Moving...The Ultimate Test for All Your Relationships

We started our journey to the Bay Area on eggshells.
We took an apartment hunting trip up to the Bay that wasn't like your normal apartment hunting trip. It was scheduled before my aunt's "celebration of life" soiree at my uncle's house and four days before I was to go with my family to spread her ashes on a beach in Jenner, Northern California. I wasn't as organized as I would've liked and as you can imagine, moving 500 miles is no easy task. Despite all these circumstances, we found our ideal place...

Suffice to say, that circumstances didn't allow me to check email every five seconds while we were with family to see if we got a response from our ideal place. My fiance has as close to a perfect credit rating and background as you're going to find- so I didn't really think that we would have any problems. However, the landlord, D, for our #1 place had emailed us during this time and asked how I got my income. Three hours later, since he didn't receive an answer, he denied us based on "not enough income", though we made double the amount.

I sent him a Hail Mary email, explaining the extenuating circumstances that had kept us from emailing him earlier. I answered his question about income and asked him about his income qualifications since with F's income we made double the rent. Here's where the eggshell walk began.We continued on a back and forth/up and down email quest. Each email would raise a new issue to which I replied a clever response to quelch any doubts that he had, then would come another email with another issue and another clever response, etc etc for a week and a half. He was set to go out of town from the last weekend in March through April 5th. Don't ask me why you would rent a place and take off during one of the most important weeks, move-in, but, it's what we were dealt. Finally, that old cliche "anything worth having is worth fighting for" came true and we were approved.

APPROVED! WOOHOO! My dad, lucky for me, offered to pay for the cost of moving up here and security deposit of one month's rent. WOOHOO! Oh, this is going to be awesome- much easier than our last move which tested our relationship much more than anything else ever had and we were only moving down the street! We moved everything ourselves, renting a van to save money and as such, had to make mul-ti-ple trips and those of you that know us know that our skinny asses don't have the muscle of your typical moving people. But, now...NOW we have friends and family aka muscle to help us out because those in the Bay will be SO happy that we're moving up there FINALLY and those in LA will miss us and out of true friendship will want to help say goodbye to us. NOW we have a 14' UHAUL which we don't have to pay for- thankfully. NOW we'll only have to crash at friend's/family's for a few days instead of spending it apartment hunting.

So, here's what actually happened between NOW and now....

Let's start with LA friends helping us move: didn't happen. I wasn't mad though because we moved at an inconvenient time, Tuesday. A, F's BFF, came up on Monday but, we had pretty much everything done and by we..I mean me ;p I was cleaning and wrapping everything up but, we couldn't get the UHAUL until Tuesday. The only friends of mine that cared to say goodbye were a couple of my faves- when I guest deejayed on their radio show. That was a little disheartening but, sometimes, you need a wake-up call and apparently, this wasn't going to be my first on this issue.

U-HAUL Torrance: we picked it up on Tuesday morning, 7am, and it wasn't paid for, so I put my card down on it. First, you have to get the truck, then bring it to your house, load it up, and bring it back to the UHAUL place so they can attach your auto transport trailer to the back of the truck. Those of you that know F, know that at this point he was pretty much a nervous wreck. He's not like me where I just trudge through it and keep my stress hidden, only to have a breakdown sometime later in the bathroom. He lets it be known that not only is he not happy about the situation but, he starts stressing about every possible what-if imaginable. So, commence cheerleading for F to drive the 14' UHAUL with his beautiful car on an auto transport trailer which added quite a few feet to the overall length. There was some miscommunication about drop-off locations and storage, so I was on the phone with UHAUL customer service off and on for the first few hours of the trip. Finally, we got it worked out where we'd be dropping off the UHAUL at a downtown center in San Jose where they had storage= perfect.

9 hour drive: Not as bad as I had thought but, there was some sketchy situations that called for some extra cheerleading and support. Read: gas stations. We had started to realize that we weren't going to be at the UHAUL center in San Jose by closing time, so called them and made sure we could do after-hours drop-off. We had to get there by 7p when they closed to check into the storage unit, otherwise we had to find a place to park the UHAUL overnight. My BFF that lives around the corner from the UHAUL center would be perfect but, she had already told me that this week wasn't a good one- since she had a lot on her and her hubby's plate. Sorry. So, I called my always reliable dad at 4:30p to see if he wouldn't mind checking us into the storage unit and we'd meet him there ASAP. He said he'd do it. Phew...


U-HAUL San Jose: After a LONG, exhausting drive, we made it to the San Jose center at 7:15p, 15 minutes too late- story of my life. My dad's nowhere to be found- I thought that he'd gone to dinner with his GF since she lives in San Jo. How are we going to get this car off? Well, I'd seen the guy put it on, I'm sure I can get it off and after much stress, we did. Then, came trying to get the auto trailer unhitched to which we had no clue nor could we find any kind of instructions. So I called my BFF's hubby who's an auto guy- a mechanic, has been a Repo guy, etc...if anyone knows how to do this, it's him. He tried talking me through it but, couldn't get it done. So, he came down and I was all apologies because my BFF had said how incredibly busy they were and he said he was just making dinner, no worries. We got it down. Then, I went to our storage unit and saw a lock, opened, on it- so I figured that my dad had just left it open and took off. It's kinda unlikely but, probable. This storage isn't your Public Storage, air-conditioned unit- it's a wood covered, ghetto mobile storage unit but, who's going to complain when it's free? I just hoped my vinyl and wine would survive! We ended up moving stuff in...now, with Corey graciously helping us with the heavy stuff- it went incredibly quicker than our morning shift full of cursing at each other because, again, I have no muscle. Thanks to Corey, we got it done and were on our way to my brother's who'd offered for us to stay with him, a half hour away.

My dad: My always reliable dad didn't show up at U-HAUL. He called me halfway through moving my stuff into the storage unit to say that he had lost time on the computer. RED FLAG: My dad's not a computer/Internet addict like I am. He barely understands email. He offered to come and drop off a lock but, I told him that we'd take care of it. No problem- we'll just move our stuff in, thankfully it was unlocked and I knew which storage unit was going to be ours, and use the temp lock. Then, we can take care of it the next day- F ended up going down after paperwork and drug tests to take care of everything. The next morning, my first in the Bay, I got a call from my dad's GF who was incredibly concerned about my dad. She apologized for bringing this on me on my first day to which I told her never to apologize for calling me about my dad. He hadn't slept all night and was up playing computer games. She had called him that morning to say "Good Morning." and he told her it was evening. She tried to get him to go to the hospital but, he wouldn't let her. She had her own medical appointments to deal with but, thought that he should see a doctor before he goes to New Orleans. Wait..what? What do you mean New Orleans? Apparently, my dad's annual Habitat for Humanity trip to N'ahleans was to start on Monday....in four days. She wasn't sure if she could make it and was concerned. Because we matched our notes and found a ton of similarities- my dad's been slipping for a while and he lives on his own which causes great concern since he's 76. So, I went on a rush crusade to call my dad to see if he was OK, he'd gotten some rest but, admitted to staying up all night. With someone who's 76 and my dad, who's incredibly stubborn like me, you can't just come out and confront him because he'll clam up and will think you're the enemy. Anyhow- a lot of phone calls and a dinner slash slight intervention led to us asking him to keep in touch when he was on his trip and that we were just concerned for him.

Bay Area friends helping us move: didn't happen. As I told you earlier, my BFF said that she had a lot on her plate so I didn't contact her. I IMed her when I was at my brother's and had said something about how we somehow felt off. I had noticed her getting shorter with me and more frustrated in her comments, so I called her out. She said she wanted to talk about it over wine, no problem. I told her about my dad and she kinda jumped down my throat- although she had a point, I felt a little attacked because I was so emotionally raw from everything. Then, I told her that I'd taken enough of her time and should let her go since she had so much on her plate. To which she replied...I don't have anything on my plate. I'm just sitting around, cleaning the garage and getting ready for a garage sale. My thoughts started with a big- WHAT?!? You mean to tell me that you're not doing anything. So, I got out of IM because I didn't want to react emotionally. After the move-in, I found out that she didn't have to work and was up in Napa. If my BFF was moving 10 minutes away from me and I wasn't working, I'd be there for her every step of the way. Apparently, I'm on my own in that thought process since not only did my LA friends not help me move, they didn't even make an attempt at a goodbye but, my BFF would rather be in Napa- kinda upsetting but, like I said a lesson on remixing my mind set. My other friends had to work, of course, it was going to be Monday when we'd be able to move into the place. Holy inconvenience, Batman. Apparently, we could've moved in on Sunday, yet another text/email/phone convo gone awry with the landlord but, wouldn't have been able to have the cashier's check until Monday.So, there it is...luckily I have family otherwise I would have been SC-REW-ED!


FAMILY TO THE RESCUE! Since F had to work on Monday, my mom offered to drive me down from her house in Monte Rio (2 hours North of SF) to the Cupertino place to do the walk-through with the landlord. My brother offered to help move after he got off work and my cousin offered his muscle because he was unemployed and had a truck. THANK GOD FOR FAMILY; otherwise, it'd be me and my 66-year-old mom trying to figure out how to do it. With the two guys and me, it went super quick at U-HAUL. We loaded everything up in an hour, drove it to the new place and unloaded it. Then, the boys took off and F, my mom and I drove the U-HAUL back- F driving it and getting lost and then, re-found in downtown San Jose. Then, we drove back. F had to go to bed, so my mom and I toasted the new place with some champagne and cards.

Now, I sit in my new living room and am incredibly grateful to my family. Hopefully, whatever's troubling my BFF will be resolved with wine, isn't everything? And F and I start our new journey in the Bay Area....

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