Monday, January 14, 2008

The Dirty South just got a little dirtier

After a week of non stop packing, driving, unpacking, cleaning, unpacking, arranging, unpacking and unpacking; we're finally settled into our new home.

Let me back up a little bit, since this all happened so fast. A little over a month ago Nancy applied for a job in Atlanta with the Atlanta Symphony. After a couple interviews we find out she got the job 4 weeks ago and she starts today. That gave us less than a month to pack, find an apartment, buy a car, and drive our crap in a huge truck from New York to Atlanta. All of this during Christmas. It was hella stressful but with a little elbow grease, a lot of plane tickets, and a lot more luck, we did it.

Nancy flew into Atlanta last week and in two days found us a great place and bought us a space ship to drive around in:

The rocket fuel is expensive, but it gets great light year mileage.

It all started her in our good old New York Apartment.

I picked our truck up Sunday morning at 9am, drove 150 blocks to our place and double parked. I asked four of my really good friends to help me move... one of them showed up. I started putting boxes in alone at around 10am and my buddy Jared showed up around 11:30 am to help out. I had loaded all the boxes in by myself by that time, so Jared helped put the really big stuff in.

Nancy flew back to New York that morning so she could ride in he truck with me. She arrived at the apartment around 1 pm.

Around 3pm we were pretty much done, so to pay Jared back for helping me, I dropped one of my paintings on his head, giving him a nice big gushing head wound. You're welcome Jared... you're welcome.

Me and Nancy picked up all the left over stuff and crammed it into our already full truck until about 4:30.

That's right folks, it took me 7 hours to load the truck. Nick not in good mood at this point. Nick starting to hulk out... ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!

Nancy is faking this smile.

We pile into the truck and head out on our journey. Nancy's friend Joann lent us her Tom Tom, to help make the drive smoother. It did the opposite at first. We get to the New Jersey turnpike and since we are in a truck we have to take the side of the highway that is for trucks only. Everything is going fine when all of a sudden the Tom Tom tells us to take the next exit. We do, because you don't argue with Tom Tom. It then makes us do a loop and puts us right back on the highway. It's a tolled highway BTW so we had to pay to exit. Once we are back on the highway and on the "Truck Side" the Tom Tom tells us to exit again. We exit, pay another toll, and do another loop getting back on the highway. At this point I figure out that the Tom Tom doesn't realize we are on the right highway, just about 30 yards to the left of it on the "Truck Side" and it wants us on the "Cars Side". Emotions boil over, things are said, faces are flush, long day gets longer.

We figure things out and continue on what, we're under the impression of, is the correct path. After about 4 hours we decide to find a place to stay for the night. The first place was 200 bucks, so we ask where to find the cheaper places. They told us and we made our way to find food and cheaper lodgings. FYI, it's very difficult to drive a 16 foot truck through a Wendy's drive thru, possible but difficult.

We end up at a Holiday Inn and crash for the night. We wake up, eat breakfast, and hop in the truck to finish out our trip. Unfortunately, while moving my overnight bag, I cut the ever loving snot balls out of my left index finger on my razer which was sticking out of the bag. It begins spouting fountains of blood, which makes me a bit queasy. So, first stop, drug store for band aids.

After dressing my wounds we are on our way. 10 hours later we arrive at Nancy's friend Joanne's house, just a half hour away from Atlanta to stay the night. Joanne was out of town but her husband Keith was there and grilled us some amazing hamburgers. It was a very welcoming and relaxing night after such a stress filled couple of weeks and days. I was just glad me and Nancy's spousal abuse bruises weren't visible and mostly emotional, or Keith might have called the cops to have us arrested. Nancy and I punch because we love.

The next day we found our way to our new home. It's a four-plex in a very nice neighborhood. Nancy hired some movers to unload the truck, thank god. These two guys did what took me 7 hours in about an hour and a half... showoffs.

It looks like we are on the second floor, but we're actually on the first. There's a basement under us. It's very hard to explain. All the other tenants enter from the front, but we go in through the back. It's awesome because there's a huge parking area that no one but us ever really uses. Oh yeah, and we have a screened in porch to rock in our rocking chairs, sip mint juleps and fan ourselves as we remark on the hot weather.


Here is our place pre-unpacked.




Here are a couple of views from our porch.


Panoramic of our living room:

Now here is our place cleaned up and shiny.





I'm in the process of transforming our screened in porch into a tiki palace. I stapled burlap on the exposed walls this weekend and am in the process of hanging up African masks and pretty much anything else I can find. If anyone out there has tiki, tribal or nautical crap they want to get rid of, please send it to me. Seriously.

Now I have to find a job and start making money so we can live the high profile Atlanta lifestyle.

One of my last days in New York I rode the subway and was alone for several stops. So I took some picks. Goodbye New York, it was fun while it lasted. Smelly, loud, rat infested, over crowded, disease covered, expensive fun.

3 comments:

Reagan said...

It's amazing how much you can hate and love NY all at the same time. Congrats on the move.

Anonymous said...

I know you, Nick. I know everything that happended isn't half as stressfull as you make it out to be, but DAMN its funny the way you tell it. I'm glad you're out of the rotten apple. I can't even imagine the way Tina and I would have handled all that crap. Good for you and the Nance-miester. I hope you are both happy and ready to "get it started in da ATL" Let me know what Tina and I can do to help you guys... anything. Love ya.

Anonymous said...

I have a ton of tiki, and its still all boxed up, but.... can I part with it?


Don't ask Lori, caus I know what she'd say. She hates my tiki.

I miss NY allready.