February 12, 2008

Don't worry, really, I'll be fine.

So we signed the lease and two days later, our stuff was delivered and I spent the better part of 8 hours, checking off boxes and suppressing my horror at the condition of some of our belongings.
How the Hell do you snap the leg clean off a teak bench and crush and splinter one side of it's ornate back (after wrapping it in cardboard and packing thick enough that a drop from a ten-story building should have left it undamaged) and yet deliver intact and unharmed a 100 year-old leaded glass window that is wrapped in one lousy piece of cardboard? I guess the same way you manage to totally shatter a marble art deco clock in a box clearly marked FRAGILE. The dip-shit express didn't stop there, it seems Aduana (customs) did it's share of mucking things up too. It looks like they opened about 30 boxes, took out a bunch of stuff, kept some of it, broke some of it and generally re-arranged all of it. Now I know for next time: when they ask you if you'd like to be present when customs ransacks inspects your boxes, BE THERE. Those goobers repacked my box of hand-blown glass Christmas ornaments by shoving it down into a box with our toolbox, drill, a pet carrier and some metal shelving. Guess what? I have some little bitty shards of colored glass I'd like to sprinkle in someone's gallo pinto now. I cried over that one. Not all broken, but enough to make me really pissed off when I called the movers office. Thankfully the woman we've been working with was very understanding and pretty annoyed on my behalf. We'll be doing a full tally of the damages next week when they send out a rep. For now, all I can do is wonder what happened to the top of the ceramic and pewter pumpkin my aunt gave me and what fate was met by two of my set of four small china boxes.
The fun didn't stop with the movers though. The next day, because we are fools, we surprised India with the kitty she's always wanted. I've never had a cat. I'm a dog person. Cats freak me out. Cats, to me, have always been sneaky, mercurial, nasty little creatures that creep around your house, tolerating you only because you have food and just waiting for an opportunity to kill you by suffocating you in your sleep or tripping you on the stairs. Dogs are sappy and obvious and love you to pieces just for showing up. India named the kitty Lenore. (India likes Poe's The Raven and some creepy cartoon called Lenore: The Cute Little Dead Girl. Goth at 5. I can hardly wait for 15...) Lenore decides that very first night that wrapped around my head is a good place to sleep. I wake up with teeny claw marks on my cheek. She's going to suffocate me, I know it.
We pick up Lulu the next day and Lu is not happy about the mandatory potty walk or the new house-mate. Lenore greets her by hissing and swatting at her. What a good start. Fortunately, Lulu is totally passive and most likely Lenore will get to be the alpha-dog....at least until I get my chihuahua.
Anyway, so we get all our stuff and we start to settle in and we find out that we will be without internet for at least two weeks, Tom is going out of town and I'm feeling kinda woogy. Just perfect. My first week in the house and do I spend it unpacking? Nope. I spend it with a house full of boxes, no cable or internet, a bored kid, a pissed off dog, a new kitten and a fever of 102 - with puking. Tom finally got back and we got cable and Internet but, not before I got sick again and India contracted ringworm from the kitten. Dogs don't give you ringworm.
I'm feeling better now and the dog and cat are getting shaved. Ringworm is treated rather easily with anti-fungal cream and, after initially coming unglued about having something that must have seemed like leprosy to my slightly neurotic child, India is now enjoying her joke "there's a fungus among us" when she snuggles into bed.
I spent today drugged on Theraflu and being dragged all over town for fingerprints and photos for immigration. I probably spread my strain of flu from one end of San Jose to the other. (If anyone else gets sick it's my pal Justine's fault - she made me stop carrying Purell.) For as jungle-outpost-y as some of the government buildings were that I saw today, the people were very nice and fairly efficient. I was very impressed by the fact that at the little sink on the wall outside the fingerprint place there was a small cylindrical bar of striped pumice soap perfect for taking the oily ink off my hands. India likes that everyone seems determined to fawn over small children and she is always offered candy. Hey, I'm a sucker for the little stuff. I like this place. Sure, some of it scares the crap out of me, but Hell, some things back in Miami used to do that too.