Two Weeks

 We get to do this all the time.

I wanted to write One Week, Three Years Later, or One Week Part 3, or One Week something to continue my One Week series (part 1 and part 2), but the parts that were thoroughly out of the ordinary happened over two weeks (well, if I'm being completely honest it's been more like a month, but I've already written about a lot of the things that have happened (like my apartment flooding and the decision to move in with the boyfriend). So I'm going to abandon my hopes for a trilogy and instead focus on these first two weeks of cohabitation. Because this is so not normal.

Yet it is. Easily the weirdest thing about living with the boyfriend is that it's not weird at all. When we first decided to find a place together, then signed the lease, the boyfriend sent me a middle-of-the-day text, sounding all cute and excited, reminding me that we were going to live together in a couple weeks. I said it was going to be weird. And I fully believed it would - neither of us have lived with a significant other before, we haven't had any relationship testing experiences such as a move for either of us, and we had no idea how the animals were going to take it.

The move itself sucked. When we first decided to live together we said the fall would be a good time to aim for, partially because moving in cooler weather was just way more preferable than moving in the heat of summer. But San Diego thinks that September and October are summer and we moved at the tail end of a crazy heat wave - it was definitely mid-80s on moving day and we and our amazing helpers were so goddamn miserable. It was hot, the furniture was heavy (most of it really wasn't that heavy), there were stairs, and we had to visit three different addresses. Fuck. That. But we didn't have a choice so we sucked it up and did it (one of our helpers definitely picking up my slack when I just couldn't handle the heat for a few minutes). I've always said I love moving - the looking for apartments, finding the right one, packing, heavy lifting, unpacking, all of it. I used to do it often enough that I should have loved it, but this was not fun. Don't move in September.

But the actual living together part has seemed pretty normal. We spent every night together (with maybe two exceptions) the last year, and for a few weeks we actually lived together at his place, with cat and dog, while my apartment was a disaster zone. So having our own place, a place that neither cat nor dog had lived in, and room enough for both our belongings is actually so far really easy. The cat and dog are being... cat and dog... but honestly they're adjusting to sharing the same space pretty quickly. It definitely helped that the cat is no longer living in the dog's home, and obviously the dog being the sweet non-confrontational creature he is makes things better, but they're sharing the bed and walking around the condo together without major issues (Chloe being a cat doesn't count as a major issue). 

We are settling into our weekday routines of dog walking, lunch making and cooking dinner, in between washing and putting away our endless collection of coffee mugs, pint glasses, plates and stemware (which is funny because I think we have 5 forks between us). Our place is right by a dog park so Argo gets to go several times a week. We're also by the big dog park that he knows, and he's gone there a couple times already. When my lazy ass starts running again it'll be nice to have a regular partner.

The boyfriend had the internet switched over on moving day so there was no lapse in coverage. We also discovered the basic cable package he was already paying for to watch football also comes with a bunch of channels, so we've been watching more regular TV the last two weeks, and by TV I mean we can watch Breaking Bad when it airs.

I also went through my colposcopy, giving moving in stress some medical company (it went OK).

For the most part we're settled. We're in need of a bookshelf and need to figure out what to do with our patio, but the important parts are set up and functional and the living room and kitchen have already been able to entertain friends. My deadline for being art-on-the-walls settled is end of October for our first out of town visitor, but Black Friday is going to be our fancy-pants TV and Blu Ray buying time. I have a feeling after that the boyfriend is going to want to do Super Bowl Sunday here, so maybe we'll have replaced our IKEA couches by then. But it's all exciting - this is the party of moving that's more relaxed. Having a few boxes of books not put away isn't hurting anything for the time being, so we can take it easy. In the mean time, we have painting and fixing up the boyfriend's condo to get it ready for tenants to take care of.