Moving on (Pt. 5)

When you move you really can’t escape filing a change of address with the US Postal Service. Unless all you want to receive in your mail box is pre-approved credit card offers—those clowns seem to be able to find you in any circumstances. (I imagine that they & insects will be the only survivors of a nuclear holocaust.)

If you go online, which presumably completely automates the process, thus saving both labor & resources, it turns out that you have to pay $1.00 for making their lives easier. & they don’t mention this charge until you’ve already gone through the entire process of filling out your details. You think you’re done & up pops a screen saying that to verify your identity they need a credit card number…& they have to charge you the buck.

Well, that pissed me off, & since I had to go to a post office to mail a parcel anyhow, I decided I’d use the old-fashioned method: fill out their little postcard, with free postage.

Only these days, because they obviously don’t WANT you doing that; you have to go up to a counter & ask for the card. It’s not available amongst the other forms (including the vacation mail hold forms); you have to wrestle it out of a humanoid. & they’re clearly trained to discourage you—“Oh, you don’t want to do it online?”

It’s like buying condoms, or (these days) Benadryl.

It should come as no surprise from an organization that keeps upping the cost of postage (except for junk mailers like pre-approved credit card issuers) every 17 months & is talking about eliminating Saturday mail deliveries along with the next increase. But I find it really annoying that they use what’s already a cost-saving process to suck more money out of us. & I'm happy to do what little I can to foil them.

Moving on (Pt. 4)

I decided when I quit my job that I’d do a spa experience as a symbol of really sloughing off the crap I’ve been through for the past two years. So today I went to the Olympus Spa in Lynnwood for the “paradise package”: body scrub, body wrap & massage.

The scrub was worth the trip; I’m less enthusiastic about the wrap & massage. The wrap is supposed to detoxify you, but I’m not wild about being encased in plastic & goo. It’s kind of like an MRI without the atomic-powered woodpeckers.

& when it comes to massage, I don’t want some pouffy New Age laying on of hands. I want a shiatsu—something that’s going to find the real problem points &give them a Brooklyn shove out of me.

This particular place is Korean, & had multiple “earth energy” rooms, as well as soaking pools of differing temperatures. Kind of like the old Roman bath’s caldarium, tepidarium & frigidarium. Dunno about the purported benefits of the various rooms, but I do have to say that I was pretty much al dente by the time I left, & that really can’t be a bad thing.

While I was out there was another showing of my house. Since I’m scheduled to be on the road out of here a week from today I’m really hoping that this one will elicit an offer.

Meanwhile, I’m really clean, possibly carrying around fewer toxins & may sleep well tonight.

Moving on (Pt. 3)

In the category of no good deed ever going unpunished, last November I took on the temporary care of a cat belonging to one of the thousands of fellow employees. Scott quit the company & was moving back to Scotland; he needed someone to look after Fell for six months after a rabies test, so she wouldn’t have to spend time quarantined in a UK kennel.

The Brits call this the Pet Travel Scheme; essentially it means that the animal can spend the six-month quarantine period in your home after both vaccination & testing for rabies. The plan was for Fell to stay with me & then Scott would either return her to collect her or arrange to have her shipped to him. (He appealed to a group of employees on a cats email list; I was the only idiot to respond.)

It hasn’t been a totally felicitous time, as Fell didn’t like my permanent cat, Pele; so I had to keep Fell in the office when I wasn’t around. However, it was temporary, right?

Well, around May, when arrangements should have been made for the travel, I couldn’t raise Scott. No reply to any of my emails. I had to do some Internet sleuthing to find what I thought might be a phone number & have a friend of mine in England call him before he came online late June.

Oh, yes; still planning to get Fell. He’d start the machine turning…

Only next day I received a different communication: well, it’s going to cost $2500, & he can’t afford it…

Uh, that would have been good information to have before he made the grand plans last fall & roped me into caring for her.

The end result is that today I took Fell back to Meow, the shelter she was adopted from & surrendered her back to their care. So I’m the one who essentially abandoned her. She didn’t deserve that, & I feel really lousy that I’m the one she associates with it. (I just couldn’t keep her in my new place & this was never supposed to be a permanent arrangement—I was meant to be helping out for a while.)

Plus, Meow has at least six black cats I could see—Fell’s going to be one of many competing for attention.

Another Seattle event I want to forget about.

Moving on (Pt. 2)

Ah, Seattle—turns out that once you start trash pick-up service from the city, the only way it ever stops is if the house is demolished. (& since it’s linked to the water and sewer service, ditto for them.)

So the only way I can stop paying for it is when I have a name to transfer it into. That, of course, requires having someone to buy my house, so not yet.

However, here’s a particularly Seattleite twist: for the privilege of not having pick-up service, I can pay $6.85 per month.

I don’t know how they arrived at that figure, but it’s better than what I do pay now; & there's no point in asking a functionary why they're doing what they're doing.

Can’t wait to get out of this burg.

Moving on (Pt. 1)

Turns out Seattle is almost as much of a pain to move out of as it is to move in. I wasted two weeks on trying to get one of the local agents for Allied Van Lines (Western, if you want to avoid them, which I recommend) to answer some questions so I could book the move. Even after phone conversations with the owner (“Oh, this is unacceptable, I’ll talk with him.”), the rep couldn’t be arsed to call me back.

Then it turns out that “guaranteed not-to-exceed” estimates aren’t really. The estimator can give you one for ## pounds; & if the driver picking up the load decides it’s too low, he can throw a hissy fit & they’ll demand the dreaded change-order. Plus, there’s the all-purpose moving van company CYA: any further charges are COD at destination.

Of course they are.

(Finally something to make me appreciate what my Seattle employer picked up by way of moving costs. I’m sure they were charged beyond the beyond—even with whatever corporate rates they wrenched out of their provider.)

I’ve got another company booked, & I’m now waiting for the packing day on the 9th. Because my house is still showing, I can’t really do a lot by way of major organization—moving things around would make it look like I live here & screw up the staging.

I’m also trying to eat up stuff in the fridge & freezer, without actually cooking—because, again, cooking would create disturbance in the Fabric of the Stage. This isn’t a problem with berries or bread; but the lamb chops & the fish are a bit of a challenge.

Well, I just keep looking at it all as the price of the ticket out of here.

Seattle commerce

Well, dang—one of the more bizarre of Seattle occurrences has actually worked in my favor.

It’s been a matter of some wonder that you can drive around all kinds of neighborhoods and see any amount of rubbish standing on the sidewalk with a “FREE” sign attached. Evidently this is how people dispose of stuff that won’t even merit a yard sale.

(One of the neighbors put out a bunch of boulders out with a “free rocks” sign. All but one went pretty quickly; the final one sat sadly with a “free” sign for several weeks, but it’s finally gone.)

Anyhow, yesterday the Saint Vincent de Paul people for some reason took the metal storage shelf I had out for them, but not the metal-and-wood one. So I trotted the latter out to the sidewalk (I’m on an alley) and slapped a “free” sign on it.

This morning it was gone. I didn't even have time to take a photo of it.

I don’t suppose it works for men…

The RE factor

I’m in the process of upping sticks and moving to the Silicon Valley to seek my fortune. This means I’m simultaneously dealing with two categories of the dregs of humanity: realtors and recruiters.

My own real estate agent is fine (although I really wish Craig Lilly could suddenly sprout a license for Washington and see me through this process). But the number of other agents you have to accommodate for showings that never actually materialize is astounding. And then there are those who don’t seem to be able to tell when Mickey’s hands are on the hour they themselves set for the visit.

There was even one who just barged in unannounced with an entourage of clients—she claimed they were in the area and “I thought this place was vacant”. Meaning she saw the for sale sign and never bothered to call my agent. All she’d have had to do would be to look in the window to my office to realize that it’s actually, you know, occupied. Since no one would stage a place with that number of books and a cat in the armchair.

Really—if I ever decided to buy a house again, I’m not going to leave it until they carry me out in a bag and my heirs have to manage the sale.

As for recruiters—Jeez Louise. I’ve had several bites from scum running job shops; recruiting for contract positions. They trawl job sites for CVs, presumably doing key word searches. They don’t bother to read any further, otherwise they wouldn’t be contacting me for marcoms or project manager jobs.

Conversations with them are fairly consistent—there’s a carny-type fast-talking pitch for this ab-fab job, accompanied by assurances that I’m a perfect fit for whatever it is. One spattered “that’s great, that’s great” throughout the call, at least in every other sentence.

Some of the jobs require experience in areas I’ve never even heard of. In my view that reduces my qualifications considerably, but it doesn’t seem to bother them.

Basically they’re just flinging CVs at the client hoping that one of them will stick. & evidently going for quantity rather than taking time to filter for quality is the way to go.

Well, it has to be borne. &, truth be told, I see them pretty much as nothing more than a channel for job leads. They’re just humanoid versions of Monster.com. And powerful incentive to find the right job for me sooner rather than later.

Material girl

I’ve found a place to rent in San José—a townhouse in an “apartment community”. More like a freakin’ apartment megalopolis, but having walked into the model and observed how the leasing agents interact with current residents, I’m pretty confident I can live there with some degree of comfort for the ten month term of the lease I signed.

(I have to say that it wasn’t that easy finding a place in the Silicon Valley. Evidently there are so many people seeking rentals that landlords and property managers can be pretty cavalier in their dealings with prospective tenants. More than one apartment complex wouldn’t even show you the units coming available until they were vacated. This works against someone relocating from another area. It would seem that people do rent accommodations sight unseen.)

So now I have the challenge of trimming down my possessions from 2000sf to about 1300sf. (Actually, from more than 2000, because I currently have a garage. While it’s not crammed with things, its walls are lined with cartons, many of them from clearing out “clutter” for staging my place for sale.) Even though I’ve already gone through an exercise and had the Salvation army pick up two bookcases &about 15 cartons of stuff I felt I could live without

I’ve decided that this paring down isn’t a bad thing at all. I know for a fact I still have many, many things in closets and cabinets for which I’ve had no use for years. Clothes, dishes, linens. And stuff weighs you down. If you have 2000sf of possessions, you have to find a place with 2000sf of space to put them in.

I’ve already cleared out my books, and I’m down to 12 bookcases. However, I know I can put about seven or eight of them in storage, along with most of the volumes. I did this when I spent three years overseas; I can pick carefully and live out the next year with ones I’m ready to read.

Besides—I’ve already scoped out the local libraries in the San José area.

Of course, going through the sorting exercise is probably going to bugger the staging. That’ll be a bit of a trick. But I’m actually looking forward to seeing how much of this excess baggage I can leave behind me.

It’s time for unburdening. And leaving Seattle behind is the perfect occasion for doing it.

Marketing at home

I’m about to put my house on the market, which is a pain in the neck in any case. But these days, you have to Stage it.

This is an experience I’d wish only on the most disagreeable of human beings. It’s the most gobsmacking, insulting and humiliating thing outside of a frat house.

The whole object seems to be to make your house look like you moved some things in, but never actually, you know, lived there.

First, my realtor told me to clear everything off horizontal surfaces. Well, fair enough. Then she made me remove a photo of the Children of Lir statue in the Garden of Remembrance (Dublin) because “it looks prehistoric”.

Whatever.

But then The Stager got involved. My agent and The Stager were here for two hours on Friday and I’ve been clenching my jaw ever since.

She really wanted me to pack pretty much all my books, but when I told her there’d still be the bookcases around, she backed off. Instead, I’ve had to remove about half of the ones in the living room, “arrange [the remainder] by size” and lay a bunch of them on their sides. That way you can add “objects” to the shelves. Evidently so it won’t look like you actually have the books for the purpose of reading them.

(Same with my night stand: have to remove the night-time reading stack. Although they’re creating a “nook” by the window, with a chair and table, and there’ll be a couple of “colorful” books on the table.)

I’m allowed to have my coffeemaker on the kitchen counter, but that’s it. As for the kitchen island—that has to have stools and two “place settings” set up, regardless of the fact that the dining table is four feet away. Oh, and the place settings have to be “colorful”.

I now have plastic plants in my house. This is a first, and I can’t imagine what it would be about fake shrubbery that would make prospects proclaim, “Hey, honey—plastic! This is definitely the place for us!”

Turns out that “colorful” means “gaudy”. They’ve brought in orange towels and some sort of puce knobby bath mat. The dishes are to come on Monday when they reconvene. Evidently buyers have the color sense of teenagers and I have to pander to that.

(The Stager declared that there must be A Picture over my bed. I shudder to think what that’s going to look like, but I’m sure they’ll be borrowing whatever it is from a down market motel chain.)

I believe they considered having me ship out the two cats for the duration: there was some discussion that ended with a reluctant mutual assurance that “well, people have pets—they’ll understand…”

But I suppose the low-class coup de grâce is a fat plaster chef-like creature in an anatomically-improbable position. I’m guessing it’s meant to hold a bottle of (cheap-ass) wine. Whatever, it’s going to scream “cheesiness” from my kitchen counter to all who enter the house.

The realtor and staging artiste are returning to finish up their transformation of my house to something Al and Peggy Bundy would snap up. I hope to God the place sells quickly because I’m not sure how long I can live in a chiropractor’s waiting room.

Oil & water

It seems that BP’s stock price has taken a drubbing in the past couple of days, as even investors realize that the oil leak off the Louisiana coast is going to cost more than 11 human & untold animal lives.

Oh, boo-hoo.