The other is that the cord connecting my digital camera to the laptop seems to have been a casualty of the move. Replacing it cost me less than three dollars online, and there was an email yesterday saying it was in transit. So, even if I had taken pictures of my new abode, they are hermetically sealed in my camera until this new cord arrives.
Because of Columbus Day, I have a three-day weekend, and my numero uno project will be getting the place in order. It still won't be guest-ready for awhile, but I will be able to share some pictures quite soon, if I can stay motivated and focused enough to keep working.
I was not a little kid let loose in Santa's workshop when I went to the Furniture Bank of Central Ohio last Friday, so I am still furnishing the place piecemeal. On Saturday, my friend Steve and I made a few trips back and forth from my former place in Weinland Park (that has such a beautiful ring to it!), and between trips, he helped me move some of the more cumbersome furniture. Thanks to him, Susie's and my desks are now in place, as is my dresser. It took him, Susie, and me, working and sweating together, to get my king-sized mattress up the narrow stairway. (Once on the second floor, moving it into my bedroom was easy.) During moves, I have said (and heard) that recurring reassurance, "This isn't heavy, it's just bulky [or unwieldy]," but I didn't dare insult Steve's intelligence by saying that, especially when it came to the desks.
As I started to organize my study, I cursed myself for not taking the long table with me from Weinland Park. I paced the small room (where I am now writing), thinking about what to do in the meantime until I made a trip to Goodwill to buy a table. Then, I made my first trip to the basement since the leasing agent walked me through the place the first time. I wasn't sure why I was going down there. Susie and I hadn't taken anything down there.
Soon, I was glad I made the trip. I found an old door leaning against the basement wall, and hauled it up to the office. I stacked milk crate bookcases two high on the left and the right, and put the door across them. I plan to go to Family Dollar and buy a folding chair for Susie's and my desks, but in the meantime I am sitting on a small wooden workbench that I found downstairs.
The people who live on N. 4th St. between Maynard and Hudson must have had a good laugh early yesterday evening. Susie is currently sleeping on a twin mattress on the floor, since the Furniture Bank didn't have a box spring. While I was between projects at work yesterday, I sneaked a peek at Columbus Underground's Website, just in time to see a notice from a woman pop up. She had a queen-sized box spring free for the taking, and she lived in Clintonville. She had brought it from her previous apartment, and found her stairs were too narrow for the mattress to fit.
Three or four emails later, I was headed north on N. 4th St. wheeling a dolly a friend loaned me. (This friend works at Lowe's, so obtaining dollies is as easy as my bringing home pens and tape from my job!) This person's house was several blocks north of Maynard, north of Hudson and near the rim of the Glen Echo Ravine. She and I managed to get the queen-sized mattress onto the sidewalk, and she centered it onto the dolly.
And then the fun started. She was trying--mostly in vain--to suppress her laughter as I made my way back toward Maynard. I decided to pull the dolly, holding the mattress up against it with one hand and letting it rest on my shoulders. Pushing it ahead of me was out of the question--I would have no visibility.
The half mile distance never seemed so long. The mattress was just too wide, so I had to stop and turn it sideways for telephone poles, or to avoid breaking limbs off small trees, or tearing off the mirrors on parked cars. The mattress completely dwarfed the dolly. (It was like when a friend and I moved a queen-sized box spring and mattress on the top of his small car, tied there only with bed sheets. I'm sure we resembled a ladybug trying to carry a two-by-four.)
Crossing Hudson Street was a nightmare. It is a major entryway to Interstate 71, so there is traffic almost constantly. Many motorists stopped for red lights sat behind their steering wheels with dropping jaws looking at this bearded lunatic with his pathetic dolly and his gigantic burden.
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| The railroad bridge near the intersection of Hudson and N. 4th Sts. (The bridge crosses above Hudson St.) The picture is from Amymyou's Photostream on Flickr.
I was frustrated enough to consider abandoning the box spring in the nearest obliging alley, trying to be as inconspicuous and innocent-looking as possible as I leaned it against someone's garbage cans and then beat a hasty retreat, dragging a clattering metal dolly behind me.
A young (late teens, early 20s) couple walking their dog took pity on me. The guy and I carried the mattress at waist level the two or so blocks (but never had two blocks seemed so long than it did last night!), and his girlfriend followed us with the dolly.
The box spring is on the front porch. After I clear a path, I will make an attempt to get this unwieldy piece of furniture up to Susie's bedroom, although I think I'm procrastinating because I'm afraid I'll discover the same thing my benefactor did--that the stairs are too narrow, and this box spring can't fold in two, the way a mattress can.
And if this turns out to be the case, the next step for the box spring is the Columbus Freecycle.
Susie turns 14 tomorrow. She understands that her big gift was the new computer, replacing the one the thieves took. She and I will split a small cake, and on Saturday I'll take her to Studio 35 to see Star Trek II:
Despite my loathing of Bill O'Reilly, I am reading his current book, Killing Lincoln, mainly because any new book about the Lincoln assassination is a must-read for me. Already his narrative style is starting to grate on me. He has introduced Lincoln several times as "the man with 14 [or 13, or 12] days to live...", which reminded me of a Discovery Channel show I liked, Final 24, describing the last hours of the lives of notable people, such as Jim Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson, and Nicole Brown Simpson.
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