Blame the Clown

HELLO! We’ve been without WiFi this week, and I haven’t been able to post. A lot has happened. Rather, a lot HASN’T happened. I wrote a few updates this week even though I couldn’t post them, and they are below.

Tuesday, 9/8/20

We spent last week with my parents, anticipating that we’d move into our new house on Saturday 9/5, when we’d greet our arriving POD and be reunited with at least some of our things. This was not to be. When I called PODS on Friday 9/4, nervous because I hadn’t yet received a call about a delivery time, I learned that our POD was still in New Jersey, and that there was no delivery date scheduled. There was a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth, but there was no way to compel PODS to magically transport a giant storage container overnight, so we were stuck.

We decided to move in anyway and just...wing it. We borrowed cots, an inflatable mattress, folding chairs, and a card table from my parents, and on Saturday Andrew and I drove around Pittsburgh, picking up necessities like plates (Target) and a couch (a thrift store). Later in the day, the kids and my parents arrived. We had dinner. My parents left. Then we settled in for our first night in our new home.

We have only a few changes of clothes, but otherwise it’s basically fine. It’s hard to complain when the house is so pretty, and our things will get here eventually--our moving truck might wind up beating the POD, but so be it. Moving is such a strange, liminal time. Things are everywhere. There are no places for things yet--no usual hook for the keys, no pile for the shoes. There are eight doors in this house, so each departure is a scramble to find masks and keys. We have a lot of domestic systems to put in place, including pandemic-specific systems like places to put clean and worn masks, and stations for hand sanitizer, and all the rest.

And we don’t yet have wifi. Lucia started in-person school today, but Greta is virtual until Thursday, and Andrew has to work--so Andrew and Greta are at my parents’ house (with wifi), and Lucia and I are here in our new house. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so disorganized.

But! By the end of next week, we’ll have ALL our things here, which means furniture and rugs and books and a toaster. It’s been a messy beginning, and if I could go back in time and reorganize our entire timeline I would. For now, I’m just enjoying this treehouse-like view from a borrowed chair and a table we found in the garage.

Wednesday, 9/9/20

Lucia had a fantastic first day of school yesterday. She loved the kids, the teacher, the classes, the activities. After I picked her up, we got macarons at Gaby & Jules and then played Chinese checkers.

Today, we still don’t have wifi. It’s a more complicated installation than expected. Now we won’t have it until Friday. Andrew and Greta will be returning to Pittsburgh tonight; Greta will start in-person school tomorrow; and Andrew will be acquainting himself with some of Pittsburgh’s best free wifi spots to get through work tomorrow. If I were a superstitious person, I’d say this move was cursed. OH WAIT: that’s exactly what I am. It appears that asbestos clown is having some fun with us.

Friday, 9/11/20

Greta had a great first day of school. We got more celebratory first-day macarons. Andrew managed to find a reliable hotspot outside a library and was able to do his calls. As of this morning, we now have wifi, praise the lord, and I shall opt not to look at this month’s Verizon bill to see the massive data charges incurred as I tried to deal with Our New Life and Our Missing Pod while having no internet.

A fun thing: this morning I went to Trader Joe’s for the first time since March. Seeing all the familiar products was like being reunited with old friends. It was wonderful. What part wasn’t wonderful? Returning to the car with my overheaped cart and finding that my key battery had died, rendering me unable to get into my own car. The car had been giving warnings for many many days (VEHICLE KEY BATTERY LOW), but there was a lot going on, and we chose to put this in the NONURGENT column of the to-do list. Mistake. There is a manual key inside the black key thingy, and I managed to pry it apart and get in the driver’s side door, which set off the car alarm. None of the other doors or trunk would open. The car wouldn’t start. Until magically it did! No idea why, or how, and it doesn’t matter. I shoved the disassembled key parts into my purse and drove home.