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July 24, 2005

Nothing more than feelings

Boy am I glad last week is over. We sold the Seattle house and did some half-assed negotiating with the owners of the Rhode Island house that resulted in them selling it to us. All the real shit was going down simultaneously with offers and counter-offers etc., which meant that my husband and I did nothing at work Tuesday except call each other every five seconds to hyperventilate. This may sound sexy but it was not. Since Wednesday was the big day for decisions, we both took the day off from work, said "See ya" to the Bean at daycare and hung out doing things like normal people who weren't about to keel over from stress. It was a nice, nice day and I recommend to people everywhere to play hooky with yer honey on sunny days when you are feeling crazy.

Today I packed my first two boxes. I'm really going for the tough stuff: spices and small pictures. I wanted to pack the pictures so that the impending move will seem real. With the pictures gone, it really seems we are in transition. I've lived on the West coast for thirteen years and have wanted to move back East for the last five, but couldn't due to husbands and babies and jobs. Then somehow the stars aligned and now it is happening and it is a bit surreal. When I visit the East coast it feels like a foreign country to me, albeit one that I am swoony with love for. I've never been a grown-up there, so moving back to a beachy, sleepy town where people talk funny and loudly and there is snow in the winter and thunderstorms and FIREFLIES!!! at once scares and delights me.

Most of the people I love are there, in one state or another. But some of the people I love are here, and I will miss them much. I met my husband here, got married in the San Juans, had my baby here, all huge things. Seattle is a great city and I love everything about it. I've always said that it is just on the wrong coast.

The one thing I want to do before I leave Seattle is take pictures of the Bean in front of the Space Needle and on the monorail. It's odd and a little sad to me that he is going to be one of those people who were born one place and grew up somewhere else. I think he would like to have pictures as evidence when he is older. I don't really have any pictures from my childhood and sometimes it feels like it never really happened. I think that is why I write, or I used to at any rate. It anchors things.

It's a beautiful summer evening and soon it will be time to meet our friends with twins for cocktails and maybe oysters. As the philosopher Ren once said to his dear friend Stimpy, happy happy joy joy.

Posted by Max at 12:45 AM | Comments (4)

July 18, 2005

Limbo akimbo

This morning I did a full-on pratfall on the way to work, complete with windmilling arms, broken shoe, and traffic blockage. I was on my cell phone with my mother discussing the latest in the cross-country move saga when my heel caught in a grate. The full force of me continued charging uphill with my foot caught in a vise-like grip and I biffed. I felt like I was in the movies! Now I am all achy and my very cute sandal is being held together with staples and will have to be discarded. This confirms that talking on the damn cell phone is dangerous when you are mobile. One should only use them while lying prone in your yard on sunny, windless days.

We had our open house yesterday, which went fairly well although the daily stress of picking pieces of lint off the stairs, collecting mashed plums from our patio, setting our throw pillows at right angles and encasing our toddler in stain-free plastic sheeting is getting to us. We have confirmed open house snoopage by our sour-faced cat-loving neighbor, who sits on her darkened porch at night smoking, staring at our house with narrowed, hateful eyes. She hates us because our cat is mean to her cat and also because we have a certain joyfulness in our family life that she seems to loathe. We laugh! We sing! We kiss each other on the mouth! Take that, sour cat lady!

On the other coast, the owners of our potential future home were apparently so freaked out as a result their house inspection that they had to go to the Jersey shore. How this will help, I do not know. All that hair and gold jewelry would send me over the edge. If our inspection report comes back with any alarming findings, we may have to go to Tukwila.

Posted by Max at 10:12 PM | Comments (1)

July 12, 2005

Wax on, wax off

I’m sitting in a house that is just about as tidy as a house can be. I should like to twirl around in it from happiness because messy houses make for a crazy, panic-filled, hyperventilating me, however I’m afraid I would bump into something and it would break, thus messing everything up. My husband is worse: he is in charge of “exterior home repairs and processes” and has spent the last three days shop-vac’ing dirt off of our sidewalk. Please note that he is not generally like this, but when there is a deadline and vast sums of money involved, that man really puts eater to weed.

Our house goes on the market in FIVE DAYS. An army of realtors is driving over tomorrow to inspect and appraise and review and critique. Those are my earth-toned bathrooms soaps, do you like them? That is my artfully arranged tableaux of books on decorating. You can tell I have read and studied them all. That is my basket of unmentionables. Please do not touch them or I will gross out.

We also have to have an open house, which around here means every freaking neighbor from a ten-block radius comes over to look at your shit while you are not there. Creepy VonCreepinsticks. This creeps me out to the nth degree, as I know someone who had a jar of pennies stolen from an open house, and I know someone else who’s ex-wife was one of those pill-popper types who go to open houses to steal prescription drugs. We have no pennies, we have no drugs! Buy my house and be off with you then!

Also, as a precaution, please be warned that window salesmen are sleazy beyond belief. I was completely unaware of the old-fashioned hucksterism of the whole “window industry” until we had to replace our windows right after we moved in. Those guys will seduce you with their briefcase samples, their desiccant-filled spacers, and their dollar sign lit flashing eyeballs. But then when you buy their crappy vinyl windows and one of them is discovered to have a huge stress crack not a year later, they treat you like the two-dollar ho you are. They won’t even return your calls! Too bad for them this ho spent her two dollars on gas so she’ll be driving up to their office (I mean “showroom”) wanting breakfast or at least, a cigarette.

My metaphors, they’re better than yours. I’d teach you but I’d have to charge.

Posted by Max at 01:01 AM | Comments (0)