Saturday August 7, 2004
Today's been a cleaning and reorging day down here in the basement of 424 Bay Street, Apt #1. If you're in the area, feel free to come by to heckle, cheer, entertain yourself and/or distract me from my chaos.
The task at hand is about half done. I noticed on a recent trip up to the main floor that it has started to get dark out so it must be time to make some dinner and give the old body a break.
As promised in the last, very long post, today's entry includes the incredible events of the first, very long day (24 hours that is) of this moving experience.
I had earlier in the week contacted the Odd Job Squad and retained the services of two members of the squad. They were asked to meet me at 10 am at the storage facility wherein some of my stuff was stashed. From there we were going to proceed to my apartment where they would move the items that I could not move on my own, nor help move even with one helper.
At least that was the plan.
I picked up the huge Uhaul truck at about 9:30 and was on my way to the storage facility when one of my helpers called to say he was in the wrong place. After a short chat, I told him I'd come and get him and his bicycle but first I had to stop by the right place in case the other helper was there to let him know what's going on. My second helper was there as requested. I stopped the truck to inform him of my side trip.
But wait: the truck won't start now. I've been out of the Uhaul parking lot for all of 15 minutes counting stoplights!
The two storage facilities are run by the same folks, and the first (now stranded) helper had called from the office phone of the other one before calling my cell, so Kim, a very helpful and kind employee of the storage facility called to relay a message that he'd have to bike over after all.
It took a whole hour and a lot of unnecessary discussion before Uhaul agreed to give me another truck and come and get the non-starter. In fact, they didn't actually agree to this until I showed up in a cab with the keys to the first truck demanding my money back. The manager had the audacity to tell me they couldn't give me my money back because I still 'had' the truck and that I should have called the 800 number for help. The district 'rep' or whatever told them to do what I'd asked an hour earlier, so I left with a different truck and they sent people over to the storage place to pick up the dead one.
My stranded helper had made his way to where the dead truck and myself and the other helper were before I left for Uhaul, so I told both helpers that I'd be back in a bit with a truck. When I did return, one of them had gone to get something to eat. Fine. The late comer and I started moving things on trolleys - watching for the other guy.
He was never seen again, so I ended up doing at least half of the lifting and loading.
By now we were slightly behind schedule, but still trucking, as it were. Stephanie called just then. Bad news - she was going to be several hours late in arriving to help with the chaos. I was unimpressed with the helper who'd remained and wasn't up for moving furniture that I'd arranged folks to help with, so I put in a call to a backup helper and awaited a response, keeping the unimpressive guy in a wait and see state.
When Steph arrived I took a break to eat and changed my strategy about the first helper and his (as yet unknown to me) buddies coming to my apartment to move things. They sounded 'dodgy' to use a term I've picked up from Stephanie and I wasn't comfortable with three of them arriving at night, none of whom could be contacted by phone. I'd been seriously considering postponing the rest of the move until the next day until: luckily, the backup guy and his very able girlfriend agreed to come by at about 7pm to get the big things out of the apartment for us.
It was 10:30 before the last of the largish and packed things were on board and 2 am before Stephanie convinced me to stop packing and get driving. There were folks arranged to meet us in Ottawa to unload this stuff at 2pm the next day.
No rooms were to be had in Kingston, so we drove to Brockville and stayed there from 4am until about 10am. No worries - it's only a couple hours' drive from Brockville to Ottawa.
Right.
Unless you're so tired you miss the exit for the 416. Indeed, I still do not know how that happened. I know I saw the exit for 1000 Islands Parkway and I know the next one is the 416. (I'm blaming it on transports. There must have been one in the right place to obscure the signage - right?) It wasn't until I saw signs for Hwy 20 (which is in Quebec) that I realized things were wrong. Very wrong.
We informed the crew through their point man, Michael, of our delays and boogied up a secondary route. Luckily none of the volunteers deserted this time.
A flurry of unloading and other fun things ensued per the previous post.
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