Moving day, part 1

I can never decide if short distance moves are a curse or a blessing. There is less pressure to actually be organized and get everything done in one trip, but this also makes it drag on and on. Today K and I got a trailer, filled it full of stuff, tossed a couple more things in the back of the pickup and drove to the new house.

Before we left, I knew the power wasn't on in the new house, but it is mid-summer after all, so there was enough light to see by as we hauled everything inside. We resolved the power issue with a phone call I was expecting to be pleasant but was actually quite annoying and required me taking a certain "tone" with the company rep. Sorry to you company rep, but the lady the day before had quite clearly stated same day hookup was not a problem and made NO mention of an "extra convenience charge". Good news, just before we left this afternoon, the guy showed up and performed the magical 1.5 minutes of work required to "install" the power and we returned to life in the 21st century.

Problem #2 was discovered shortly after arrival, the water was off. K searched the basement and was unable to find a valve, so I got on the phone with the water company to make sure it was an issue with us and not with them. This rep was able to confirm that the account was square on their end, and eventually we found the valve. Which had been shut off because it was leaking. It had not been leaking at the time of the house inspection. The limited assortment of tools we took with us did not include a wrench large enough to tighten the valve and return water to the house. A visit to the locally owned hardware provided us a quick tour of the new town I'll be living in and a wrench, a pair of pliers and copies of the new house key.

Problem #3 was discovered fairly early on, but unfortunately this one has not happy ending yet. Apparently the stairs in the new house are so low ceilinged and so narrow that the box springs for the bed do not fit. We tried, twisted, moved, squished, wriggled and did everything we could think of and got the box springs half way up the stairs and entirely wedged. We were able to get it down again, but as of right now, I might be sleeping in the living room.