Archive | 10:10 pm

List: The devil is in the details…

14 Jun

Today is the one week anniversary of my owning my new place. I’ve moved 98% of my stuff in and am pleased to announce it’s all unpacked. Nary a box in sight, aside from those that are broken down and awaiting donation to another member of the sisterhood who is moving. (More on this in a separate post.)

When you’re buying a place, you have a limited amount of time to assess it before pulling the trigger. (At least in DC, that’s how it works.) You arrive at decisions pretty quickly and without examining things too closely. When there’s furniture and rugs in place, everything looks great. When you’re faced with a vacant place, all the flaws suddenly jump out at you and scream.

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Tell you what, I’ll worship your god, if you…

14 Jun

I think this couch, with someone sitting on it, was still lighter than mine.

Friday I moved the majority of my stuff from my old place to the new one. Well, I shouldn’t say I, because all I did was sit dejectedly on the steps trying to stay out from under foot. Although I’m a) only moving four blocks and b) only had a one bedroom condo full of stuff to move, I hired movers. You might think me a wimp, but had you witnessed the Herculean task of getting my heavy-as-shit sofa bed up five flights of stairs and into my place ten years ago, my decision would be obvious.

While the guys carried my sofa down the stairs, I sat on the front steps keeping an eye on the truck to make sure no one stole my stuff. (At some point it had occurred to me that an unattended moving truck would be a perfect target, and I became paranoid that no one was watching it. Founded or irrational? You be the judge.) Anyway, while I was sitting there, I noticed a group of well-dressed senior citizens slowing making their way down the street, stopping to ring every doorbell along the way.

Witnesses, I thought to myself, then puzzled on the idea that in 13 years of living in Washington DC, I had never been “witnessed.” It was a fairly common occurrence in Michigan (where I grew up, and I even got “witnessed” while on vacation in Florida in middle school. (My mom and her sisters had gone on a day’s cruise in the Bahamas, but I stayed home sick. When the doorbell to my aunt’s house rang, I answered it. I was both polite and sick, my defenses completely worn down, so I invited the Witnesses in for tea because I wanted to sit while they talked.) Continue reading