Moving on up

We are officially in our permanent housing. Hallelujah!!!! However, it has not been an easy road. Just as with any move, we have been swimming in boxes and wrapping paper, and have encountered a few gliches along the way. 

Friday was the day it all began - that was the day our things were unloaded into the apartment. The goal was to be unloaded, unpacked and sleeping here by Sunday night. Well, the movers were supposed to show up at 1:30pm to begin unloading our sea container into the apartment. Scott was here at noon to make sure he was ready for thier arrival. Five hours later (yes, at 5pm) the movers show up and tell Scott they can only work until 5:30pm - oh, and that they can't come back until Monday. Mind you, we also have Chinese New Year baring down on us (meaing every single shop, service, and personell is out of commision from Wednesday evening until Saturday morning). For those of you who know Scott, he was determined to have that container unloaded that night. When I arrived with the boys, Scott was personally lugging our couch up the stairs (we are on the ninth floor) with one of the movers. The lead mover starts to lecture me on how my husband wants them to stay, and that he (Scott) needs to stop carrying up the boxes because he might get hurt. I guess he thought I had some sort of sway over Scott. Again, for those of you who know Scott...there is no "swaying" once his mind is made up.

Scott's determination proved to be fruitful and we had the entire contents of our container unloaded that evening. 

Being very tired and worn out from the day that had elapsed, we called a cab and collapsed into the seats. As usual, Scott was stuck in the front with the driver. Generally, the dirvers here don't say much. On this occasion, our driver decides to bring up politics. Normally this is a very safe topic of conversation here in Singapore....the locals are very well informed of our politcal process and who is running, and have a genuine curiosity as to whom each American personally supports. This driver tells us the is a, "very free thinker," becasue he, "is not Chirstian. Not Buddist. Just Chinese." Alright, great! Somehow this seemingly innocent conversation turns ugly when the driver starts accusing our government of being "run by the Jews" and that "the Muslims don't want to kill us just becasue Clinton had sex in the White House". After Scott referred to the driver as anti-semetic, the conversation flowed over to Taiwan. The driver went on another tirad of how Taiwan belongs to China. Again, Scott points out that the Taiwanese don' think so - to which driver responded, "Do you wan to have a million body bags coming back to the US?" (Mind you, I am in the back with the kids.) After 30 intense mintues (due to rush hour traffic and the driver needing to stop to use the toilet) we finally exit the vehicle and Jacob asks, "Mommy, why do the Muslims want to kill us?" What a lovely thing to have your child say. I decided to use it as an opportunity to teach my children about extremists and that the majority of any religion is composed of good people. Still, a bit much for a six year old to comprehend.

Since the movers could not return on Saturday, we spent the whole day unpacking the boxes. Once again, our movers in California proved that they were complete idiots. We came across, not one, but twelve boxes that were supposed to have been put in permament storage in California - some with major damage done to them. Very frustrating. 

As mentioned, we were hoping to be in our apartment by Sunday night. However, when we came here after church, we realized that might make for an uncomfortable night; especially since none of the beds were put together - and I have an intense fear of a roach crawling into my ear while I am sleeping (thanks to a story told me by my friend, Eva, when we were kids). 

Monday, the movers returned to assemble all our furniture and remove the boxes. Let me tell you how excited they were about the IKEA furniture we bought in the US that they had to put together. It took one guy three hours to assemble our bookcase. He did a great job - I am just a bit concerned about the fact that he had an entire bag of extra pieces left over when he finished. Then again, who likes to follow directions anyway?

The one constant problem we have encountered with the apartment is that it only has showers - no bath tubs - and no shower doors. There are curtain rods, but no shower curtains. For some reason, it is next to impossible to find a shower curtain on this island. We were told to go to IKEA to buy the needed item. After spending another day unloading, the whole family headed over to IKEA to get some shower curtains and some other needed items. Since we had only consumed goldfish and Cheeze-Its for the past 10 hours, we decided to eat at IKEA. I have never had a chicken hot dog before. 

An hour and a half later, we left IKEA with a bathroom rug. Everything single item we needed/wanted was sold out - even our depserately needed shower curtain. We asked the workers when more shower curtains would be coming in and were told that they might be in "tomorrow or Friday," but that they sell out in a few hours. We left IKEA feeling very discouraged.

When we got home, the boys went to bed right away and I was ready to collapse. Feeling nauseous from the chicken hotdog, I headed into the kitchen to find something to eat. Peeking out from under a cupboard was....da, da, dun....a roach! It ran towards me and I grabbed a can of roach spray. I emptied about half the can onto the roach until it was swimming in its own personal pool. I then proceeded to spray down every door jam, window sill, and floor board in the entire apartment. Scott emerged a few minutes later to tell me he was having difficulty breathing. I have to admit, I did go a bit overboard with the spray. 

Today, my main goals were to find a shower curtain, get a pest control service set up, and buy enough food to last through the weekend (again, Chinese New Year - nothing will be open). I went to at least four stores in hopes of finding the desired curtain. No luck. I am seriously considering becoming a curtain smuggler. Scott and I have finally given up and have resigned our selves to huddling as close as we can to the wall to take a shower so as to prevent the water from going all over the place. However, no matter how hard we try, the entire bathroom is soaking by the time we are finished. I guess the builders must have forseen the shower curtain shortage, becasue every bathroom has a drain in the middle of the floor (or they just had a lot of sons).  

I was successful in accomplishing my other two goals. I did secure a pest control guy, and we went crazy at the super market. The only down side was when all my credit cards were rejected at the check out stand. Thank goodness Scott had insisted on coming to help me. His card worked. 

Well, I'm off to make sure no bugs have crossed over my defense lines......