{"id":221,"date":"2011-11-12T06:55:54","date_gmt":"2011-11-12T06:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/?p=221"},"modified":"2026-03-19T10:57:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T10:57:42","slug":"november-10-2012-moving-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/2011\/11\/12\/november-10-2012-moving-day\/","title":{"rendered":"With Apologies for the Hiatus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

November 10, 2012 – Moving day<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With apologies for the hiatus, we are now officially\nAt Home in Georgia–the garden house is ours at last.  Friday was our first night here, and the days just before\nand since have been a bit hectic. \nMoving house by taxi in a foreign language is a hilarious experience,\nbut if you are liberal with small-denomination notes of local currency, all\nthings are possible.  Georgians\nhave been through so much violence, upheaval, deprivation, and general misery\nsince the break-up of the Soviet Union (and certainly before, but they talk\nfreely about the recent past) that they are more bemused than annoyed by\nforeigners with suitcases the size of Fiats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I brought the first suitcase from the hotel\non Thursday morning and spent a few hours surveying the house room by room,\nmaking lists of necessary small repairs and replacements to be made.  At 4:00 that afternoon I met with our\nlandlady and her son, Lado (a Georgian nickname for Vladimir, a Russian name),\nto sign the lease and then returned to the Marriott to finish packing, and to\nsay a fond farewell to the great, gilded statue of St George in Tavisuplebis\nMoedani (Freedom Square).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday morning we checked out at 8:15 and\nwrangled five more suitcases into the house before 9:00; Jim left for the\noffice and move-in day began.  A\nsmall crew of Russian-speaking Georgians arrived (more on that another time\u2014I\nam still puzzling over the sociogram of Georgian speakers to Russian speakers),\nincluding an electrician, a carpenter, and an old gentleman who roamed the\nhouse with a pot of paste and a brush, sticking down wallpaper that had come\nloose.  I met Lia, who will be our\nhousekeeper; she too speaks only Russian. (My housekeepers in DC spoke only\nPortuguese or Spanish, so it\u2019s not such an unusual situation when I think about\nit.)  Acting as foreman was Pavel,\na twinkly-eyed fellow, trim and seventy-something, whose golden molars show\nwhen he laughs, which is often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day went on forever, with men coming\nand going through the big front door, shouting in Russian and laughing, and at\nleast six different ring tones shrilling continuously.  The first time I heard Pavel\u2019s phone\nplay ZZ Top I laughed out loud; the twenty-first time it was less amusing.  A young guy came and installed wireless\ninternet service (Wireless!  For\nless than $20!).  Lado came to\ncheck on our progress, and at 6:00 PM, just as the morning bunch was winding\ndown, three more men arrived to install an enormous wardrobe that had been\nremoved for repairs.  Pavel showed\nme how to build a fire in our fireplace. \nI ordered a pizza for delivery, sure it would never find its way to us\nbecause so many of Tbilisi\u2019s streets were re-named after the revolution and\nmost locals still use the old names. \nJim arrived around 7:30 after a very long day of his own, and we took\nrefuge by the fire while the cabinet makers hammered and drilled.  After several calls from a distraught\npizza courier, I put one of the carpenters on the phone and the pizza finally\narrived.  Jim and I closed the\nstained glass French doors to the living room and ate our dinner by firelight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At 9:30 Lado said goodnight and took the\ncarpenters with him.  The place was\na mess, but I had already made the bed and we crawled in for our first night\u2019s\nsleep at home–in Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Previous<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November 10, 2012 – Moving day With apologies for the hiatus, we are now officially At Home in Georgia–the garden house is ours at last.  Friday was our first night here, and the days just before and since have been a bit hectic.  Moving house by taxi in a foreign language is a hilarious experience,
+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home-in-georgia","category-other-places-other-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1993,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/1993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}