Hot in the City

On Thursday I wake up before the ass-crack of dawn for Joe to pick me up and then head to the rental place. Today he's moving to NYC. (I'm tired so my tense is going to be off. Get used to it.)
We show up to pick up the pre-requested minivan to take all Joe's things, and they say no. They have a ford freestyle, which is a station wagon, only stupider.
Um, no that really is not going to work, so tool-boy says he can give us a Yukon. So I say, what the hell is a Yukon? Oh. That thing. Damn. That thing is huge. So, we take the Yukon. I've got to drive this back to Joe's house and it's terrifying. I. do. not. drive. big. vehicles. I own a Jetta people. This is a GMC Yukon XL. I can park my car in it. I get in this big bitch and the driver's area is like a cockpit. I don't know how to turn off the A/C. I can't adjust the mirror. I hit a button and the seat begins to move forward by itself and does not stop. I hit the button again and the seat stops. I decide to stop pressing buttons and just drive away.
We get to the parents house and miracle of all miracles - everything he wanted to bring does fit. Joe and I seem to be the only ones loading everything. Most everybody else is standing in the way. I yell at my sister a few times and grumble that there's an awful lot of people standing around in the way but not an awful lot of people helping out.. Anyway, we load it all in.We can't see out the back window but it fits. Now is the time for the horrid goodbye which I had not anticipated. Mom is just bawling, and of course my sister is crying and I guess her husband is crying too and then Joe starts crying and then my dad starts crying, so I'm standing with five people, all who are crying, so I start crying. My mom goes to hug me and I say I'm fine. It's just human reaction. You are all crying so I cry. You yawn, I yawn. You cry, I cry. Stop crying so I can stop! I'm fine! I'm happy for him! Egad!
So we get out and leave. About an hour into the journey we hear this squeee squeak noise. We hear it again. And again. We start guessing. Is there something with batteries that is dying? Did you bring a mouse? What is in your shit that is squeaking? I timed it. It is every 28 seconds. We stop to investigage and as it turns out it's the rear wiper. Morons. We just couldn't see the back window that it was on. Duh.
So we get back in and decide to determine what the remaining buttons are. We figure out how to work the mirrors and the air and the radio. But there's several buttons left. One with a shoe and two arrows, one with a car and an "I", one with a check mark. Turns out we can move the pedals, get info on everything this crazy car does, including mileage used, fuel used, fuel remaining, miles remaining based on current fuel levels, estimated range, miles per gallon, and I'm pretty sure that if I tried hard enough I'd find a button to make it do my laundry. I think it has wi-fi too. I just can't find the button.
My mom calls us after 2 hours to check how we're doing. I answer Joe's phone and tell her we're still in Ohio. She's crying again "I just miss him so much!"
Thanks mom, yep, thanks a lot.
They call his phone again and again. We're in Pennsylvania. Still in Pennsylvania.
Still in Pennsylvania.
We make it to Manhattan in the Mega-Yukon earth destroyer. Scary is defined as riding as a passenger while your brother drives in Manhattan. Eek.
We even parallel park the bitch. Score one point for me on this one. I got out to help navigate. Go go go, turn turn stop. Okay!
We get the items moved in, have a beer and call it a day. Step 1, get mailbox. Step 2, find Joe a place to live. Step 3, profit.
Joe's phone rings all day. I walk around with him while he's on the phone.
We get some things accomplished on Friday and go back to his friends apartment to watch Closer, which happens to be a fantastic movie if you haven't seen it. Just outstanding. All the dialogue is so perfect and deliberate. It's beautiful.
Today I get up and it is Vietnam swamp-ass hot. Seventeen buckets filled with nasty. Uck. I stumble around the city while Joe takes more phone calls.
We check out potential room for rent in Weehawken and that seems to be the one to go for. He's going to keep working on getting that secured. Then we got tickets to 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee and it was cute. Met some of the cast afterward - a couple of them were UM students. Some dinner and some ice cream and some air-conditioning and I'd say this day was pretty good!
We walked all over the city, and saw lots of people. Some of the people look like they could be famous and what I wonder is, do ordinary people sometimes look famous, or is it that famous people just look ordinary?
Time to wash this city off. I smell like burnt hot dogs and broken dreams.
Good night and see you soon.