Thursday, June 19

Movin' Out

Anybody out there like to move? Hello? Anyone?

I thought so! And yet that's just what I've been doing for the past two and a half weeks, since excitedly signing a new lease. I've decided that moving must be like having a baby in at least one respect: if anyone ever remembered how awful it was while it was happening, no one would ever do it again.

In any case, here I am, hurriedly trying to change the mailing addresses for all my magazine subscriptions, switching my cable service, changing telephone numbers, and trying to remember how on earth I accrued so much junk. So far six lawn-and-leaf bags of clothing have gone to Goodwill and about eight thousand of those same lawn-and-leaf bags have been filled with shredded credit card applications and electric bills. I should just keep a shredder right by my mailbox, apparently.

For me, the worst part of this particular move has been that my kitchen has been out of commission for about a week. Needless to say, having all your pots and pans packed days before you move is not conducive to cooking of any sort. Plus, who has time to go to the grocery store? All my spare minutes are filled with packing, sorting, loading, transporting, arranging, unpacking, and throwing away. Not necessarily in that order.

At the beginning of this process, right after I excitedly signed the lease, I thought it would be fun to eat out every night for a week or two. I am dismayed to report that eating out has now officially lost its novelty. Perhaps this would be different if I lived somewhere besides suburban Maryland, but to illustrate my point, I offer you the following list of my last four dinners:

Night 1: I order linguine with white clam sauce and a salad at a local pub. Quite short on anything but carbs, oil, and garlic, none of which fit the major food groups. The salad is made of iceberg lettuce and pink tomatoes, but at least it is drenched in ranch dressing. I believe that the main ingredient in ranch dressing is mayonnaise, but no matter. The clams are making me smarter as we speak.

Night 2: It's 9:00 p.m. and there's no dinner in sight. Oh, I know what would be delicious AND nutritious at the same time: "Yeungs and Wings" night at another local pub! What could be better for you at the end of a long day than a pint of Yuengling and ten extra-hot deep-fried Tabasco-and-butter-sauced chicken wings? They will come with celery, after all.

Hmm, no celery. Oh well. That must be because it's a special. Is celery that expensive? Another beer should suffice.

Night 3: Well, I have to go to the grocery store and buy more lawn-and-leaf bags for the trash heap I call my current apartment anyway, so I will also pick up a rotisserie chicken (from which I will dutifully remove the skin, because I am feeling guilty about previously-consumed linguine and wings) and a tasty spinach salad from the salad bar.

Drat. The grocery store is out of rotisserie chickens and the salad bar is closed. The only prepared food that is at the ready is some sushi that doesn't look so fresh. OK. I'll buy the trash bags and two Lean Cuisines for lunches at work and then go to Subway for a sub with no fat and no flavor.

Oops! Subway is closed now because the express lane at the grocery store took so long! That leaves me with no choice but to go to the Italian trattoria and get carryout. Problem is that I know their salads are not optimal. What else do they have?

Result: steak and cheese with lettuce, tomato (sorry, those of you from Philly/South Jersey ­ I'm not a native and therefore not a purist), and extra banana peppers for Vitamin C. Mmm. I think I'll change my name to Vito.

Night 4: That's it. I give up. Pizza it is, right off the bat, and you can keep calling me Vito. I'll try a balanced diet when this godforsaken move is done.

The move will be done, sooner or later or by this Saturday if I don't wind up in a mental institution first. Maybe next time I move (unless I can remember this time, in which case I'll wind up an old lady with eight cats living in a two-bedroom condo close to the Allview), I'll plan better, and leave a saucepan and a skillet out till the day before I move.

Or, at the very least, I'll keep a bowl, a knife, and a fork, and make the tomato salad shown to the right of this screen. If the next move is anything like this one, I'll have plenty of stale bread around to use up!