Month: June 2014

When the movers finished with the house our final weight was thirteen hundred pounds over our maximum of 7900.

The shipping office couldn't tell us what the cost would be to pay for the overage to shipped, but I'd heard nightmare amounts of $8 a pound. The detritus of our lives or my antique art table wasn't worth $10,400– even if it was only one dollar a pound, it wasn't worth $1,040.

Going out to the warehouse and having the movers open the crates so we could go through each and every box and throw stuff away sounded like a nightmare.

Meanwhile the car's differential light came on and the car started making a strange noise.

And we couldn't go out to the warehouse until later because I had a job interview. 

Peter dealt with the car, I did my interview–not my best interview I must say–and we headed to the warehouse, way out in Corbeanca to throw literally half a ton of our personal items in the garbage.

We waited an hour while they rearranged the containers and lined up all eight of ours. They opened the first one with a crow bar, and started opening the packed boxes. They made a dumpster-sized box for us, and we started pitching stuff in: books, papers, my head of Hera statue, half empty boxes of stationery, empty boxes and mostly-used-up candles. We got rid of our mattress when I pointed out that it was over 17 years old and even the Embassy only keeps mattresses for 15 years.

My antique table weighed 100 pounds for the top and 100 pounds for the legs. We left behind an Ikea dresser with wonky drawers, and a ton–well, one-twentieth of a ton–of shelves. I parted with shoes, doll clothes, old postcards and a huge stash of fabric. And like a needle in a haystack, in a wad of paper with a seashell and a hair-tie, we found the missing back door key! (Which saved having to have to pay to have the door re-keyed.)

Going through the boxes and throwing stuff out was surprisingly easy. Detached from the house, the items wrapped in paper had less emotional pull. Much of the stuff, like massively-heavy step-down transformers that never worked, we'd meant to get rid of anyway. 

We kept kid's drawings, all Stefan's legos, all our clothes, which we'd already culled numerous times in the last month, our antique cabinet, artwork, everything from Camille's room becuase she lives light on the land, and most importantly, photos. 

Sitting on an ice chest in a warehouse, having four movers open every box at your feet with a huge trash container next to you is the most efficient way to get rid of stuff!

By nine p.m. we'd gone through six containers and had gotten rid of 1500 pounds. We went through one more container. Peter gave his bike rack to Vlad, I unloaded some shoes and we found the vaccuum cleaner that belongs in the house here in Bucharest. And rice! Why did we have so much rice? One box we opened was a case of packing tape the movers had mistakenly left in our container.

With the last round we purged 100 more pounds, and  I traded it for just the top of the antique table. I never liked the legs anyway. I'll buy new, better legs. After I throw something out of equal weight.

So the movers came at 9 am. I left to go to my thesis defense–which turned out to be a meeting ABOUT my thesis defense–boy, was I well-prepared! Peter watched the movers while I was gone. Then I watched them from noon to 3. Then Peter came back so I could go to a last hair appointment at the fabulous French place. When I got back, Peter couldn't be found and the movers informed me that we are 1300 pounds over the weight limit. 

I don't see how this is possible since we have gotten rid of bikes and books we came here with.

Ugh. And the Embassy contact-person has some weird formula with our car and can't tell us how much the over-the-weight-limit charges will be. And the movers wouldn't unpack the crates right then and there like I wanted them to. So Peter is driving out to their warehouse–in Buzau?–to lose 1700 pounds. Actually only 800 since some can be switched to HHE and medical shipping.

Have to talk to Stefan about that apostrophe usage. But maybe this sign he made is why we are overweight–maybe they put every lego piece in its own box? Nah…they'd still be here packing if that were the case.

Also, today the differential light came back on in the car, after just spending $2000 to have it fixed. 

Who knew we were living with all this dirt in the corners of the house? It's disgusting. And we have no broom or vacuum now, even though we had someone tell them in Romanian to leave them.

A Romanian friend says the house looks like "after the revolution."

At least they did a lovely job with my hair.

This guy's father and my great grandmother's great-grandfather were half brothers.

"My name is Pierriche Parenteau. I was sentenced to 7 years in jail in 1885, mainly for political reasons. The constitutional crisis we are undergoing with Canada and Ottawa, I felt deeply in 1870 in Manitoba and again in 1885 at Batoche, in Saskatchewan, twice at the side of Louis Riel. I am a Metis and proud of it. My father was a quebecois, born in Montreal in 1776, in the Faubourg St-Laurent. He was married "in the custom of the country" to a Manitoba Metis: Suzanne Cree. He was the grandson of Pierre-Louis Parenteau and Madeleine Rondeau anad great grandson of Pierre-Louis Parenteau from the Petit Chenal d'Yamaska. My descendence is mainly in Saskatchwan and Alberta. To be brief, my first political involvement with Louis Riel was in Manitoba, at Red River. Our lands were on a territory owned by the Hudson's Bay Company.
Canada took possession and immediately, Ottawa sent surveyors to divide the lands in lots, without any consultation. We patiently demanded:
1) a legislative assembly.
2) French and English as equal official languages.
3) the respect of our traditions.

We won our cause and in 1870. Manitoba became a province. The next year, in 1871, I fought against the Americans who wanted to control the West. I was personally thanked by the government who came to shake my hands. Around 1883, I came to settle in what was not yet the province of Saskatchewan. Once again, we had to defend our rights. We called Louis Riel, because Ottawa did not want to hear our demands. Louis Riel named me president of the Provisional
Government of Saskatchwan. We took arms, but after harsh combats, we had to surrender. On August 14, 1885, at the age of 74 years old, I was sentenced to 7 years in jail. 3 months later, Louis Riel was hanged."

This week was the opening of the student art show for the National Fine Arts University. I was super excited to see my work displayed in public in the Sala Dalles in downtown Bucharest, and to get a glimpse of something I had done next to so much amazing work.

I had to do a painting like that last year, a pixalated frame from a movie, repeated. I couldn't wait to be done with mine, but I think my classmate's turned out well. Or as well as it could.

These oversized portraits are wow.

 This painting totally creeps me out, and I think it's great.

 And what about this tiny table and chairs on a huge plate?

 My classmate Elena's work. If you look closely all the strokes and smears are actually tiny people, or horses, or people on horses, or bears or birds. She's insane. In the best way.

Oh, there is someone we know! It took me a while to find her hiding in a corner. 

Not only is she hiding in a corner, she's in a special corner. My painting hangs next to a patch of torn up floor and a sign that says "LUCRERE CONCRETE," which means of course, "concrete work."

I don't know if I should be embarrassed or humiliated by this placement, or just go with awesome-ness of people wondering if my painting is a comment on…the state of the worker? I noticed people read the lable on my painting a lot, looking to see if the title explains the "installation."

The title on my lable is "The Begining," which explains nothing and everything.

Stop by and see the show. There is a lot of amazing work. Be sure to check out "Lucrare Concreta."