Worst. Shakespeare. Play. EVER.

I had always thought of this as "the ultimate date". Shakespeare, a picnic dinner, a bottle of wine, a beautiful view and an amazing woman with me. Perhaps it is best that it never came to fruition until I was with my wife. If my companion had been anyone lacking such a steadfast commitment, it might have been the "ultimate date" only in the sense of being "the last date".

The food was delicious, Kelly being a chef par excellence even under the challenges of the food having to survive travel in a cooler for 24 hours. The scenery was excellent. The wine was quite tasty. The woman by my side was amazing and beautiful.

The Shakespeare was awful.

When I had first heard of this many years ago, I imagined professional actors. When I saw the listing on the website, I still thought of semi-pro actors like the Dayton Theater Guild. When we arrived on the site, I was hoping for high school amateur. Even that was above the talent on exposition.

Twas a "Midsummer Night's Dream" turned into auditions for American Idol. Highly abridged by design... further abridged by missed lines. Moderately passable scenery of the mystical wood inhabited by less passable wooden acting.

The only point in its favor was that it was SO bad. Had it been slightly better, it would have been less enjoyable. It was like they expanded the subplot of the rough craftsmen of the town performing "Pyramus and Thisbe" into the whole play. Perhaps that was a mindblowing deliberate artistic recursive metaphor.... or perhaps it was just funny to watch a four year old faerie toddle across the stage wearing a winter coat.

Now the ultimate date will have to be redesigned. Any ideas from blogspace?

If It Is Big and Brown, Flush it Down

I was all serious in my previous post. I tried to change gears in mid-blog, but my bloggy clutch pedal is broken. I ended up with a wretched stink of burnt oil and confused metaphors.

If you were reading back in May when I was lamenting how nothing had gone right with the move, I mentioned that I had shipped out most of my clothes with the shipping company associated with big brown trucks that say UPS in gold letters on the side. In this Coke vs. Pepsi style competition, I had always been a UPS guy, though not for any particular reason. Not anymore. If I have to ship something important, I am a FedEx man.

When last we left the story of shipping incompetence, the company was unable to find a 8000 cubic inch box which I had entrusted into their care. Their not being able to find a box containing all of my work clothes and a piece of wedding memorabilia that I thought would be safer with them than with the moving company was only part of my frustration. The biggest frustration was that UPS would not talk to me about it. You see, despite the fact that I boxed it up, it was my stuff and I paid to have it shipped.... I was not the shipper. No, the shipper of record was the manager of the store that I had shipped it from.

And so begins a recurring pattern. I call the store, manager isn't there, I call back, manager isn't there, he calls me, I can't take call, call back, not there. Miracle of quantum mechanics occurs placing manager and me on the same call at the same time. I explain that the tracking data for one of my boxes stopped in Illinois whilst the other box continued to California. Manager says he will call to put a trace on it. Which is exactly what the lady on the phone said should be done, except she couldn't do it for me because I wasn't the shipper. Apparently having a box addressed to California be stuck in Illinois for a week isn't enough to institute a trace either.

Two weeks pass with me compulsively checking the tracking data every day. The only change has been the addition of a line saying "Trace in progress". I call UPS frequently, to hear one of two answers "It takes a while to search all of our warehouses", or "I can't tell you anything because you are not the shipper." Finally, while on the phone asking how they could lose a massive box and would it help if I gave them a list of the contents, I am told that they found it. The story-du-jour is that the label fell off. I am given the helpful advice to put the destination address on a piece of paper inside the box also, so that if the label happens to fall off they can figure out where it is supposed to go by opening it.

A wave of relief passes over me. I had bought extra insurance on the box, but not enough to replace everything. The relief is short lived.

A box arrives. It is a different box that the one I shipped with a different tracking number. I open it up. It is my stuff, but the memorabilia item is damaged. The stuff is packed differently and not as well as I had done. Then I notice something else. A significant portion of my stuff is covered in a dried black crud. My best guess is that it was ink.

You see, the label didn't fall off the original box. The label must have been obscured by a FREAKING GALLON OF INK being poured on it. Seeing how it ruined a bunch of my clothes, I am betting that my hypothetical backup address inside the box would have been obscured as well. I am just fortunate that the topmost item in the box was a cheap beach towel and that took the worst of the hit. UPS apparently has a motto "We think our customers are freaking idiots", because rather than tell me what happened, they repackaged my stuff in a new box and hoped I wouldn't notice black stains the size of my head.

So begins the new cycle. The dance of "pay me some money for the items you ruined". I call UPS. They send me an email. I fill out the email and include digital pictures. They email back to tell me to call the shipper. (Insert wait for quantum synchronization complicated by time zone difference). Manager asks me to send him digital photos so he can submit them to the same place I have already submitted them. Weeks pass. I call UPS, they tell me to contact the manager. I call manager (quantum synch time), he says he doesn't know anything.

Finally, after much delay and many wasted hours trying to persuade either UPS to talk to me or the store manager to act like he cares that the box was marinated in ink during transit and get some answers for me, I finally get a check. In case you missed the meme here, the money to reimburse me for what I lost due to UPS incompetence is actually written to the manager of the store. He, in turn, has to write me a check.

We used the check to open up our new bank account out here.

The End of the Journey

The four month saga is now over. Kelly and I are officially Californians and only Californians. Our house in Dayton sold on Thursday.

At the moment, I feel okay about that. I think on one hand, it hasn't completely sunk in. Hell, there is a part of me that doesn't really believe my parents moved out of the old homestead. I know they have been living in a new place for six years, but there is a part of my brain that thinks I could swing by the old place and walk in the back door like nothing had changed.

On the other hand, the house had become a source of worry and frustration. The challenge of trying to sell it while at distance has been very frustrating. Getting it ready nearly finished off my wife. And the size of the rent payments out here made selling it imperative.

On the left foot (I ran out of hands), I think I may have had my bad moments. The worst was the day that I signed the lease for our new house. I woke up at 2 AM, and something about the sounds and the light through the doorway made me think I was back in our bedroom in Dayton. When I realized I wasn't and that I never would be again, a wave of immense sadness swept over me.

On the right foot, we are finally getting our feet under us out here. I am glad that we grabbed this house when we had the chance. We were lucky to get it. It is also to good to finally stop feeling so impermanent. As nice as the corporate apartment was, the knowledge that it was temporary kept us from settling in. Now we have a place we know we will be for a while. Our stuff is out of storage and around us. With every passing day it feels a little more like home. It is a place we can start bringing friends into and building new memories with.