My nephew and his wife were visiting from Boston last year and they arrived at a really busy time in our home renovations. We were at the tail-end of a major kitchen remodel and I was on the phone with the appliance store, fighting to get our new refrigerator delivered sometime in the next decade. They were dragging their feet, because the refrigerator had to be brought into the house by crane through the front living room window.
“Good news. Aunt Diane’s got a crane guy,” my nephew told his mom. I think that impressed him more than the fact that I had a house-call vet, a dog walker, and a cabinet maker.
At that point, I did have solidly in my possession a crane guy. During our move into the house six months previous, six pieces of furniture had to be craned in through front windows. In San Francisco, with tall, skinny houses with narrow, winding staircases that are ill equipped to handle an extra long couch, queen sized box springs or a baby grand piano, the sight of a crane hoisting furniture and swinging into windows is an everyday occurrence.
Moving to a new city is always an adjustment. Sometimes you have to learn to embrace an accent that deep down makes you want to sucker punch everyone in an entire region of your own country. Sometimes it takes you two years to find a hairdresser that gets you and your deep-seated issues with heavy bangs. Sometimes you discover that you’re the only person in the state who uses the car turn signal. And sometimes you need a crane guy.
Our previous nine houses were all, well, fatter than this San Francisco house. They all had doorways and staircases built to handle today’s huge entertainment centers, king-sized water beds and medieval dining room tables
So again today, my crane guy will come and move some furniture from floor to floor and other furniture out the door – I mean out of the window – as part of a furniture rearrangement that will hopefully make our guest room more hospitable. Because having guests almost every weekend is another adjustment I’ve had to make, in moving to one of the most popular tourist destination cities in America, not to mention the location of thousands of conferences every year.
You know me, I’m full of cheerful, keep-your-chin-up, life’s-an-adventure, you-can-SO-do-this advice on moving, adapting, and handling life changes. “When in Rome,” I tell people. Take your new city and run with it. Forget what you did in Connecticut, and start doing things best done in Kansas. In the end you’ll be happier for it. And you might just end up with a crane guy in your tool box.
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Diane’s got moving advice, tips and stories out the wazoo. Read more It’s Your Move! blog posts here. Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter and get new blog posts and other neat stuff. And if you like this, you’ll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.