a week of glorious tatters
Aug. 10th, 2009 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katekatour first week in LA has once again seemed to compress time or expand itself into some unrealized definition of too much packed into too few days. Sure, Monday and Tuesday were quiet, on the whole, with only our little patch of things we'd carried with us across the border finally unpacked and set up and I felt like we were in a holding pattern, yearning for the stuff still packed into the POD that wouldn't be delivered until Wednesday. Trying to establish routines of dog walking and meal taking and all of those little habits you do when you're living somewhere and you're mostly comfortable with it. Sleeping on the mattress on the floor was beginning to lose its glamor and I yearned for our bed, and the office looked bare without any books I hadn't read and reread a hundred times, and we kept wanting to designate where everything would go even though we didn't have it yet.
I had to meet the movers who were going to unpack our POD at 8 in Compton. Of course they didn't get there until 9, and I discovered a POD warehouse looks like the government warehouse of artifacts at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc (except with PODS logos on every one). They loaded, we all drove back to the apartment, and the unloading began ... and took 4 or 5 hours. The most frightening part was that the stuff just kept coming and coming and coming and coming and coming.
When they were done every single room in our apartment (excluding bathrooms) was literally filled with stacked boxes - filled so much that there was only a narrow path to walk through the entire house. Two of our friends came over with their darling baby and we had basically walk straight through the apartment and sit outside in the back yard because there wasn't even a way to GET to the couches or sit on the bed or anything else. (Luckily they're good friends and understanding and the backyard was actually kind of quiet and nice).
I was overwhelmed. Especially since I didn't actually want the apartment to be that way when Neil & D. got home from work, since I knew the whole 'going into the office' after not doing it for a couple of years was stressful for them both. But how to tackle an apartment where there is no room to actually move things around and more boxes than there are surfaces? Where to start?
For the first two days I basically did this: unpack the living room until it's usable. Break. Unpack some of the kitchen dishes until I can't stand it. Break. Unpack books in the office/library until I can't stand it. Break. Unpack kitchen some more. Break. Unpack living room some more. Break. ... (you're getting the idea). From wednesday to friday I unpacked more than 25 boxes a day. Not bad. Unfortunately, we happen to have all of this crap, so it means we're still NOT DONE.
Luckily Friday night Neil decided he'd walk down to Canter's to get us some chocolate chip rugelach and chocolate dipped macaroons. OH MY GOD THE MACAROONS! they make the cookies we were getting in texas taste like hockey pucks. So, you know, cookies balance out the rough week of work, they really do.
But it was Saturday when LA welcomed us back with ... that special way it has that makes you love it and kind of wonder what the hell is going on all at the same time. Our friends' little brother was having this gallery opening. Even though it was VIP only we thought (or imagined) it was going to be one of those little places you find out in Los Feliz where it's a bit of a coffee shop art gallery and a mix of hippies to hipsters all wandering around pontificating, with smoke breaks and possibly a little wine inside. Instead we ended up in a HUGE space, dropping my poor little dirty toyota corolla off to the valet surrounded by sparkling clean bmws and suvs and sports cars, with the people in front of us in line in suits and party dresses, and finally for once in four years i wasn't actually overdressed for an event. Not to say there weren't hippies and hipsters, but mixed in with them all were suits and investors and glitterati, and low and behold it was an actual ART SHOW. Jeremy was even featured as part of the LA Times' article about the anniversary of Sharon Tate's death yesterday morning. And since it was kind of family, it was fun to wander through the crowds and then get to hug people I actually knew and hadn't seen in years, do a little of that thing you do where you introduce yourself because people are too lazy to do it for you, and oggle the art. We all three decided we liked the smaller pieces best, though each of us had a slightly different one as favorite (but I won't try to describe because it doesn't work with art, I don't think). Best part of the evening was after when we escaped with H & M and another couple of people to a little bar down the street and stole their back room for a drinks. And just as they were yawning, so were we, so we didn't burn candle at both ends (which left us open for more unpacking Sunday - why, oh why, do we have so much crap?)
more soon, since i seem to be a writing yo yo
I had to meet the movers who were going to unpack our POD at 8 in Compton. Of course they didn't get there until 9, and I discovered a POD warehouse looks like the government warehouse of artifacts at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc (except with PODS logos on every one). They loaded, we all drove back to the apartment, and the unloading began ... and took 4 or 5 hours. The most frightening part was that the stuff just kept coming and coming and coming and coming and coming.
When they were done every single room in our apartment (excluding bathrooms) was literally filled with stacked boxes - filled so much that there was only a narrow path to walk through the entire house. Two of our friends came over with their darling baby and we had basically walk straight through the apartment and sit outside in the back yard because there wasn't even a way to GET to the couches or sit on the bed or anything else. (Luckily they're good friends and understanding and the backyard was actually kind of quiet and nice).
I was overwhelmed. Especially since I didn't actually want the apartment to be that way when Neil & D. got home from work, since I knew the whole 'going into the office' after not doing it for a couple of years was stressful for them both. But how to tackle an apartment where there is no room to actually move things around and more boxes than there are surfaces? Where to start?
For the first two days I basically did this: unpack the living room until it's usable. Break. Unpack some of the kitchen dishes until I can't stand it. Break. Unpack books in the office/library until I can't stand it. Break. Unpack kitchen some more. Break. Unpack living room some more. Break. ... (you're getting the idea). From wednesday to friday I unpacked more than 25 boxes a day. Not bad. Unfortunately, we happen to have all of this crap, so it means we're still NOT DONE.
Luckily Friday night Neil decided he'd walk down to Canter's to get us some chocolate chip rugelach and chocolate dipped macaroons. OH MY GOD THE MACAROONS! they make the cookies we were getting in texas taste like hockey pucks. So, you know, cookies balance out the rough week of work, they really do.
But it was Saturday when LA welcomed us back with ... that special way it has that makes you love it and kind of wonder what the hell is going on all at the same time. Our friends' little brother was having this gallery opening. Even though it was VIP only we thought (or imagined) it was going to be one of those little places you find out in Los Feliz where it's a bit of a coffee shop art gallery and a mix of hippies to hipsters all wandering around pontificating, with smoke breaks and possibly a little wine inside. Instead we ended up in a HUGE space, dropping my poor little dirty toyota corolla off to the valet surrounded by sparkling clean bmws and suvs and sports cars, with the people in front of us in line in suits and party dresses, and finally for once in four years i wasn't actually overdressed for an event. Not to say there weren't hippies and hipsters, but mixed in with them all were suits and investors and glitterati, and low and behold it was an actual ART SHOW. Jeremy was even featured as part of the LA Times' article about the anniversary of Sharon Tate's death yesterday morning. And since it was kind of family, it was fun to wander through the crowds and then get to hug people I actually knew and hadn't seen in years, do a little of that thing you do where you introduce yourself because people are too lazy to do it for you, and oggle the art. We all three decided we liked the smaller pieces best, though each of us had a slightly different one as favorite (but I won't try to describe because it doesn't work with art, I don't think). Best part of the evening was after when we escaped with H & M and another couple of people to a little bar down the street and stole their back room for a drinks. And just as they were yawning, so were we, so we didn't burn candle at both ends (which left us open for more unpacking Sunday - why, oh why, do we have so much crap?)
more soon, since i seem to be a writing yo yo
