Menage à Trois Bingo

• Less driving
  It's about ten-fifteen minutes closer to work
  than my house is, and about half an hour closer than the Washington
  house was. It's closer to Rosa's grandmother's house. There's no
  commuting back and forth between Washington and the city to see each
  other. I've gotten several hours a week back!
  It's further from
  Ray's, yes, but I only have to go there once a week, and it's hella
  closer than Washington was. He was so pissy when I told him we were
  moving; he kept talking about how much he was going to be
  inconvenienced. He never gave me any credit at all for driving in from
  Washington to pick Rosie up--only got grumpy if I was ten minutes late.
  Of course he's been half an hour late so regularly that I was quite
  taken by surprise when he showed up on time this week.
• A new
  playmate for Rosa
  The next door neighbors (who are also the
  landlords) have a six-year-old boy called Leo. They've already played
  together two or three times and seem to get along quite well. Even
  better, their evening schedule meshes relatively well with ours; Rosa
  used to try so hard to get together with the neighbor girl at the old
  house but she was always "going to bed" right about the time we got
  home.
  (I'd swear I had posted about this but I can't find the post)
  The first day they played together I got a call after a couple of hours.
  "Uh...The kids got into our face painting stuff. Do you want us to wash
  it off? She said she wanted you to see it..." Well, if she wants me to
  see it I want to see it too. When Rosa got home, she was fully
  decorated. Leo (his name is Leonardo, go figure) had painted a
  butterfly-like design on her face, and various other things on her arms,
  legs, and tummy. It was quite good, too. I wished I'd had my camera
  handy to record them for posterity. Sadly, I was forced to give her a
  bath, as the paint was coming off on everything.
• Trees
  We've
  got two acres with quite a number of trees, and the neighbors' yards, in
  all directions, are also wooded.
• Home-cooked
  meals
  
• More time with Tammie and Chris
  Which is of course
  the whole point. *grin*

Sunday, while Rosa was playing with Leo again, I was chatting with his
mother. She asked me whether Joanie is my mom. "No," I said, "she's
Tammie's." Jan was puzzled. She said, "I thought you two were sisters."
I said, "No," and left it at that. I am dying of curiosity wondering
what she thinks now.

In today's episode, we learned that a Fi and her packing tape are soon parted.

But the City House is empty. Sorta. I left all the appliances (even the microwave), most of the lawn tools, and a big pile of crap in the basement because I wasn't willing to pay movers to wait while I sorted it, and I didn't want to move it all since most of it is junk junk junque.

On the other hand, I found my poetry journals from highschool, which I've been missing for about ten years. I am hoping that some of my other later creative writings might also be in that box.

And--bonus!--we have wireless! I'm snuggled in my recliner (or it might be Chris's...they're identical and I have no idea which is which) sitting in the living room typing on a laptop to the accompaniment of the History Channel.

Whew. All this moving has taken a lot out of me. I went to bed last night at 8:30. I didn't think I'd be able to fall asleep, but although I woke up a few times during the night, looked around and saw that the world was still dark, and went back to sleep, I slept right through until 6:30 this morning. And I'm still tired. I could go right back to bed and sleep all day, I think. I might have to take another early night. Not tonight, though, it's the first time in weeks that we're going to play Amber Nights. Lila is anxious to get out of the corner of my head she's been hiding in.

Yesterday was hectic, with the movers clearing out my apartment and bringing everything here. That part went quite quickly; they even agreed to bring my stove and fridge back in from the porch (which was not part of their contract) just because I'm such a nice person.

After they left, I brought up my old student desk to put my computer on, and connected it up. Failed to connect to the internet, blamed the telephone service, and went to do other things for a while.

I went and got a growlight for my plants, since there really isn't anywhere in the house to keep plants. That may be the one disadvantage here: very little natural light. Anyway, I installed the light under a kitchen cabinet. I figure that eventually I'll find other locations for these plants, around the house, but I can use that spot to grow herbs and small vegetables. I've always liked the idea of a window garden, but have no kitchen windows suitable. So now I have a countertop garden.

Then I took myself out to dinner at Pueblo Solis, just up the street and in my not so humble and somewhat knowledgeable opinion the best Mexican restaurant in St Louis and among the best anywhere. The only thing it has going against it is being really small and always crowded. I waited nearly an hour for a table. But then, I have been there many times and find the food is well worth the wait.

After dinner I came back and tried again on the internet. Still no luck. I tested a number of things and finally figured out that the modem had blown. Gods only know what caused it, but it's deader than Marley's ghost. And all the while, I was frantic from missing my internet. No email. No IM. No friends' LJs. It was like reading dep week all over again, except there wasn't even the comfort of having chosen to do without. I gave up. I wrote a whiny letter about how much I missed the net. I worked on a beaded bracelet for a while, and then went to read a book. I started on Here but got sleepy, so I went to bed.

This morning I wrote my first-ever morning pages in my creative space! Except for being a little chilly, because I hadn't yet plugged in the space heater, it was wonderful. Then I went to fetch Rosa from her daddy's, and then bought a new modem and a large quantity of groceries. As soon as I got the groceries put away, it was time to connect the new modem and breathe a huge sigh of relief when I had internet again.

I was chatting with my new/old nextdoor neighbor this morning. She seemed happy to have me back and was talking about how Ray's family had been going off on me. "They said you had been scheming the whole time but I don't believe it." I don't remember her exact words but she definitely attributed the word 'scheming' to them. I told her I kind of expected that they wouldn't speak well of me. She asked whether I had a "new love interest yet." I said, "not exactly" because I didn't feel like coming out to her. On thinking about it, I think I may have to, eventually, if my lovely Jen comes to live with me. But even then, people see what they want to see.

( Warning, Rosa illness ahead... )

I'm sitting here writing email to Liz, while the moving men pack all my stuff. It means I can't do what I did yesterday morning, and would dearly like to do again, but it's still kind of fun to sit around doing nothing while other people work. I feel very decadent.

I promise to stop rabbiting on about my floors after this. But here's some pictures of the final results.

Living room
Dining room
Kitchen

Tonight I finished cleaning up after the flooring people. There was a lot of dust everywhere that had to be vacuumed up, and I also had to rehang the doors that I took off. That was something of an adventure. There are eight doors upstairs, and they were all in the upstairs bathroom (out of the way). But there were no markings to tell which door belonged in which jamb, and it took Jim & me a long time to sort them out. I had called him to come and help me, which is something I am not at all good at doing. But he was quite willing to help and having him there made the door difficulties at least amusing rather than frustrating.

Then I spent some time cleaning up the counters in the kitchen and bathrooms, and called the cleaning finished. I got my sage bundle and smudged the whole house, inside and out, every room, every cupboard, concentrating on love, peace and happiness.

Tomorrow morning the movers come to pack up my apartment, which is already a disaster area from six weeks of neglect. I hope they can work with it, because I'm not going to clean first. I'll pick stuff up if I have to, but I've had far too much cleaning already, and I still have to clean after my stuff is out.

At the house I found a note from the city inspector saying he had come this morning and I wasn't there...I had completely forgotten about the appointment.