Saturday: I had Dawn come over to help me pack and she did an awesome job of getting ALL of the books in the house, and most of the craft books (which ahem, she's borrowing for the time being, that helps). I honestly didn't think she'd last for more than a few hours, but she did awesomely. While she did that, I worked on the closet/clothing areas. The bedroom was about 90-95% done by the end of that. She eventually cried uncle and then I took her out to Dickey's (her choice) and we had brisket and fried things. It was great. I'm really surprised at how much got done--and that there's a huuuuuge avalanche pile of boxes to the ceiling in the back of the bedroom. Good thing this area rarely has earthquakes.

Sunday: Today was Mom's day to come over and help, and it was...Mom-ish. She was flipped out about getting Lili into the car--though I gave her the idea to get Dad's old wheelchair ramp and that worked like a charm on the car. Then she got out the door late, THEN SHE LOST HER CAR KEYS....she had a spare, mind you, but she's still flipping out that they're lost in Pat's house somewhere and she just had them. She called me up to demand my help, which went just about as well as you'd expect that to go long-distance. She didn't leave until about 2-ish and then she called me to say she was leaving and oh, she forgot the dog's food for dinner. I demanded she go back and get it since she was a block away and the dog eats at 5. I think that's the one argument I've won with her in ages, probably because it was about the dog.

She eventually was here from 4 to 7:50-ish. I put her on kitchen duty and she got about half of it done. I did love how I told her not to pack the food away because I still needed to eat and that's like the first thing she did regardless of what I said. Sigh. Meanwhile I cleaned out and cleaned the bathroom, hall closet, and the yarn collection--doing the latter while watching the Hamiltonys. God, that was great.

Monday: Melinda came over to help on Monday, finishing the remaining craft books and binders and the kitchen while I cleared out craft desks and knickknacks and finished up the living room. Much to my surprise, I was done packing by midafternoon. GO FIGURE. I thought that was going to take the entire week to do.

So we had some time left and I showed Melinda my improv videos, which she wanted to see. She said they were cute and I looked like I was having fun and improving, so that's good. She had some very good tips on how what I need to do is to create "stock characters" to trot out, like on SNL, and yeah, I admit I've seen the really good folks at improv like Molly and Eric do that sort of thing, as well as my classmate Justine. Even though I tend to think of what she does as "some kind of caveman" most of the time, Melinda pointed out that she was doing a nitpicking, worrying character who was overthinking everything in the video. That finally explains to me why everyone thinks she's so good. It also points out to me that I don't really "do" characters, they're probably all just me because I can't act. She said I should come up with some tropes/characters to play on a regular basis in improv and then I will stand out better and get asked into a show. Like I should do my mother...

After that I went to knitting group since I suddenly had some free time, ha ha. I will be missing Knit In Public Day...darn it. After this weekend, no more missing fun shit because of moving! I hope.

Then I went home and tried out Melinda's suggestion of finding a website that lets me plot out room rearranging. I hit the jackpot with Haverty's because they let me resize generic furniture. I unfortunately came to the conclusion that I will have to stuff the bedroom full of furniture and even in the middle of the room to fit it all in, and will have a similar problem in the living room. Mom basically cried when I said I wanted to get rid of some of the furniture and begged me to keep it, SOMEDAY (i.e. the 12th of Never) she wants to clear out her living room and trade me her nice little couch for the recliner that doesn't fit in here already....blah blah throwingfitcakes. Joy. Fine. I give up. As Jess has said before, Mom is relentless about what she wants and I'm not, and what I want is peace, so...I will save all the furniture forever even though I really can't fit it in worth a damn.

Tuesday: Supposedly I can move into the apartment starting Wednesday afternoon, which is about what I figured when they said "Monday or Tuesday." Fine, whatever, I can get other things done today. Like buying blackout curtains (Melinda said I can put in my own with a tension rod, awesome), depositing a check and getting change converted into dollars, getting the car fixed, and changing addresses and calling PG&E and internet.

I think the last few things in that list have been more tiring than actual physical moving, btw.

My car has been squealing when I turn the ignition on and it was due for an oil change and tire inflation anyway, so I ended up at SpeeDee getting all of that fixed. And being told it needs $700+ of work because "Volvo says it's time." Argh. I don't even have the money or energy to deal with that today. Bad enough having to get the belt replaced. (Though when I heard a slight squeal when I drove the car after 5....if that happens again I'm going back to complain.) Though I did like the SpeeDee people and they seemed quite reasonable and nice about giving me discounts where they could. Heck, they said they couldn't do the car until tomorrow morning and I got it by midafternoon, so....

Mauricio is now not coming to help until Saturday night instead of Friday like he said. I am quite irritated. But what can I do. Now he and Mom can all fight when they're here at the same time! Whee!

I called the Internet company and they are charging me $99 to get it changed over on Saturday. And bugged me a lot to get cable TV. I still don't want cable TV--I'd have to spend another $50 a month to get $99 off.

I called PG&E. On the one hand, getting them to turn the power on in 2 places for a few days was quite doable. On the other hand, they then forced me to sit through a sales call trying to convert me to The Other Internet Cable TV Company. It threw the guy off when I was all, "I just called them before I called you, sorry! Too late!" but he went on for awhile about how he could save me $30...only mentioning that involved The Other One at the last minute. Uh-HUH. Ugh. Oh well, at least that shit is done.

Then I spent many painful hours calling various companies and/or trying to get various websites to work to change my address. JEEBUS FUCKING CHRIST I CANNOT POSSIBLY REMEMBER EVERY FUCKING SECURITY DETAIL FOR EVERY WEBSITE, and some of them were incredibly painful and involved multiple calls (thanks, cell company! Your service is generally good and unlimited data is the best, but your website is agony!) or accidentally locking myself out of banking websites. Though on the good news side, I apparently have more money in my account now than I thought, which works out well with paying all these bills, having to order new checks, etc.

I feel very tired. Maybe I should drink tonight. Theoretically I can start moving in the afternoon. We shall see if that actually happens.

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