The Best Laid Plans

Well, The Move is over. Everything, more or less, has arrived in Cali (even as I am sitting here in Massachusetts). But it sure was an interesting experience. There is something about entrusting every material possession you own to a couple of guys in a jalopy truck who barely speak English that is a little disconcerting. Or just like when my father moved me to college. Here are some random ruminations from the unpacking:

• The couch came out with the same fine layer of white Molly dog hair that it always has. What does that say about future cleanability when a 2,000 mile trek doesn’t even shake the dog hair loose? (if that mean old cleaning lady hurts my dog…)
• Those moving guys were REAL comedians…if the one that speaks English says he “sold my television for gas money” ONE MORE TIME…
• Holy crap – unloading the truck occurred from 1 p.m. til 1:15. I’ve had UPS deliveries that take more time.
• Hopefully you read the post about the blue-tape packing method. Ummm…only problem… it didn’t work. First...three-quarters of the boxes had tape on them. Well done. Second…I am happy to report that the Bunn coffee pot was CLEARLY marked with blue tape. Know what wasn’t? The Bunn coffee carafe and coffee filter basket. So now...half a coffee pot just sits in the garage – taunting me.
• I know my movers barely spoke English – but I think I recognized “high maintenance bitch” in Slavic.
• Apparently, the good kitchen knife is really NOT intended to slice open taped boxes. Sorry Rita – no buyer’s remorse =)

Home Alone

Rita is on a business trip and I am spending my first two days on my own in my new digs. It’s kind of weird being in the house without Rita…but I have been taking full advantage of the situation. Here’s a recap of what I’ve been up to the last two days:

• Walking around with every light in the house blazing. I am not kidding – even the closet lights. It looks like a damn runway strip in here. I love it =) =)
• Forgetting that a cat lives here. Seriously, has anyone seen Madison in the last 48 hours?
• Running the starbucks-like espresso machine at max capacity
• Trying to figure out what it means when said-espresso maker keeps beeping at you with the illuminated message CLEAN RIGHT NOW. [I bet I get an email about that pretty soon.]
• Four words: unsupervised wine room visits (I’ve picked out everyone’s xmas present!)
• Ducking the scary cleaning lady
• Watching the Tina Fey as Sarah Palin montage again
• Trying not to think about what my team in Massachusetts is blogging about with me not THERE
• Working on new recipes for a turkey sandwich (I don’t know how to make any of the other food in this house)
• NOT recycling the cat food tins, that’s for damn sure. Ick.
• Winning the “what-will-we-Tivo-at-8 p.m.” battle. Hello Jon Stewart…goodbye Iron Chef.

Settlin' In

Sorry to be so blogsé (get it?!!) in September, but i am back on-line! Actually, I have been blogging every day, but my 19 Sarah Palin posts were a little "vitriolic" so I didn't post them.

Of course, The Move cut into blogging time, while also providing a bonanza of material. But I am in San Diego now (even as I type this) and ready to report on the...

Top 10 signs Rita’s house has really gone downhill since I moved in:

• There is a 90 foot blue ethernet cable stretched from one corner of the house to the other. Which seems unusual to one of us. [it’s a long story…there’ll be a separate post]
• Due to the large influx of Blue Moon lager, there is no longer any room in the fridge for wine. Someone keeps drinking all the beer.
• There is basically a bachelorized dorm room in what used to be the wonderfully appointed spare bedroom.
• The alarm clock goes off everyday at 7 a.m…. Eastern Standard Time. =) (smiley face?)
• One whole closet is dedicated to ball caps
• Random people keep showing up at 10 a.m. on Sunday mornings for “Titans Brunch” [they look friendly]
• We can no longer find…in no particular order…the extra set of keys, the garage door opener, 3 really good bottles of wine, nary a single beach towel that Rita had previously owned or any reason why every light in the house has to be on =)
• The San Diego chapter of Barackstars now has a regular Saturday morning meeting place. [Barackstars being the ESPECIALLY special Obama backers]
• And the dog isn’t even here yet.
  

Silly Season

Can you believe all this election talk about "a pig in lipstick"?? Thank god Obama didn't say they had "screwed the pooch". I can only imagine what we would be talking about then.

Lots of plane time today in my travels from Massachusetts to San Diego...so tomorrow should be a good, politics-free post.

Mexican Mosquito's

Must every vacation I take include a trip to the pharmacia?

As I have mentioned, my pre-move ritual included being in a foreign country COMPLETELY unavailable to my movers. Now….I can’t even tell you what part of Mexico this little haven is in [the part by the water?], but I CAN tell you that it is the freakin’ mosquito capital of the world.

I am the Dr. Doolittle of the mosquito kingdom. I attract those critters like I speak the language. After the first day of my vacation, the entire topography of my skin had changed from the sheer volume of mosquito bites. This Irish blood, untainted by the slightest hint of pigment, must be quite a delicacy down there. I am sure my bright white skin looked like a beacon on the hillside…a well-lit runway that the little bastards could alight upon. NOW I know why people invite me on trips…I can’t take my turn cooking dinner or even pack everything I need, but I am a human fly strip taking all the malaria bullets.

Which means I once again found myself in a drugstore of a country where they speak no English playing medicinal charades…hoping in the midst of the language barrier that I didn’t inadvertently ask for Rogaine instead of cortisone [it would explain why I have to shave my legs more often]. Should I worry if my anti-inflammatory says “Balco” on it?

But I CAN say that my xmas shopping is done…non-FDA-regulated “generic” z-packs for everyone!

Vote for...

....Palin?

Okay…of COURSE I have a few thoughts on Sarah Palin...some of these i picked up from my (hours of) checking the "liberal blogosphere" (someone has to be the core demographic!):

• Gerraldine Quayle. BET ME that McCain’s vetters didn’t tell her to learn how to spell potato
• Trophy Vice
• I always wondered what happened to Gabrielle from Beverly Hills 90210. (That will only make sense to females of a certain age – but the resemblance is uncanny)
• 20 months ago she was on the city town council of an Alaskan burb with a population of 7,000. Ummm, there are senior class presidents with larger constituencies [and a better energy policy, but I digress]
• Was the mayor of Lake Woebegone unavailable?
• She’s no Mike Huckabee
• When you carve out the corruption apportionment, the Alaska state budget is smaller than Obama’s Ohio spend.

I'm just sayin'

Cali-bound

Sorry to be offline last week – decided to take a wee Mexican vacation before this weekend's move. But moving day came and went over the weekend…and of course, I have just a couple of observations from the big day:

• The movers actually wanted to come Friday – but I still had 3 episodes of Jon Stewart to watch before they packed the Tivo. See you Saturday. (Move delayed on account of satire.)
• On Friday afternoon – in the spirit of “i-need-this-like-I-need-another-blue-sweatshirt”, one of my giant trees fell right across my driveway. God appears to be telling me to get a move on (not a Jon Stewart fan?)
• Given the fact that I am moving into an already well-furnished house – I realize that most of this stuff won’t get unpacked until like…2012…[when I can no longer stall on cleaning out the garage]. I’m not so much packing boxes as I am time capsules.
• Rita devised an ingenious plan to mark the “to-be-unpacked” boxes with blue tape and leave all the other boxes unmarked (and destined for the far recesses of the garage). I consider it to be a flagrant attempt to keep the bright orange UT barbie and the 300 or so plastic cups from the Titans home games unmarked and out of the house.
• I was clearly distracted by the bagel-laden moving party that arrived because I COMPLETELY neglected my blue-tape duties. Which means I spent the last half of the move running around the house screaming “WHICH BOX HAS THE COFFEE POT IN IT???” (everything else can go to the garage – but the Bunn coffee maker got triple-taped.)
• Just FYI…when arriving for an early morning moving party – you should NOT ask the already anxious mover if she “thinks that truck can even MAKE IT to California?”.
• After my obligatory lunchtime run to Starbuck’s, my neighbor asked me whether I left the movers “alone with all your stuff??” ummmm, they’re going to be alone with it for the next two thousand miles…I don’t think this extra 20 minutes is going to cost me a coffee table or anything.
  

My stuff is off to Cali. I am off to….Massachusetts. What move?