Things I did this week include taking a Tarot class (Thursday) and attending a new meetup, this one on RDNA, or Reformed Druidry (Friday). Both were at the Brew.
But it's Saturday that I want to talk about.
I don't remember all of what I've mentioned here before, so I'll fill in. I know that I've mentioned Dresha, Bear's best friend, and a friend of mine. Dresha has been married (for some years now), but her marriage pretty much ended a few years ago when her husband flaked out. He'd disappeared, then came back, and they'd been living together, but not really as married spouses anymore. She's been moving on with her life...to some degree. Recently, she finally decided that it was really time to move on. She filed for divorce--apparently she will be free again the day after Valentine's Day.
One reason that she waited so long to take this step is that she loved the condo they shared. She can't afford it on her own. Her recent decision to finalize the divorce meant another decision, to move out of the condo and into a place that she could afford. She chose to move back into an apartment complex that she and her husband had lived in 5 or 6 years ago.
I knew that this was coming up, but I hadn't heard more. Then, earlier in the week, I asked Bear if she was going to the Yule Ball (at the Brew) on Saturday. She said that she wasn't sure, but probably not, since she'd likely be too tired after working to move Dresha during the day. Shawn and Jacob would be helping too. I was a little surprised that I hadn't heard anything before this about the timing of the move, and surprised that I hadn't been asked to help. I was a bit disappointed, too, that I hadn't been asked. But I knew that Dresha might be tender emotionally about the move and the reason for the move, so I figured that she had only asked a few people, those closest to her, to be with her on that day. Granted, I was more disappointed at this thought, that I wasn't close enough to her at this point. But that's for each person to decide, who's closest to him or her. So I said nothing to Bear or Dresha about any disappointment. And because I figured that this--not being asked to help--was a decision that Dresha had made, I didn't offer to help, let it be.
(I admit that there was some selfishness on my part, in wanting to be there and help. What with the weather and other stuff coming up, I hadn't seen Bear since Thanksgiving. When I found out that Bear would be doing this move and not going to the Yule Ball, I lost interest in the Yule Ball. So I was especially disappointed that I wasn't going to be seeing Bear on Saturday.)
Then on Saturday, before noon, I was getting ready to run some errands, possibly head over to the Brew later for the Yule Fair (which was to precede the Ball). I'd already responded with a "good luck!" to a posting Dresha had made on FB about the move. I thought I'd send a "good luck!" to Bear as well, via text. She responded back quickly, saying thanks, and that if for some reason I was free and wanted to help, they could use another set of hands. (She knew that I'd still been thinking about going to the Ball, but not that by that point I'd pretty much written it off.) I said sure, and made arrangements to meet them at Dresha's old place.
They were just about to get to moving stuff out and into the rental truck when I arrived. As Bear had previously indicated, the other helpers (besides Bear and Dresha herself) were Jacob and Shawn. I was shown around the condo (now in disarray), and briefly got to meet Dresha's cat (who was cooped up for the day in the bathroom, so we could leave the condo door open). But soon, we started loading stuff onto the flatbed roller, and into the shopping carts residents would leave by the elevators, and rolled them to the elevators, and down to the truck. (Bear--looking cute with her curly hair tied up in pom-poms--took care of the closest at this time.)
Early on, I have to admit that I overdid things. I was out of breath and sweaty and pulled my back a little at one point. But either I learned to pace myself better as the day wore on, or my body got used to it. I held my own in getting things moved and in coming up with ideas of how to move them. And there was joking and fun in the work, even if it was exhausting.
Not that everything went smoothly. The television was one of the last things to be loaded (into Dresha's SUV instead of the rental truck). It was big and heavy. But Dresha pointed out that the stand it was on had rollers, and perhaps the TV could simply be rolled out on that instead of hefted to the flatbed roller or whatever. So we tried that. The thing is, the stand was triangular in shape. Likewise, the layout of wheels was triangular: there were three of them. This proved not to be very stable for moving the TV along. Especially with all the garbage on the floor. We weren't exactly sure what happened. All I know is, less than 12 feet on, I felt the stand shift every so slightly away from me. Due to the instability of the triangular shape, and the heaviness of the set...one little shift in the weight and the momentum was unstoppable. The television continued to shift away from me...until the whole thing fell over onto the floor. It hit Shawn's leg. (Painful for a moment, but nothing serious enough to keep him from continuing with the day.) And it hit the hardwood floor, face down. Argh. We though, disaster. However, there hadn't been any loud shattering of glass, any implosion from the vacuum inside. We righted the set. There was damage to the plasticky frame, but nothing evident in the glass face. We slid it over to the wall, and plugged it in. After a few moments...snow. It appeared to be working. (Though I guess we won't really know until Dresha plugged an HD converter or cable or something into it.
The sun was already starting to go down by the time we drove over to Dresha's new place. She'll now be on the fourth floor, facing downtown. This time we didn't have carts to load boxes and such onto the elevator, but this part was smoother anyway. (Though, we were already aching, and my fingers were starting to protest against grasping things.) Before we finished, Dresha was ordering pizza, and it arrived not long after we'd moved the last box into the apartment. We sat on the floor of the apartment and nommed hungrily. (Dresha also says she'll take us all to dinner after the holidays.) Shawn distributed Advil for the aches we'd soon be having.
(During some of this time, Jacob was being demonstrably affectionate with Bear. I tried my best to avoid noticing. I did notice that Bear didn't seem to be returning all that much of it.)
We hadn't actually gotten everything in the truck, though. So after dinner, we headed back over to the old apartment, grabbed most of the rest of the remaining stuff. (Dresha chose not to move her computer and computer desk yet. And she may be giving the refrigerator to Bear and Jacob.) And...back over to the new apartment to unload the very last for the day.
By the time we were finished, Jacob and Shawn were already working to put Dresha's bed frame together. Dresha left to go clean out the rental truck. So Bear and I got to chat a little on our own. (Not freely, since the other guys were just in the bedroom.) Bear said thank you for coming to help out. And...she said that Dresha had meant to ask me--that I was the only other person she'd felt close enough to to want help--but had just forgotten. Good enough. (I couldn't help but notice that the group was also basically all of the folk Bear is closest to, in the local area at least.)
I left feeling that, exhausting and achy as the day had been, it had been a good one. Because it had been with friends.
accomplished
hungry
awake
busy
amused![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
silly
tired
blah