Nothing Is Easy in These Foolish Things

The electricity at The Place finally came back on after 72 hours of blackout.

Last I wrote, our dear PBer, [Ylime] was letting me stay at her place at night during the outage as my place was cold and dark and even scary! I’d go to her place in the evenings and stay overnight and then go back to my place during the day while there was daylight to try to get as much unpacking done as possible - which wasn’t a lot because it’s hard to get things done without electricity. Like, no laundry so no putting clothes into their place. Stuff like that, ya know? Plus, it was C.O.L.D.

So the outage really delayed things.

On Friday evening, [Ylime] let me have her whole apartment to herself as her boyfriend picked her up and took her to his place.

And again, while it was lovely to have a warm place to sleep, it just wasn’t my place so I couldn’t feel super comfortable. In fact, I felt anxious about all of the time that kept ticking away. I truly wanted to be as settled in as possible so that when my friend Wen comes this weekend, we can share an experience that feels more like a girlfriend staycation rather than a weekend being busy with errands and tasks.

So in the middle of the night Friday night/Saturday morning I woke up and started obsessively checking the interactive outage map on the electric company’s website, and I noticed that things seemed to be happening!

And sure enough, by 4am Saturday morning there was a text saying the power was back on!

I instantly felt like a kid waiting for Christmas morning! I even debated getting up and going home right then and there, but I also got a text from my smart thermostat telling me that it was still cold inside and I realized it would take a while for the temperature to get to a point where it would be comfortable (mainly for the dog…I can layer!).

So I fell back to sleep and then got up and got going and was back in business by 9:30am Saturday morning.

I got to work at The Place, doing loads of laundry and getting to the last of the boxes to actually open and now it has become the little things that are kind of annoying - things like going out to buy new little under the sink organizers for the bathrooms because the cabinets are differently sized so my old ones did not fit. Bluh.

And how to organize and store things?? What can I store in the garage vs. what can I store in the closets? I worked and reworked so many things that I felt like I was backtracking.

Nothing comes easy, but mark my words, I’ll get it all together before the new job starts!

Other things that aren’t coming easy: getting Martini enrolled in a new daycare. Long, drawn out story, but I can’t get her into a trial session until she is immunized for canine influenza (an initial vaccine PLUS a booster three weeks later). This is something that has never been required for the daycares where I’ve had her in [my old city].

So I’m lining up vet visits this week.

And I’ll be taking Martini with me everywhere until then because she’s so traumatized from the last month and a half (she was at home alone when my apartment flooded and I’ve taken her to about 15 different places that maybe felt like “home” to her and then yanked her out of those comfort zones) that she’s super duper clingy. And I am codependent, so there’s that.

And other little things - little maintenance annoyances here and there. Too boring to list, but annoying and they take away from my timeline.

I’ve met a few of my neighbors in passing. We’ve mainly been commiserating about having no power, but it’s been good to meet some folks. So far, most people I’ve met are new in town and most of them are from the East Coast. My next door neighbors moved here from NYC and another guy I met while our dogs sniffed each other is originally from Boston but also moved here via NYC as well.

It’s funny because so many people here complain about all of the West Coasters moving here. I have yet to meet a Californian, but I’m sure it’s a matter of time.

This complex is really, really interesting in that the terrain is very rocky and uneven and we have some subterranean apartments. I met the guy who lives underneath my next door neighbors and he’s exactly what you might picture as a guy who lives in a subterranean apartment: intense and a deep thinker, smart and sarcastic.

Apparently, nobody lives in the space below me right now.

And then there’s the park. Oh the big, beautiful park…I am so curious about the park and can’t wait to fall in love with it.

The big deal (for me) about this park so far is that the main trailhead is actually across a busy road and even though I can see part of one of the trails from my balcony, there’s no way to get to it from here because there is a LOT of rough terrain AND a wide creek in between. So a couple of times I’ve gotten in the car with the dog and drove a couple of minutes to the actual entrance of the park and then did some exploratory walking.

I don’t want to get in my car to walk in this park! One of the main reasons I moved here is because of all of this gorgeous nature and the walking trails.

I’ve figured out how to easily get on one part of the trail, but it still involves crossing the busy road. I can do this if I hold Martini in my arms and run across, but it’s not my preference. And it does look like they are going to someday make a pedestrian bridge, but it’s not there yet, so I am going to make it work.

Again, nothing has been easy with this move, but it has ALL WORKED OUT.

On Sunday, I met the most wonderful woman while walking Martini on the trail. Her name is Joan. She is 87 years old and walks every day with her dog. We talked for nearly an hour, just standing there on the trail and chatting like besties. I loved her. She didn’t have power in her house either (and still wasn’t up and running a full day and a half after my place got power!). She’s originally from the UK (lived through the bombing of her house in London during WWII) and moved to the US in her 20s. We talked and talked and talked and I can’t wait to talk with her again.

And on Sunday night I discovered that I’d forgotten that one of my old college buddies lives here! He’s best buddies with my college ex-boyfriend (the one who lives in France and got in trouble for visiting me the last time I was in Paris, but that’s a whole other story). Anyway, my friend Adam sent me a text scolding me for moving here without telling him and his wife. I’m so excited to know someone else who lives here!

ANDDDD…another friend and former business colleague lives about 30 minutes away! We are trying to get together for coffee on Wednesday morning.

So many exciting things and I want to get to them all before my new job starts and I don’t think I can fit them all in.

See? Nothing’s easy. Ha.

Anyway. I’m tired. I wanted to tell you about my Zara jeans that I wore for the first time today and they literally disintegrated while I wore them, but I’m too tired.

Oh, and I guess I still owe you the story of the creepy maintenance guy at The Treehouse.

SORRY. I need to come back and write more. But that’s not easy either.

More to come,
GS