Simple things, not always so simple

I’ve spent the afternoon working on address changes to magazines. What a way to spend some hours! Because of a quirk in US Postal Service regulations, mail can’t be forwarded from the private mail box arrangement we now have - and we’ll have to individually change the address on all of it. And it has become clear (when I’ve generally, before, been able to hide the evidence) that I am subscribing to nearly every magazine out there. I’m not sure how the habit got that bad, but it probably has something to do with how bummed I’ve been. Oh well.

Every magazine has a website, but that’s where the ‘common’ approach to the problem ends. Few of them have obvious ways to do subscription changes, although ALL of them have obvious ways to subscribe in the first place. In some cases, having finally found the right ‘page’ and changed the address, they come back to you thanking you for renewing your subscription. Or in one case, thanking you for changing your address to the old address. Hmmmmm. Did I miss something there? Don’t know, because it won’t let me back in to check – the site now says they are processing my change and I won’t have access to the system for several days. Goodness knows where that magazine will end up but I’ll probably not miss it, considering all the other ones that are piling up anyway.

The utilities were easier, once I finally figured out which utilities they were. (Somehow that didn’t get into the real estate information papers, and should have, and was hard to track down on my own. That’s probably just me though, now that I think about it.) I ended up talking with nice, considerate people who seemed to know what they were doing and were helpful and friendly. I didn’t really expect that, but there you have it. Garbage will be collected, lights will go on (though the light fixtures themselves are another story!)

Piano-moving arrangements have had to be adjusted, but again, people were very understanding and helpful. I had to admit to myself that we might not be able to find the thing under all the boxes and stacked up furniture and so it will be the last thing, not the first thing, out of storage. (Cross your fingers for me that we can actually find all three legs!)

We signed all the papers today; paid the money and suffered the sticker shock. We’ll get the keys on Tuesday and the movers will move the apartment stuff on Wednesday and the storage stuff on Friday. All new kitchen appliances (my concession to myself for having to ‘downgrade’ and ‘downsize’) are coming on Wednesday also, and the piano (finally!) will be moved on Saturday.

All that’s left is to get in there on Tuesday afternoon and put in new shelf paper.

Where we are going to put all our stuff? No, not ‘simple’ at all.