The First Month

Mood: Angry (at myself)
Song: Elyslan Fields - Andre Ferlante
Units of Caffeine: 1

Forgive me, Father - It has been six weeks since my last blog...

This, of course will happen from time to time where I get so busy, lazy, blocked, or caught up in something that I don't write for long periods of time. And I always beat myself up for it. Believe me, it's not as if there has been a lack of things to write about. And, actually, I have been writing here and there - just using a different medium. But, I will include them in my blog sometime in the near future.

I am also angry because I started this morning by brewing a pot of coffee and toasting an English muffin. I poured myself the coffee and completely forgot about the muffin until I thought to myself: "I'm a little hungry. Didn't I just make something for myself?" And I turn around to see the English muffin that I had toasted an hour ago, still sitting in the toaster oven - cold. Yeah, and it was the last one. Oh well... other than that, it's a good morning.... I have the windows open; it's very mild outside; the sun is seeping into my apartment, and my cats are soaking in every once of it!

So, yes... a little over a month ago, (as my last entry predicted), we packed up our things and said goodbye to Texas. It was difficult leaving our wonderful house and fantastic friends. It was amazing how much momentum the move picked up once we were 24 to 48 hours away from "moving time". On the day before we left, I picked up the moving truck, which was a 28' beast with a 50-gallon deisel tank. A few hours after I picked up the truck, the team of guys I hired to load the truck came and did their thing. In temperatures in excess of 100 degrees F, they wrapped up all of our furniture; completely loaded the truck, and secured everything. Every square inch of the truck - front to back and top to bottom - was full of our stuff. I couldn't stop thinking: "How the hell are we going to fit all of this into a 2-bedroom apartment?" However, Monk reminded me that we had three days to not think about that. Whereas I'm not one to put worries like that on the back burner, he was right. Now was the time to say our final goodbyes and focus on the adventure of driving across the country.

Since there was nothing left to do at our house, (not even a TV to watch), we decided to eat, drink and just spend the rest of our evening at our regular haunt. It was nice to sit, drink, and just breath after what seemed like an endless period of packing and planning. After being there for a while, it seemed to get to a time where every rehearsal in town got out as all of our theatre friends trickled into the pub. Again, it was nice to say that one final 'goodbye'. We stayed at Dr. L's that night and although we hadn't left yet, it was the first night where I truly felt like I didn't live in Texas anymore. I felt like a friend from out of town, just staying for a night or two - and hey, that's exactly what I was. The next morning, K and I woke up and went back to our house to shower and pick up the cats. Dr. L stayed at her house where she and Monk got ready for the trip. K and I showered, got dressed, packed up or threw out all the little things that were left in the house and then stood there in the middle of our empty house. The house had that sound that all living spaces have, (be it a dorm, apartment or house), when it is uninhabited - It's a depressing, hollow sound where every noise bounces off the emptyness that fills the space. I started to get melancholy and my mind flooded with memories of the excitement we felt when we first saw the house; the wonderful parties we hosted; the few, but significant home improvements that we made; that overwhelming, indescribable feeling that we had that "this was our house"; and the bi-polar feeling of joy and sadness K and I had when we sold it. It was time to go - We loaded the cats into the car and both of us locked the door for the last time. All of this made the start of our journey a few hours late. This ended up impacting our trip a bit more than we had imagined, which brings me to....

The Move - Day 1
August 15th - Adrenaline was pumping and excitement was in the air. Because our older cat, Ronin was always difficult in cars, we gave him a mild sedative as was prescribed by our vet and put him in the truck with K and me while Monk and Dr. L were in the car with our younger cat, Zoe, who always fell asleep in the car. So, we begin our journey... I was still getting used to driving a massive moving truck, which would amplify every little bump and imperfection in the road; K was in a bad mood because, although we gave him the sedative, Ronin wouldn't shut up because the truck was bouncing all over the place. We couldn't find the batteries for the CD player that we brought along and we made a bit a mess while trying to open some snacks (since we hadn't had any breakfast.) Oh, and did I mention that I didn't have any coffee and was still trying to get the feel of driving the truck? So, to recap: No music. No coffee. New driving experience. Howling cat. And K and I are yelling at each other. And we hadn't even gotten out of Texas yet.

We stopped for lunch somewhere in Oklahoma and decided that it would be best to put Ronin in the car with Zoe, Monk, and Dr. L with the assumption that Ronin was having difficulties because the truck was so sensative to bumps. Lunch took the edge off, but there was still tension in the air. Emotions were high since we were leaving our house, our friends, the theatre we had grown to love, (even with all of its imperfections), and our general security. We were headed into the great unknown, on top of which, it was K's birthday - a fact that I will repeat to highlight certain aspects of the first day of our trip. I will start with the fact that, due to so much excitement in the air about driving across the country, no one wished K a "Happy Birthday" until later in the trip when, although it wasn't, the sentiment felt forced.

The scenery on this first day was also a little less than exciting. We were driving from Dallas to Denver, through Oklahoma, Kansas, and, of course, eastern Colorado - not the most scenic part of the country. In fact, the most interesting part was driving through the flint hills of Kansas. Other than that, we were all just cheering as we got to the state lines because it indicated that we were just one state closer to Washington. By about 5 p.m., we were still in central Kansas and realized very quickly that we would not be getting into Denver at our planned time of 8 p.m. Upon further calculation, we figured that we would be rolling into Denver at around 12 midnight. Of course, this was very upsetting - It had already felt like a very long day, the drive had gotten extremely boring, and it pretty much killed my plans of having dinner with a friend of mine from high school who had moved out there. By 6 p.m., we were all pretty hungry and in the middle of nowhere. We stopped at the first non-scary truck stop we could find and, along with filling up the 50-gallon diesel tank for the umpteenth time that day, we got Subway for dinner. Just a little tid-bit about filling up the truck: Every time I did it... Every time I filled up the 50-gallon tank, spending $3+ per gallon on a truck that got about 10 miles to the gallon, I would say the same thing: "God, my ass hurts!" It would also take a bit of time to fill up the 50-gallon tank, so I would do other things in the meantime, like attempting to clean the windshield of all the bugs we splattered along the way. I say "attempt" because, realize, it was a truck, and the windshield was so high that, unless there was a broomstick attached to the windshield squeegie, I couldn't clean it all. So... here we all are at this truck stop in Bumfuck, Kansas - I'm filling up the truck and everyone else is getting Subway. And, oh by the way, the town we stopped in reaked of manure. It wouldn't have been such a problem standing inside the sub shop, but I was standing outside, by the fuel pump. I finish filling up and get a sub for myself while everyone else gets in their respective vehicles and eats. When I get back into the truck with K, I can tell again that she is not in the best of moods, and who would? I mean, here it was - her birthday; up until now, no one had acknowledged it (including her parents), she had been stuck in a truck or car all day, and was eating a Subway sandwich in a town that smelled of shit for her birthday dinner. I tried, unsuccessfully, to lighten the mood. Because I wasn't succeeding, I got frustrated with myself and projected it onto K by yelling at her. Yeah, that really improved things! Not too much later, K's parents called and yelled at her. You see, we had all agreed that we would call them as soon as we got into Denver. Well, as I said earlier, we were running late, so we didn't call around the time that we said we'd be in Denver. It was getting late, which was even later back in Texas, and so K's parents wanted to go to bed. Instead of syaing "Happy Birthday," they said things like, "Why aren't you in Denver yet?" Again, this really didn't help lighten the mood at all. We rolled into Denver at midnight, (as we had calculated earlier) and here's where the day should have ended. I should be wrapping up this paragraph and beginning the descriptions of Day 2, but, as you can see, I'm not. We checked into the room and unloaded all of our things which included our trip luggage and valuables that we were bringing with us in the truck and car. The process of unloading/loading the vehicles each night took about twenty minutes. Upon unloading the vehicles and wanting nothing more than to climb into bed, K notices that there is a rather large hole in the wall in the bathroom. Normally we wouldn't worry about such things, but keep in mind that we are travelling with two cats who, upon leaving their carriers, ran right to the hole, as if they knew exactly there it was. We tried covering the hole with various pieces of luggage and such, but the cats, (who are much smarter than they let on), would dig and claw their way through the luggage. So, K calls the front desk and explains the problem: "There is a big hole in the wall, and our cats can get into..." The front desk clerk immediately interrupts with, "You have cats with you!?!?" and proceeds to rip into K that we should have called and requested a special "pet room," and makes an indication that they might not have one available. Of course, this is NOT the thing we want to hear at what is now close to 1 in the morning, especially after the day we've had. I am extremely annoyed at this point because before booking the hotels in Denver and Boise, I had called the reservation numbers and specifically asked about their pet policies. I made reservations at the Comfort Inn in Denver and the Shilo Inn in Boise. Representatives from BOTH of these places told me the same thing: "We are a pet friendly hotel. No special requests are necessary." Now, if I had just assumed the hotel took pets and didn't ask any questions or anything, I would be upset with myself for this ordeal, but as it was, I did everything that I was supposed to do, and NOW there was an issue!?!?! We told the front desk attendant that we booked the hotel through Hotels.com, which listed the Comfort Inn as being "pet friendly," and, just to be sure nothing more needed to be done, I called their corporate reservations number and confirmed that the hotel was "pet friendly" and nothing more needed to be done. To this, the front desk attendant told me that they didn't have a corporate office and never to use Hotels.com again. (Since this ordeal took place, I wrote a letter to Comfort Inn's corporate office - yeah, the one the front desk guy told me they didn't have - with a carbon copy to Hotels.com and the Comfort Inn in Denver.) At the time, though, all we wanted to do was get some sleep. So, K, who was the one who had to deal with the moron at the front desk, just nodded her head, got a key for the "pet room" and off we went - unloading one room and loading another. We got into bed and turned out the lights, which was immediately followed by a lound banging noise from the A/C. All we could do at that point was laugh.

The Move - Day 2
August 16th - This day was much better than the first. From the start, I knew it was going to be better. I got up early, showered and stepped out into a beautiful, mild, sunlit day and made my way to the local Starbucks for a much-needed cup of java. Since I was driving east, towards the Starbucks, I didn't notice the glory that was behind me until I headed back to the hotel to meet up with everyone else. I have seen the Rockies numerous times - and I drove through them in the summer of 2000, when I moved to Las Vegas from NY. But, every time I see them, I am still in awe of how amazing they are. When I got back to the hotel with my coffee, everyone else was up and ready to go. So, off we went, headed toward Boise for the second leg of our trip. I don't know if it was that we started off on a better foot; if it was because I had a cup of coffee in the morning; or if it just the welcome change in scenery, but everyone was in much better spirits that morning. K did the majority of driving that day, driving through most of Wyoming, all of Utah, and a bit of Idaho. I was glad to finally show Utah to everybody. I drove through southern Utah when moving to Vegas, and concluded that Utah was the most underrated, most beautiful state in the union. Everyone thought that I was high on crack for making such a statement, but I think it to be true, and K, Dr. L, and Monk all agreed with me after driving through the northern portion on the way to Idaho. Idaho, on the other hand, was pretty uneventful. It wasn't flat - but just dry and desolate. What was eventful was that there were some massive problems with wildfires. It seemed as if the whole state was on fire since we would drive for hours through some rather smokey patches. Also, soon after crossing the Utah/Idaho border, we realized that, even though we started out on time in Denver, we were again, four hours behind schedule and we ended up getting into Boise pretty late. Not as late as Denver, but still pretty late. The Shilo Inn in Boise was a much better experience than Denver's Comfort Inn. (In fact, to avoid a repeat of the previous night, we called ahead and made damn sure that there was nothing that needed to be done. The representative said the same thing I heard all along: "We are a 'pet friendly' hotel. There is nothing that needs to be done." I was still a little worried, but there weren't any problems.) In fact, the room was HUGE, including a kitchenette and full-sized couch, AND was a fraction of the price of the Comfort Inn. (Probably because more people are going to Denver than to Boise.) So, aside from getting in later than anticipated, Day 2 was a success!

The Move - Day 3
August 17th - The final day. Because we had to be in Seattle at a certain time in order to complete all of our paperwork for the apartment and meet up with the guys I hired to unload our truck, we got an very early start. We were up at 5 and out by 6 and we hauled ass. Well, as much as one can haul ass in a fully loaded 28' moving truck. When we got into Oregon, driving was a bit more of a challenge. MUCH more so than I had anticipated with driving through the Rockies, (which wasn't bad at all, really.) The terrain through the northeast portion of Oregon is very interesting with lots of twists, turns, bends, forests, hills, and mountains. I think I would have enjoyed it more were I not driving the 28' beast. At one point, we went down a rather steep mountain. It was so steep that, in order to decrease the grade, the engineers designed the highway to wrap around and spiral down the mountain. Even then, the grade was so steep that I kept the speed under 25 mph. Despite having to slow down every ten minutes or so due to the terrain, we were still making really good time and crossed the Oregon/Washington border before noon. We came into Washington from the southeast. We were excited to be in our new home state, but it looked nothing like what we were used to seeing in our previous visits to Seattle. I soon learned that pretty much everything east of the Cascade mountains is dry and depressing. However, when we got to the Cascades, our excitement peaked again. It was the highlight of the trip! We stopped at a rest stop to take it all in and took advantage of the free coffee Washington state provides at many of their rest stops. I was in an environment that was the exact opposite of Texas: Cool, Sunny, and Mountainous. (Well, okay, it's sunny in Texas, but it ain't the kind of sun that you want to step into lest you want to be directly in the scorching heat.) The rest stop was about 100 miles from Seattle, so we got back into our vehicles and made our next stop "Home"! All during those last hundred miles, we were all running on pure adrenaline. K and I were on the western-most point of I-90, the same interstate we drove on so many times when living in NY state, and we were almost at its terminus in Seattle. We got into the city around 3 in the afternoon and soon remembered what the roads were like in Seattle. For those of you who don't know, Seattle is kind of like a San Fansisco wannbe with its steep hills and narrow streets. In fact, the most challenging parts of the entire trip were driving up the hill before our street with a 19% grade and down the narrow street that we live on. The hill is so steep that the truck slowed down to 3 mph, and I thought for sure we were going to stall and roll backwards down the quarter-mile hill. Thankfully we didn't, but the hairs on my skin still stood on end when I had to drive the beast down a narrow street. And as if the street wasn't challenging enough, there were cars parked on both sides of it! I drove down the street at a painfully slow speed and will never know how I didn't sideswipe any of the cars I passed. I am already thinking of our next move and am very thankful that it will be an in-town move because I will be getting a much smaller truck and making multiple trips rather than tempting fate again.

We got into our apartment, which was really nice for an apartment that we got sight-unseen. It's got a bit of space, it's clean, it has a lot of natural light, has a beautiful view of Queen Anne hill and the Cascades, and it has a nice view of Mt. Rainier's crown. We're still working out some kinks as to how to get a 3-bedroom house into a 2-bedroom apartment, but, other than that things are okay. K got a really nice job within a week of being here and Monk got a job about a week or two later. I am still searching and have much to write on the subject, but that will have to keep for another blog. In the meantime, I keep myself busy. Although I'm between jobs, I have yet to be bored - I have found lots of things to do and, within our first month of being here, my father has visited and my in-laws are coming later this week. These things also keep me occupied.

So, I think I've gotten up to date. Well, as much as I can in a single sitting anyway. I've got lots to write about, so I'm sure I won't stay away from the blog for too long. It's good to be back!