Tag Archive: relocation

The lore of St. Joseph

Maybe I’ve mentioned it here before, but I know I’ve told a couple of people that my parents decided to sell their house. I can only imagine that it’s a difficult thing to transition from striving to buy a big spacious house to cutting back and moving into something smaller. With me out of the house, it only makes sense for them to downsize. Therefore, I fully support their decision. They need to enjoy their years instead of finding themselves entirely concerned with just paying the house off, you know?

Anyway, the process of selling the house started at the beginning of April. It seemed like things were going well. The house had a lot of showings, and a heck of a lot of the people that came by liked the house. They seemed interested and were very complimentary. My parents patiently waited for an offer to come in, but one never came. After a few weeks, the frustration was starting to kick in. I was starting to become worried myself because I didn’t want to see them go through such trouble, you know? I was telling a friend about this worry when she mentioned a little bit of related Catholic folk magic that seemed to have a following. All of it revolved around making a petition to St. Joseph who’s the patron saint of the family and home. Legend says that if you bury a statuette of St. Joseph in the ground and ask for your house to sell, the house will sell shortly thereafter. If you search the Internet, you’ll find a good amount of stories from people that believe that this worked for them. I passed this bit of lore over to my parents, and they decided to give it a shot.

On Friday morning, they went over to a religious article store and bought a small statuette. When they got it home, my father buried it in the front yard and they proceeded to make the petition. Heck, so did I. I just wanted my parents to be happy. The weekend came and went with a couple of showings, but nothing. Monday came and two families dropped by. The first one was ready to make an offer but they went well below asking price and had a ridiculous amount of conditions. Both my parents and their real estate agents were frustrated. A second family came by shortly after that was more amenable. The family’s kids were all over the house and were enjoying the deck out back. The family also placed an offer and actually went a bit over asking price. And that’s the family that sealed the deal. So yes, my parents went from having tons of showings but no offers, to having two offers on the same day.

I know, it’s going to sound a little bit insane to attribute any part of this to the lore, but for me I’m willing to believe. Why not? Yeah, it’s unscientific, and just crazy…but it’s also fun to think that this had an effect. So yeah, much gratitude goes up to St. Joseph for looking out for them. Once the deal is fully done I expect my mother to dig up the statue and put it up some place for people to see. It sure is an interested story to tell, isn’t it?

Worst. Move. Ever.

I really don’t know what made my father think that we didn’t really have to pack everything until the day before since the movers were only going to be moving the big furniture (we own the apartment ’till the end of the month). The big move came and went with problems galore.

First of all, the movers came half an hour early. The elevators couldn’t be used until 9am (building rules), so they couldn’t start right away. We were all still in the middle of packing when they arrived. We had unfortunately run out of boxes, so there were still lots of small things cluttered around the apartment. They got as much as they could out, but we eventually ran out of time. The elevator is booked in 2-hour blocks. And wouldn’t you know it, we ran out of time. We tried to continue, but eventually another group that was moving came to our apartment and said that they needed the elevator.

The guy had vodka on his breath. Fuckers.

They only said that they would need an hour because all of their client’s things were already in boxes–”not like [ours]”

Fuckers.

So yes, we allowed them to go ahead. Of course, they took the full two hours instead.

Fuckers.

In the end, my father arranged for the movers to come in a second time…today–Monday. That way, they could just load all the big necessities on Saturday, and come back for the rest on Monday when we’re a bit better prepared. Hell, I’m sure the movers don’t mind since they’re getting paid twice the amount as a result.

As we were moving things into the house, there were lots of obstacles we ran into. We had a couch and an entertainment centre that wouldn’t go downstairs into the basement. We had a couch that wouldn’t even go in the front door, so it’s now sitting in the garage until we can get the door off the hinges to get it in. The movers dented and broke a few things…like the wood on some of the couches, and the foot plate on the freezer.

These people, although somewhat nice (not really) were very unprofessional. I’m not happy.

After the move on Saturday, we had to make several round trips loading the van and taking it all over to the new place. On Sunday, it bitterly cold. It wasn’t really the cold that hurt, but it was the high wind that blew the cold air at high speeds over my hands. Pity poor me–I had to carry lots of heavy things with my hands exposed. I had to lean against the wind in an attempt not to get toppled over.

In the end, there’s still going to be lots of things left over once the movers are done today. I’m sure the superintendants in the apartment building are starting to get annoyed by it all…and who could blame them. Not many people intend on carrying out a big move over the span of a whole month.

I never want to do this again.

Unclean! Unclean!

My feet ache. I suppose thought that it’s to be expected should the weight of an entertainment centre suddenly come to lie on top of them.

I was up till about 2 am assembling an entertainment centre deal at the new house. I spent a lot of the time bitching and complaining about how I had work in the morning, but in the end I had to stay to complete the thing since it’d be hard to move in new furniture and stuff with boxes of unassembled crap lying around the floor.

I think I’m still exhausted from the whole ordeal, but I’m feeling surprisingly upbeat.

=============

Funny deal. On the way to the new house, I saw one of those church marquee signs. I’m not sure whether or not double entendres are intentional in order to get people to feel guilty or not. Oh well. This is what the sign said:

You can’t become clean unless you
admit that you’re dirty

You know, somehow I’m imagining some sort of porn movie with this very VERY naughty nurse (with cleavage spilling all over the place) “taking care” of this sick guy in a cast.

Silly me.

and two hard boiled eggs later…

This whole week has been one crazy hectic mess of waiting for no-shows and being in the right place at any time. There have been many deliveries to our new house over this past week, but two of them have failed to come to be.

Let’s start with the fridge. On Monday my father had to be at the new place with a time frame of 1 to 5. He was waiting there patiently without any modes of entertainment. He brought a stereo, but had accidentally dropped it. By 5 he called Sears for an explanation of some sort. As it turns out, they had the fridge delivered to our apartment.

Dumb asses.

Yesterday, we were supposed to have a lot of furniture delivered. Because of the volume of traffic on North America’s busiest highway–Highway 401–they couldn’t deliver on time…meaning that pushed it to today.

That left my father to keep saying over and over: por nada…

Well, what can you do. You’ve got to take events as they come, and deal with them.

This craziness will soon come to an end.

Sometime.

More like home

The house was blessed today. The parish priest from the new church that we’ll be frequenting dropped by, did his thing, and had a bite to eat.

Overall, it seems that he’s a nice guy and I think we’ll be really comfortable at our new place of worship.

Our house is slowly getting full. As things are moved in it’s looking more and more like a home. To be honest, when it was first being built it didn’t look that large at all. I remember thinking how small the place was as we walked around inside the frame. Now that everything’s done and I can see people walking around it’s suddenly large. It’s larger than our current apartment (a given), and it’s larger than our old house.

I’m only in this apartment for another week before the big move date. I think I really need to do some serious packing.

Lacked initiative

Kya…almost a week now?
Well, my voice has recovered. Monday and Tuesday were harsh. It felt like my voice was going to stay fucked up forever, but today is Saturday and I’m feeling fine.

My parents are out tonight dancing. Happy day. That leaves me here…to pack. I’ve been clearing out a lot of things in preparation for the big move (it’s two weeks away!) In the process I found some of my old evaluations from past work terms. My very first one said that I lacked initiative but that fact wasn’t a reflection of what I was capable of.

Oh, stab me right in the heart. I wasn’t particularly happy about that one. ^^ Things have greatly improved since then, and I’m glad.

It’s fun looking back at old stuff. I have to decide what to keep and what to toss. It hasn’t been too hard, but it sure is a lot of work.

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