did such a wonderful job � one they could have and should have easily declined to help complete. As the day started to wrap up, Ryan�s mom suggested that she fix up some leftovers for dinner, and as kindly as I could, I told her we had other plans. We really did have other plans for dinner, and had I been a better person, I would�ve changed those plans so we could have had a nice dinner with them prior to sending them on their way, but I wasn�t that person. As the evening wound down and the credits rolled on Grey�s Anatomy, I didn�t regret my decision to end the work weekend without a family dinner, but I did regret taking my mood out on my family. I gots to work on that.

Monday

I�m back in the office now, worn out from the past few days. Tonight, I have to pack up and tomorrow I�m on a plane to Las Vegas. I don�t get to come home until Friday. Sigh. The good part is that I�ll be traveling with Taerna and the Snow Princess. Catching up with a couple of good friends will be done, so I�m thankful for that. So it might be a few days before I can update again. I�ll do my best!

1:58 p.m. - May 16, 2005

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