Texas to Rhode Island, Part Two

DAY FOUR:
Spent the night at Megan's --- yummy waffles, coffee and unlimited wireless. She toured and chauffeured us around and was most gracious in hosting the kitties in her bathroom. Awwww. I'm proud of her for tolerating them. And Delaney with all of his questions and talking. My only qualm? Love Park was slightly disappointing -- I wanted to see some BIG, BIG LOVE. Oh, and Sabrina’s -- go there… really great egg salad sandwiches. D would like me to mention H&M and the museum where they filmed Rocky. It took about six hours to drive from Philly to Providence for what should be four. Nice job, Google. New York traffic was insane for a Saturday evening. Four miles on shitty highway through the Bronx = 45 minutes. The skyline was far off but we could make out the Empire State Building; I was driving so D could see everything, which was somewhat surreal he said since he’s never been before. Finally got to the apartment around midnight and decided that we had to find an A/C or at least an oscillating fan. The closest store was about 10 minutes away, a Wal-Mart in Mass, and of course they closed at 10PM. Apparently nothing stays open 24 hours here. Not even a CVS. WTF. Slept on the hardwoods with all the windows open. It was a little dissapointing that none of our neighbors had wireless I could steal.


Love Park - Check out those ponytails!


Next door to Sabrina's

DAY FIVE:
Lots of shopping to get shit for the apartment. My intentions of packing the stand-up fan and cleaning supplies faded quickly when we realized there was no room in the car after we put the crate in the backseat. D had to buy a medium sized dog crate so Neely (the big 'un) could travel. Wal-Mart, Sam’s, Target, BB&frigginB, Bernie’s Electronic store. None of which had a decent, affordable window A/C unit. Spent at least two hours cleaning the bathtub and then I spent an hour on the Fridge while D searched for beer, only to find out that Rhode Island doesn’t sell beer in grocery stores. Liquor stores only but they close at 4P on Sunday. No luck in Mass, either. He said the only thing he could find was Dr. Pepper. BTW, the DP myth is just that. They have it at the Eastside Marketplace grocery down the street and in the Target fountain in Mass.


First day... Carolina Blue sucks. And its everywhere. This is just a peek, I'm going to post before and after pictures when we've got everything unpacked and walls repainted

DAY SIX:
Home Depot for other crap we need. Three Salvation Armies for couch. No luck, yet. So the apartment is much, much nastier than expected. A simple paint job has turned into re-caulking and striping the bathtub, painting all trim and doors and cabinets, patching holes. Our landlord gave us a $200 credit on our deposit for paint and supplies, but this won’t even cover the amount of labor completed when its all said and done. Set up appointments for cable/internet. We didn’t want a landline but its free for three months, with free installation of everything. I couldn’t say no considering the installation fees list at $70+. Finally! HBO! DVR! Woohoo!!!!! I have a lot of Project Runway to catch up on. D is reeeeeally wanting the NBA package but supposedly its $300/year. We’ll see about that one. Oh, and I called some companies to get an estimate on moving everything in on Wednesday. There is just no way we can do it by ourselves, up the stairs… all our books and heavy furniture. $300 for three dudes / two hours. This should do the trick but they want to come after 4PM to "avoid the heat of the day." Isn't it still hot then? Whatever, I didn't say anything. Beggars can't be choosey. Also, I haven’t mentioned that we live on a busy street with "no parking" signs posted in front of our house PLUS overnight parking on the street is illegal. So think about that and then our 28 foot trailer with loading ramp parked out front. Nice.


NASTY.

DAY SEVEN:
Too hot and humid to do anything (really) and the trailer won’t be dropped off until tomorrow. Texas (read: everyone but Mandy), you haven’t FELT humidity. Its as bad or worse than Houston. DISGUSTING. We have no central A/C or window units at all and only one measly ceiling fan in the living room where we're camping out on the air mattress. I have been super adamant up until this point about not getting window units but with heat indexes over 100 degrees and humidity levels approaching the same, cleaning and painting turned into searching for a window unit and driving to Cape Cod. We ended up at Sears near the Cape – they only had four units left after the couple in front of us bought two. We are happy to say that it cools the bedroom and bathroom nicely.


In Philadelphia, by Megan