Sorry,
this one is wordy and rambling …
It
has been a busy week here in
Thursday
we received our sea shipment. This
included all of our furniture, the rest of our clothes, and basically
everything we didn’t bring over either by bringing it on the plane or by
shipping it air freight. When we flew
over we were told that we had met our limit for checked baggage and that we
would have to carry on one of the bags!
Can you imagine that! The clerk
told us that since we were flying Business Class it was free to carry another
bag but that it would cost $99 to check it.
On
Thursday I arranged for the furniture rental people to come and get their
things. They arrived around 8:30 am and
were done in no time. When the sea
shipment arrived the movers explained that they couldn’t bring the truck into
our block because our street is a dead-end street and they would never be able
to get out again. They would bring it to
a depot of theirs and use a ute to ferry smaller
loads in. A ute
is a utility truck, most commonly a thing like a pick-up truck where the
flatbed has very low sides that can be unlocked and lowered to allow easy
access from either side as well as the back.
I generally hear Fred Gwynn saying “What is a ute?” or Joe Pesci saying “deese two utes”
from My Cousin Vinny
when I hear ‘ute’.
The
stuff just kept coming and coming. As
the stuff was unloading I remembered that before we left our friend James told
me to just put all of the books in his basement and be done with it. I regret that I didn’t take him up in
it. Of course those last few weeks were
very busy. It is also tough to make
intelligent decisions when you are hung over pretty well every day. We had more parties to attend than we do
during the Christmas season. There was
not one night in September that we were at home. I’m not complaining, mind you.
When
the movers left that evening the place was just chock full. All day I was telling them to put things in
the back bedroom if I didn’t know what to do with it--what I should have done
was put it in the garage but there you have it.
Now the back bedroom is simply full of stuff. We have wall-to-wall boxes. It doesn’t help that there are six bookcases
and all of the books in there.
Unpacking
has been interesting. It’s fun to find that
the rubber chicken has been lovingly packed in paper, or that my little Wallace
and Gromit figurines are all rolled into the same
package to keep each other company.
I’d
heard stories that movers will pack everything and that one woman found that
they had even packed the rubbish. Since
I was getting the story second-hand I have to figure that it was maybe the
paper recycling that was packed and not the kitchen garbage. I had heard the story before we left so I
made sure to put the garbage in a separate place.
Right
now it is Saturday morning, 6:00 am. I
woke up to call the United States during the business day (it would be 4:00 in
the afternoon there right now) and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Being unemployed has made me fall asleep
earlier and rise earlier. I’m sure that
will all change once I am working. I’m
in the lounge (living room in America) and I am sitting on the only chair. The cotter pins that hold the futon were
broken so the wooden frame is balanced together but it isn’t usable. I’ll have to get new pins. I went to one shop that had something that
wouldn’t quite work and they cost a whopping 15 cents, so since we need two I
can see this would bankrupt if we didn’t have the mover’s insurance.
Behind
me is the futon which has sprung its wrapping and is lying open across some
boxes. The kitchen is mostly unpacked
with the exception of nine boxes of china.
After the wedding I was loath to give up some of the china so we have
the everyday plates (thank you sisters and family!) and the fancy china (thank
you Julie, the Follands, the Beadling
Boys) as well as one set of my old china.
I don’t think that spare set will make it back to the States.
My
job now is to not only unpack but also to sort through and actually get rid of
stuff. We never got the chance to do so
before we left so we just brought everything.
The
movers who delivered our things were happy to unpack for us but aside from
unpacking the furniture it really is better to do these things for
yourself. One of the lads helped me
unpack the kitchen but all he could do was to pile everything on the
counter. I knew I liked to cook and had
a lot of kitchen implements but even now, with most things washed and shoved in
a cupboard I feel like there is a lot of kitchen stuff. I have two moulis
(rotating cheese graters). Why do I have
two? I have a lot of rubber spatulas,
which I love, and a lot of wooden spoons (ditto). I also have things that I can’t use here like
the beautiful roasting pan with matching rack that is just too large for the
oven.
I’m
sure that in spite of all of my best intentions I will not get rid of many
things in the kitchen because most of the things are very good quality and are
very new. I may not use the super-fine
mesh strainer but when making a veloute it is
indispensable.
It’s
funny, there are things I saw when I was unpacking and can’t locate now. The Rolls Royce of Wine Openers, I remember
pulling it out of one of the first boxes and putting it down somewhere. I recall putting the food mill on the
counter--or was it the ricer?
So
far our list of damaged things is small and most are things that are very
inexpensive:
The
white plastic tube decorations from a lamp (shattered)
One
soapstone coaster (badly chipped)
One
crystal vase (the neck was shattered from the bowl)
The
cotter pins to hold the futon together (one stretched, one broken)
One
Tupperware (cracked)
I
even found lightbulbs that survived the trip. I have yet to open up the crystal and gold
glasses and the fine china but so far it looks like most of the things that
were damaged were things you wouldn’t imagine would be fragile.
It’s
a busy day of unpacking. I found that a
lot of the plates, dishes and pots were pretty dirty so I’ve been running them
through the dishwasher. As Master Kim
would say, “these dishes must have had a heart attack when they saw how clean
they are” since many of them are now the cleanest ever. What a luxury to have a dishwasher. Well, a mixed luxury as it doesn’t rinse the
dishes properly and I have to rinse off the soap residue. I’ve tried adding rinse aid and I was very
please to find liquid dish washer detergent, but things are still not right.
Other
great finds in the supermarket were dryer sheets and the crystal cat
litter. I was afraid that we’d find out
that the only cat litter in
You
find the most amazing things you didn’t know you had when you move. After eight years in
Packing
material from a gift I got last winter
Wrapping
paper
Blank
cassettes (when was the last time I recorded to tape and not CD?)
Leftover
supplies from painting the Taekwon-Do school (I
should have left them in the school)
Birthday
candles
I
still haven’t found the food mill and the Rolls Royce of Wine Openers. I also find I don’t have the bottom of my
tart pan--I have the rim for the sides but no bottom. It’s rather useless unless I can find the
plate.
You
may notice that my comments focus on the kitchen. That is because John has dedicated himself to
arranging the upstairs. He unpacked my
clothing and organized all of the hanging stuff as well as putting my shoes on
the shoe rack. What a guy! He’s even started to tackle the evil spare
bedroom. Right now he’s on the quest for
the cotter pins.
In
re-packing the things that won’t fit in the kitchen I put away my spare rolling
pin, the one that Annie gave me when I got married. She said, “this is a
clock. When your husband comes home in the wee hours in the morning you
brandish it and ask ‘do you know what time it is?’” I wrapped it up and labeled
it properly as “clock” and I’m hoping John is the one to unwrap it. I’ll know he found it when he asks, “why is the rolling pin labeled ‘clock’?”
This page is copyright 2003, Laura Giletti
Last revised: November 2003