Welcome to Boston!

We made it!

We left our house in Charlotte at 7:30 yesterday morning in a rented Penske truck with Colonel Beauregard von Guetta, the Shady Lady of Mecklenburg (who, coincidentally, happens to be my car), in tow.  

A word of advice if you’re making a big move: don’t tow a car.  It makes the trip so much longer!  We started out happy to be on this fresh, new adventure feeling rather fresh ourselves.  But after seventeen hours on the road – including the most stressful passage through the Bronx imaginable, complete with a $60 toll – we did not feel fresh.      

We finally had to stop stopped in Milford, Conn., for the night.  

(I’d like to take this time to point out that Jose was a trooper – he drove the entire time!  I offered to relieve him, but he said he was okay and just kept on truckin’.  He’s awesome like that!)

I had argued against breaking the trip into two segments for two reasons.  First, it is theoretically a twelve hour trip and therefore possible to do in one day.  Second, we have a cat and cats stress out enough when travelling.  Adding yet another environment into this equation surely wouldn’t help, I figured.  Perry did not eat nor use his litter box for seventeen hours, in fact.  He spent most of his time either facing into the corner of his crate with his eyes down or sitting on my lap with his head buried in my elbow.  

His eyes were even watering!  

By the time we did finally stop, I was the one stressed out about it.  Thankfully, he behaved himself admirably at the hotel.  

So, this morning, I made Jose get up much earlier than he would have preferred so we could get started again.  Though tired, I did take time to admire the fall foliage at Jose’s suggestion, somewhere in Connecticut.  And, finally, a seemingly short two and a half hours later, we made it to Boston!  

After unhitching the car, we ventured to the new place and… I was not happy with what I saw.  

Here’s the thing: I’ve built this place up in my head.  I’ve seen an exterior picture that wasn’t bad.  When we Facetimed so I could see the apartment as he walked through it, I thought it charming!  It was a cute apartment in Boston that could be ours!  Yay!

Here’s the other thing, the real one: the outside color is much more mustard-yellow than the picture I saw and the yard is overgrown.  And, when I got here, the key wasn’t where it was supposed to be and I had to WAIT after all this horrible driving.  Not everything had been removed from the apartment and so it hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned.  It was smaller than I expected.  The dishwasher won’t open all the way because it’s new and nobody thought to make sure the door wouldn’t knock against a doorframe.  I still don’t know what was in the scary bluish-green plastic dish beside the sink with a lid on it.  

Needless to say, when Jose asked me what I thought of it after walking through, I didn’t bother speaking.  He knows the look.

To my credit, though, it only took me a few minutes to come to terms with this situation: we’ve just spent a grand total of 19.5 hours on the road to reach this place.  It’s the place we’ve committed to.  It may need TLC, but it’s home.  

And, it’s not awful.  The entrance is rather nice: 

 

Through the front door and up, up, up…

 

Into the tiniest foyer ever… 

 

But, wait – there are two bedrooms?  A master bedroom…  

 

… and The Brockington Guest Room?

 

But, wait!  There’s more!  We even have a living room, a round dining room (pics to come!), and a decent-sized kitchen that lacks counter and cabinet space but provides me floor space to work from!

Not bad, really.  It’s kind of like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree… it just needs a little love.  

After adjusting to the apartment and starting to drag crap up three flights of stairs, though, the guys we’d talked to about helping us unload bailed.  Car trouble, they said.  

Car trouble, my ass.  

Thankfully, Jose’s friends from work came over and did most of the heavy lifting – my foot was killing me and my knees are not used to climbing up and down those stairs.  (My stars!  I’m getting OLD!)  I am baking them cookies or something; they were that awesome!  

And now, I’m sitting here in the kitchen after a brief (and irritating) trip to Target while Jose snoozes away.  Unpacking all these boxes will suck, but at least Jose is going back to work soon so I can take over the house (imagine an evil laugh in your head just then like I did and you’ll get it)!  I’ll post pics of the progress as it happens!  See y’all soon!