This Old Bull

First, my apologies for the lack of posts over the course of the past couple months. Life was both busy — mostly with work, but also with my sometimes overwhelming social life — and uneventful, so I didn’t really have a chance to post much of anything, but even if I had there was nothing to post. But now we’re back with exciting happenings!

This past Saturday night, there was a music event at a new bar downtown called [The Pinhook](http://www.thepinhook.com/). It was billed as a [steampunk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk) gathering, which I’ve severely missed since [The Clockwork Ball](http://www.myspace.com/theclockworkball) moved to Chapel Hill with the closure of Ringside, so Betsy, myself, and our mutual friend Karaya who was in town from Atlanta suited up and headed out.

Continue reading “A New Venue.”

Yeah, I know, it’s Wednesday. But Monday was part of last weekend, and I was too busy yesterday to write this. Join me, please, in a journey into the past.

This last weekend was really great. Friday night [Betsy](http://onlyevenprime.com/) and I just hung out. Saturday, we went over to our dear friend Kassi’s house in Wake Forest to help her celebrate her birthday. She recently came back from a London/Paris trip and had lots of amazing and beautiful pictures to show us and gifts to give. Betsy made this awesome pork chop dinner, and we watched some [Doctor Who](http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/), drank some [sparkling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkling_wine) [rosé](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosé) wine, and just enjoyed ourselves. Sunday was more hanging out at home with Betsy.

Monday, Kassi came over to hang out with us, and we found out that [Six Plates](http://sixplates.blogspot.com/) does half-price bottles of wine on Monday nights. I don’t think I’ve mentioned Six Plates here before, but it’s one of my favorite restaurants. The premise behind it is that there are exactly six entrée options with a menu that rotates every couple of weeks. With each entrée are paired six ideal and unique wine-by-the-glass options of wines that you’ve probably never considered trying before. [Matthew Beason](http://sixplates.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-about-matthew-beason.html), the owner, noticed that when people went out to eat they were rarely willing to experiment with wine, so he applies his wine knowledge — which is extensive — to helping folks find new flavors and styles. Chef Ted Domville uses all local ingredients whenever possible, and it’s just a wonderful place.

Kassi and I had the Cane Creek pork chop with white “baked beans” and bok choy, and Betsy had the Braeburn Farm sirloin with caramelized sweet potatoes and tobacco onion rings. It was all amazing. We started with the cheese plate — which is brilliantly presented on a piece of slate with the cheese names written in chalk, along with fresh honey and honeycomb and some crusty bread — and a bottle of Californian rosé which was unlike any other rosé I’ve ever tried. With and after dinner, we had a pinot gris which was also simply delightful, and then we finished up with the chocolate mousse trio for desert. It’s a great place, and I absolutely recommend everyone who likes good food and good wine at reasonable prices check it out.

Yeah, it’s a [D&D](http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome) reference. Sorry. The [TV stand](http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-TR-500X3BX-Adjustable-61-Inch-Stand/dp/B000P53JRG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1219163958&sr=8-1) was one of the most difficult pieces of furniture I’ve ever had to assemble. After about two hours of struggling with it, it’s together, looks great, and seems sturdy enough. You can’t even tell where the back fell off, stripping out chunks of the [MDF](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-density_fibreboard), when I inadvertently applied too much pressure in the wrong spot during construction. It’s not as if the screws were load-bearing, at least, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

I drove out to [Legends](http://www.legends-club.com/) in Raleigh last night to see a [dear, dear friend](http://bejipan.livejournal.com/) off before she moves to Atlanta. I’m going to miss her, and I got in pretty late because I didn’t want to leave the club. This morning I awoke with a headache — which isn’t uncommon for me after not getting enough sleep — and one of the construction people was in the courtyard alternately banging and circular-sawing. The joys of living in a construction zone. I can handle headaches; I can handle noise. But the two of them together? Ugh. I’m looking forward to an evening in, and getting to bed early.

I got my mailbox key yesterday, which means that the Post Office finally put their locks on the mailboxes. The mailboxes themselves are behind a locked door with a keypad so that we can dial ourselves in, but it also has an intercom for guests arriving at the building to get buzzed in. Unfortunately that doesn’t really help me as it only lets people on to the main hall and my exterior door is off Pettigrew Street, but it will still give me a place to tell people to go, and then I can instruct them to walk around to the other side of the building and I’ll come down and let them in. Hopefully mail will start arriving soon, too!

There were also a couple of small things broken or wrong with the place when I moved in, most notably that there was a part missing from the microwave that made the turntable not turn. That got fixed yesterday only a day or so after I’d reported the problem, which leads me to believe that the maintenance people are going to be on top of things. It wasn’t any big deal, and was the sort of thing that I expect when I’m the first occupant of an apartment, but it was nice to have it fixed in a timely fashion. They also gave me a couple of quotes from an Allstate agent for renter’s insurance, and a nice silver keychain with the “Apartments at American Tobacco” logo on it. Snazzy.

On the morning of Friday, the First of August, TROSA showed up at a little before 9AM to start loading my life into a truck. At around 10:30AM, I spoke with Ally at the leasing office; they were still waiting on one final signature from someone with the city and had been waiting since 9AM. There were already two other residents with movers waiting to put items into their new apartments. At 11AM, we were done loading the truck and ready to head over to Old Bull, still not having the keys to get into my new place. At about 11:30AM, Ally called to let me know she was on her way to meet me with my new keys almost exactly when the movers finished parking the truck; I was overjoyed to not have to pay the movers to sit there, waiting for the city. At 12:30PM, all my stuff was in my new apartment. We were done. I bought the movers pizza to thank them for their time (and because we were all starving), and had the first meal in my new home.

As always, TROSA was nothing short of amazing. When we’d finished, the other two crews who’d been waiting were still going. I donated my old washer and dryer to TROSA, since the new apartment has really nice new ones, and I got an amazing work crew for a phenomenal price. I will always continue to use and recommend them for moves of any size. Their workers are fast, professional, kind, and careful. Their prices are more than reasonable and go to a very good cause.

Betsy spent the afternoon cleaning up the old apartment — once again, there is no way I could have made this move without her help — and I took over from her in the evening. I am absolutely ecstatic to be rid of that dump, and there is no love lost between me and the former apartment.

Today we went shopping for various accouterments for the apartment, including some really nice stuff for the bathroom and kitchen, and an alarm clock that I can read from across the spacious bedroom without my glasses on. She cooked me dinner — homemade lasagna! — with some new pots and pans I got. There were some fireworks from a Durham Bulls victory, and we had a wonderful evening with one of our dearest friends, my first guest in my new home.

To put it bluntly, I absolutely adore this apartment. It feels like a home to me, something I haven’t had in quite some time. It’s not without its flaws — the trains can be kind of noisy at times, and while the windows are very tall I wish they were wider so I could get a better view of the downtown skyline — but I suspect I’m going to be very happy here for quite some time. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.