I spent the whole week (up until Friday) without any internet at home still, which was starting to drive me a little bit around the twist I have to say. And then first thing on Friday morning I realised I'd had internet since the previous evening (while I was actually at a Fringe show... although they'd only emailed me and hadn't bothered to SMS me like they were supposed to until halfway through Friday).
I also missed the bus on Friday that gets me to work at the perfect time. These two things are not mutually exclusive. But it's nice to be connected to the world again.
Last Sunday I unpacked the last of the moving boxes... granted there's still five boxes of artwork that I don't know what the hell to do with.
I looked at the stuff that had been in the bedroom drawers at the old place and thought that I may be able to get it all into one of the new drawers... clearly I underestimated the amount of crap there was, as it ended up filling both empty bottom drawers. One isn't crammed full, but at least all that stuff is away.
I also wandered over to the Village in the afternoon much as I would previously have wandered over to the 24 hour bakery in North Adelaide... only to discover that Burnside Village is in no way North Adelaide and the bakery is not going to have a full range of choices at 3pm. Partly my fault for leaving it so late and also for not realising that not all bakeries are open 24 hours. Or perhaps hoping that they may be better than they actually are. And I miss the cheese kransky sausage rolls from the North Adelaide bakery.
My main problem at the moment is that the things that haven't been put away yet don't have a proper place to put them. Especially all my tchotchkes... because I've lost certain spaces or I'm using them in different ways, and I haven't unpacked any artwork yet. So I'm undecided about what the hell to put in certain spots. I feel like this is going to be my main issue for the foreseeable future... at least until I get stuff sorted. But it's a mostly minor issue overall.
I also used my new kitchen trolley for the first time to put all the components together for my salad for lunch during the week, it works pretty well, especially as I have it right under the light in the kitchen end of the room.
This week was alternating Fringe shows (two on Tuesday and one on Thursday) with pottering around the house some more, including finally packing my recycling bin full to the brim with the discarded newspaper we used to wrap everything up. And there's still a small box left over.
I called the moving company during the week to arrange to get them to come and get their boxes and scheduled the pickup for this morning. Turned out of that one of the guys who moved me was the one who came to get the boxes... and interestingly he came in a moving van not one of the small vans like the guy who dropped off the boxes. But at least now my house doesn't have empty moving boxes shoved in every available bit of space.
My afternoon walks home aren't getting any more interesting, although I keep switching up the early part, trying to find either the best route from a shade point of view, or just the most interesting or perhaps least boring.
The search continues.
Work has generally been okay... and it's been nice to actually be able to concentrate on something properly instead of being stuck in my own head and an ever increasing sense of doom.
Today was... well, pretty average all things considered.
I got up and pottered around first thing, then got ready and pottered around some more until Ma arrived.
The fact that everything is in a different place in the new supermarket is still an issue... okay, not really an issue and not really a problem... but it's a thing. It's definitely a thing. More of an issue is the lack, thus far, of decent check out folks... we went with "pretty but dopey" boy this week... and yes he could somewhat pack a bag, but combine him being a somewhat quiet talker with a deep voice for a guy under (I'm guessing) 20, with Ma's inability to hear things half the time (seriously, we need to get her a damn hearing aid, for my sanity if nothing else), and he was essentially having a conversation with himself at certain points.
More interesting is the guy who works at Bakers Delight, who remembered us from last week and the fact that we were going to Fringe shows last weekend... but he is horrendously perky for 8am and seems genuinely interested in people, so I clearly don't understand him in the slightest.
We came back here, I pottered around and put the groceries away, then finally took the excessively long (they're more than double the length they need to be) curtains down from the kitchen window and replaced them with some net curtain I had up in the old house for the time being. I think what I might do is get the friendly dry cleaners across the way to just cut the curtains off at the right level and hem them up nicely. And if the land agent wants me to replace the curtains when I leave, so be it.
The other option of course is to find a pair of relatively inexpensive curtains myself, have them cut down and just store the ones that came with the apartment in the linen press. It's an either/or kind of thing.
Then I wanted to show Ma the rental ad for one of the other apartments in my old building. It's the one they've been working on since about November, but not with any great speed from what I could see.
And it looks nice, but it's also a two bedroom apartment and they're asking at more than I really would want to pay, plus, I just finished unpacking everything.
However I did end up scrolling through the properties for sale on the real estate website. And guess what I found...
It's also very interesting when you compare it to the photos I took... not least of all because a) they've painted the place white which makes it appear 50% brighter and b) they have all the lights on (I'm guessing with perhaps the highest wattage of bulbs they could find), and I think there's some additional lighting/camera flash.
But what intrigues me is what they DIDN'T do. They were supposed to be putting new window dressings in... I remember because not only did they come and measure when I wasn't there, but I also had to wait around for a dude from the blinds company so he could measure the toilet window. Clearly that must have turned out too expensive, so what they did instead was pull down the kitchen curtains and the bedroom curtains. They also didn't even bother to update the knobs on the kitchen cabinets, which would have made a hell of a difference to the way the kitchen looks.
I also think that the way they've shot the bedroom makes it look SO tiny. Even though that appears to be one of those small "stunt beds" like they have in Target and stuff that are really just big cardboard boxes that you put bedding on.
I do have to say that looking at the bedroom image though, I now somewhat regret not arranging my bedroom that way. Granted I think I would have essentially been blinded by the morning sun every day through Summer, but it could have worked.
And I think possibly the most interesting thing is that I don't really feel anything looking at those photos. It's very clear that the place in the photos is a million miles away from when I lived there. It doesn't make me sad, it just amuses me at how incredibly fake it looks (and how stupid the arrangement/choice of the kitchen table is in that space).
Of course if anybody wanted to buy me a really, really, really expensive birthday present and some money to tear the carpets/lino up and replace it with something sensible, put in a new air-con and replace the kitchen benches and cupboards... I wouldn't overly object.
Eventually we headed out to the city (just as the guy from the moving company showed up, so we left him to counting boxes and went on our way), as it's been a while.
Mostly we were just heading out to the Flinders Street Market, since they have "Fringe Markets" on. To be honest I have no idea what the difference is between Fringe Markets and their regular markets... it all looked pretty damn the same to me.
I also poked around the bric-a-brac stall at the back and found the tarnished old Art Deco style teapot. Is it deco? Probably not, although it could be... but it only cost me $5, so even if it doesn't completely clean up and it's a total fake or as common as sand in the desert, it's still pretty.
Then we left the car where we'd parked it and wandered down to the Mall just for a general wander. Part of that included a look around Kmart where I bought the blue reusable icecubes... how well they're going to work I have no idea, but at least they won't water down my drinks. I also might have bought a toaster if they'd had any red ones.
And last but not least, I wanted to poke around Zing, for no real reason, mostly because I like seeing what they have... and found that they had the Disney Princess and Buddies blindbox toys from Funko... so after shaking a couple of boxes to see if I could determine anything at all (short version, no), I picked one that turned out to be Princess Jasmin, in her thematically appropriate blue outfit.
After we grabbed a bite to eat we headed back here, Ma headed home and I did a few bits and pieces before heading off to see the whole Bunker Trilogy in a single night (more on that later)... I also nearly showed up half a hour late AGAIN, but fortunately saw a tweet about it that reminded me it started at 4 instead of 4:30 like I had in my head for some reason.
So I've now gone through my phone and put a reminder in for the rest of the shows an hour before they start.
In the break between the first and second shows I headed down Rundle Street to get Burger Theory for dinner before heading back. It was also nice that Herschel from work and her boyfriend were also seeing all three plays, so I got to hang out and talk to them while we were waiting, which is generally nicer than just being on your own.
Not really a bad day all things considered.
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