april 8 I have no mouth and I must scream Actually, things are much better than that. But it's late, and I wanted a header, so there you are. The past month has been busy beyond belief, and certainly beyond my bank account; I haven't been reduced to tears over money issues since college (and while there, the bank bounced so many of my checks for ridiculous reasons that I gave up checks altogether ... until closing on the co-op). I'll be back off that addiction soon, you betcha. Once the approval from the board came through, you'd think things would go quickly. No luck; it took all of March and a lot of frustration to get things done by the 29th, which turned out to be closing day. I moved on the 30th; the 31st the ole landlord was cleaning out my place, proclaiming, "I have never seen such filth in all my years."
To which I (having returned to clean up whatever dirt was leftover; there never was "filth") replied, "I find that hard to believe. You've come in here frequently and commented how tidy I keep things." He pointed to the oven mitts found behind said oven; who knew the place was a graveyard? They'd been there five years, since I never cleaned behind the stove, nor did I peek behind. What did he think, I was gonna risk a gas leak to do that kind of cleaning? "A million little holes in the wall." Well, you know, you hang something on the wall, you get nail holes. Hence my spackle. "What's spackle going to do?" Uh, fill the holes, you moron?
Pre-closing was almost as much fun; I learned what assholes my lawyers were. Two days before closing, the lawyers finally called with final closing costs: I'd allotted $3,000, they were claiming I needed $4,500. Considering I'd paid plenty of fees already, that seemed excessive. I had money coming in, but it wouldn't clear until a day after closing -- and they wouldn't take a post-dated check. Of one day! I had finally decided to float the fucking thing, when the lawyer calls me back: She miscalculated, I now owed $3400. A few hours later, she called again: I now owed $2700. She took years off my life with that stunt. Another moron who could use some spackle.
However. The movers -- Shleppers; I recommend 'em -- came, saw, conquered and had me moved across town in spitting rain in about four hours. (Some poor jerk had his day ruined, however, when he turned the corner and ran the front end of his car hard into the back of the truck, so hard it was wedged under the truck for a moment. Gotta watch those side streets. Now, here I am in my place of space -- I have more space than stuff, for probably the first and last time in my life -- and I just wish I had another $10,000 to fix it up. In time, in time, but boy am I impatient.
I've also learned to live without cable, and thus far am only able to watch videotapes -- no real reception, no antennae, no cable boxes. They screwed up coming to plug me in when I moved in, then refused to give me the "guaranteed" month free because of weather conditions. I can swallow that they're late or can't make it because of weather. But a guarantee is just that -- I don't care about Acts of God. I'm the customer. So, screw 'em. I'm now getting more into NPR. In the week without cable, as I clean and unpack, I've learned about waltzes, Seabiscuit (the horse), and Jimmy Carter's love of Rachmaninoff. Match that, Time Warner!
Other nice news: Firenze (Florence) Italy is so beautiful it makes you want to cry. More on that next posting. Meanwhile, here are some photos of me arriving in Pisa after an overnight flight to Gatwick and an (unintended) six hour layover, as well as the happily married Brunos. The wedding picture is really one of my favorites; Jenny's beatific look just says it all.
