My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad 2 Weeks (Part I)

I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day... I think I'll move to Australia. - Alexander

One of my favorite books in the world is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Probably because Alexander's day resembles my entire life... on a good day as shown from the opening passage listed above.

To begin on a bright note, I am still very much alive and kicking... er screaming inside from the asininity that has engulfed my life. This is good, considering that there was one day last week when I actually refused to drive home for fear of my imminent demise from a mack truck plowing into me at 60 mph while I was stopped correctly at a red light. It was just that kind of day.

The fated 2 weeks began with my husband running errands after work on Monday briefly returning home to put some groceries in the refrigerator and then loading up the car with boxes for another trip to the new house (we hired movers, but my husband insisted that the 45 trips we took in my car saved us time and money because "movers always rip people off." Lets just say that led to a strong series of arguments, but that's later in the story.) Back to two Mondays ago: After being inside the house for about an hour packing stuff up, we began taking boxes out to the car. I was loading mine in on the passenger side while my husband was standing there staring. This is one of my biggest pet peeves - people standing still, staring. So, I was like "Is there a problem?" He didn't answer, just gave me a look. I was like "Oh sh*t, did someone hit my car?" Thinking that that could not be possible considering that in only 3 nights we would be permanently residing in our new house with assigned parking spots. He very slowly said "Yeah, I think so."

"WHAT?!?!?!"

You probably could have heard me scream in Alabama.

I exhibited my full range of curse words right there in the parking lot... including some lovelies my husband reminded me of from South Park the movie. That does make me smile. It's not often you can use "Barbara Streisand" to signify a word worse than other select 4-lettered ones. All of which were screamed at my mostly innocent neighbors sitting inside trying to enjoy the Bachelorette finale in peace. I'm just guessing... but they all seem like the people who would watch that show... completely seriously, without having any clue as to why that show is nothing but ironically hysterical. Alas.

It took me a few days, but I slowly got over the hit and run since it was "only cosmetic damage." To my BRAND NEW CAR. But anyway, enough yelling at the Internet. I'm over it as much as I ever will considering I can hold a grudge for years. I'm the kind of person who if I believed in reincarnation would actually probably take that grudge with me until I eventually received my karmic appointment as a dung beetle and had such a small brain than I could not longer remember the previous offense of my very distant human life.

That's when my computer decided to just stop working. And lose most of my work from Monday. And other random files I'm not even cognizant of because I haven't needed them yet. That's the great thing about that little present... it keeps on giving! Every time I need a different file created more than 2 weeks ago it's a complete craps shoot as to whether it will in fact be on my computer or on my new external hard drive. Except for the fact that if it is indeed on my external hard drive I probably couldn't even figure that out because my computer will not recognize the drivers of the external drive despite multiple installs and various cartwheels and sacrifices to the computer gods I made last week.

The computer has at least been operational, so I'll leave it alone for now. I know it hates me and will do everything in its power to destroy my professional life, buy hey. At least I'm on to its game now.

I spent several days messing with the computer and on day three I had a complete breakdown. Sobbing, hysterical fit actually. I fully believed that I no longer deserved to live due to a combination of my personal and professional uselessness and the universe's obvious attempt to smite me. However, on the up side, when I chided it to "go ahead and strike me with lightening you mother f-ing universe," it thankfully did not oblige. The episode lasted for about 2 hours, but really had me worn out the rest of the day. So, I got even further behind on packing which did not do anything to diminish my stress level.

Then Thursday came along with the movers who were, let me say it, AMAZING. The best movers, perhaps to ever have walked the planet. The angels of movers who completed the job on time and gently packed my furniture and got it up my incredibly narrow staircase without so much as a scratch on the wall. I wish I could say the same for the contractors...

This, while incredibly justifying to me personally, did nothing to ease my frustrations at the universe, or very tangibly at my husband for insisting that they couldn't take anything breakable or that we could lift ourselves. Out of 70 boxes, the movers only took 30 to give you an idea. That would explode primarily on Saturday though, so we're getting there, no worries!

Thursday evening was a bit crazed since half of our belongings were in the house and the others still in the apartment. The most frustrating thing was that I had to get up Friday morning and go work from my empty apartment because the washer and dryer were getting picked up from the rental company. I had left myself a desk chair, a step stool, and a 12 inch TV so I wouldn't kill myself sitting in that dirty, virtually empty apartment all day long. I was in a frantic state trying to get my laundry list of work completed before being off for the next week. I'm honestly not sure if I've ever worked that fast before, but it sure felt great to be done. Despite the fact that the appliance warehouse man was incredibly creepy... I couldn't tell if he wanted to hook up with me or come back later on and steal the rest of meager belongings remaining in the apartment. He actually asked me if there was anything I wanted to get rid of... I guess my 7 year old 12 inch TV holds more value than I realized.

After my marathon day, I then had to pack another car load to bring over to the new house. While my husband piddled around. He likes to do that, even if he doesn't realize he's doing it at the time. That was almost another marriage dissolver. It took me about 45 agonizingly hot minutes to load the car including cleaning up an over-flowing coke left in my car the night before. There's nothing like having sugary sludge all over your body whilst trying to load a car when it's 95 degrees outside, let me tell you!

I got home, and I think that's when the unloading... of pent-up emotional frustration - began. It might have been when we returned to the apartment later that night to "finish packing." I can't really remember at this point. That did not go well. At least for me. I had had it completely and was exhausted. I was not so nice to my husband about my feelings either. We got home and decided to sleep later than we had planned, resulting in us not getting to the Comcast store until about noon on Saturday. I felt sick that day, but was along for the ride because we were about to pick up our puppies. The line at the Comcast store was 3-4 hours - winding in through the store and outside for quite a ways, so we decided to screw Comcast for that day and go get our puppies.

Picking up the puppies actually went pretty well. Except you'll notice that I call them puppies. That is not in fact a term of endearment. They are much younger than we were told and their behaviors reflect this. We were told we were getting fully crate trained puppies with exemplary behavior who we would need to work with, but mostly only on advanced things like commands for "sit, heel, fetch, etc." Not the basic involving crate training, potting training, and socialization with other dogs. I love my puppies dearly and am still glad to have them, but pissed as hell at the organization we adopted them from for not being upfront with us. We don't have the time, energy, or money to devote to intensive training and now we're stuck with two dogs whose behavior problems alternate on a daily basis. I must say that they are genuinely very good with other people and especially good with young children. Thank God. They just hate other dogs with a passion. And one is fully crate trained, but the other is not. We're working on getting them into training, but as with every thing else in my life it will not be easy. They certainly do love me though. It's really hard to stay sad or in a bad mood when you have two beautiful puppies clamoring for your attention and showering you with kisses from the moment you walk in the door. So, in all, I'm still very glad we got them. They're just going to be much more of a challenge than I anticipated.

The first night we had them was pretty funny - we were originally going to leave them downstairs in their respective crates (more like kennels - they are wire.) Well, we turn off the lights and go upstairs only to hear barking. We go down, let them out, go back to bed. We do this again at 2am. Maybe before? I can't remember... it happened multiple times before we decided to bring them upstairs. They were scared and agitated by this point - new surroundings, sirens going off on the main road nearby, a thunderstorm, city noise. So, I took Zsa Zsa with me in bed (she cuddled all night long and was very good from that point) and my husband slept on the floor next to Eva's crate. Since she's legitimately crate trained, she actually feels safer being in there than out. Now they sleep in our room, but always in their respective crates.

Back to the drama... Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were spent cleaning and packing the old apartment. Monday, we went back to Comcast in the morning, stood in line for only an hour and dropped off our old equipment and picked up our new boxes. This went about as well as could be expected, although why it is so inordinately difficult to pass out boxes that are already paid for and entered into the computer I will never understand. I guess 1st grade reading and arithmetic levels are too much to ask these days. So, we were leaving and decided to get lunch at the CFA drive thru. Well, we ended up having an argument to end all arguments in my car sitting outside of Wal-Mart next to the Comcast store after getting our CFA. Very mean things were said. Voices were raised. Tears were shed. It was not good. I would typically say that that is the most upset I've been since I can remember, but then came Tuesday. It certainly cleared the air though, but certainly left me feeling pretty dejected. I've always heard that putting up wall paper with your spouse is almost certain to be a marriage breaker. I think moving for almost a month is worse. We did make amends though, but it still was awful at the time.

After the argument we were both pissed and drained, but life had to go on. And, we were supposed to be leaving for vacation Tuesday afternoon. Things were looking up despite the cleaning we had to do in the apartment still being ahead of us. We packed up more Monday night (my husband referred to packing/moving at this point as Purgatory. I also like to think of it as the wandering through woods scenes in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Painful, never ending, tedious, and generally anguishing for everyone involved.)

And then there was Tuesday.

Dear sweet baby Jesus, what a day. An epic day of sorts. I also forgot to mention that my husband had found a petrified frog in my car while he was unloading on the weekend. He said, "You see, your bad luck is now over!" I gave him a look like he was insane and said, "Now, why would that be the case?"

"Because I got the frog out. (Obviously.) It was a voodoo frog that was cursing you, but now I threw it away so the bad luck will leave you alone."

"Oh, I see. Thanks for that stellar logic. And for now making me think that out there I have some random enemy who has a scary little doll of my image and is sticking pins into me and then apparently making Popsicle stick houses and throwing them on top of me from about 40 feet up."

Turns out, unfortunately I was way more in tune with what was going on.

Tuesday starts out fairly adventureless. We get up. We walk the dogs. We eat some breakfast. Husband leaves to run to the store before the apartment, I finish getting ready and head over there only to see a missed call from the hubby. I call him to be greeted with, "We have a problem."

"Oh really, what kind of problem? I knew there was mold in that apartment..."

"No, I just talked to Stan [what I will be calling the contractor for the purposes of this blog.] He said that the Feds just raided Taylor, Bean, Whitaker (our mortgage lender) and are closing them down for TARP fraud."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Nope."

"Okay, I'll meet you at the coffee shop so we can get online and figure this out. I just can't believe it. Wait... crap, I need to drive, there's a giant tree in the road in front of me!"

I kid you not, as I was hearing the abysmal news, I almost was taken out by a fucking tree. Thankfully, no one appeared to be hurt and I could just turn around and go back from whence I came. I then went to the coffee shop to read the headlines and inform my dad of my bad luck. Of all people in the world, there is no one who understands bad luck like him. I certainly wish this was not the case, but in times like this it's at least nice to have someone to commiserate with who genuinely understands.

Well, this is where the story gets complicated... and it's far from over, so I'll leave you with Part I for now.