Moved by Jay and Silent Paul

I hereby inform all and sundry (that would be you, dear readers) that last Friday I was moved from Park Slope, Brooklyn to West Midwood, Brooklyn by two adorable Ukrainian movers by the names of Denis and Paul. And that they resembled Jay and Silent Bob so much, I wish I'd taken photos.

Jay and Silent Bob / Denis and Silent Paul

These are two characters invented by writer/director Kevin Smith, who is behind Clerks (good movie), Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma (in which a brilliantly casted Alan Rickman plays the voice of God), and, surprisingly enough, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Smith himself stands in as Bob, who says nary a word but follows Jay's lead. Jay is portrayed by Jason Mewes, a former roommate Smith's who is said to basically be the inspiration behind the character. He's described amusingly and accurately in one review as "an appallingly rude former dope dealer and self-styled ladies man." The two make a hilarious comic duo.

Scarily enough, in searching for pictures of the two, I came upon a little online quiz to find out "what Jay and Silent Bob character are you?" And... I'm Jay...

Leaving Park Slope: Introduction

I had some nice closure on my last day in the Slope. On my way home to pack, I bumped into all the random strangers of the neighborhood whom I've come to recognize by sight and illogically like, and we said "hi." *awww* This includes: 1) the bookstore clerk, 2) the grocery store lady, 3) the grocery store manager, 4) the Middle Eastern restaurant cook, and 5) the hospital resident neighbor guy. *awww*

Now that I'm moved, I'm cutting my costs dramatically. Instead of paying an exorbitant amount of money for a studio, I am paying about half to share the first floor of a house. It's a great place. My roomie is great, she has two cats that have infected me with an odd disease of talking nonsense out loud, and...and--there's a kitchen. That's right.

Read it again, girls and boys. I have a KITCHEN. In which I can cook, sit, listen to music, eat, say strange inanities to cats, and...just stare out the window. Which is truly bliss.

Plus a porch, on which I've spent almost every evening I've been home. Gorjuss. Plus the neighborhood is very mixed, so one can buy real Indian spices, Jamaican jerk chicken, Middle Eastern cheeses, and Russian everything. People seem to be predominantly Muslim, Russian, West Indian, and white. I think my landlord thinks I'm weird or salty or something, though, but perhaps that's just an impression that'll pass.

Leaving Park Slope: Implementation

So, I naturally called the Russians to move me. I had left a lot of the packing till the last moment, having been pulled into work, the situation that required the police (mentioned obliquely in my last post), and of course, reading Harry Potter. And so it came to pass that when I went to bed at 3am the morning of the move, I'd run out of boxes.

JB was kind enough to come help me pack/move in the wee hours of the morning. Poor girl, I was inadvertently guilty of false advertising: "Come," I'd said, "we'll drink beer and watch the Russians move me." Truthful advertising would have been: "Come. We'll sweat and stress and push my belongings into banana boxes you will fetch from the grocery store, and will finish packing in time to let the Ukrainian movers in. There will be no air conditioning."

I also woke the poor girl up at 6am to tell her about my dream. She's forgiven me since, or perhaps simply taken revenge: at midnight a few days later, she woke me up to tell me Ralph Fiennes will be playing Voldemort in Goblet of Fire. Both of us have clearly no conception of which of us exactly is the morning person and the night person, nor what constitutes important information to be relayed immediately to a sleeping interlocutor.

The move itself went fine, until we tried to get my couch in the door. It's large, apparently. The boys pushed and pushed, but it just wouldn't happen. Then Silent Paul points to what seems to be a microscopically tiny window in comparison to the door, and suggests they can get the behemoth in through there. I whip out my best Russian (in fact, the correct version of my first Russian sentence in Russian soil all those years ago), and inform the movers that they are, in fact, crazy.

That said, sanity is not a necessary prelude to success (nor of fun), so I drew back to watch the fiasco. And it worked. Insane. (I, of course, then whipped out some mediocre Russian to let Jay and Silent Paul know that they were crazy, but geniuses.) (At least, that's what I hope I said.)

End Result!

1) I got to learn a lot of awesome Russian words and phrases that I can use next time I am futilely pushing a huge object into a small space.

2) I have a new home, more money to save, a lovely large porch, a kitchen, a really nice roommate, an expanded Russian vocabulary, and, thanks to another dear friend...AIR CONDITIONING.

As Jay would say, "Snooch to the booch!"


And of course, it wouldn't be kosher if I didn't end this long post with a gratuitous picture of Alan Rickman as the Voice of God...