Errands and fun
We’ve been knocking off as many getting-settled errands as we can before our stuff arrives Thursday and I go to work next Monday. We have a credit-union account (though it’s more or less useless until the eleven-day hold on our first check clears, sigh), I have a library card and his is set in motion, we’ve got curtain rods for when the curtains show up and a shower curtain for the bathroom, and tomorrow we’ll go check out the nearest vet so that we can (with luck) get Dream’s heart-meds continued.
And around the important stuff, we’ve been fitting in plenty of plain old fun—which sitting in an apartment (however cute) with no more furniture than a futon is really, really not. So we poked around in the art museum and got ice cream at the Union on Sunday, we went to the zoo yesterday (aided by a downright freakish warm spell), and today we strolled Monroe Street and commented on how much it’s changed, ducking into The Dardanelles for lunch.
Frankly, this move has meant throwing around money like a drunken sailor. The UW’s relocation allowance doesn’t cover all the movers’ bills, never mind airfare, and for the sake of the Goths’ sanity, we splurged on the nonstop. We left the falling-apart yard-saled futon in Fairfax; a brand new futon and frame are on their way. One of the downsides to having a ton of windows is needing a ton of curtains for those windows. And I self-funded Open Repositories 2007, because I just do not have the chutzpah to ask my employer to pay for a conference when I’m leaving in a month. Haven’t been careful since I got here, either… but, you know what? This is me not caring. I don’t move often, it’s stressful, and if some extra eating out helps, I’m not going to quibble over the bill. What’s money for? It’s not like I don’t have it.
The Goths are less freaked than they were; I think they’ll be all right when Their Stuff comes on Thursday. (We only think it’s our stuff. The Goths, they know better.) Used to be, the least noise out in the hall would send Didi burrowing under the comforter on the futon; now, she usually hangs out in the bedroom door instead, to see if it’s really anything dangerous. They’re both walking rather than skulking about the place, they’re eating again, and Dream seems to have remembered that Didi is his sister and not his sworn enemy.
And I keep finding more reasons to like this place. The nice woman at the hardware store, for one. Wood screws? In back, right here. Shower curtain? Here you go. Curtain rods? Downstairs, let me take you there as it’s a bit messy… hm, we don’t quite have enough, but we’ll order more for you and they’ll be here Thursday. Anything else? Say, do you live around here? Because we have a neighborhood discount.
A. Neighborhood. Discount. I ask you!
The local grocery is fairly small, and has a name for being less than optimal, but I like it. It’s got what I need, and it’s also got little extras like chocolate-covered raisins in bulk. It and I plus the Farmer’s Market when it starts will get along just fine.
The zoo has added lots of birds to its aviary, some of them (notably a striking magenta fellow who followed me around) not yet labeled. They’re in the middle of building a new kiddie zoo, which means some of the fun is curtailed a bit, but I think it’ll be a substantial improvement when it’s done.
And where else could I pay normal rental prices and still live a block from the lakeshore? Madison rocks.