while there has been much planning to get all this in place, i will begin with two thursdays ago when jes and i hopped in seafoam and drove out to maple leaf, new jersey to pick up a penske moving truck. it was a brand new yellow truck with only 191 miles on it. it cost us about a million dollars in tolls to get there and back, but whatevs, going to jersey saved us a lot of money on the actual rental. so as we are pulling up in front of our apartment (me in the van, jes in our car) i call jes and ask her where she thinks i should park it. as we begin to discuss the pros and cons of 17th street vs. 8th avenue, a lightbulb comes on over jes's head and she realizes that we probably can not park the van ANYWHERE on ANY STREET in brooklyn. so she quickly goes inside the apartment, looks it up, and lo and behold there is no commercial truck parking allowed ANYWHERE in new york city (including its buroughs. good times. jes starts to panic a bit and i start thinking of all the businesses we use around our neighborhood and which ones might let us park in their parking lot. over our years in brooklyn we developed a pretty good relationship with the dudes at pep boys, so i suggest that. she hops in little miss sunshine (what i named the yellow van) and we head out to pep boys.
luckily when i approach the desk, one of our friends (a guy who has helped us before) is working. i ask him how he is, he says he is hungry. i explain my dilemma about having the truck for two more nights before we load it up and he says we can park it in his lot no problem. so to thank him and his coworker that also agreed it was ok, jes and i go and get them each baked ziti and then a small cheese pizza. we also get them an orange juice and a chocolate milk (of all the drinks out there, that is what they requested). i think they were very surprised by our kindness. i was thrilled by theirs. as we walked home, i told jes that on that day, i loved new york.
we checked on the truck every day and it was absolutely fine. no break ins, and more importantly, no grafitti tagging. that is what i was most worried about. on saturday morning, at the ass crack of dawn, az and i walked over to the pep boys and picked up the truck, then we picked up ali and headed to the apartment. it was warm and sunny when we got started moving stuff at 7:30am. from the beginning, i was worried the truck was going to be too small. jes didn't start to worry until half way through, az got worried about 3/4 of the way through. basically jes stayed in the truck and organized stuff while the rest of us brought her things. when kim arrived, az joined jes in a very serious game of moving truck tetris. the cats were locked up in the back bedroom and they were pissed. around 9 or 10 i did a bagel sammie run with ali, we all took a break and ate. the entire truck was packed up by 10:30am. I took a shower, kissed the kitties and by 11:30am, az and i were on the road to atlanta.
here are some pictures of the truck packed to the gills:
and here is a pic of ali and kim, working it out:
we drove to high point, north carolina on the first day (apparently this is the home of fantasia barrino of american idol fame- who knew) and spent the night at a hotel there. it felt great to stop driving, eat a nice sammie and watch the sopranos. after that, az watched sports center (imagine that) and i fell the hell asleep. we were up and out by 8 or 9am the next morning and we rolled into atlanta around 2:30pm on sunday. the drive was lovely, weather warm and clear, and we laughed and talked a lot. i borrowed some black wrist bands with skulls on them from jes and both az and i wore one. they were our special moving bands. the skull looked a little like the skull from the posters of the movie "the punisher" so az said we were the FUNishers b/c we were having so much fun. here is a pic of him showing off his band (and his bulging bicep):
when i was getting tired in the passenger seat, az suggested i use his neck pillow. its the kind you have to blow up yourself. lets just say i had some difficulties getting it blown up and put back in its soft cozy fleece cover. az was disgusted by how inept i was. i thought i should at least get a pic of me with it inflated and on:
now the first pic i took of me with the pillow on, i had like twelve chins, so i deleted it and took this one. az looked at it and asked why i cocked my head like that, and i was like "to avoid having a double chin." he said i should put the camera up high next time instead of my chin b/c my expression makes me look "hard" (like a tough guy). i mean nothing really says "hard" like a neck pillow, don't you think?
ok tomorrow or the next day i will report on our first few days in atlanta together. i have lots of pics. good night.
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