Mike Jutan's World: I finally have somewhere to eat dinner that's not my desk or my bed

Today I ran around all day and night, but it was totally worth it.

This morning I got this from a guy down the street, who also delivered it and helped me move it into my place:

IKEA chest of drawers
2 IKEA end tables
2 chairs
Round kitchen table

Then I booked a ZipCar (a Toyota Prius, which was sweet), biked to the car, drove my bike back to the apartment, and drove alllll the way downtown. It took a while to find parking and it was nuts there, but no worries. There I got:

2 rugs
Little night stand thing
Clock radio
Glass lampshade
Some Pyrex dishes, a small bathroom mat

Then I drove to another place and walked down 3 flights of stairs with the guy helping me carry a HUGE 8 ft bokshelf!!!!!!! I SOMEHOW managed to get all of the stuff I picked up in the car into my apartment in 5 MINUTES?!?!?!! This is because the ZipCar was due back in the parking lot some ways away from my house, and I had to get it over there. Insane!!! So it was a major runaround but still Craigslist is amazing. The bookshelf would have been $80 plus tax from IKEA, and I would have had to spend 3 hours putting it together, plus getting it from IKEA all the way over here somehow. So this way it was great, a bit of heavy lifting, and not totally new furniture, but not a big deal since it was only $20. Sweet.

Oh man. So yeah another day of running around and getting stuff. But I also finally got my bulletin board up on the wall and sorted out the bazillion papers on my desk. So it'll still be some time before I feel really settled down here but at least it's coming along!! Next weekend I get my bed which will be an awesome thing to get.

So the car worked out really well. It's a bit hard to judge when you need to head back to the parking spot since it's hard to figure out how much traffic there is. The Prius was fun, but next time I'll get a Civic or something that is closer to my apartment. After dropping off the car I went to this fancy grocery store called Andronico's, it's a bit overpriced but I found a few nicer things there, like some Dolmas and Olives. I made some nice dinner when I got back and called my sister Norma for her birthday.

Then I spent a few hours sorting some more stuff out over here. There really are like 1000 things to do to set up a new apartment on your own, but actually it's pretty fun to get new stuff, and to get good deals on used stuff. That's fun, and although it's a lot of work, it's nice to finally have my own place and also my own real person furniture. Lots of new stuff to get used to but I think in the long run it's going to be awesome not to move every 4 months. It's already suuuuuuuper weird to be buying stuff to last long term and buying a bed and a new desk and stuff rather than just using whatever junk is in the house I am subletting. :)