Thursday

I woke up when Sunshine called to let me know our movers had been successfully scheduled for this afternoon. I was in the shower when the next call came about forty minutes early. The second came ten minutes later; the third about fifteen after that. I told them each time: I was expecting the movers on schedule, not forty, thirty, or even fifteen minutes early. At five till the doorbell started ringing, and I just let it. My tactic was charmed: box traffic had backed-up as the off-loaders piled our stuff into the common hallway between our Do Not Disturb sign and the blocked elevators. When I finally opened up, guys were standing there waiting with boxes in their hands already. Their shoes were already off. Our stuff sprang into the apartment like a canned snake, elapsed time: six minutes. We received fifty-seven more boxes today, after one hundred before. Nearly two-fifths of the whole job. Today's chore was to get our things out of those boxes so the movers can return on time tomorrow and take away the leftover packaging. Then we'll spend the whole weekend putting our stuff away. Again. I took two breaks from un-boxing today. I drank my coffee in the lounge where they were doing sound checks for a Christmas party and the whole place was swimming in swirlies cast by psychedelic light machines. Later, I ate dinner at my beloved Bún Việt, except now it's Deli Saigon and the great gecko sign has been removed. Leavening my depression was the price tag for two beers, fish soup, grilled squid, and iced coffee: about eight bucks. Unleavening the leavening was the eight more hours of tedious unpacking, as breaking down boxes for tomorrow's deadline is unpleasantly akin to my days of gainful employment. [Cavin]