Macey & Cricket Arrive !!

 The two high flying munchkins arrived this morning. OMG - it was so lovely to see them. I think they were shocked and uncertain when the arrived and took a little while to realise they were 'home'. They have spent 4 days travelling to get here so I can only imagine they are tired and glad to be here. It snowed overnight so they got to feel snow for the first time. 

You can see the snow at our house and also on the street behind. This is a big forest type park with lots of walking and the dogs will love it.

Cricket, the boy from Broken Hill pound, would have been really confused but he happily pee'd in it and ran around exploring. Macey enjoyed the snow too and they were just dying to check out every inch of the back yard. 

 


The dogs slept heavily today and poor Deb had to wait all day to see them - it was a great welcome home and a very cuddly night on the floor. 

The rest of the day was a hive of activity. The power was turned back on late morning and I got a different electrician recommended by Deb's work - he was simply excellent. He was here for hours but got everything sorted for us. We also got the internet connected and will spend our first night home tonight.

We're both exhausted and glad it's the weekend.  

Can things get any worse?

I managed to get a sofa bed mattress today - drove 2 hours to collect it but as with everything over here, nothing was easy to do.  I had a heated discussion with the electrician before I left for the mattress cause he's just going around in circles and I didn't want another day of no fix. But I got home to see the 'electrician' still click clacking the bloody breakers. He said I now have NO mains power at all. WHAT - I just don't get this guy?  Then the landlord rings me at the same time to say the electricity has been turned OFF because we haven't got our name on the account. You're kidding me - totally cracking it now!!!  I rang and did this last Thursday or was this another figment of my imagination. How can this happen, or not happen at turns out?

So long shitty miserable story short - we now have NO power in the house. I spent all afternoon cold without a heater and bored stiff as I couldn't do anything but wait for the power to come on. I spent two hours calling to get registered etc and was told it will come back on within 24hrs. Poor Deb was worried about me - there might have been a few tears on the phone as I was curled up in the faetal position on the floor. Power wasn't on when Deb got home so we packed another bag and are in a hotel again tonight. Hopefully the power will come back on overnight. It's all quite confusing as to whether this was the problem the electrician was chasing because we actually had some power. There is a theory but frankly, I won't bore the crap out you anymore. So I await to see what goes wrong tomorrow. 

After 3 days of nearly everything going to poo, it would be nice to cuddle the dogs in a warm house tomorrow night. 

Move-in Day

Moving house is always bound to be frustrating. Things will inevitably go to poo. But seriously, today was a solid big brown TURD of a day. I'm not known for my patience and well known for my colourful language so I gave it full throttle today.

So, we were up very early to pack the car, drive to the house and avoid the morning traffic as much as possible. Did this reasonably well thankfully even though some road directions are closed/changed in the morning so the GPS was doing 360's trying to find alternate routes. 

We arrive to find our wheelie bins overflowing - they should have been emptied yesterday but I think they didn't empty them cause they were too full. Everyone else's bins were empty so I feel like a bit of a loser on Day 1. First domestic chore - empty bin somehow?

I moved the car down the street to make room for the removal truck. I couldn't get the key out of the ignition, no matter how hard I pulled or wrangled. And the car wouldn't even start. Mass swearing in the car. Great start to the day. I went inside and asked Deb to go try the key. She came back shortly - with the key. Crisis averted, sigh of relief. She told me to make sure car is in PARK else the key won't release. Seriously, cars are too smart these days.

The key goal for today was to receive our stuff from Aust and get a mattress delivered - so we have somewhere to sleep tonight. Now every half hour an UPS or Fedex van would pull up and the guy would bring up parcel after parcel. We were not expecting any of our ordered furniture to arrive but it came flooding in - but no mattress yet. Deb has ordered enough rugs to carpet the street but at least they bring colour to the house. Our removals came, we are missing one box but I think they repacked it into another box enroute as we don't seem to be missing anything. The bikes all arrived so that's what matters. And one broken plate - that would be Deb dropping on the kitchen floor. 

We got our cable connected in the arvo. The two dudes were excellent. They loved our accent and we said we loved their's = Jamaican. I was too embarrassed to say I loved the movie 'Cool Runnings'.  His handshake made us nearly breakdance. It had this slap shake thing to it. Very cool indeed. Cable TV now installed - tick. Now gotta get that TV mounted on the wall. 

We gradually assembled the furniture while we waited around. I saw a pile of wood, brackets, screws - it was like a mini-Bunnings store on the floor. Deb said this was the the little filing cabinet drawers! WHAT ?? How many bits does it take to assemble some drawers. Please note, these are NOT the drawers I picked. Deb didn't like mine so she picked these instead. They might look nicer but after I've hit them with a hammer in frustration they won't look so nice !!!   I bet mine would have come assembled. So I looked at that pile of rubble and said, no, now way, not now, not today - pushed it to the corner. 

In the meantime, we have an 'electrician' working in the background because somehow, yesterday we lost power to the bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen/dining room lights and the heater. The first guys to come were, switch flickers really. They then called in the big gun who had a bigger tool belt but he just flicked more switches and poked power outlets with a light flashing tool. So all day, he fiddled and dicked around with the fuse box. It's amazing how the F word sounds the same in Spanish. He spoke little English so our 'technical' conversation was a script almost taken from a Seinfeld episode. By the end of the day, I was downstairs working with him trying to understand what he was doing - I still don't really know but we made some progress. I'm not sure how qualified or trained he was but suffice to say, he was touching bare wires on breakers and sparks were flying. It reminded me of my early tech days in training - scary shit. We could hardly understand each other but we agreed on some logic and he'll come back tomorrow with more breakers to tidy the fuse box up. The house wiring is very confusing to say the least so pray we get success tomorrow.

And back to that mattress. It was organised 10 days ago to be delivered today. Long story but this was the ONE thing we needed TODAY. And yep, you know where I"m going, it'd didn't come today - I rang good ol' Macy's, where's my bloody mattress. Oh, you haven't organised delivery she says!! Well I exploded. And they can't deliver until Monday. Then I melted down. Our furniture has been ordered through the rental company so will have to wait until tomorrow to see what the hell went wrong. So no bed to sleep on until Monday. Next chore for tmrw - find something to sleep on besides the dog beds.

And finally, the crap useless internet people. Everybody says they are dreadful and we had a shocking time just organising the internet connection. So it's not surprising that the installation date today was actually a figment of my imagination. No, apparently the email I get today says it's Friday !  So the lady on the phone just told me a pile of crap. 

We came back to the apartment tonight for a bed and warmth. We had a nice dinner and I enjoyed a Stella cider - very nice actually. But the best news of all today is that the dogs are on the plane to LA. We got an email from Australia to tell us they were cleared to travel and were very good buddies. The US side call to say they will be delivered to us at home on Friday morning around 10am. How bloody exciting. I stopped by the petstore on the way home tonight and grabbed a couple of bags of dog food and nibbles. At least they will have food cause we got nothing in the house at the moment besides two bananas.

So it's been a long annoying shitty day. We move out of the apartment in the morning  ( even though we thought we'd moved out this morning) and hopefully the non-English speaking sparky electrician will finish in time for me to go and find where the shopping centre is. Time for a hot shower and good nights sleep.

Virginia - Richmond

Our first serious footprint in the goal to touch 50 states. Richmond is the capital of Virginia and rich in Civil War history = the war between the North and South about ending slavery which was ultimately an achievement of President Lincoln (13th Amendment) in Jan 1865. It was a 2 hr drive from DC so we got some driving practice too. The concierge girl at the hotel reminded me of Melissa McCarthy and was thrilled to find out we were Australians. She made me laugh.

We took a segway tour of the landmarks and while Deb was a master on the 2-wheel leaning machine, I managed to stack it towards the end of the tour. Quite a great stack really and I was on the ground laughing. Got the wheel caught on a kerb corner and was too busy looking at a building or clock or something. Anyway, not everyone can say they've stacked a segway. 

Took a tour of the Confederacy White House. Jefferson Davis was president of the confederacy (the secession of 13 southern states from the Union and caused the Civil War). He lived in this house during the 5 year war. The Museum behind the house provided history of the battles and hero's. There was an incredible loss of life and city infrastructure in this war. We weren't able to get out to the battlefield at nearby Petersburg - you need all day to drive around these sights. Interestingly, at the end of the war (won by the North), Davis was imprisoned for 2 years but lost his citizenship. The North and South seemed to move forward easily and were all glad the war was over. The movie Lincoln is about this war and I will definitely watch it again to see what I've learnt.

Another highlight of the weekend was sitting in Macca's on the highway going home and seeing a young guy walk in with a gun strapped to his waste, on clear show. Not sure it's legal to show arms but it was very unsettling. We opted to skip the sundae, leave and keep driving. 

It was nice weather back in DC when we returned so we drove to our new house for a look around and check out the area. It's a really nice area with this massive forest park at the end of the street. Lots of trails to run, ride and walk the dogs. Well, it's a busy week ahead as we move into our house, receive our stuff from home and get the dogs on Friday. 

Dog Playtime

More photos of Macey and Cricket enjoying the Australian summer before they fly over next week. Thanks again to Canberra Pet Care for taking great care of the pups.

                   

 

Sossy Rolls Irish Style

Picked the new car up on Saturday and drove home under the guidance of the new GPS. Few wrong turns but we made it home safely. At one point in the city, the GPS said to 'turn right at the big brown building'? We looked at each other and said 'WTF - which bloody brown building' -  a street name would have been more helpful Mr. Garmin. 

We like the food at the Irish pub around the corner and we had to try the sausage rolls - they were pretty good actually. Very smooth filling, it was like a sausage itself in pastry but it was still yummy.

We've churned through Season 1 of The Blacklist but Season 4 has just started here so I have some serious couching sitting to do to catch up.

We can now say the dogs come NEXT week - we're very excited but also very nervous for them both. I ordered new collars for them today too with their new contact numbers.

We've organised our internet and cable - what a bloody confusing complex experience that is. It took Deb days to sort through all the different providers but finally, I think we've got it sorted. Time will tell I guess. You seem to have a lot more choice here and it's quite competitive unlike Australia where you're kinda stuck with the standard provider.

I'm stuck into the elections here - I feel like I'm watching a train crash in creation. Trump is seriously flogging them but, it's only been 3 states so I'm keen to see how things look next week after 'Super Tuesday' when a bunch more states vote. 

The World 24hr MTB champs were in NZ this weekend and several good friends raced once again. I followed the live results from here and was pleased to see many podiums for my friends. Of note, the reigning legend champion just won his 7th consecutive world title - this is now the record. This champ races on pizza, weetbix, gels, hot cross buns - anything he can get his hands on. He puts Lance Armstrong to shame.

I've got a bit of a chesty cough, hoping it doesn't develop any worse. Knocked me flat actually so thankfully I can take some downtime to rest. Not much exciting news in this post but we plan to head into Virginia this weekend in the new car and check out the capital. Hopefully have some pics from there and put another footprint on my US map.

Amazon

Amazon Fruits

Not much excitement to report at the moment. Woke up to hear there is a recall notice for Toyota RAV4's - great (not) !! Nothing major but annoying to say the least. Will sort it out when we pick the car up on Saturday. 

Some people find religion, some find themselves, well I've found AMAZON. It's just fantastic now that we live here in the US of A. It's get here quicker than you can say billy-bob-joe-bonnie-sue-ray and usually free shipping. I am now a mailbox stalker to see when my parcels arrive and the desk clerk knows my name and apartment number very very well. Have bought things that we need, mainly appliances as we didn't bring our 240v stuff with us. The boxes are mounting in the apartment.

I got car insurance the other day. Rang online. This is hard to write funny but I'll try my best. I was on the phone going through the menus where they ask you to ‘say’ things. Well it went like this:

(me slowly) CAR insurance 

(robot slowly) I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you, options again (they say AUTO as an option).

(ok me again, slowly) A-U-T-O insurance

(robot again slowly) I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you, options again…

(bloody hell, me again)  ORR-DOE (with a US accent) and magic, it understood me.

Unbelievable !!

The weather has warmed and it's like a winter day at home. Apparently the freezing past week has been very unprecedented so lucky us I guess. 

The elections are keeping me entertained. Trump is whipping the Republicans and is saying all the right things to appeal to people who hate rich people and bureaucracy. He's funding his own campaign so he can say whatever he likes and suck up to nobody. It is interesting to follow although I have a long way to go in understanding the process. 

We both got over the jet lag this week - we noticeably feel a lot better and are sleeping better too. Getting into some regular exercise so that helps too. I think Deb's becoming a Starbucks regular on her way to work!! Flat whites are about the most we can manage there. I've been working my way through the TV series Blacklist on Netflix and trying to find a good news channel. I wish we could find something substantial like SBS or ABC - it's all too trivial but there must be something out there, maybe it's an X-file (...yes, I believe).

Most of the admin chores are done (for now) and I think I might be getting little bit of cabin fever so I will aim to visit a museum or some big shopping centres next week.