Moving and Grooving

At the end of the week, I was in a total panic. We were not ready for the movers by a long shot-- half of our stuff was packed, the other half strewn around the apartment as if a tornado had just hit. Both Deb and I were totally and utterly exhausted, both from the strain of getting ready from the movers, my show opening & her show closing and the stress of dealing with our deadbeat landlord. I thought it might just not happen, that I might just sit down and cry and give it all up.

Thankfully I have an amazing group of friends who are incredibly supportive and (as I discovered on Sunday night) really great packers. Who knew?

After the show Sunday night I bribed Amanda McKenna, AJ and Melanie over to our place with beer and pizza and we packed and got drunk. Surprisingly enough, it was the most fun I'd had in a long time. I enjoyed their high spirits and superb box labelling techniques. (Today I discovered a box marked "VERY IMPORTANT: ALCOHOL") Naturally I had to document this event photographically...


Amanda was in charge of packing the kitchen:

AJ and Melanie busted out the bathroom and some of the living room (teamwork!):


Labelling is very important when you move:


Wow. And this isn't even all of it:


Hyde gave us a hand, gobbling up any food we dropped on the floor:


Look! It's snowing!

And boy, oh boy, did it snow. We got around a foot of snow, which is a lot for Philadelphia. The snow continued all through the next day, our moving day. But thankfully the guys of Mambo Movers didn't seem to mind at all.

I must take some time to plug Mambo Movers. They were INCREDIBLE. Right on time, three hipster-ish boys showed up at our door, courteously introduced themselves, and then got right down to business. These guys busted their asses. I've never seen anything like it. Deb and I are so used to the stress and physical pain of moving ourselves, we didn't quite know what to do. We simply stood in our living room and watched as they hoisted 3 or 4 boxes at a time ON THEIR BACKS and trotted down the stairs as if it were no big deal. Which, I suppose to them, it really wasn't a big deal. And when we got to the new apartment Deb and I stood in the kitchen as they came up with boxes and furniture and simply directed traffic. I think all I said for an hour was "living room", "bedroom", "spare room" and "bathroom".

When they left, Deb and I stood in our new apartment and were utterly amazed and grateful and relieved. For all the stress and worry leading up to it, the actual move was so shockingly easy that it didn't seem real.

Of course we had to celebrate, so we invited Mel & AJ and Lindsay & Carrie over to check out the new digs. Linds & Carrie brought the dogs, so Hyde had some company too!

Lola is fascinated by AJ's conversation:

Lindsay & Carrie snuggle on our new futon (bought from the previous tenant for only $50, so now we have a place in our apartment for friends to crash!):


The dogs took turns competitively napping (here Max and Hyde show us how it's done):


I want to send out a huge thank you to our wonderful and supportive friends (both here and long distance) and family, who have helped us enormously during this very stressful time. We couldn't have done it without your encouragement and love.

Another huge shout-out to Mel, AJ and Amanda for their awesome packing skills. And if you're in the Philadelphia area and thinking about moving, HIRE MAMBO MOVERS. They're extremely professional, pretty cheap, wonderfully polite and all together a great company. Totally worth not having to cart all of your stuff around yourself.