Moving / Removing Day
Initially Nicole and I started sending
dispatches or periodic updates by email back to our friends and family who were
back in Canada and the USA. These
were stochastic at best, and often ambitiously tried to distill a number of
experiences into correspondence that people would actually read with interest
during their busy lives. The fact
remained that we had left Canada. We had left our friends and family, all of whom kept on running their busy
lives independent of any adventure that we might have embarked upon. Further, these same friends and family
carried on their lives all the while perceiving that we had left the frozen
wasteland of The Great White North (Canada) for the last vestige of the Garden
of Eden that is Queensland. We did
very little in our updates back to Canada to dispel this belief.
During this time, my muse seemed to be on a
hiatus that often was only interrupted by long runs or copious amounts of wine.
Unfortunately, while effective in rousing the muse, neither were particularly
conducive to getting my brilliant ideas down in written form. However, as
life became more organized my updates, became more event inspired, but still
issued randomly, which according to some became part of their charm. These events included National
holidays, local shenanigans and notable happenings in our lives.
One such notable episode occurred early in
May. The 7th of May,
occurring here at the same time that every Mexican in the Western Hemisphere
was coming out of their Cinco de Mayo hangover, was the glorious day when our
possessions that were shipped from Canada finally arrived. So
to provide the proper context, for the period of 15 March to 7 May, we lived
with rented furniture, rented bedding, rented dishes, rented cups, rented cutlery,
rented cooking implements and, to my great chagrin, rented knives. So the arrival of our personal
possessions was something that had been longed for with the same baited breath
of a returning lover who had been absent for months.
What started off with pitched excitement
and a festive feeling, eclipsing the anticipation of Christmas, soon gave way
to the tedium of opening box after box after box that contained all the
surprise of a wooden Russian doll. The actual delivery of our goods had
to be scheduled with the removal of our rental furniture and kitchen wares, so
the day itself was expected to be
busy with two separate work crews (and I) in a 1000 sq ft apartment. As
you (or at least Murphy (of Murphy's Law
notoriety) would expect, the crew to deliver our contents arrived before the
crew to remove the rentals. So I
had the pleasure of playing a very unhappy life sized game of Tetris inside
our home.
I must admit that the crews were
great. Friendly; generally
proficient, and happy to accommodate most of my instruction. All of the crewmembers
introduced themselves to me and shook my hand prior to starting. One of
the delivery guys (A.J.) was thrilled that I came from Canada as he has plans
to travel to Canada, "in a couple of years...when he's 21". It
was amazing to talk about anything to someone who was 19 years old. A.J. had
some real gems to share; gems that only 19 years of wisdom could lay claim to.
"I'm not
worried about the cold in Canada, mate; I'm from Tassie (Tasmania) and it gets
pretty cold there." Right. Compared to Queensland, Tasmania is
colder. Fair enough. However, Tasmania also still boasts all year agricultural
activities, whereby comparison Alberta has glaciers, which as we know is all
year ice. Not really the same: you'll need more than a "jumper"
to "rug up" mate.
"Hey, mate,
I've been doing this for 10 years," A.J. reassured me of his
professionalism by stating with considerable authority. OK, great, you've been
doing exactly what for 10 years, chewing gum while you talk to people?
You just told me that you're 19. "Yeah well I've sort of helped my
step-dad out for a long time..." Nice to see that bravado is
universal.
Admittedly, A.J. for all of his bravado and
his wealth of experience packed into his 160cm (5’ 4”) and 50kg (110 lbs)
stature he worked hard and efficiently. I would put that kid to work on any job site. I suppose it also helped the overall
effect because he caused a laugh every time he opened his mouth, which was
frequent enough.
The crews were good and well spirited,
always ready for a laugh and working steadily away. We managed to get on well, I offered them cold cokes and
water and they took my direction placing things in the designated rooms or
outside on one of the three patios that we had. Three patios, you ask?
Hey, baby we’re in Australia now, we’ve got to have outdoor space. The cokes and water were good but the
big reward for the boys (groups of guys here, whether they are on a team, if
they’re working or standing around a water cooler are referred to as “boys”)
was at the end of the move.
Part of the relocation service coming from
Canada was that a crew would attend at our home in Calgary and pack all the
contents that we were taking.
These guys were also efficient.
So efficient in fact that they packed and loaded copies of files that I
had brought home to work on and my access card to the law firm, for which I had
to provide the firm with an undertaking that I would destroy both upon my
reuniting with it in Australia. You
know, in case I wanted to come back to Canada unannounced and wander the halls
of a law firm.
Because of the logistics involved in
transporting goods overseas, requiring truck, rail, ocean and truck again
modes, all the contents were wrapped in paper and bubble wrap and then placed
in boxes. So between the various
wraps and boxes there was a tonne of paper left over at the end of move that
needed to be disposed of.
Fortunately the removal of the packing materials was also part of the
deal. However, I now had the
problem having three removalists wanting to rush with empty boxes through a
small but partially unpacked home in order to take the packing materials
away. This was further complicated
by the fact that we were on the third floor and the boys would have to load and
unload the elvator (“lift”), that was until I was struck by inspiration. “Ok boys, just bring all the boxes to
this patio and then throw them over to your mate.” The crew just stared at each other thinking I was “taking a
piss” with them, until I called out to the guy below and started throwing the
boxes in to the alley. Genius in
its simplicity, the boxes were light, even if full of used packing paper, and
then harmlessly bounced down into the alley adjacent to where the truck was
parked. Buddy on the bottom, could
just pick them up and toss them into the truck. Soon the boys were tossing boxes off the balcony like
luggage handlers at LAX.
Unfortunately, the guy on the bottom wasn’t happy with this arrangement
because as cool as it was to look up and see in raining cardboard boxes, he
wasn’t getting to “have a toss” (I tried to explain that, at least in Canada,
that expression has another meaning, but I wasn’t to be heard) “You know mate, every one loves a good
toss.” Right, I didn’t shake his
hand when we said good bye.
All in all, the rental items were returned
and our possessions were delivered without incident. The exceptions were that our sofa didn't fit into our unit
due to a function of building code differences. In Canada, it is standard
to require no less than 1.4m (4 feet) for egress (fire code). The noted
exception to this is at least one of the law firms that I worked at, where the
standard corridor is choked with file boxes and the like allowing about ½ m (18
inches) of passage. This also, perhaps, explains why the more
“established” partners don’t venture down corridors but rather send their
starving associates scurrying along to find a specific file, or brief, or piece
of evidence that “must be in one of those boxes”.
The phrase “fool’s errand” comes to mind,
but I’m sure the reference is to “having sent a fool”, I’ve certainly felt that
way returning to the instructed lawyer empty handed. At any rate, regarding egress; as far as I know there has
never been a story of someone running into a burning building to save a
lawyer. Perhaps there is an
obvious reason for this, and perhaps an even more obvious joke, but I suspect
that lawyers, with their view of risk are well out of the building (and safely
relocated to the library at the Courts so that they can continue to work, and
more importantly, bill) at the first sign of trouble and so egress statutes are
for the rest of society.
In Australia our corridor is closer to 0.9
m (3 feet), which in addition to frustrating file storage, operates to prevent
a large curved sofa from gaining entry to our home. That is unless we wanted to rent a crane or cherry picker to
convey the piece up to our third floor unit and then through the sliding doors
off of the balcony. Hmmmm. While the image of a 19-year-old kid with 10 years of
experience operating a crane in a busy alley might make for good YouTube entertainment we opted to store
the sofa for six months and forego the Australian version of the Three Stooges chasing each other, (and
A.J.) with cherry pickers, hi-boys and fork lifts. I suppose that rather
than subscribing to cable television (FoxTel
is the local service) we could have sat on the sofa and watched the drama and
saved both on the television and the rental; in my mind’s eye it would have
been like the Three Stooges but
directed by Quentin Tarantino.
The other catch in the otherwise smoothly functioning
machine, that was our relocation experience, involved a couple of our more coveted
appliances. Originally, we were told that as long as we had proper plug
converters our appliances would be fine in Australia, notwithstanding that
North America runs 120v and Australia runs 240v for domestic equipment (with
the exception of refrigerators and other large appliances in Canada that
require 240v). First of all, plug converters are small devices that trick
the North American plug into thinking that they are safely back in the Northern
Hemisphere where they can functions safely while enjoying a drive on the proper
side of the road and not being scared of snakes, rather than simply in a
prosthetic that allows the non-compatible plug, into the gilded trough of sweet
current that nourishes our appliances voracious appetite for electricity.
Putting this advice to the test, we plugged
in a floor lamp, which greeted us with a warm glow of light that promised us evenings
of reading, visiting or enjoying the luxury of seeing what you were
eating. Unfortunately, this
welcome was short lived and with a resounding "pop" the bulb and
internal wiring blew apart. Impressive,
to be sure, but also short lived.
Much like silly school girls on a sugar high, Nicole and I laughed and
giggled for a few short moments and then fell silent when we realized that we
were in the dark until the shops opened again the following day and we could
replace the lamp. Leaving our
dreams lost in the dark of our apartment.
Fortunately despair was staved off with wine and the fact that we could
keep the windows and patio doors open to enjoy the velvety warm night. In some ways this was better as the
bugs, which are super creepy for a kid that grew up in the mountains of Canada,
where most things die when the temperature reaches zero C (an occurrence
generally observed 8 months a year) don’t come in as there’s no light to
attract them. But then hearing the
bats scream to eat the bugs….well it quickly because the Australian version of
the children’s song, “I knew an old lady
who swallowed a fly, I don’t know why she swallowed a fly…she swallowed a
spider to catch the fly…” But I digress. Yes, sad about no light, but drinking wine in the warm dark
is not without it’s charm.
Compared to the floor lamp, our experience
with the toaster was far more spectacular. Saturday morning, in answer to
Spencer's crescendoing baby robin cry of "toast,
toast, toast, toast" Nicole attempted to make toast, an easy
enough task, even for someone with my culinary expertise. Notwithstanding that toast is a simple
task for Nicole, our circumstances betrayed us. The toaster opened with a whirring noise, started to glow
and then ended its functional life with the sickly pop of a dropped rotten egg.
Just as powerful as the scent of warm toast wafting through the morning
is, so to was the acrid odour of a small electrical fire hung in our kitchen. Our plans had changed. Again. Changing plans is usually easy enough but with Spencer
baying “toast, toast, toast, toast", an appliance on fire and
stares of shock and disbelief, Nicole and I had to think fast.
Spencer is blessed with Nicole’s dedication
and cursed with my stubbornness, which makes her as flexible as granite in most
instances. Fortunately, Spencer
also has Nicole’s gracious spirit and my penchant for rapid gratification, which
is to say that she can sometimes be easily distracted to lower hanging fruit if
we can make it appealing enough.
In this case, we convinced her that koalas eat porridge and that she
might like to as well. Shamefully,
we (and truly I mean, me) actually only convinced Spencer that koalas don’t eat
toast, and as the corollary, porridge was a viable option as I could boil the
water on the stove.
So as Spencer made due with porridge, the
toaster was sent on its way to a modern art exhibit. This was all so terribly disappointing; having dreamt of my
morning commencing with the scent of the invigorating fragrance and sight of
the velvety crema from my morning espresso for the first time since leaving
Canada, I woke instead to the smell of appliances burning themselves out from
the inside and despair. When I
told Nicole that it was acrid smoke that was making my eyes water, she graciously
pretended to believe me.
Still unconvinced that our appliances
wouldn't work here, we tried a couple of the other smaller appliances, you
know, just to be sure. With
an attitude that was becoming increasingly curious and intrepid I turned my
attentions to the electric eggbeater.
The premise was simple, no one was going to pay to have this item
shipped back to Canada, it was inexpensive to replace and the power draw
shouldn't be significant. Not that
I had any empirical basis upon which to draw the last conclusion but I had
consumed a lot of coffee by that time and was perhaps a little bit bored. The result was spectacular. In fact had I known how this was going
to turn out I would have brought more beaters over from Canada and waited for
Nicole to get home from work to show her.
Within five seconds of engaging the motor on the beater I had converted
a small kitchen appliance into a one-use short-range taser. Awesome. Actually it was a sight to behold. To Nicole's credit, she thought that this was mildly
amusing, but I think secretly she was glad that our daughter was in day care on
a full time basis.
We explored various workarounds to this “minor”
electrical problem. One was to purchase a transformer. These are
devices that safely convert voltage from the unsuitable voltage to that which is
suitable for the appliances. In our case, each transformer would cost us
~$300 and occupy the area of a toaster on our counter, but weigh as much as a
small anvil (because everyone really should have their own small anvil around,
and more so on their kitchen counter). In addition, each appliance that
operated on different amps would require it's own transformer. So, we'd
need three to start. Unfortunately, we didn't have the counter space to transform
our kitchen into a blacksmith’s shop and worse, they're as ugly as sin (the
marrying your cousin kind of sin, not the fun sins like, well, you know) all
for the bargain price of about $1000.
We also explored re-wiring the appliances,
which actually requires a new motor to be installed; not a viable option, as the
price quoted was higher than the additional transformers or new appliances.
Oddly, we found one electrician (referred to as “Sparkies” here) who
would be willing to attend at our apartment and simply install new wall outlets
that would accommodate the Canadian plug, without changing the electricity that
flowed through them!! I could smell the electrical fire over the phone. Perhaps
this was another 19-year-old professional, with 10 years experience. It would seem that Sparkies derive
their moniker from the fires that they leave in their wake, rather than simply
just their ability to play with wires. Not sure that our landlord would be the
happy kind of excited about this option, but perhaps we'd be ok, because we
have insurance.....maybe the Sparkie will do my lobotomy at the same time. Electroshock therapy might be more of
his thing. Yeah, good ideas flowing like a torrent. Maybe, after a few drinks, I could convince the Sparkie to
lower his price, but then he may commence the work in that same inebriated state
too.
Anyways, at the end of the day, we offered
to have a few items shipped back to Canada to anyone who was willing to give
them a good home and pay the shipping. On offer was a Breville Espresso
machine (that ran about $600 Cdn new at Williams Sonoma), a KitchenAid food
processor (also roughly $600 Cdn new), a cordless drill and other small
appliances. There were also a few
lamps and what not, that were not worth the shipping, unless someone
desperately wanted them for sentimental reasons. Right, that just wasn’t going
to happen.
Oddly we had someone suggest that we keep
the drill because if its cordless then it doesn’t have to be plugged and
shouldn’t have the same problem. I
only had to count to 5 before they caught the mistake.
As it turned out there was some interest in
the coffee machine. However, because
it was a cast piece, the size of the engine block on a small motorbike, the
shipping was about $200 AUD. But
still, this seemed like a good idea to the parties, since it was still less
than the machine would cost new. Really
isn’t all about the value. Isn’t it? Well, it turns out that the joke was on us. Upon arrival in Canada, the espresso
machine was classified by Canada Post as “new”, rather than “used” or a “gift”
as disclosed on the customs declaration and thus levied a duty in the amount of
$175 Cdn. So, in what was
beginning to resemble a Sienfeld
episode, the recipient paid the duty (as good Canadians who are anxious for a
caffeine fix are wont to do) thinking that we had shipped it COD. The result was a Kafkaesque dialogue
with Canada Post and the Canada Revenue Agency whereby refunds couldn’t be
issued, appeals couldn’t be launched or basic questions answered as each agency
claimed that it was the other agency’s responsibility. Even worse, it was not clear who had
the right of inquiry, the consingee or the consignor. So, again in good Canadian fashion, we agreed to ignore it,
take the additional loss and pay a tax that seemed both unfair and arbitrary. I now understand why the Malatov
Cocktail is the preferred form of political expression in some parts of the
world. But alas, not Canada, not
Australia; thankfully. Well, at
least most times I’m thankful for more restrained political expression.
Notwithstanding the trials related to incompatible
power supplies, enthusiastic but misguided repairmen and sparkies; and
overzealous government agencies, I have to admit that it was wonderful to have
our own stuff again (except the non-functioning appliances). In
particular our bed and linens and having our knives and kitchen implements is quite
lovely. The rental items were fine, but as one would expect from rental
furnishings they were well worn. The
frying pan was warped from being thrown into cold water, clearly when it was
still hot enough to be re-worked and the knives were as dull as the look on a
sales guys face mid-afternoon during Stampede week (an all week drunk) in
Calgary, everything else, while functional, was tired. Sharp knives and
good cookware is certainly well appreciated.
Would we move these things across the world
if it came to that again? Perhaps
not. I think that the lesson that
this has taught us is that we would take the pieces that we needed AND that
were easy to transport. Photos,
art, collectables (or at least those things with sentimental value) our
clothing, linens and that’s perhaps it.
Could I offer some advice on this?
Certainly, I’m always one to provide an option, welcome or otherwise. I would say that you should take what
you need and nothing else. For us,
this probably would mean our kitchen, attendant with all the pots, pans, tins, cake
forms and whatnot that we’ve been collecting over the years; our art, again
collected for sentimental reasons over the years. Our clothing; and our documents[1]
(including books, music and photographs) would also make the trip, every time. The furniture is good, but we don’t
have any really important pieces so it’s unlikely that they would be brought
along on any subsequent move.
Having said that, things certainly would
depend on the circumstances of the move, how much time we had to organize and
whatever else. We were given an
allowance to move a certain amount of our possessions, which could not be
“converted” into new furnishings here, so of course these things came with
us. Further, and to give ourselves
credit, Nicole’s job came up fast and things moved so quickly for us that we barely
had time to get in a cab, let alone properly assess what was being sold to fire
sale and what was coming with us.
In fact our packing and organizing had all the structure and discipline
of abandoning a besieged embassy.
[1] As far as documents go.
Take the originals and take plenty of certified copies, more on this
later.
