First phase of move an interesting one

Well, phase one of "Mikey C -- Westward Ho" has been completed, and to say that it was a rather interesting experience would be a slight understatement of the obvious.

With a full carload of stuff to get me through my first week on the job, I made the trek out to Ogallala and unloaded things into my new apartment. It was as I was unloading that it became quite apparent that this move was off to something of a rocky start.

The first clue came when I was unloading things in the bathroom. When I had first looked at the apartment, I could have sworn there was a shower door in the bathtub, which meant I wouldn't need to worry about buying a shower curtain -- but when I got there, either the previous tenants had taken the door with them, or I had a momentary lapse of consciousness and forgot that the bathtub needed a shower curtain.

The second note came a little later when it dawned on me that the apartment was cold. And not just cold, mind you, but "Hey, Harry, let's hang those sides of beef here in the bedroom" cold. And it was then that it dawned me that I had forgotten to call the gas company to tell them to turn on the gas.

The room temperature when I had this moment of realization? A very balmy, strip-down-to-your-skivvies-and-party-like-you're-on-the-frickin'-beach 51 degrees.

Fortunately, I did have ENOUGH foresight to have at least let the folks running the city's electricity that I'd be moving in that weekend, and they were good enough to leave the lights on. Never have I been so happy to have an open oven, heated to 400 degrees, sitting in the middle of my kitchen.

The morning after also provided its share of hilarity (for everybody BUT me, obviously) when I determined that I could take a bath instead of a shower, although it would be somewhat brisk in the bathroom because of the heat issue. As I brushed my teeth, I looked into the bathtub to discover that there was no stopper in the bathtub. This left me with two choices -- no shower, or a shower that potentially floods the entire bathroom.

Well, you know me . . . gotta have a shower in the morning, or I'm just not looking, feeling or -- more important -- smelling right. Somehow, I managed to get something that resembled a shower and got dried off without catching pneumonia OR leaving a scaled-down version of Lake McConaughy on my bathroom floor. After work Monday, the gas company came by to turn on the heat, and I now have a new shower curtain in the bathroom (which, my mother and sister will be happy to hear, actually matches the decor of the bathroom -- no purple and red polka dots on the curtain this time, ladies).

Fortunately, the start of work at the Keith County News has gone a lot smoother than my first night and morning in my new apartment. I'm slowly getting acclimated to things and have a great staff to work with, which is a welcome change from my LAST situation (which, from here on out, we'll avoid discussing altogether and simply refer to it from here on out as "that time").

I'm slowly learning the names and faces of the people I'll be working with on a frequent basis, and hopefully by the end of the week I'll have everything moved from Omaha to Ogallala and can get down to some serious unpacking and getting back to my normal blogging schedule.