I Hope It's Not An Omen

When D and I attempted to move from NYC to Waltham, we encountered all manner of difficulty due to poor planning. The poor planning resulted in our having to discard many of our possessions at the last minute, including a perfectly functional microwave that was immediately picked up by a jovial homeless man who did the dance of joy upon looting it along with our mop and broom. Fortuitously, Brother and His Fiance were in need of a new floor mirror, so they were able to take our mirror which we may have had to throw away.

I was happy to get rid of it, as it gave me an excuse to buy the mirror I'd seen at Straight From the Crate on 23rd Street. We didn't buy it in NYC because I already had a mirror at the time and because we wouldn't have been able to fit it in the car on our move to MA (even though D kept insisting we would have plenty of space in the car, for a mirror and even for a new dresser! you should all be proud of me for not once saying "I told you so" and for blaming myself for not being more insistent, because I knew but I didn't want the confrontation). I decided to order it online once I got to MA.

Of course it wasn't available on the Straight From the Crate website. Of course! I could have called, but given the track record I've had with customer service related things in NYC, I decided to avoid Straight From the Crate altogether.

I miraculously managed to find the very same mirror online at multiple sources by googling "Chrome Floor Mirror." I ordered it from the cheapest place, some weird furniture vendor in NJ.

I ordered it three weeks ago. It finally arrived today after two mean/exasperated phone calls by me last week and the week before begging them to actually ship it. They shipped it on Saturday.

This has been a somewhat desperate situation as the only mirror in the new apartment is the very, very small mirror on the medicine cabinet that I have to stand on my tiptoes to see myself in. I haven't seen my body in a month.

This is all tolerable, but I want to look cute for my first day of school, which is on Monday. I would like to be able to create a nice first-day-of-school ensemble. I would like to be able to see my shirt and head at the same time. I would like to be able to coordinate my hair with my shirt that I can actually see.

Of course the mirror arrived completely shattered.

I have been checking the tracking nonstop, unable to control my excitement. I have been singing "The awesome mirror is coming today!" song all day.

I have asked for another one, but I know its going to take another three weeks.

Could I shop for one locally? Yes.

But this mirror is cheap, and I've waited this long, and I love it love it love it. And after all this, I deserve to have this mirror, intact and glorious!

Would anyone like a broken floor mirror? Apparently I don't have to send this one back. You can have it and have your own glass cut. Or maybe you know someone who cuts mirror glass and he/she will do it for free! And you will have an awesome free chrome floor mirror!

Sigh. Settling in drags on and on. Still no COBRA paperwork or 401k rollover information from the old place of employment. I want to place a phone call and yell "Would you please for the love of god stop playing Solitaire and do your job and send us the COBRA information so my beloved does not experience a lapse in coverage?"

The first email I sent was responded to instantly with "The COBRA form generator has been broken and I've been meaning to fix it; you should receive the information by the end of the week and if you don't then please let me know." So she knew! Ergh. I sent the requested follow-up email that said "We didn't get the COBRA stuff." That email, of course, was ignored.

Apparently the lapse is meaningless and apparently we will still be covered, but I don't trust health insurance companies, and I don't trust lapses in coverage, and I don't believe that it will be easy to prove anything in the gray area between actual health insurance and COBRA.

I don't believe that anything is ever easy. When we received our security deposit in the mail, we were suspicious. When I got my tax refund after the NYC snafu, I thought "This can't be a real check... something will go wrong."

I want the New Yorker in me to be killed by Waltham, but broken mirrors and lack of health insurance is making it nearly impossible.

The good news is that my video conversion project is officially finished as of right now, which means I have four whole days to actually enjoy a life of unemployed leisure before going to school. I am very excited. I have a new haircut that cost less than half of what I would have paid in NYC. I have new robot plates that arrived intact. The central air was allegedly fixed this morning (although I tried it just now and I swear it was actually generating heat) so we can have more than one person over during the summer without everyone passing out. The piano is here and the damage is done to the door and stairwell but at least its here.

Life is good but it could be better, but its mostly good.