It's Raining, It's Pouring

Well, it wasn't exactly pouring. Just a steady rain. A steady cold rain. The temperature was about 35 degrees, and the rain just kept on keeping on.

I had rented a 10'x20' storage unit at U-Store-It in Boardman. The first unit I had was in a long building that the moving van would have had great difficulty navigating. I saw that unit on Saturday and worried about it all day. Then I went back on Monday and got a temperature-controlled unit. Access was very easy. My guy Phil was able to pull the big rig right up to the door and then there was a schlep of maybe twelve feet to put the boxes and furniture into the space.



Midway through the four hour unload, we started worrying that we would run out of space. I went up to the office and determined there was another 9'x9' unit adjacent to the first unit, so I stopped worrying. When Jim and Mike finished unloading, we had about one square foot of floor space left and didn't need the extra unit.



After offloading everything that was going into storage, we trekked to the house to offload the piano, television and clothing.



The guys reassembled the piano, then realized that the piano bench was in storage, along with the two braces for the pedals. I had not seen them come off the truck and come out of a blanket, and the local guys didn't know what to look for. Phil felt strongly that they would just have been lying on top of something.

So, back I went. Promising Boston and Ridley a trip to the mall so Jaci could go vote, I tucked a step stool into the car and drove the ten miles back down to Boardman. I stood on a stool and could see the foot of the piano bench in the far corner of the unit, about as far away and inaccessible as one piece of furniture could be. And the pedal braces? Nowhere to be found. I'll have to see if Steinway makes replacement braces available or if I'll have to find a woodworker to copy them from a similar piano.

The only damage was one leg of an antique chair, which had obviously been broken and repaired earlier in its life. And the crown on my antique armoire jiggled apart in the move. Once I get my own place, a furniture repair person can easily repair that damage.

Phil was a sweetheart, the kind of workman that you just want to hug. I'm relieved to have this task accomplished, but aghast that I have so much stuff. How did I accumulate that much stuff? And how much of that stuff do I really need?!

Okay, we won't discuss how much of it was books and fabric.

I have a bumper sticker I got at Waechter's Silk Shop in Asheville years ago. It says, "I have the most fabric and I'm not dying until I sew it."

Tomorrow: The first day on the new job.