yesterday was supposed to be the day that karl and i finally got to "move in" to our new place (if you're keeping tabs, the lease started on the 15th, yesterday was the 21st). by "move in" i mean "have all our stuff there while the contractors continue to work around us, finishing the place up". as i'm sure you can guess, it was not so lovely.

the move itself went as smoothly as could be hoped. karl doesn't really have that much stuff, and with one notable exception, it's not that heavy or awkward (okay, two exceptions: the sofa is awkward, as sofas always are when they are required to be moved up stairs and around corners). the other exception is karl's ridiculously heavy 36" hi-def tv. the label claims it weighs 220 lbs, but it feels like more. with 5 people lifting it, it's okay. however, 5 people do not fit, with the tv, on the staircase. we managed to get 4 people around it (one upstairs, 3 downstairs), and lifted it 1 or 2 steps at a time, to the 3rd floor. took us ~40 mins to get the damn thing into the apartment. next time, we're either moving to the first floor, or to a building with an elevator. you heard it here first.

right. so, we got the stuff into the apartment. after having some food, we were finally ready to go home and collapse. i mostly wanted a shower before bed. had to clean the bathroom first, since the contractors had left dirt and dust and grout all over. fine. whatever. i'll do it, as long as i get to be clean afterwards. that layer of dried sweat was starting to peel off in chunks. but lo and behold! the contractors fucked up the bathroom! there was no hot water in the tub, even though there was in the sink, and nothing (tub, sink, toilet) was draining very fast. we called the 24-hour maintenance guy, kevin, who is really a first-class guy. he arrives, inspects, and announces that the contractors are indeed fuck-ups. they've misinstalled the expensive and complicated (apparently) tub/shower water controller, so that we get no hot water--stops somewhere still in the cold range. and kevin suspects that the slow-draining problem was caused by the contractors rinsing out a grout bucket in the tub, and causing the pipes to clog up with grout powder that turned to grout when hit with water.

kevin doesn't know how to fix the hot water thing (his partner does, but he's at a wedding all weekend), and can't do anything about the pipes. he plunged a bit, but it didn't help enough. and we didn't have hot water anyway. so, we gave it up and drove back out to karl's brother's house for another couple of nights.

so, we'll be able to move in on tuesday at the earliest now, after they fix the bathroom on monday (hopefully). tuedsday the 24th. that's 10 days we haven't been able to live there *after* our lease has started. at $40/day, that's $400 that we're taking off next month's rent.

i hate sleeping at karl's brother's house. his brother is moody, so i'm always on eggshells. one of their cats bites me whenever i walk near him with bare legs. both cats start meowing at too-early in the morning, right outside our room. karl's brother has an early-morning bike ride habit, which requires opening the garage door, which is right under our room, at 6.00 or some such, making an awful racket. not that the cats haven't already woken me up.

I WANT TO LIVE IN MY OWN PLACE!

okay. rant over. i'm going home.