eruthros

Me: Hey, here's a neat apartment. Might be too far up the hill, though.
thingswithwings: Oh, but look at the picture of the cabinets!
Me: Well, and maybe it's worth living too far up the hill for $950 rent, including utilities. And OSP. Whatever OSP is, this apartment INCLUDES it.
thingswithwings, googling: Oregon State Police? Outside Plant Magazine? Office of State Personnel?
Me, looking over her shoulder: oooh, orange smoothie productions! If it comes with free orange smoothies, I'm SOLD.
thingswithwings continues googling; I wikipedia.
Me: omg, Oral Service Provider!
thingswithwings, laughing: No, seriously?
Me: SERIOUSLY!
thingswithwings: Wait, how about Online Sexual Problems?
Me: Or, or, Oblate Sisters of Providence?
thingswithwings: Off street parking.
Me: What?
thingswithwings: It's totally off street parking.
Both: pause. Oh.

For your information, all possible things OSP can stand for, from the freedictionary's acronym page.

Moving.

*tired*

Actually, I don't have a lot of stuff (as American materialists go, anyway) -- it was basically in the back of my old landlord's pickup, plus a table and some chairs and a dresser in the trailer. My old landlord came in to check out what I was asking him to put into storage and was all "wait, that's it? you're done? this is all?" Me: "um, yes?" Him: "Oh, no problem at all. In fact, there's so little of it I'll probably just leave it in the truck."

Nonetheless, I am completely sick of the stairs to my new apartment, especially the turn halfway up.

Here is my big problem, see: I have a six-foot butcher block table that I am completely devoted to. It has survived several moves, made it up and down steep flights of stairs (Philadelphia, though I might still have the bruises on my hip where I balanced all the weight going up the stairs) and through weird-sized doorways (Ithaca, part one) and been sanded and re-mineral oiled many times and used to roll out pie crusts and to eat dinner and it only cost me $50 at a Goodwill, because it was stained. (To be fair, it was so badly stained that a belt sander was involved in rehabilitation.) But it is a pain in the fucking ass to move. Six foot butcher block table, two inches thick of solid maple: about 175 pounds, and, of course, also bulky and hard to hold onto.

And this time, I'd left it in one piece so that it was easier for my old landlord to put in storage -- there are no handles on the top of the table without the legs on -- which meant we had to get it out of the trailer, up the driveway, put it upside-down on the grass, take off the legs, get the top of the table up the stairs and around several corners, and then get the legs back on.

Blargh.

On the other hand, I am now sitting out on my extremely large balcony that I plan on using as a living room while it's warm enough, in a rocking chair, on the internet. So there is that.

***

Also, this xkcd would entirely describe my situation right now, as I am waiting for the Roadrunner internet guys to phone me back about installation, except that I can get the far edge of a Clarity Connect wifi network from here, and while I am too cheap to pay $10 for two hours of internet in the airport, $15 for a month seems totally reasonable now give me the internet now no now. So I have wifi, but it's really really slow, and downloading vividcon vids = also slow. Woe.

On the other hand, I now have three fingernail clippers on the coffee table in front of me, one in my messenger bag, one in my toiletries going into storage, and one in my backpack. And one I threw out, because it didn't cut anything.

Total pairs of fingernail clippers I could find last week: one.

And this happens to me every time I move: fingernail clippers, scissors, Sharpies, and other miscellany come pouring out of drawers. And I wondered what y'all find when you pack up your stuff on this scale. Is it fingernail clippers for everyone? Or does somebody suddenly find, I don't know, flip-flops?

[Poll #1194626]

... did y'all know that google does rentals now? Search for "rentals" "cityname" and bing! up pops a search box for their rental aggregator. Sort of a function of google local, apparently. I was googling for a particular agency, and suddenly ... there it was. Little box of weirdness. Even though it's theoretically an aggregator, though, it's not as cool as craigslist.

Dear google: please leave some internet for everyone else.

*

In other news, I totally conned a prospective landlord into getting someone else to show me around tomorrow, by being polite but noncommittal about showings on other days -- "well, as I'm sure you're aware, when you're renting from a distance, you'd really rather find the perfect place immediately and not have to make as many trips." *boogies* This makes me really happy, because it was really the only place that said "no" that I was actually sad about not seeing. Most of the others made me say "eh." (There's another one that hasn't returned my call, which is also sad, but there's nothing I can do about it.)

ETA: The rentals thing worked for every city I popped in, but darthrami just said it didn't work for her. And she's right; it only pops up automatically for some cities. (Maybe the cities where google maps is integrated?) If it doesn't work for your city, try Philadelphia, and then you can mess with it after you see the rentals box.

So. As y'all know, I'm moving to PA. I flew there the 7th through the 13th to take a look around, and, most importantly, unload the moving truck that was supposed to be joining us Monday the 11th.

The flight there was fine (non-stop -- how'd that happen?) and I got to ride the new monorail at SFO. Whee, monorails! I just have this Thing.

The weather in Philadelphia, though, was ... exciting? They tied the previous record for most consecutive days of rain in August while I was there. On Saturday, we got to make a fun u-turn because of downed trees. And people actually had to have their hazards flashing because you couldn't see anything.

Did some site-seeing, got oriented, got sick. Really sick. Dizzy and couldn't walk sick. Vacations are just lovely like that.

South Street was fun, though. Pacific/Telegraph/the Haight, but with famous kosher delis and three sex toy shops. The art museum is about the most gorgeous building ever built. We got to see crew teams racing in the rain that took down trees. I went to the Germantown UU service on Sunday with m_shell, which probably means that the world is coming to an end. The church is purty, tho.

Our neighborhood is nice, although not gorgeous in the Old East Coast House With Grounds sort of way (as if we could afford those). There's a corner store (with ice cream), and three delis, two pharmacies, a bank, several old churches, umpteen restaurants, a hiking goods store, and a post office within a couple blocks.

We live within a few blocks of the Laurel Hill Cemetery, too -- it's a giant historical cemetery. We wandered around there for a while. It's right over the river, and pre-dates the bridge, so they used to do processions with the coffin in boats. Alas, we found very few famous people, as the cemetery is massive and we didn't buy the little Guidebook. However, as we are nearby, I will continue wandering, and one day I really will find famous people. And fun headstones that say things like "Mary Smith, best medium, in town, 213 Main Street" (we really did see one like that -- it read like a business card). I always want to find one like this acrostic on a modern headstone. I love headstones.

Tangent: My personal favorite tombstone is from Lincoln, Maine:

Sacred to the memory of Jared Bates,
Who died August the 6th, 1800:
His widow, age 24, lives at 7 Elm Street.
Has every qualification for a good wife,
And yearns to be comforted.

I just think that's great.

Manayunk's a slightly longer walking distance, and there's a movie theatre there, but it's kinda Classy Small Stores. The Manayunk Brewing Company has good beer, yes, and there're coffee shops, but also -- Prada shoe stores. Not, I think, my ideal neighborhood.

Sunday, I got sick. Monday, remained sick. Tuesday, still sick but went to meet m_shell for lunch, wandered the neighborhood, and took m_shell to dinner at the Manayunk Brewing Co. You'll notice no mention of the truck? Right. That's because it didn't arrive until Wednesday morning at 7 am. You may remember that I flew out Wednesday. Sounds like fun, no? More on that in a bit.