Where to begin

I can’t believe I’ve gone without an update for this long. Funny how a blog starts out with a couple posts a month and then suddenly you find yourself trying to dress up your life to make it more appeasing for the web. Obviously I’ve been pretty busy with the move these days. Thursday I was supposed to pick up the keys, but forgot my checkbook at home, so we rescheduled for Friday. When I called during work, Amber (half of our new landlords, Nigel being the other) said she would be home at 5. That sounded good to me, as I could race down to Montclair, exchange checks for keys, and come back up to finish things at work. But of course there had to be a hiccup somewhere in that plan.

Friday was also Anita’s last day at work – she’s probably the only one there who’s ever commented on this blog, so you might even recognize the name. She was my first officemate when I started working here, and even though they moved her up to Boonton and put me in my own closet office, there’s still that special bond you develop from whiling away the hours bitching about random annoyances. So I headed up to Boonton to have a goodbye lunch with her and a few other coworkers (and of course to actually do some work). It turns out that a bunch of them were also meeting up for drinks at 5. That was really going to put a kink in everything, especially since Joyce was going and I wanted to hang out with her a bit before her last day on Tuesday.

Just before 5 I hoped in my car and bolted down to the new apartment. I exchanged pleasantries, checks, and keys with Amber (and a big hug – they gave us a bottle of wine, and are just super-nice people). At that point I decided that the timing was out the windows and it would be silly for me to not unload a few things while I was there. That meant that all of a sudden it was almost quarter to six and I still had work and drinking to get to. Well, the work wasn’t going anywhere, but you never know about the drink, so I headed straight to the pub. Now, before you think I bailed on the work that pays for the drink, my current little project just needed to be done before Monday morning, so I simply decided to make this my first weekend to actually go into work.

Much fun was had at Poor Henry’s, spending most of my time talking to Amy and Joyce, not to mention Ray and a sizeable crowd from that facility. Fortunately Lisa was still at her sisters when I called, so I just ordered some chicken fingers and another pint before heading out for the evening. That lead to an early bedtime – which was good because Lisa and I were going to take some things over to the new place on Saturday.

Saturday was a pleasant enough day to do some work. We both love the look and feel of Montclair, and as for the apartment… I’ll just have to post some pictures soon so you can understand how wonderful it is. It’s a nice feeling once you actually get some things put away in a new apartment – it slowly starts to feel like yours. So we hung some clothes, put away some books, and ate a sandwich we brought all the way from Fiore’s. After conducting a quick walkthrough we also took a brief tour of the immediate neighborhood. Did I mention that our place is bordered by a little brook with a basketball court and 4 tennis courts on the other side? Yeah, you’re starting to get the picture. We’re also only a block away from Montclair High School and it’s beautiful ampitheatre (where I saw 13 Hands perform – who, oddly enough, is currently playing on Winamp).

Afterwards was a “quick” trip to Target. Lisa dropped me off at work to do my thing and then headed across the street to pick up some of the necessities (which for me included a copy of The Bourne Identity). I worked for about an hour to get some systems finished and then walked over to complete our shopping. By the time we were all finished and had put everything away at the apartment, it was somewhere in the vacinity of 9 pm and we were both starving. Of course, still getting used to the trip between Montclair and Hoboken, I accidentally got on 78 West instead of East. “Let’s go to Madison,” I proclaimed, and off we headed in search of dinner. Unfortunately, there aren’t exactly a lot of restaurants in Madison that would appreciate people who looked like they had spent the whole day moving (especially with me wearing jeans and an Eagles jersey). Eventually we found a diner and that hit the spot.

Sunday Lisa and I took Brian to the Gaslight for brunch (sorry Mike, you left too soon), and enjoyed some really awesome food (including possibly the best bacon I’ve ever had). The rest of the day would have been really nice for kicking back and relaxing, but instead we headed out towards Fairfield again to look for some furniture. Sadly, the best couch we saw was the very first one, which made the rest of the endeavour seem pointless. At least we dropped by Target again to pick up a tennis racket for Lisa (we found one that donated to the Breast Cancer Recovery Foundation) and some CDs for me in my continuing effort to pick up all of the classics I’m missing – Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Dino: The Essential Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole’s Greatest Hits this time, after grabbing The Very Best of The Beach Boys, A Decade of Steely Dan, and We Sold Our Soul for Rock and Roll a week ago.

Wow, that seems like a long update now – even after I left things out. I guess I’ll just add that Lisa and I watched Brother Bear last night, which was really cute and sweet. It’s good to see that Disney can still make a good animated movie, even if they don’t always do so well. Um, over and out… for the moment.