Saturday, December 13, 2008

Piano Man


Around New Years 2007-->2008

When you have parents hire a piano mover for the piano they are having delivered you assume the piano man will be dealing with the moving of the piano, correct? Not so if it's a piano man from the Tri-Cities. My parents offered us their piano. It's the one I played on as a kid growing up--9 years of lessons--belonged to my first piano teacher, she brought it with her to the States from Japan. For Christmas 2007 Mom & Dad said as my gift they would have the piano delivered. Wonderful! My mom mentions we may want to have a few people on this end for the delivery. Too bad I didn't really take this comment seriously. If a piano is being delivered I assumed we wouldn't have to lift a finger. I was wrong. My friend Tina was in town. With Darren and I, that's 3. No problem right? Delivery was supposed to happen in the AM. I get a call about 11 from the piano man. "Where are you? I'm lost. Quality Food Center. Satellite machine. Bad trip. Never doing this again. Cell phone low on batteries with no charger". Uh, this is the guy making the delivery? Great. I figure out where he is and give him directions. This tagged moving truck pulls up. D's outside and I see him jumping into the driver's seat of the truck?! This old man is now directing him to back the truck into our neighbor's driveway (we live on a hill and their driveway is even with out front door, our own driveway is even with the neighbor's below us). The driveway is un-even so the piano is difficult to move because of the angle. Darren moves the truck to a different position so it's more level. Ramp has to crush our roses and bushes though the piano man doesn't seem to care about that. By this time we figure out that this old man is the mover. There's a gal sitting in the front of the truck but she makes no move to help. With 4 of us, 1 being 80 or so, 2 of us females, I make a call to Sean who lives just a few miles away. Thankfully he's willing to help. The old man says, "oh no, we can handle it", but he can't even unbuckle the piano from it's ropes so it's not looking good. Sean arrives. Piano Man directs D and Sean into first getting the piano to the middle of the truck, then moving it down the ramp. The piano is on a dolly so it actually moves fairly easy without having to lift much. The piano is now on our front walk. The 'mover' uses an old door as the ramp up to our front door. Seems easy enough except for the lip at the top. We kind of have to lift the front end above the lift. We push the piano into our house. When the back end of the piano gets to the lip, it gets stuck again. This time with Tina's foot wedged between the lip and the piano wheels. I'm starting to freak--great we're gonna break a runner's foot! She says it's fine and luckily we are able to back the piano up, get Tina's foot out and get the piano in our house. Not quite done though. The piano needs to be taken off the dolly. Mover tells Darren to lift his side. He does, mover tries to get the dolly out but it doesn't budge. Tells D to lift higher. Um, he's lifting a freaking piano as high as he can! After telling him higher a couple more times, he then says oh, maybe Sean should lift his end. He does and this time the dolly slides out. We wheel the piano into it's place and it hasn't moved since. Yay for friends helping out! Boo to this supposed piano mover or at least my parent's choice in a piano mover. Next time, professional piano movers.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

33


I think this will be a good year. 33 is a good number. 32 wasn't so bad either. I got a new job I get a kick out of. I traveled to Italy where a good friend of mine got married. I got engaged to a wonderful man, on a rooftop terrace overlooking Venice with lightning and fireworks in the sky. I got a dog who loves to play in the snow. My fiance's (still not used to using this term) brother had a beautiful daughter. My dad had heart surgery which was incredibly scary but he's recovered and is feeling great. D and I went to the coast in January (remember that Henry Weinhard's commercial?). I got a fancy new camera. I look forward to planning a fun wedding. I'm not a great planner so this should be interesting. I look forward to getting into some sort of exercise routine this fall and winter. I'll continue to play soccer through winter, but I will be adding yoga, snowboarding, daily stretching, weights, swimming, running... Ha, we'll see about all that. Intention has been there since D and I talked about coming into work early/staying late to work out at the IMA since we commute together now. I'd like to spend more time with family and friends and take better care of my home. Maybe have a housewarming. Document a bit more of my life here on this blog. On that note, I think I'll sign off. It's time for pizza, salad, wine, brownies for dessert, a bit of Thursday night TV, starting up the Twilight series, and snugglin' with my babe.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Farewell

All of you out there who read my blog or have ever talked to me know I was never in love with my job. Worked in a basement, politics, long commute. Well, I'm finally moving on. To what exactly, I don't know. I was there for just about 4.5 years. A long time at a so-so job. But there aren't many perfect jobs out there. I liked my co-workers and a job with a decent salary and benefits is always a good thing when you have a mortgage. I'll likely stay with UW, but am not sure what department yet. I've had official interviews with one group, an unofficial invite from another, and have heard through the grapevine that my current group actually wants to keep me. I'll be working half time for a couple weeks (another doc who took me on after we had our flood) but I hope by mid-July to be at my new job. Even without the layoff, work has been such a strange place for a while. Our lab is still shut down, it's been 6 months since the (first) flood. Work is slow, folks have been antsy. Morale hit an all time low when the layoff announcements were made. Layoffs didn't actually happen for another month after that, but the dominoes have been falling. My last day was Friday, another worker is quitting this Friday, another is finished with his PhD and heads home overseas, and a few others are hoping to get out soon. The bosses have been out of town off and on for a couple weeks at conferences. I wasn't given any instruction on who would be taking over my duties.

A few of my co-workers took me out Friday night. I was hungover for most of Saturday, but at least I remember how I got home. See if you can tell who may have had too much to drink (don't worry, he got a ride home!). Thanks for a fun night out.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Marley-Otto Update



There may be another cat in our future. This made me think of Marley and Otto's progress so far. It's still...tense. Otto is interested in Marley's every move. Marley feels the safest on her cat tower which means that's where she hangs out most of the time. Wasn't a big issue during the winter when she slept most of the time, but now that it's spring (Seattle spring=rain of course!) she does want to go out every now and then. Ding, ding, ding. As I'm thinking of this and wondering how another cat would change the dynamic in the house (tag team Otto or would it be Marley getting tag teamed?), I think of Marley's collar. It has a bell on it. A bell which broadcasts her location. A bell which lets Otto know every time she just shakes her head or jumps to another level of her tower. Duh, maybe if I remove her bell, she could actually be her stealthy self and have a bit more freedom in the house without Otto always checking on her. Took the bell off after getting home from work and she's already pushing her normal boundries. 7 months. I kept that dang bell on for 7 months!

About this other cat. A friend of a friend is looking for a new home for his Bengal cat. I've been itching for a new cat and D's expressed interest in Bengal's in the past. I am worried how Marley will take it--she already is in a stressed situation, but maybe another cat would keep the attention off of her. And maybe a Bengal wouldn't be as shy as Marley. All Otto wants is another playmate (hmmm, can our house handle another dog too?). We'll likely do a meet and greet to see how we like little Damien.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Once every 6 seasons

Had a soccer game last night. It was so cold! Start walking up to the field and the wind picks up, it's still a bit rainy. What is it with West Seattle soccer fields? A little warm-up kicking the ball around a big circle with the rest of the team helps, but I'm wearing my long pants, undershirt, gloves, and ear band for the whole game. We lost 1-2, but guess who made our goal. Yup, I did! Sam L told Sam A that it's my 1 goal per 6 seasons. Too bad that's actually true.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

2008

Okaaaaay...last year's blog post about the new year (2007) is still on this page. Guess I should add blogging to my list of resolutions. :) As I read over that post, I notice my resolutions haven't really changed. At first I was disappointed with that fact, but for the most part they are things I'd like to stick with forever, not just for a year.

SIMPLIFLY

It feels I'm constantly filling up bags to take to Goodwill, yet clutter is still an issue. I wonder if Tina was going crazy while she was here. She did keep vacuuming, I guess that's just a sign my house is dirty--furry at least! I rearranged the back bedroom which has helped how claustrophobic it felt. I can pack up the keyboard which takes up most of one wall (we now have an upright piano!).

NEW JOB
I did a lot of job searching, just not much applying. I was waiting for what? I think a sure thing. Having a big mortgage, I need security. I'm not a fan of big change to begin with. But being happy is important. I tolerate my job, but it doesn't make me happy. It doesn't excite me and that has carried over into my 'real' life.