Monday, July 30, 2007

You forget...

When you move to a new home there are several things you forget.

You forget how much everything costs to set up and forget the fact that you have been a customer for decades they will extract that $30 set up fee!

You forget that you still have things in boxes from the last time you moved and you forgot what all was in there. Oh! That's where that went!

You forget that when you move to a new home it takes time to get the layout and the navigation skills to get around it. I have so many bruises on my legs. And it doesn't help that boxes keep getting moved around. Poor S.O.v.2 ran into the door the other day!

You forget about the new sounds and the first and probably through to the fifth time you hear them they freak you out.

You forget how much fun it is to be in a new place and all the dreams you have of making it pretty or functional or cool or all of the above and you wonder why you didn't do it with your last home?

And then finally, you forget where the hell you put the extra toilet paper!

Monday, July 16, 2007

Moving Day(s)

You never really know how much stuff you have... until you move.

Ah, boxes boxes. At first it looks like so many. But as you begin to pack and pack and pack and the dust and the sneezing - hey, didn't I just clean under here, yeah like last year! - and then you look around and it looks like you have done nuh-thing at all... then you look at your supply of boxes rapidly dwindling. Oi!

But this moving day reminds me of our last moving day. Moving days when you were a DINK or a SINK (that's single income no kids, not a slur) are not memorable anymore. The only good thing about packing up is the anticipation of the new house. And in this case it is actually new and actually ours. I thought at times we would never own a home and look at us now! But I still have a little melancholy. I am remembering as I pack all the very helpful girlfriends of mine who came and watched S.O.v.1 when he was a baby so I could pack up our Hollywood apartment to move out here. I thought of Demondoll putting her own little one - probably on her hip most of the way - and S.O.v.1 in the stroller and going up the hill by our house in Hollywood. About Cynthia watching him while the movers took all the boxes and furniture away. I remember going down into the courtyard and seeing her sitting there with him sleeping on her shoulder. And she, a normally Type A personality with an equal mix of hippy, who always looks happy to be where she is but ready to get to the next place, looked totally contented and not eager to get anywhere at all. I remember thinking that she looked really good holding a baby. Now she has her own little 5 month old tyke and I am so glad for her and her hubby.

I remember the lovely, bubbly Krishanti looking after S.O.v.1 and that laugh of hers every time he would do something cute. She looks really good with a baby too. Something about a woman laughing and smiling with a baby makes them so beautiful.

This move makes me melancholy because it also means we are staying in the desert for the foreseeable future. As much as I love my life here I miss LA and my friends there. A part of me really hoped that we would be buying a house there for the first time. A large part of me wishes it wasn't so hard to get back there more often. Thank goodness Shrub got on the phone to jawbone those oil barrens he's so close to or gas prices would be impossible, not nearly impossible like they are now.

But the packing reminds me too of just how endless stuff is and I kind of wish we had less of it. I have been trying to purge the stuff as much as possible and yet the pull to keep things... for sentimental reasons, for just in case reasons, for unknown reasons... I am having a hard time ridding myself of certain baby items. The wedge I made for S.O.v.1 for when he slept in our bed and had a stuffy nose, which he did often. My breast pump (stop it! don't be gross) just in case... and the co-sleeper that S.O.v.2 slept in not so often but would catch her in case she rolled off the bed sleeping next to me most of her babyhood. I know this irritates S.O. to no end because he really is done-done having children whereas I would, if he changed his mind, have another in a red hot second (stop it!) and although I do owe it to Al Gore for convincing me that there is no real need for me to populate the planet with more people just like me, and it would be for selfish reasons, I still can't bring myself to part with these things... Just in case. I give myself credit for purging most (if not totally all) baby clothes though. We can't say the same for S.O.'s ancient and smelly T-shirt collection however...

Friday, July 06, 2007

Blohg blohg blohg

You know, it's been a while... I've been writing blog entries in my mind... does that count? You know, and then you get to the computer and poof! Blank. Funny that.

It's bloody hot. And I've been putting out fires. At work, at extracurricular work (freelance writing job) at home (computer problems again)... and so my mind is filled with all the little details that have to be accomplished so that problems don't flare up... and I get in trouble, see really there's the truth. I just don't want to get in trouble! Not that I've done anything wrong but anyone who has now or has ever (or who ever will shall soon find out) had a job knows you don't have to actually do anything wrong to get in trouble.

But the worst of course is getting in trouble with yourself, when something screws up because you forgot to do some little thing. Or when you forgot to do something you promised your kids you would do. Ouch.

And then of course there is the detail laden outer world where people screw you up (and you get in trouble or things delay) because they failed to accomplish some detail... oi. Example, our house, which technically we should be in already but documents got lost, funds got depleated and our file sat on a desk for too long before phone calls were made. Oi.

What can you do? Doesn't anyone believe in being organized, doing it right the first time anymore? Or are we all just too overwhelmed?