Beans Don’t Burn on the Grill

If you recognize the theme song from The Jeffersons in the title, you may also know that during the song, “Movin’ on Up,” George and Weezy are moving into Manhattan, which I just did.

Again.

In the cab, Weezy is kind of crying and George is just over the moon about it all.

Did you know that the building that plays as the exterior of their new apartment is still there on 85th and Lex?

Here’s Three ‘Jeffersons’ themed thoughts before we continue:

1. Have you ever stood in your local dry cleaners and thought, “No way George Jefferson paid for that fucking apartment running one of these places…”? Because I have.
2. Also, what happened to TV shows having catchy theme songs? Was, “I’ll Be There for You” from Friends the last one? I seem to remember a lot of push-back on that one.
3. And wouldn’t beans slip through the grill and into the fire? Who grills beans? This has bothered me for years.

Back to my moving in NYC piece.

After a failed attempt to gentrify the blocks around Yankee Stadium, and due to the COVID exodus, rents have been at an all-time, well, reasonable. So, we scooped up a Manhattan apartment where we will await further orders.

Moving is a lot of work and can be stressful, but it can also be a kind of spiritual rebirth with the purging of old things and the memories that went with them; a chance to begin again in a ‘hellscape’ of boxes, dust and bags.

Recently curated moving tips:

• Label a box, “Shit I can’t deal with now because I have to keep packing,” and put as much stuff in it as you want. When you get to your new apartment, you will be amazed at how much you could have thrown away if you had just been more decisive.
• Eat all the food and drink all the booze you have so you won’t have to pack it. You won’t even know where the day went.
• Throw out the toaster oven and buy a new one — that thing is disgusting.
• Wrapping all the glasses individually was not something I was interested in, so I left it for last and ended up using towels and underwear and it was very weird. Just buy paper cups.
• In the frenzy of packing up the kitchen I did have one, “I got this!” moment. I found a huge bag, full of smaller bags of Pirate Booty (Which is something you eat if you want popcorn, but also want to feel sad,) and used the Pirate Booty as edible (?) packing peanuts wedging them in between plates and the French Press.
• Just use garbage bags for all your clothes. You don’t have enough luggage, and wardrobe boxes are for fancy people on cross-country moves usually paid for by someone’s Dad’s job. The cool thing about using garbage bags to transport your clothes is you can pretend there has been a natural disaster or you are simply fleeing the law in the middle of the night.
• Make one bag for stuff you can’t live without on the actual moving day; phone chargers, check books, glasses, wallet – and then fill it with nothing of any relevance or value. I suggest a few old Burt’s Bees lip balms and some guy’s business card you forgot you wanted to keep.
• Pack all cords far, far from their corresponding electronics.
• Decide to return the old cable box and modem, like whenever.
• Your new apartment will have electricity already. Give it a good month or two before switching it to your name. You know how when you’re billed for something you charged that instant? But a refund can take 3-5 days to get credited to your account? This is paying back the universe for that kind of bullshit.

After making the first run to the new place in a friend’ s car with the few precious things that no movers could be trusted with – plants mostly – I settled down with my farewell sandwich from the deli downstairs, (I will miss your hateful scowl, deli guy,) on my computer before I packed it, and went online to change my address with the post office.

Click, click done.

*Ding* — I get an alert on my phone.

An eighty-five-dollar charge has hit my account from an unrecognized website – changemyaddress.com or something like that.

Oh, you motherfuckers.

It turns out that there are websites that make themselves *look* like the post office but aren’t, and act as a “service” to change your address for you then charge you for it. The charge didn’t go through and I went back online, (slower this time,) and found the much more utilitarian USPS website, (remember stamps.com? Nice try post office) and got that straightened out.

Most importantly, pick the right movers.

Moving is a lot like being robbed. Four dudes you don’t know walk into your apartment and start carrying everything out as fast as they can, and from that moment, it will never be your place again. I had saved a few things to do for that morning while they were working; like we were all colleagues. I was going to take apart the desk and the bookshelf and so on while they got to work on the hedge maze of boxes and furniture that I had left closest to the door.

These guys were in a HUGE hurry. The language barrier was as strong as the guy wrestling my couch onto the elevator, and we communicated in hand gestures and basic phrases like “No!” and “Wait!” and “Stop!” Despite the aforementioned hedge maze, the boss-guy walks into the bedroom, over to the still-warm bed and starts ripping the sheets off because he wants to put the mattress on the truck first. Gross, right? I tried to tell him to chill, and he pointed angrily to the desk and said something I assume meant, “You better start taking that shit apart cuz it’s next.”

The next fifteen or so minutes until the apartment was empty is a blur.

Lastly, and due entirely to my own incompetence, there was a growing pile of odds and ends near the door – a plunger, the broom, a fan. These things are impossible to pack. He was gesturing dismissively at my pile of shame and I realized that he was saying there was no room for all that stuff on the truck, couldn’t we get an Uber or something?

Up to then he’d been a pretty good boss.

Look, I’ve heard stories of these guys getting pissed off and leaving your belongings on the sidewalk, and even though I was paying them, I had lost the power struggle. They had all my stuff in their truck and I didn’t know any of their names.

I rushed outside to see them getting ready to drive into Manhattan to bring their wrath down onto my new building.
I ran to the subway. I had to beat them there.

I got them bottles of water, because I read online that you should do that, and went to the bank because for some reason, you have to pay them in cash.

“Nonono, not there! Never mind – it’s fine.” That’s me telling the guy where to put the couch.

In seconds, all our stuff was in the new, gorgeous place, but no time for me to bask in the newness, I had to take the train back uptown, rent a Zipcar, drive to the old apartment, pack all my junk into the car, drive it to the new apartment, unload it, return the car back up near Yankee Stadium then finally take the train back to my new apartment in “upper Manhattan,” which is what realtors call Harlem.

That last paragraph cost me almost five hours of my day.

Now I know why Weezy was crying in the cab. She was tired and all she had that day was a bottle of water. She wanted to wash her hands but didn’t know where she packed the soap.

So, you flop down on the couch and look around thinking, “I can’t possibly just like, go to sleep right now can I?” Start with the big stuff. Get the food in the kitchen, set up shelves and furniture, and take your time settling in.

Go out and get yourself a nice bottle of wine and light some candles if you can find them because you took the light bulbs out of the lamps and wrapped them in more underwear.

But make sure the wine has a screw cap, because it could be days before you come across a wine opener.