Fresh hell

Folks, the unthinkable has happened. After months of whining, complaining, and hypochondriacal trips to the ER, my mom finally packed up and sold her house to move closer to us. Due to incredibly poor planning and an extreme tendency to procrastinate, she failed to find a place to live before having to move out of her house. So she's been rattling around the Bay Area with her stuff in a storage "pod," staying with friends or in hotels, for the past six weeks.

On Saturday she texted me, asking if Anthony could help her move some heavy suitcases up a flight of stairs to her new apartment. (The existence of said apartment was news to me.) We had plans in the afternoon, but I told her he'd stop by. She texted me the address, and ZOMG - it is within a mile of our house! It's on one of only two roads out of our neighborhood. It's on the way to the grocery store, Home Depot, Trader Joe's, Anthony's job, the aviation museum, the doctor's office...we will be passing Grammy's apartment nearly every single day. <wheezing>

When Anthony got home from helping her move, I asked him how it went. He grinned at me and said, "What's your guess?"
I said, "Well, I imagine she wasn't there yet when you arrived."
He said, "Check."
I said, "She probably showed up 10 minutes later, breathless, with some scattered and long-winded story about what took her so long."
"Yup."
I said, "And she probably had 10,000 plastic grocery bags full of stuff in her car like a lunatic."
He said, "Yes, she did. But that's not what's so bizarre. Go on, try to guess."

I couldn't guess. And the reason I couldn't guess is that NOBODY in their right mind could have guessed what happened next. Anthony helped her lug a big suitcase and a bunch of plastic bags up the stairs to the second floor, and then discovered that she didn't have the key to the apartment. ("What?!" I spluttered.) But it gets better - the reason she didn't have the key is that she was supposed to have met with the apartment manager earlier to sign the lease, but my mom (oops!) didn't show up for the appointment. So not only did she not have the key, she HADN'T EVEN LEASED THE PLACE. And it was a Saturday, so who's to say whether the apartment manager would be back?

Thank goodness for our afternoon plans - Anthony was able to get out of there before things got any more cuckoo. The next day, I texted her to see if Katie could come by and see her new place. I half-expected her to tell me that she'd slept on the stairs or the doorstep, and that she still hadn't signed the lease. But somehow she'd managed to pull it together. She signed the lease and got the keys, and even got a mattress store to deliver a bed. I was amazed.

So we shall see what bizarre stories lie ahead for us. A mile away. The only thing more hellish than that would be if she moved next door. <shudders>