Friday, 2:30 pm: Bryan has truck loaded down with boxes and small furniture items, bound for Puyallup. We load in to the truck and take off.
2:45 pm: Zoey asleep in her carseat. Bryan and I enjoying a rare moment of quiet together and talk about all kinds of random shit, NAMELY how much we love our cars, because they are so reliable. We both drive Toyotas, and you just never see them broken down on the side of the road, you know?
3:00 pm: Bryan's truck broken down on side of the road. Well, at a Texaco station that we managed to coast to in Castle Rock, to be exact. I note that we have made it exactly 49 miles in our 130 mile trip to Puyallup. I can see the list of things I need to get accomplished that evening slowly slipping away.
4:00 pm: Cram Z
oey's car seat in to the half-back-seat of a tow truck. She is unhappy because the loud, stinky "no-twuck" is "scawy". I am unhappy that she is sitting with her knees in her face.5:00 pm: Arrive relatively unscathed at Toyota dealership in Longview. Bryan gets a ride from a Toyota employee in to town to rent a U-Haul. (I had originally lobbied for a U-Haul run this weekend anyway, the irony of which does not escape me now, as he returns with a gigantic truck that we literally load 15 boxes and some bookcases in to.)
6:00 pm: My dear friend Kendra arrives on the scene to rescue Zoey and I. Bryan leaves for Puyallup, Zoey and I head back to Vancouver to get MY car. We abandon the stupid truck in Longview. F#@%ing Toyotas.
7:15 pm: Zoey and I are back in the car. We leave (again) for Puyallup in what I can only hope is a reliable car.
8:30: Total carseat meltdown. Can I really blame her? No. She's been in the freaking carseat since 2:30 pm and is officially DONE. We stop in Centralia for milk, a diaper change, and a fill-up at the gas station.
9:25 pm: We finally arrive in Puyallup. For those of you keeping score at home, that's SEVEN hours after we left our house in Vancouver.
9:45 pm: Bryan leaves with my car to return to Vancouver. He has a seminar in Portland all weekend, and he needs to head back. My best friend Rikki is at the Puyallup house, ready and waiting to start tiling the downstairs bathroom.
10:20 pm: Zoey crying because she wants to go home. I survey the shit-scene around me and inform her that, sadly, THIS IS GOING TO BE HOME VERY VERY SOON. Although honestly, I don't know how.
Saturday, 9:00 am: Zoey dropped off at Grandma Heather's house. Rikki and I head to Starbucks and Home Depot. We are approximately one day behind schedule.
12:00 pm: We return home. Start laying out tiles. My mom shows up. Wants to get lunch with my aunt, cousins, MIL, and Zoey.
1:00 pm: We will never tile. Never.
3:00 pm: Finally return to the house to begin the project we had wanted to start 24 hours ago. My mom takes Zoey with her to Mt. Vernon to spend the night. Zoey is noticeably relieved to be going to Oma's house. Don't think she likes the "Kowawa" house much at the moment. I don't either.
4:30 pm: Rikki says to me "unless you're dying to learn how to tile, feel free to get your other stuff done around here--I can knock this out myself in a couple hours". I want to cry. These are the nicest words anyone has uttered in days.
6:30 pm: My Grandma brings us dinner. Love my Grandma.
8:30 pm: Tile is down. Thank God. Rikki has brought me a bottle of wine, which we proceed to open with my husband's drill, only to destroy the cork and leave bits of it floating in the wine. Not to be deterred, we strain the wine through paper towels in to small cups. (We have reached the point in this long, God-forsaken move where everything you need happens to be in the OTHER house. Including corkscrews.)
10:30 pm: I begin to notice that our hard work is paying off. I have most boxes unpacked and have contained the construction-zone-debris to one area of the kitchen. Will get rid of it tomorrow in the hopes this makes the house appear more liveable.
Sunday: More unpacking, grouting, cleaning, hauling of shit to garage, etc. Rikki is a rock star. Downstairs floor looks fantastic. (Wasn't hard to beat the nasty, stained linoleum that was in there before.) The great floor almost offsets the horrid, floral, plastic-vinyl-faux-tiles on one wall, right next to the horrid, gold, floral shower stall door. Ugh.
Sunday night: Arrive at my mom's house in Mt. Vernon to find a happy, content two-year-old who has apparently decided that this is the weekend to hit it hard with potty training. My mom informs me Zoey has consistently asked to go potty on the toilet. I am proud. And...worried. This is the week we're moving. Really, do we need to tackle potty training, too? Really, Zoey?
Monday morning: It's Amtrak day!! Miraculously, and I think God was trying to throw me at least a little bone here, Zoey was a model toddler the entire trek down to Vancouver. She dozed on my lap between Seattle and Tacoma, and, of course, wanted to try out going potty on the train. Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've crammed yourself and your child in to the Amtrak bathroom, train swinging and swaying side-to-side, and tried to convince your child to let you hold her over the toilet, instead of her gripping the grimy seat herself with her chubby little hands. She, of course, won, and I, of course, tried not to imagine myself trying to contain an E. Coli outbreak in my house while simultaneously loading a U-Haul. But she did go potty! And she DID wash her hands afterwards!
Monday afternoon: We hop off the train and Zoey is literally bubbling over with exciting stories to tell Daddy. She was particularly proud of handing the conductor her own ticket, and, of course, going potty. Bryan is happy to see us but then informs me that our bad luck has not changed, as his truck will cost $1200 to fix and he also discovered a leak under the kitchen sink last night that had seaped down from the sink to the floor to the basement ceiling and beam...right over our bed.
F#@$ing fantastic.
2 comments:
dawg. your move to this house is WONDERFUL writing fodder. i'll call you today when i think you're awake and moving.
Again I really wish that I was there to help you out, well not that I could be too much help right now since I cant bend over anymore. I am glad that the train ride went well and will cross my fingers for the potty training while moving adventure, good luck with that!!
Post a Comment