Teamwork!
This weekend I took the first steps on my sabbatical—that is, I made the move to my new apartment in Arlington, VA! It’s been a pretty exciting last couple of weeks, from having one last ultra-busy hurrah at my now old job at the Virginia Arts Festival to getting approval to move into the apartment to preparing to leave to getting settled. If that sentence was exhausting to read, then good—in that case it well emulates how things have been going for me. After a bittersweet last day in the office, I readied my things to go at home. Some of the work was already done, but the big things, like, oh, dismantling my computer desk and bed, weren’t. It’s a good thing I used my last “personal day” for work on Friday, else things would have been really dicey. Everything was packed and/or gathered, however, by Saturday morning, and my parents and I made the 200-mile trek north.
I was aiming to get to my apartment by three o’clock at the latest so that I could make best use of my freight elevator reservation and so that I could meet the Comcast guy to get my internet set up. The elevator situation was just fine; however, the Comcast gentleman had gotten there before three, and we arrived about 10 minutes after due to a missed turn. Plus, unfortunately, I had to fill out all of my paperwork before he could start getting to work, which made him have to wait around even longer. Yikes. Needless to say, he wasn’t too happy. BUT, Mom saved the day by mentioning our trip from Virginia Beach and, for some reason, jazz. Luckily, he’s a jazz lover and instantly warmed up to us—he even told me what radio station to check out and a club to go to if I wanted to play in a jam session. By the end, he left calling us “friends.” Awesome.
Alex... dead?
Jen and our friends (/her longtime friends from the area) Ryan, Ben, and Alex came out to help clear the U-Haul. All in all, with their aid, clearing a full truck and my car took maybe an hour, I think, which was pretty great, especially since my dad was trying to get the truck to a drop-off location before it closed. While my parents took care of the truck, all of us youngins organized and built stuff.
My parents needed to get back on the road afterwards, so we hugged goodbye and the rest of the crew and I went out to dinner at this Chipotle-esque Mediterranean restaurant called Medi. First meal in Shirlington: success. Afterwards we made use of Saturday night by going back to the guys’ place and playing Rock Band.
All in all, it was a great move-in day. Now three days [and a multi-hour trip to Ikea] later I have finally cleaned everything up and am ready more or less to be productive. I still have a few administrative tasks to complete as far as things I need to buy and take care of (here’s looking at you DMV—and not in a particularly good way, either!), but otherwise I am set. I even got a keyboard stand today and started practicing piano a bit (hooray!).
Ash Wednesday is tomorrow—a fitting day for seriously starting the musical part of this journey. Let's get to work!
