Huhuhu, we moved :D :-P

We call it the house of bless.

Frankly I don’t know where to begin. It has been MAJOR. The house is wonderful but I am not yet at the point where I can say that I feel wonderful as well :D. I feel glimmer of the possibilities but for the most part I have been tired and stressed. I am sure I’ll feel the rewards in the years to come. But not now.

Actually I do feel better today :D. Still, roomie, the stressed soul assigned to oversee the work today, has been sending text messages every few minutes reminding me of just how stressful this whole thing has been, is. Hehehe. I hesitate to say this for fear of being said to be a drama queen, too complaining, grossly unappreciative or failing to enjoy the moment. Fax! All that may be true. Or not, since the moments have been telling me that I have been very stressed. And so I cannot help but stay stressed, in the moments. Hehehe!

But I guess what I just want to say is, this is not an easy task. And yet am not meaning that I don’t want to be in this position. Who wouldn’t? This is like a dream. Sitting in the big garage last night contemplating on the full moon, I savored the feeling of being in our own place. I realized it’s been such a looooong time since I’ve had that feeling, been in that situation where I was at our own place. Not since I graduated from high school all of eons ago.

Just that it’s difficult. Especially when there’s only one of me, and of roomie, and of our ate who helps clean and sort, and we have to deal with all this men who keep half-amused smiles on their faces thinking they’re only dealing with little girls. Thank goddess their biggest boss is a mother hen who can crack the whip if necessary. But am getting ahead of my story.

Here are some of the good and funny bits to take the edge away:

I love the kitchen/ dining area. I always thought this would be my least-liked room because it looked like it was going to be the least airy part of the house. But hey! It’s all right, and bright too. And with the tv in the other room, people in the dining room can’t help but concentrate on eating and talking with each other :-P. I like it so much, it even makes me feel like I want to start cooking! And I swear, I’ve never had that feeling before! Just the thought but not the feeling. Hahaha. Not that I want to announce that too much though because people might start expecting :-D Especially cooks I know.

Had to transport stuff five times in the last four weeks because if we didn’t do that, we couldn’t pack the rest still standing, that was how much stuff I had. There was nowhere to move in our previous apartment once we got seriously packing. But voila! Every time we transported stuff to the new place, it just ate up the stuff. I mean, it didn’t look in the least bit full at any point, that’s how spacious it is. Happy. It’s possible to breathe.

The space also means one has to take a walk just to get a glass of water! Hahahaha. This amuses me no end because I can really feel the difference, I really have to walk. In our old apartment it only took like twelve steps from the couch to the ref. Now, it’s like more more. Hehehe. I’ve never done so much walking and climbing just staying in one place. (Also because there’s no cellphone signal in the living room and I keep the phone half-way up the stairs so which means more stair time everytime my jazz sax text tone goes on.)

Then too, my former nemesis cable company came and reconnected our cable tv on the very day that we moved in. Hihihihi, how’s that for cable continuity! Three cheers for you!

By day two at new house, I had unpacked the coffeemaker. Extremely good news.

For the not so good stuff:

Armed and Dangerous
On Friday, after delivering a jeepney’s worth of stuff to the house, HB and I went to SM to pick up the aircon. It could not be delivered because I couldn’t say for sure when there would be someone to sign for it at the house, and I wanted it delivered just when it could be installed. On the way back, along this sidestreet with an urban poor community to one side, traffic stopped by three men (two in uniform) wielding machine guns! Moving about, shouting, wielding their guns menacingly as if they had just fired it and were about to fire again! HB and I were frightened they or whoever it was they were targeting would hop into the jeep and take off with us and my aircon in it. Or else surely if they fired we were very vulnerable as a jeep is a very open vehicle. Luckily when traffic moved, the jeepney sped thru. (All this time, I was pleading with the driver to back the jeep but he could not as traffic was also stopped behind us.)

Feeling Bratty
On Saturday, after three intense days of packing and moving and little sleep, I was my most-tired, at-the-end-of--tether self when we finally packed an elf truck full of the-last-of-it-all. At that point, I didn’t care if we just upped and left, nevermind our belongings. I only wanted the two pillows I had hung on to, dust mites and all. Actually, by then I just mostly stood or sat and pointed which went where. I had no more energy left to clean up and unpack. I mostly frowned and sighed and ordered food. I stress ate and frowned some more.

And the blank hit the fan :-P
Then too, could not really do much when we moved in because so many things still needed to be done that hampered the unpacking process ;-). Couldn’t jazz up my bathroom with this hole in the ceiling done to check out a leak. Couldn’t unpack my clothes because the closet needed extra rods. Worried about the aircon installation as the unit wasn’t draining. Could not replace the energy consuming light bulbs as that needed a ladder. Could not fix books because the bookshelf needed assembling. Could not store away half the kitchen stuff because the kitchen counter was still a shell.

It was all the more frustrating because the foreman with whom I was coordinating wasn’t sending on pertinent information. I had been counting on the fact that there would be people to work on the things that needed to be done that Friday afternoon, Saturday morning and first thing Monday. However, people had gone home to their province on Friday at lunch because of the typhoon. That’s fine, of course, but I only discovered that fact, wasn’t told of it, and spent the weekend in a stew wondering if they could work on Monday, my only free day left from the office. The foreman refused to reply to text messages. The list was long, the wait long, and the answers not forthcoming.

The foreman stopped by at 9 am on Monday and dropped off the kitchen cabinet doors. He left again and didn’t say for sure what was going to happen that day. Said he was looking for the plumber and the carpenter. I texted him the list that needed doing and asked if he could give me definite answers on people and times so I could at least feel reassured that something was going to happen since I had been waiting for information and results from him since Friday. He texted back after lunch, his message implying that I was some classist heartless bitch who could not understand that people needed to go home to their families because of the floods, and that if I needed anything I should just go next door where the workers were staying and ask for help.

His text message drove me to tears. I felt so wronged, I sobbed uncontrollably for an hour. I could not help it. First of all I’m not at all hard to please. I have always been direct and clear in communicating with these people. I simply wanted someone straightforward to work with on this house thing, particularly as it’s not easy. I hardly know anything about this, and Capricorn-like, if only I could --paint, drill, install aircons, locks, rods, heaters and so on and so forth -- I would. I wanted straightforward answers and information from him because he is the foreman, he’s the one in charge of the people who are working on the house. And in the first place, why do I have to go chasing after him for information and assistance as if I was the one who owed him, and needed to beg when we have paid for the house and the service as we should. The developer assured me of all assistance that I needed. In fact, I have been careful not to abuse this offer.

I asked the Mrs, the developer to intervene, telling her that I was having difficulties talking with her foreman. He arrived back after an hour, and I opened the gate, red-rimmed eyes and all, shaking from anger, and went into this huge screaming tirade telling him not treat me that way, and that I didn’t deserve insults when all I wanted was someone straightforward to talk to. Not someone who would just brush you aside, and leave you wondering, till you want to shoot him the next time you see him.

Fortunately, he apologized profusely, and after drinking glasses of water to calm me down, I told him to go ahead and have the men over to do the work. After another hour, the Engr., his boss, came and started inquiring about the things that needed doing. They were stood there planning, and setting deadlines, and I said wait a minute, you need to coordinate this with me, as you should have done, because no one is going to be in the house on some days. And in this macho overbearing I’m-a-man-and-I-can-do-this-you-need-not-worry-your-pea-brain-or-get-all-emotional way, he brushed aside my complaints about them not coordinating properly. Having had enough of his overbearing attitude from the day I first met him, I put my hand up to his face and said wait a minute, you have to listen to me. You can’t brush aside what I have to say about my experience with you all because these are valid concerns and I want them recognized.

I guess I hurt his pride, a little girl like me disrespecting an engineer like him coz he went storming up the stairs and commanding the foreman in this loud voice, "Ok finish this by Friday, we have to finish this by Friday (implying that they didn’t want to have anything to do with me by Friday.)"

By this time, it was getting funny. I put the engineer in a temper, hihihi :-P. So I waited for him to calm down while he commanded his men about, and then followed him upstairs where they were doing stuff. By then he had calmed down too, and we started talking calmly and straightforwardly about all the things that needed doing.

As we should have done from the start. If only they didn’t carry around this attitude with them that this little girl need not be taken so seriously!!!! Well @#*@ really!!!!

In the middle of the afternoon there were like 8 men swirling around the house doing many things simultaneously – fixing the aircon, doing the shelves, doing the leak, putting in bulbs. See what can get done if only people do their work as they should. And now I know who to talk to for each specific task.

Well hopefully, things settle down by the end of this week, and I can start beaming :-), not just wait for happiness to catch me unawares.

P.S. Incidentally, my horoscope this week says this about yesterday: On Monday there is a Full Moon in Pisces in the communications section of your chart. This is likely to blow one or two conversations out of all proportion, and facts may get lost in an emotional haze. The Full Moon is also in opposition to Mars, and this could mean that tempers become frayed if things aren't 'just so'. If you feel yourself getting annoyed, then be prepared to stand back and count to ten.

*GRIN.*