And the moving company has been selected...

 

After various fits and starts, the moving company has been selected. We chose the winner on a variety points, and we ended up with the same van lines that moved us here.

Moving interstate is really expensive folks, when you pay for it yourself. 

Within a state, it's by the miles and by the hour. 

Interstate is by the time, the miles, and the POUNDS.  THEN you tack on the packing.  We are having them pack because then the insurance covers damages incurred to your items.  We may not have museum-quality items, but we have things that matter to us, and we want it all there in one piece, not pieces.  And we'll fill the whole damn van.

Paper items weigh the most, in terms of small items piling up and equaling POUNDS.  Old magazines that you are keeping because they have images you mean to scan, or reference articles that you turn back to? HEAVY. Books? HEAVY. 

That both the husband and collect ephemera works against us. 

The second-place company didn't get it because I wasn't too sure about the estimator. She glided through the house in a dream state, seldom tapping on her tablet.  Did she get it all, or was she some sort of savant, I'll never know, but she did come within a ton of the last-place contender.

Our last-place contender was the van lines with the orange trucks.  They have a good reputation, but he was simply an asshole. He came in dressed too well, set up computer equipment, and walked him around tapping things into his device. 

When he asked where we were going I said "Cleveland" and his response under his breath was "That's too bad." Strike one, asshole.

Then I was showing him the family pieces that have been our families for GENERATIONS his crack was "Everyone has stuff that they claim is valuable."  Strike two, asshole. 

Strike three was delivered while he was printing his estimate and telling me that "Every time I have seen a move go bad is when clients violate the terms of the contract and expect the carrier to supply extra boxes - then our contract is void and the prices goes exponentially blah, blah, blah..."

And I am thinking to myself "Listen here asshole, maybe you did the estimate right, maybe you effed it up. Don't blame it on me." So strike three.

The cherry on top was that he demanded a signed contract in two weeks. Nothing like high-pressure sales and threats to earn my trust, right? 

So we have our movers, and we are happy. We have our week, we are just waiting for verification. 

Now I need to find a shredding company to take stuff to. 

Mawby's

 

If you are from Cleveland's "Heights", and are of a certain age, you remember Mawby's, a small chain of burger places.  The picture above is the one at Cedar Center, a shopping center that lined both sides Cedar Road just west of Warrensville-Center Road.

Mawby's also had a Van Aken Center location in Shaker, but for the life of me, I cannot remember it.  Or maybe it closed before my mind could hold memories, or it could have closed even before I was me.  There was another at Cedar-Lee.  There may have been others, but they were all gone by the time I was twelve.

But, whatever the location, they made the best burgers in the world.  And the coffee, my mother claimed, would grow hair on your chest.

Mawby's is no longer, and that's a shame.  

They weren't fancy, in fact, they were downright spartan.  The restaurants didn't serve booze (that would have made them "a joint"), and they had no booths or tables. What they had were the longest counters in the Western Reserve with round stools bolted to the floor. The undersides of these counters were caked with years and years worth of chewing gum stuck under the counter by generations of patrons.  

At night, from the outside, the locations looked a lot like Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.

They may have had other things to eat, but people went for the burgers, the french fries.  I seem to recall onion rings, as well.  Other people remember their "Indian Pudding" which sounds good (cornmeal, butter, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, a pinch of salt, and cinnamon, which is first heated to incorporate the ingredients, and then baked) that I may need to make a batch this winter. 

At Cedar-Lee, and at Cedar Center, the burgers were cooked on flat-topped carbon steel grilles, by cooks who mostly kept their backs to you.  These were not men in white jackets, but men in pants and white tee shirts, a paper hat on their heads, and long-apron tied in the back. Orders were taken by a counterwoman who would say "Tell me what you'll have." 

And if you tried to pull a dine and dash, those same cooks would tear out of there and catch up with you and shake the money out of you. Those were great days. 

My mother, who worked very hard at keeping her figure slim, would crave a Mawby's once in a great while, with grilled onions that were out of this world. I can still see the grease that would drip from those burgers, but that was what made them so good.  But the onions, my gawd those onions, they were pure heaven. 

Eventually, the clientele that made Mawby's famous died off or moved on, if not in location, then with their palettes.  Cedar-Lee went through a difficult 1970s, and then into a decline, which happily is behind it.* While Cedar Center made it to the 1980s, after that it went into decline.  The last Mawby's closed about the time the "Saucy Crepe" opened at Van Aken, and Heck's became popular in Ohio City.  Another place, Our Gang, opened in Beachwood, under the huge water tower, but it wasn't the same. Heck's is still around, but the crepe phase faded out, and Our Gang closed, and "Yours Truly"**, a smallish chain, took their place.  

Still, they ain't Mawby's.  

I doubt anyone ever will. But I can hope. 

*When they reopen Chin's Pagoda, then it will be really back. 

**Cookie has a personal aversion to Yours Truly.  The food is fine, and the restaurants a clean and well-run. But I always found the name to be somewhat forced, and frankly, it leaves you hanging because someone's name should follow it. But the biggest strike was that it was a favorite of Shark, my Step Monster, who would gush "I just love Yours Truly because that's the way I feel about my husband."  Never my father, but he was her husband and she wanted every fucking person to know it.  Still, should you get the chance, try it. It has its fans. My "meh" is about Shark, not the place itself.

And the winner is the Heights, but not Shaker

 

Well, this past week brought yet another trip to Cleveland. This time for a house inspection.  Yes, we have selected the next roost. And, it is not, with a pang of regret in Shaker Heights.  

Darlings when I say that, it hurts.  I really wanted to return to the place of my childhood.  I wanted the spirit of my mother, who loved her time in Shaker like no other, to be at rest. And I dearly wanted a place in Lomond, Sussex, or Onaway - and we came (stop thinking dirty thoughts) very close, alas no cigar. The houses were all charming, but each came with its faults.  

You know: This one had no backyard. This other one had a backyard but was on a busy street that you lived on but not a neighborhood you lived in.  Another one held promise, but the neighborhood could be in transition as "developer urbanization" takes root.  Still, another had murals painted on the walls depicting happy Europeans toiling in the fields. 

"What say you about this?" asked Relator. 

The artistry was one step above what happened to Ecco Homo, just barely. 

"But the seller claims it was done by an artist in residence."

"A grandchild spending the summer with their bubbie isn't an artist in residency," said I.

Next, then there was the house that felt rusty. 

Rusty you say? 

Door knobs, the wrought iron on the staircases was rusty, the basement was damp, the doors wouldn't shut, on and on and on. The kitchen needed a redo. We could have housed the King Family, but alas, they have all passed on their reward. We got out of that one pronto when we saw the electric setup.

Many suburbs have something called POS repairs. Some sellers take care of them, while others want the buyers to assume them.  The house cannot sell until someone fixes them or signs a contract promising to fix them. The houses that pass POS and are perfect sell quickly.  And we weren't quick enough.  Others, well, someone younger with deeper pockets. 

We went through faded mansions, cruddy colonials, and a ranch house that smelled like a ranch. 

In that same ranch, we found a laundry room that was wallpapered in foiled silver, lime, and yellow wallpaper - something that was very Morgan and Hirshfield.*

"Sometimes I wonder," said the Realtor, as she looked about.

"Nonsense - who doesn't want their Norge to feel pretty?"   

"Let's look at one more," she said.  

I was going to beg off - looking at houses is tough work - but she insisted.  

And boy was I glad. It was the perfect house for us.  It hadn't sold because it needed work, but at the same time, no one had tried to shit Chip and Joanna Gaines all over the place.  The wood floors are fine, the woodwork is the same fumed oak of our first house. The staircase is just grand enough so I can make an entrance, with my eyes bulging and my eyebrows arched on Halloween. 

It's not in Shaker, but the street is boffo, and the neighbors are wonderfully nice. And soon, it'll be ours.  It needs work. But the floor plan can easily be reconfigured to the way people live today without ruining its charms. And we can add on a first-floor master without a problem. With some money and careful planning, it will be a good place to spend our golden years. And the best part? No glitz. 

So farewell to the pipe dream, but what this offers is something better: a place not for my mother, but for us. 

*My people from the east side of Cleveland will know what and who I mean.