Labor Talks and Some Fabulous Parting Gifts

As some people who know me can attest, there was a time in my life where I was quite strong. To be precise about it, that time was from the start of my sophomore year of college, up through the end of the first semester of junior year. Approximately 18 months wherein I could lift huge amounts of weight, all over the place. Even above my head, if the occasion called for it. I also had a pretty impressive set of arms, if I do say so myself. All very much a "do you have your tickets? To the gun show!" sort of thing.

Only I would never have said such a thing, because I am classy.

For better or worse, those days are behind me, as my personal fitness correspondent/wacky best friend has moved on to the greener pastures of living in the desert managing hospitals, planes, and firearms. Nowadays I'm lucky to break 140 on the scale, can wrap my hand around my entire arm pretty much at any point on said arm, and get winded trying to move a box of copier paper across my office.

Which has been just loverly for the last two weeks, wherein all I have done is move gigantic things everywhere. This is all more or less neither here nor there in terms of importance, just some residual whinging about how I used to be so youthful and vibrant and muscley, whereas now I get invitations to chess clubs daily.

No, this blog is about my newest delicious acquisition for my apartment, my very-own personal in-house washer AND dryer (which were both very heavy and had to be moved this morning by just myself and a Franklin. See, there was a segue in there just waiting for me, but I'm way too tired to tease it out.)

Can you imagine a world where you can do laundry whenever you want? And you don't have to have quarters to do it? And you can just wash, like, one thing if you really wanted to, or do a whole load of nothing but whites. Or if something goes through the dryer and is still a tiny bit damp after the cycle ends, you can just run it for a little while longer. Can you feel my excitement actually pouring out of the internet? Because seriously. So excited that I may need to be sedated.

Actually no, I don't need to be sedated anymore because after moving them in, I am quite drained beyond normal measures. My injury level is quite low, considering it all, though. While Frank and I did manage to drop the washer on my foot twice, and we totally crushed Frank's hand on the doorframe into the apartment enough that I actually heard the "Crunch!" there was no ice, bandages, or excessive cursing required.

They still have to be installed, though, which is something that I don't really want to do myself, as I can barely hook-up a DVD player, let alone a major appliance. Hopefully we can recruit some buff maintenance sort of person who can do this sort of thing in his sleep. Otherwise it will be wise of you to avoid the entire uptown area of Dallas, just in case I cause some sort of washer related explosion that wipes out all of the West Village.

You know, like one does.