Negative One More Days

Bon voyage, Gaby! Now it's just you and the open road (and AAA if the open road decides not to like you).

Meanwhile, in Oregon, the apartment is shaping up nicely. I have mostly unpacked, assembled and arranged our furniture to my liking, and set up the kitchen, bathroom and home theater so that when Gaby gets here the place will not look as if a box factory threw up all over our carpet. That's the big picture you should all bear in mind as I reveal some less than wonderful details about the unpacking:

- When I say "mostly unpacked," what I mean is that all my stuff is out of its boxes and put away, but most of Gaby's things (books and movies, tchotchkes and clothes that are too confusingly constructed for mere mortal men to fold) are still encased in cardboard. Part of this
is due to the lack of available shelving, but much of it must be laid at my feet for selfishly taking over all the shelf space we do have. But as I am the only one here right now, my unchecked will reigns supreme, and too bad for Gaby. As we say in the business, ahahahahahahaha.

- When I say that I have assembled our furniture, I mean to be understood that after much wrangling with screwdrivers and wrenches, I did manage to get the foosball table up and running, and I even wrassled our IKEA bed into shape. However, there are mysteriously some little bits and pieces left over (e.g., 14 little screws and a couple of odd metal rods). I choose not to believe that these are part of the support structure of the bed, but rather some clumsy Scandinavian attempts at decorative elements. Crazy Swedes. Nor will this theory be tested immediately, as somehow the queen-sized air mattress is too big for the queen-sized bed frame, such that I am still forced to sleep on a floor-based mattress.

- When I say that I have arranged the furniture, it is in the understanding that this arrangement will be changing as soon as Gaby walks through the door and says "Ugh" at it, and then again when we finally supplement the items that we have with a few more necessities. Like a kitchen table. And more shelving or storage units - currently there are about 275 CDs arranged alphabetically by artist that for lack of a proper home are now camped out on the living room floor.

- Finally, when I say that the home theater is set up, I mean that it plays music and DVD movies, but that all attempts to make it display the correct time, or to resuscitate the VCR, have so far failed. But at least I learned something interesting: VCRs do not respond to pleading, weeping, swearing or the silent treatment. I'm running out of ideas on how to get through to it. This must be what it's like to be the parent of a teenage daughter.

Okay, back to work. Maybe today I'll try to figure out how to hang Gaby's clothes in the closet without tangling myself up in their innumerable hooks and strings.