Genevieve
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	The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam...

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Sometimes, life happens...
2002-05-07 - 4:19 p.m.

Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been 14 days since my last entry...

The long and short of it is, we have moved out of the old house, moved into the new house, closed on both houses in the same day, have a new washer and dryer delivered and working, have phones finally working, and made it to crown and back. yup, that's about a brief as it gets.

But before I get too much into the everday blah, a bit of randomness before Theo steals all my thunder.

My first day back to work in a week and some change, and it's lots of wading through emails and catching up on work that I missed and lots of other actual work. After this day, I give some empty boxes to my manager in prep for her potential move, and get a present from my darling co-worker Reem who was gonna come to the shower but got sick, and I was on the road home. Jazzed about the new commute to see how it will go. Knowing that I am going to be late for the 6:30 meeting with the Long Home window rep. So, on a road that is rarely backed up, all of a sudden we are ten cars deep of slow moving traffic, and I begin to wonder why. Then at the crest of the hill, I see him. There is a boy on a bike in the middle of the road. Yes, the middle of the road. Adelphi Road is a four lane divided road, two each way, and this stupid child decides to ride down the center of the dotted white line instead of on the shoulder or the sidewalk. Finally we get to a place where there is a left turn lane so people can go around him leaving stupid boy plenty of room for whatever biking antics he is doing. I might add that boy is going very slow because in addition to riding a dirt bike, he is standing on the pedals, which makes said bike weave a bit side to side. It is at this point that I notice that said stupid boy is pantsless. WTF? child is mooning about 20 cars or more, and have a tshirt on but no pants whatsoever. No tighty whities, no nothing. He and his friends are swinging in the breeze. Then I think, poor boy was beat up by larger kids and is irrationally biking down the middle of the road with tears blocking his vision. Uh, nope, as far as I could tell, he was grinning ear to ear when I passed him. I peg the boy at about 10 yo, but really he could have been 8-12, I have no idea. Pantsless boy on bike.

So of course I call Theo to tell her, 'cause I gotta tell someone! Sheesh, shocking. I hear lots of laughter from the other end. I think she's just glad it's not her telling the story from her life, someone else had a random experience. Later, after I had turned onto 650, I see a total of 3 police cars, 2 ambulances and 1 firetruck turn onto Adelphi Road. I hope pantsless boy is okay. I hope some distracted driver didn't hit him. I hope the bike didn't get out of control and he swerved in front of a car. I hope he wasn't on some kind of drugs and keeled over. That woudl be bad. Poor little pantless boy. Maybe it was a stupid bet from some friends. Maybe he is just an exhibitionist... Starting early...

So, the real chronicle of my past 14 days, not counting pantsless boy...

We found out with certainty that we could have access to the new house on the 25th and pay for 6 days of rent for moving in early. So, wed. Alan spent on the phone getting an order to hook up the new phone, change the utilities, cable, etc. And finding movers. Movers are important. I take off thursday and friday and we pack small stuff in boxes and move them all. Dell flat screen monitor boxes are great for clothes and other things that don't need to pack dense and flat. We moved most of the closets and garb that way. Toss in box on hanger, move to new house, pull out of box on hanger, hang in closet. Move most of portable stuff (not unlike the totable-kymber) ourselves, and then reusing the boxes for later. This goes on for two days, we move all our books and most of our closets, etc.

Then, Saturday comes, and so does my party. Yay, a party all about me. And I did wear my overalls, thankyouverymuch. It was lovely, relaxed, and full of PPG madness. :) I can't think the girls enough. Mel, Gina, Wendy, Bera. They all rock. Totally rock! While I ate and drank and opened presents luxuriantly, the boys moved the fish tanks and pond. tee hee hee. Surprisingly we only lost 7 fish total, which is impressive given the move and stress.

Sunday was a lovely brunch with Wen, Rob and Bera before sending her on the road. And then, we were a little lazy, taking a small break before the big move. The movers came on Monday morning. They brought a huge truck (18 wheeler) for our little house. We scoffed. The movers came in, looked around, getting the lay of the land, and we continue to pack up misc. stuff. I only get nervous about the movers a few times. They were great guys who knew thier stuff, but acted a bit like a Three Stooges Episode. It would have been more amusing if it wasn't my stuff. Actually, nothing was harmed at all, they were great, and came in $200 under the estimate. We were pleasantly surprised. I'd recommend United Van Lines moving company, Von Paris (yes, try to put the frenchiness out of your mind.) These guys were great. Only asked once to keep my wingback chair. :)

Monday was the move, Tuesday was the settling. We went back to the old house twice to pick up the remaining stuff we told the movers to leave, clean out the remainder of the garage, and clean the house so as to not leave it looking all messy. I even left a little gift basket for the lady who bought the house from us with toilet paper, paper towels, Swiffer cloths, chocolate and a bottle of water. Shouldn't have bothered. I don't like her. We had the settlement to sell the house from 1-2pm. She looked like she used to be a man, bad plastic surgery, oogy. She had her lender there for some reason. He did nothing. She joked with him about leather and such. I was fascinated with the paintings on the wall. She said she wouldn't bite, he didn't look like he believed her. She has a Harley and a Corvette, but I still don't like her. She's inconsiderate. She was talking about the stuff she wants to do to the house, inconsiderate of the neighbors. But she gave us money for the house, and adheared to our quick schedule, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. Except that she asked us to remove the pond bones too. I thought it was clear that we were taking the fish, plants and equipment but not the pond. Apparently she assumed otherwise. We drew up an impromptu agreement to drain the pond and take the bones, leaving the hole in the ground by the 20th of this month. Path of least resistance. I don't like her. Must send sympathy card to the old neighbors after she moves in. I left her a gift basket, she gives us grief. Ugh. The settlement to buy the new house was scheduled from 2-3pm. Same company, we changed rooms to seem less like we were there for so long. Our seller didn't show up until half an hour later, but we went ahead and got started on the paperwork and was once again done inside of an hour. The fruitbat seller told us the extra keys were under the drain spout by the front door. He looked so proud of himself for hiding them on the property. They weren't even in a key holder, just tossed in the dirt. I don't like him either. Luckily I never have to see him again. After settling, our wonderful realtor Jack got us a yellow calla lily for the new house (yay!) and we went to the chiropractor and then off to start unpacking. Afterwards we met the fighter practice crew for dinner and told them all about it.

Wednesday, the new washer and dryer were set to be delivered between 10:15 and 12:15. They showed up at 11am. Good guys, installed my washer and dryer, did a test run through and all was well. We now have Maytag Atlantis washer and dryer set. I love them. Don't mind doing laundry anymore. The Dryer has a lovely soft tone to let you know the load is dry instead of the harsh buzz. We were also having phone problems inside the house and after talking to three different folks in Verizon Repairs and three different folks in Verizon Business office, I finally convinced them that I didn't mind paying to have a tech come out as long as I could get my *%##&@#$ phones working. A very nice tech named Tony came out and fixed our jacks. The previous occupants must have been spiteful fruitbats. They cut the lines into the first jack which kept the others from working, it being serial and all. Le sigh. After an hour, he got them all working but one in the basement that would require running cord for, so I told him not to bother, we had a cordless. Besides I had to run Alan's truck over to Truckn America to look into a replacement part for his rear window since he chose to back into the garage and shatter it. But that's a whole other story. Then I got home just in time to get dressed for Alan to arrive with dinner so we could head over to Wendy's for dinner before our Shakes play.

The Shakespeare Theater did a production of Romeo and Juliet. It was, um, interesting. And I use that in the polite southern sense of the word that means if I had known better I wouldn't have sit through it. Naturally Tybalt and Mercutio stole the show. The costuming was bad, really bad, I got to sit next to Kymber and make snide remarks and she just wondered what the costumer was trying to accomplish with it. Let's just suffice it to say, it's not what I would have done. And we got stuck with Juliet's understudy, who didn't suck, but wasn't a show stealing performance either. Juliet looked like Countess Brigit with lighter blonde hair. Romeo looked like a combination of Matt Damon and Corwyn Sinister. It was very odd.

Thursday morning, I still have so many errands to run and stuff to pick up and stuff to unpack that I take an additional day off of work. I try to connect to the internet and the laptop can't since there is a terrible hum on the line the modem gets lost in the noise. Bitterness. I call Verizon again and they promise to send out another tech to look at the phone lines. The the meantime to get signal for the modem, I string together a few 25 ft phone line cords and plug it into the outside network connection so I can check email and such briefly while watching bad daytime TV on Fox and waiting for the tech to arrive. I curse Fox. We didn't get our digital cable installed until this past Saturday, so while I was unpacking waiting for repair/installer guys, I was forced to watch bad antenna TV. Yes, I am a junkie and can only go without TV for Gulf Wars and Pennsic. And the clearest of the antenna channels was Fox. I curse Fox daytime programming. Curse them.

I did make a quick run to Target and Home Depot to get some small things, including new knobs for the bathroom cabinets. The old ones just bugged me. More than the peeling wallpaper in the powder room. So I got some cute ones to replace them. And you guys would be so proud of my anti-girl moment. Here I am with a screwdriver, getting ready to replace the knobs and I feel something crawling on my back. I look in the mirror and see a (Eadan, don't read this, I'm serious... I told you not too...) see a big black spider on the back of my t-shirt. I do not scream, I do not run like an idiot, instead I flix him off my shirt and go to start back to work. But I realized that I had flicked him onto Alan's bathrobe and that could prove bad later on. So I shook out the robe and poor large scared spider fell to the floor. Then he started to climb up the new trash basket I got for the bathroom. Ah ha! Opportunity presents itself. I have bags from my purchases earlier and shook spider from trash can into plastic bag, and did not squish him, did not flush him, but took spider outside to his natural environment. Be free spider, be free.

Finally, the end of Thursday we have working phones and all is well. I'm so happy, happy with the two techs who came out, happy that the second visit was free, and happy that I can get online. Alan and I head out to Last Chance to hang out with friends and have food. Amazingly Tamma is there. Randomly in town for the races. Why the hell not? I go through crisis of what to pack to wear for Crown. I figured if I looked good, Rob would loose. If I looked like I rolled in the mud with children, that would be the time he'd win and I'm be forever captured looking like spanked ass. I packed four different outfits to mix and match and decide on in the morning.

Friday was the lovely packing, picking up Theo, flying down to Crown into the lovely Columbia, SC airport that screams Southern Comfort sitting on a front porch in a rocker sipping iced tea. And there was Anne, ready and willing to pick us up and take us to the hotel, kind dear soul that she is. We check into the hotel, we wrangle up our dinner companions, we head to a place called Tbonez for dinner. I should have gotten Thorbrandr a T-shirt, but I didn't. How could you chose between a shirt with cows on it or the blues brother look alikes in cow and fish form? The food was good, but the poor waitress seemed overwhelmed. And we all had too much soda and coffee and were bouncing off the walls when we finished. It was, er, entertaining, to say the least. I tried very hard not to say blow job around Anne's girls. They are not like Shane and Gina's girls, they are not used to such harsh language. They are good girls nonetheless.

Saturday, we are up early, I vaguely remember Courntney appearing in our hotel room, and was sorry I kicked her at least once that night. She resisted tearing herself from the bed until the last minute. I did my hair in the cute little braids up front to look all proper and 14th cent. Except one was further back and lower down than the other. So in a diva fit I take that side out and redo it, and it is still crooked. pout, stomp feet, fine! Crown started off with a pleasant ride there with Anne, and us missing the turn into site, and then the long painful line at Troll, with "the Vacuous One" as my only companion to talk to. Or rather, this one instance, she did all the talking and I just nodded my head a few times and smiled. She has a job working belly dancing one night a week at a local club. sigh... Then a Consort brunch with no one in attendance yet. Everything was about an hour behind. Eventually I brought food to the MOL's and smoozed a little bit before the procession. The procession of course, was in the rain. We were blessed enough not to have 100 degree heat, but we did get rain. I pledged all that I could to the current crowns, and got asked for a Low-interest loan and ammended my statement to include all that I could in the SCA. Happily, the rain stopped for most of the actual tourney with only a few spits here and there.

Rob fought very well. I had a great time and was so honored once again to even be fought for by such a honorable and gentle soul. His first fight was Grimmr, second was Blackbow, third was Damuth, fourth was Havorc (of the broken hand) and then the finals was against Cuan.

I know you all want to know more, but I gotta go home now... conclusion to the story will come, but if you didn't know how it ended, Cuan and Padraiga are now the new Prince and Princess, and yes, for all the kind souls who asked, I'm very okay with that. :)

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