Relocation

Decided to rehash the avatar. So, the move is pretty much complete. I believe Ebene intends to give you her side of the story (Edit: Yes! I beat her to posting!) so I thought I should set the record straight and tell it first so that she doesn't underplay my role in the affair.

There I was, minding a whole lot of other peoples business at work (I work in shipping, if I wasn't minding our customers business I would be in trouble) when the delivery people called and said they would be at the new place between 7 and 9. AM. To deliver the furniture we bought. Buying the furniture was a story in itself and will be left to Ebene to tell should she so choose, as it is her story to tell. There is no issue with being up at 7 in the morning even on a weekend for either of us. When you live there. When you live about an hour or so away by public transport (an hour once your on it, not including waiting for it and it being late) and no hope of getting there by car (I don't have my license, Ebene does but it is a Zimbabwean license and is currently in England, don't ask me why) it makes things a bit difficult.

I gritted my teeth and said that was fine over to the delivery people when they said they could not move the time slot. So I went home, packed, got about 4 hours sleep and got up again, showered, ate, and walked to the train station. Now I know some people who swear 4 hours is all an adult needs and anymore is unhealthy (considering said people graduated from a bachelor of biomedical science that scares me) but I have heard 8 is what an adult should get and even that often doesn't feel like much.

Caught an all stations train to the city, which takes forever, and since I had Ebene's birthday present with me, the body board, I got some comments from a bunch of construction workers on the train. But I finally got to the city, caught another train on a separate line to the suburb the new place is in, and then walked from there to the new unit.

Got there right before 7. I sat around reading comic books for an hour or so until the delivery guys rocked up. They unloaded everything, I gave them an extra $10 as it seemed like a hot day and I had nothing to offer them to drink, and I tried to sleep as 4 hours of sleep was not making me feel good. I knew that if I got a bad headache now I was a write off for the day and there was plenty of work to be done.

Ebene's friend who helped us move called and asked me what I had done so far. Nothing I said, leaving out the not feeling well part. She then guilted me into not doing anything and said I should start assembling the furniture, to which I replied its rather well taped up and I don't have a knife. You have a set of keys, she retorted, as this should have occurred to me being the second coming of Indiana Jones. Seeing as I was not going to argue my way around her I said right you are, I'll get to it.

First though I ran down to the shop, bought the strongest painkillers I could (the only ones that seem to actually get rid of my headaches) and some food as strong painkillers on an empty stomach can sometimes be as bad as not taking them at all. Now that I was on the way to being cured, I set about the boxes.

I got everything opened by the time Ebene and the friend arrived with the gear so I helped haul it up into the new unit. Ebene chatted with the manager and got offered a job cleaning flats as we complained that our unit was dirty when we moved in (we complained and they offered her a job!) and we started assembling furniture. I'm not going to lie the females did most of the assembling, I kept an eye the friends son, as lovely as he is, no joke he is, he suffers from hyperactivity and DOES need to be watched.

I didn't really do anything until the girls started to put the bed together. We will get this done so quickly, the friend says. An hour later its "This bolt doesn't seem to be feeding through to screw in...oh the little thing we inserted into the hole right back when we started isn't straight and that's why its not feeding through...I can't get it out, IVORIE COME HELP!"

So help I did, I deftly pulled the recalcitrant little piece out where those who went before me had failed. Sadly though the point was moot as even when it was put back in straight it still didn't work. The matching one on the other side didn't work either, then I suggested the radical idea that as we had enough pins in and the bed was stable enough we don't need any more especially if after a hour we still can't get them to work. We abandoned them and moved on. Everything else went smoothly after that, though I do understand that I now take the beds structural integrity on my head. Should it ever come apart, even at a completely different point to the ones that I suggested we leave, Ebene will blame me. It's the burden of being a genius.

We slept there that night, no, the bed did not fall apart, and we came back to the old place this morning.

So while I may not have done much physical work, I was the facilitator of the move, I oversaw the delivery of furniture at the sake of my sleep, I kept Ebene's friends son out of everyone's collective hair so the two girls could get on with stuff, and when problems presented themselves I offered solutions about getting around them so cunning, you could put a tail on them and call them a fox.

So we have our own place. And to all those fire and brimstone Christians condemning us for moving in together, we have already decided to get married and the only thing preventing an actual engagement is the money to buy a ring, so as we have decided to spent the rest of our lives together I believe that satisfies "The Rules" a lot of Pharisees love to quote. And if it doesn't your a Pharisee, and if your not, last time I checked, God reserved the right of the passage of judgment of humans for himself. We mere mortals couldn't handle it, but most Pharisees forget we are mortal and place themselves above God in passing judgment. The only things we have the right to judge are angels, and I lack the feathers. If He doesn't like it I'm sure He will make me very aware of that when I have to stand before Him as we all must.

For now, God so loved the world he sent his only son. Lets remember he sent his son for every sinner on this earth i.e. the world, before we start throwing stones in potentially glass houses.