So many strange men in my house

Jesus.  Today.

 

Yesterday afternoon the gas guy came back out to inspect the repairs that the landlord’s maintenance guy had done, and he said the lines were still failing hardcore.  So he had to turn the gas back off.

 

I called the maintenance guy, who called the landlord, who was incommunicado until this morning (of course).  Once he had permission from his boss to make this place habitable, Maintenance Guy and his partner showed up at the house at 8:07 this morning (just when we were rolling out of bed, of course).  They banged some more pipes and pronounced everything fixed a couple hours later.  So I called the gas company, and they sent a guy out (not the one who looked like JK Simmons from the other day, alas.  We were buds.) and he said there was still a problem and so he couldn’t reconnect our service.  OF COURSE.  So I got Maintenance Guy on the phone, and he and Gas Guy had an argument about calibrations on their respective sensors and what lines need to be connected and how many cuts to make in a pipe replacement, and then Gas Guy left.  Then Maintenance Guy came back (at which point I thought about asking him to install a revolving door on the basement stairs because JFC), and he banged some more pipes and turned off some valves (fun fact! This hundred-year-old home was originally routed for gas lighting.  But somehow, between the advent of home electric lighting and September 20, 2013, none of the home’s various owners or tenants had thought to remove or adequately plug any of the defunct gas lighting pipework.  Just in case this whole “electricity” fad doesn’t catch on, I guess?  Also, for the record, I am not a plumber, but this was my idea.  I think I see a second career in my future.).

 

Then Maintenance Guy called Plumber Buddy (why Plumber Buddy wasn’t called in the first place I don’t know), who told Maintenance Guy some other ways to fix the various gas leaks running throughout the basement.  Maintenance Guy banged some more pipes, then pronounced it Done-I-Really-Mean-It-This-Time, and told me to call the gas company back.

 

So I called the gas company back, and Gas Guy returned, rolling his eyes and telling me that Maintenance Guy is an idiot because of his well-established stance on calibration methods.  I DON’T CARE, GAS GUY.  Fortune finally smiled upon us, though, because this time the plumbing passed inspection!  Gas has been restored to the house.  Which means that at this moment I am simultaneously boiling a kettle for iced tea, soaking a load of diapers, and contemplating a blissful, long hot shower.

 

(There was a 10-minute pause here because Simon heard me type the word “shower”.  Dammit!)

 

So in between all the people working on the house and the baby all up in my business and the dog who pooped on the bathroom floor (because apparently that’s what you do when you get weary of barking incessantly), I worked on unpacking.

 

We are so very nearly there!  Just 5 boxes left for the main rooms of the house (not counting the still-unfurnished craft room/office).  Unfortunately, as anyone who has moved can sympathize, it’s those last boxes that are always the hardest.  They’re the ones that you’ve previously opened up and thought “where the heck am I gonna put *that*?!”, then set aside for an amorphous ‘later’.  Well, later has arrived, and I still have no idea where to put Jeff’s LEGO replica of the White House, our ice cream dishes, or my cute little quilted seasonal wall hangings Aunt Judy made.

 

Which is interesting, since I did manage to easily fit it all into a 2-bedroom apartment the size of this house’s first floor, but somehow now that I have a second floor and an attic and a basement I’m mystified.

 

(That said, it’s really not at all an issue of space.  We have way more space than we know what to do with.  Hence Simon having a bedroom *and* a playroom, a superfluous dining room we’ve designated as “the library”, and china displayed on the kitchen cabinets’ upper stories.)

 

Have I mentioned that I love this house?  Almost daily I tell Jeff that I wish we could buy it and take on its problems and charms whole-hog, a huge task that I’d love nothing more than to take on.  We’ve always said we like old houses and established neighborhoods, but after this adventure I really don’t see us being satisfied with anything less than a hundred years old.  I love this house so much.  SO MUCH.

 

Tonight we’re going to pick Jeff up from work and check out Akron’s Greek festival.  Mama needs baklava!

Yankee Peddler! And also I think there may be a house under these boxes

First things first:  they came and installed a new dishwasher yesterday, and fixed the gas line leak.  The maintenance dude went ahead and reconnected our gas, so now we can enjoy life’s luxuries (cooking, bathing…).  At least until I get the gas company to do their re-inspection, at which point I’m sure they’ll find something else that’ll be imminently killing us. :-\

 

ANYWAY.

 

On Sunday we were going kind of stir crazy in the still quite boxy house, so we decided to escape on our first-ever Akron adventure, and visit the Yankee Peddler festival.  I had heard-tell that it was one part craft fair, one part RenFest-set-in-the-19th-century.  We were intrigued.

 

PSLs in hand, we ventured southward.  The trees in northern Ohio are juuuust starting to turn, swaying ragweed lines the highways, and the weather on Saturday was absolutely perfect:  cloudy and cool with just a bit of nip in the air.  LOVE.

 

Our arrival!

 

Soooo…it definitely wasn’t like RenFest (give or take 300 years).  We didn’t see any costumed attendees (just some of the workers), and the stage shows were cute but not quite up to caliber.  But there were lots of neat crafts to see (pottery!), and funnel cakes:

 

So I was happy!  We also got to see a magic show and some clog dancers.  And also a lot of white people.  White people as far as the eye can see!  (Ohio is not, I understand, known for its diversity)

 

I was also the only babywearer there.

Which is fine.  As I told Jeff, I’m comfortable being the odd woman out in a crowd.  It’s kind of my thing. 😛  Plus at least this is something vaguely positive for people to point and whisper about, rather than my acne or debilitating clumsiness.

 

(That’s also a really bad wrap job, but Simon was cranky and pulling my hair and was about to get his little butt yanked out of there and tossed over Daddy’s shoulder for the trip back to the car.)

 

So yes. Yankee Peddler: fun!  Good job, Ohio.

 

~~~

 

Yesterday Jeff discovered his front bike tube really won’t hold air, so he took the car to work and left us stranded at home.  It was just what I needed: some SERIOUS unpacking happened: Simon’s room, the playroom and dining room are done, there are just a couple boxes left in the bedroom, half a box in the bathroom (the bathroom closet/cabinet isn’t really big enough for all our towels and toiletries, so I need to pick up a shelf at IKEA), and a bunch of miscellaneous things in the living room.  Hard to unpack the office/craft room without any desks or shelves to put our stuff on (casualties of the past two moves), so those will have to wait for Ikea, too (Pittsburgh!).  And then we’ll be done!

 

Simon’s asleep now, having just returned from a trip to Target (bless his little heart, I always have to send him with a list or else he just comes back with more blocks and greek yogurt), I had an early lunch of leftovers, and now I think I’ll see about finishing up some of these random boxes so I can stop effing looking at them!  Good riddance to boxes! 🙂

Continuation

Sorry for the hiatus.  I’ve been a wee bit busy (that’s putting it mildly).

We were able to sleep at the house on Sunday night after the upstairs was cleaned(floors/walls/bathroom), and Lucy and her crew finished their cleaning on the main floor on Monday.  That’s also when the truck unloaders showed up, *and* when our next problem happened.

You see, this is what was revealed when the unloaders started their work:

Doesn’t look quite right, does it?  See our hutch, tipped precariously toward Jeff’s bike?  What about the couch (covered in an exploded box of towels, and my precious KitchenAid mixer) making its slow downward descent?  The crumpled boxes (marked “FRAGILE” on top, in case you can’t see) are the only thing holding it in.

I’m no expert, but I’m preeeeeetty sure that’s not how it was supposed to look.

I asked our unloaders WTF was going on, and they said that the loaders did a *really* poor job.  They said the truck wasn’t packed at all like it should be for a cross-country move, and that while the first 1/3-ish was done well, the remainder of our stuff was pretty much just thrown in there.

So you know I was eager to see the rest of the damage.

Like the top of our hutch, casually tossed on top of everything else:

Nice.  (See the mattresses lashed in at the back, carefully holding in that big wall o’ boxes?  Seems that after they got that far, that’s when the LA loaders gave up)

But it wasn’t until I started unpacking things that we discovered how bad the damage was.  I Tweeted as I discovered the fatalities, like some of our wedding china:

and my favorite baked beans and apple crisp baking dish:

And how about all but one of our stoneware bowls?

As the unloaders carried off each dinged-up box, one commented “it seems like your movers back in LA were TRYING to break your stuff.”

Did I mention the gouges and scratches on our furniture?  Here’s a bookshelf my dad made:

And this, about 3″ x 1″, appeared on the top of the hutch:

There are also all sorts of scratches on our other furniture: my favorite Mission-style LLBean chair, the front of that hutch, all our end tables, both our dining chairs, Simon’s high chair… just about every piece has some new bruise.

Of course, Jeff and I can’t find our copy of the contract with those loaders, so we don’t know if any of this will be covered.  At worst, I’ll just give them a scathing Yelp review.  At best, we’ll be able to get some reimbursement for all our damaged stuff.  Jeff is also going to see if maybe our renter’s insurance covers any of this, even though the stuff was technically in transit when it was damaged.

By Wednesday, things were looking up a bit: at least we were in the house, with our stuff, Jeff was getting acclimated at work.  It was going to be OK!

Let’s call those “the halcyon days”.  AT&T came and hooked up our UVerse on Friday, I got some finish repair pens at Home Depot to fix my poor scratched wood, and I seemed to have (finally!) discovered the last of the damage to our breakables.

Then it was Saturday – yesterday – my birthday!

We had an appointment for the gas company to come by and do the official start-of-service stuff, while Jeff took the car in to have a check engine light dealt with.  The gas company guy came by as scheduled, looking like JK Simmons’ doppleganger.  After doing the usual tests and such, he concluded (of course) that there was a minor street-side gas leak, and a major leak in the house.  So he had to turn off our service, pending repairs.

Which left us with no hot water, no stove, and no furnace.

At JK Simmons’ advice, I called our property manager and the emergency maintenance number while the gas company was still there (they did the street-side repairs within a couple hours).  The maintenance guy who eventually called me back was one of the same hooligans who did the slapdash repairs on the house, and he told me that he wouldn’t be able to do anything until he could get ahold of the property manager and the house’s owner, for permission to buy all the new piping needed to fix the issue.

So now…we wait.  In a house with no hot water, and no stove to even warm up water for Simon’s bath (or make the giant pot of tea I so dearly need).  We wait, for an indeterminable time, until two separate individuals decide that functioning gas is a valid expense.

That’s not where the landlord’s shenanigans end, though.  Last week he stopped by and I walked through the place with him, giving him a comprehensive list of repairs that were necessary for this place to be habitable, as well as repairs/upgrades that Jeff and I would like to do.  But of course, now he’s not answering/returning our calls, and we’re stuck in a house that’s not fit for occupancy.

Among other things, his company needs to:

• re-caulk the bathtub enclosure (it was done incorrectly and is pulling away from the tub, allowing mold and other nasties to grow)
• remove or cover peeling lead paint in Simon’s bedroom window-wells
• Replace/cover exposed wiring behind stove
• Correct mis-wiring of kitchen light switch (you get a lively little shock if your finger brushes the switchplate screw.  A great way to wake up in the morning!)
• Replace missing glass in back bedroom window (currently there’s just storm windowglass)
• Replace dishwasher power switch under the sink (it’s falling apart, leaving exposed wires in a potentially damp environment)
• Replace dishwasher (full of mold)
• Provide us with back door, side door, and garage door keys

It’s pretty much an electrician’s wet dream, eh?

Jeff has started looking into the next steps re: protecting our rights as tenants.  I hope we don’t have to venture into the world of escrow accounts and certified letters, but we may be headed that way soon if the property management company doesn’t start fixing those things and answering our damn calls.

THIS HAS BEEN THE WORST FUCKING MOVE EVER, GUYS.  It just doesn’t end – always another problem, and never anything that we can fix ourselves.  If it weren’t for the damn uncooperative landlord, these problems would’ve been so much more tolerable.

Just be glad you’re not my dad: he called yesterday to wish me a happy birthday and instead got to listen to me bawl about all the aforementioned goddamn problems and the asshole landlord.

But on a happier note, here are the repairs/upgrades that we’d like to do:

• Paint the porch (Killz!)
• Paint the back door and basement door
• Powerwash driveway, porch, and walk
• Minor landscaping in the backyard
• Plant something pretty around the pergola
• Fix the windowboxes and beautify the side yards (I love the raspberry bushes and hydrangeas and this rosebush that has the tiniest little roses ever)

But despite it all, I am still *madly* in love with this house.  I tell Jeff every day, I wish that we were living here in Akron forever so we could just buy the dang thing and fix it ourselves.  I need to take pictures soon to show you guys how awesome it is.  I promise I will once we’ve painted the porch and finished unpacking 🙂  But you have GOT to see all the neat architectural details.  The gorgeous mantle, the antique doorknobs, the beautiful woodwork that has somehow *never* been painted over.  The spacious kitchen that – I’m not gonna lie – needs to be completely gutted and renovated.  The just-right bedrooms, the airy attic, and the perfect living room.  The cute little playroom.  Twenty years ago, a family with kids lived here and marked their progressive heights on a door in the basement.  I love this house – and Akron – more and more every day, and I’m sad that we’ll only get to live here for a year.  But am I so crazy that I’d like for that year to be spent with, oh, hot water?!

So yeah, as a birthday gift from Dominion Gas Co., we got our gas turned off.  THANKS GUYS.  JK Simmons, ya goodfornuthin’ such-n-such.

Jeff and Simon returned from errands with matching devilish grins on their faces, and while I ran out to pick up carryout sushi for my birthday lunch/dinner Jeff undertook a covert wrapping operation.  After lunch I was given two sweet birthday cards, a GIANT package of Ghirardelli squares, and a ridiculously awesome Brookstone back massager.  Then a local florist dropped off this gorgeous arrangement from Mom and Dad:

(lilies!!!)

We wrapped up the evening with a family walk to the playground/park around the corner:

and a trip to Menchie’s, and the grocery store that had giant pots of mums on sale for $3.99 each.  (I got two, one for each side of the front steps.  They’re not blooming yet, but will be SO PRETTY when they do!)

I’ve said it before and I say it again:  Jeff is wonderful at turning my bad days into good ones.  I do like him, quite a bit 🙂

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about our first official Ohio Adventure! 🙂

Oh man.

Where to begin?

 

First of all, we’re in Akron.  Unfortunately we’re not in our new house yet.  No, we’re not happy about that (duh).  Let’s just get that out of the way.

 

Leaving LA went about as planned, and the boys’ drive to Akron was OK.

 

Simes and I spent two days at Mom and Dad’s house: Granddad had a short stint in the hospital for an infection so we drove Grandmother to visit him.  I got to have a GREAT lunch with Stef and Mandi, sans baby (Grammy’s babysitting service!  The price right ;-)).  We got haircuts, hung out with Aunt Judy for a bit, did some laundry and picked Linda up from the airport.  On Wednesday we drove (well, Linda drove.  I sat in the back and entertained Simon) from KC to Indianapolis, with a long lunch- and yarn-buying-break in St. Louis (got to see Jeff’s cousins Katie and Carol, and Linda’s best friend Paula).  We met up with the guys in Indianapolis, and yesterday we went from Indianapolis to Akron.  That’s where it went tits up.

 

I made this gussied-up picture when I was young and optimistic (soo….Thursday morning):

The guys had had usual little problems on their big drive – Dad had some minor issues with the truck, Jeff got tired of lugging the kennels and coolers and Gretchen into hotel rooms every night, Dad accidentally put his hand in dog puke and had to ride like that 15 miles to the next exit… all the little things you can look back in 5 years (or 5 weeks) and laugh at.

 

We will NOT be laughing at this current situation, though.

 

About an hour before we all got to Akron, Jeff got a call from our new landlord.  The previous tenants – a somewhat less-than-desirable-seeming family – hadn’t vacated the house as planned.  Consequently, the maintenance guy(s) weren’t able to take care of all the fixing up that the house needed to make it habitable.

 

Why on earth did they wait until just before we got there to tell us this?!

 

Our landlord assured us that he had three men working on the house, and that it would be in tip-top-shape by the time we arrived.  So we pressed onward.

 

We got to the house, though, and of course everything was not OK.  The kitchen was filthy, the walls still full of holes (nail- and fist-sized).  The windows have dust half an inch thick.  The carpets…::shudder::.  And the upstairs floors were still covered in debris the previous tenants left behind.  It’s just a mess 😦

 

So I called the landlord and told him about our concerns; he told us he’d have the crew back the next day to keep working on the place, and that we should go to a hotel for the night (whether he’ll pay us back for that or not is to be determined.  Also, fun fact:  the only hotel in Akron that accepts pets but isn’t also infested with bedbugs, costs $100/night.  Wowee!  Good thing that Jeff and I are so independently wealthy!  /sarcasm)

 

Yesterday morning we woke up, bright-eyed and optimistic about our new home.  A crew had allegedly been working diligently since 6am to make the house move-in ready.  So what do we walk in to see?  A guy re-painting the only room in the house that didn’t need to be re-done (and, of course, completely ignoring the other 8 rooms that were a mess), some Kaboom ineffectually squirted on the moldy kitchen tile, and (to be fair) a lawn guy working quickly and steadily to rid the garage and yard of all the crap the previous tenants left behind.

 

So we sat around on the front steps and tried to stay out of the way, and tried to figure out exactly what this three-man team had been up to for the past five hours (I told Jeff that I could’ve gotten more done myself in that time, if I’d been bopping to music and had a cooperative baby on my back).  I had to pester the landlord *again* about my concerns, and he talked to his guys (probably bitching about me).  The crew packed up and left at 3:00 on the nose, one coat of paint hastily and crappily applied to the bedroom walls, and a scrap of wood covering the hole in one bedroom’s floor.  The whole place was filthy, but apparently they were “done”.

 

Here, I made you a picture of me, at that news:

Clearly you don’t want to be dealing with me.

 

More angry phone calls, etc etc.  Landlord told us he’d call a carpet cleaning company to deal with that, he’d contact the owner for permission to repaint the first floor and finish the painting on the second (apparently asking for two coats of nicely-applied paint is a really unusual request), and that if we weren’t happy with the cleanliness of the house (that’s putting it mildly), we could hire our own cleaning crew and have the bill sent to him.  So that’s exactly what we did.  Our cleaners are going to work this afternoon and evening and tomorrow, and with any luck they’ll be done by tomorrow night.  In a single fortuitous turn of luck, the clerk at our hotel (which is a really commodious, friendly and helpful establishment, for all the exorbitant expense) also does housekeeping and home repairs, and when I mentioned our troubles to her she was happy to get her crew right on the job.  Which was good, because none of the other housekeeping companies I had called first were answering their phones at 5:00 on a Friday afternoon.  (Shocking!)

 

In the end, we’ll have accrued (hopefully no more than) a three-night hotel bill, an extra day of truck rental, and at least 900 bajillion phone calls, untold amounts of stress, 45 bottles of Diet Coke, and 8 Subway sandwiches.  And a new dress shirt for Jeff, because all his work clothes are packed away in the truck and did I mention he starts work on Monday?  (!!!)  And I went and got ice cream sundaes for us last night because DAMMIT WE DESERVE IT.

 

We’re about to head back over to the house and see if this mythical carpet cleaner guy is really as good as the landlord insists (I remain dubious), and meet with the housekeeping crew to make sure they see everything that needs to be done.

 

Later – not now – I’m going to get on the landlord’s ass about the paint that his maintenance guys smeared on the light fixtures, the fact that they re-hung the bathroom cabinets about an inch off, and figure out exactly when the new, non-mold-filled dishwasher will arrive.  We also need to attempt – for the third time – to schedule someone to come unload our moving truck, and then worry about anything that may have broken in transit (I’m a little bit suspicious of the apparently-precarious positioning of our sofa in there).

 

At our leisure, Jeff and I are going to repaint the front porch with Killz (it’s all sorts of moldy), weed and winterize the flower beds (there are long-neglected raspberry bushes there!), plant some pretty climbing plant for the pergola, repaint the back door, and probably paint and scrub the basement stairwell.  And other assorted little jobs.

 

To say these past few days have been rough is…a bit of an understatement.  I would like you to note that I will not be reclining on the screened-in porch with iced tea anytime soon, nor will I be preparing a hearty and homey dinner in that kitchen tonight.  I do remain ever-optimistic, though, that maybe I won’t have to sob on the living room floor at any point today.  But we shall see.

 

I’ll wrap up with a couple cute pictures of Simon and Granddad.

 

He got to drive from Indianapolis!

 

 

And that’s all I’ve got.  Wish me luck as I head back into the moldy, dirty abyss!

 

Someone convince me this will all be OK in the end…?

Milk was a bad choice

I am SO over this move.  OVER. IT.  I’m over loading up boxes (and then navigating around them).  I’m over logistics.  I’m over disorder and all that.  ALL OF IT.  This time next week I fully expect to be installed on my new screened-in front porch with some fresh, fruity iced tea in one hand and Dad is Fat in the other, laughing my ass off as Simon frolicks with his Grandma.

 

Seeing as how the move-in date is one week from today, maybe I’d best give it 8 or 9 days until the tea drinking and reading.  But no more!

 

Luckily, we’re in crunch time!  They came and got our fridge today (we sold it back to the used appliance place that we bought it from last year), so our living room is now host to a classy installation I call “our giant Igloo cooler with the broken latch”.  I have *most* of the kitchen packed up: just plates and silverware left.  Oh, and my spice cabinet and mixing bowls.  Whoop-de-do.  Simon’s clothes, the bathrooms, the rest of his toys, and those random things we can’t do without, and then I think we’re good to go!  Jeff should get home early tonight and tomorrow, which will be really helpful.

 

I made the mistake of getting a grande caramel macchiato at the Starbucks in Pavilions today.  (I’ve been getting coffee/tea drinks out entirely too much lately).  It’s like every couple months I need a reminder why I don’t drink coffee.  I think I can feel my eyeballs vibrating.

 

Have I mentioned my middle-of-the-night waking?  It’s the most obnoxious thing.  It started when I was pregnant, and hasn’t really gotten better since.  A few times a week, I inexplicably wake up at about 2 or 3 am then lay awake for a couple hours.  None of the usual tricks help me go back to sleep, so I just sit there and read stuff on my phone and drink water.   Which of course means I’m exhausted the next day.  It’s the most frustrating thing!  (I cut out caffeine after about 3:00pm, but that didn’t seem to help.  It’s not going to sleep at night that’s the problem; it’s getting back to sleep after I wake up)

 

Also, it’s like 100* today (hence the title).  LA is giving us a big ol’ middle finger just before our departure 😀  Good riddance!

 

Here.  Have a Simon.

 

I’m off to try and quietly arrange spice jars in a cardboard box.  Ssh!

 

What will I even talk about when we’re not moving anymore?

 

4 to go!

I should be packing, not sitting on my butt eating cold mac and cheese and icy Diet Coke.  BUT LOOK AT ME GO.

 

Part of it is because Simes is asleep in the bedroom, and I’ve learned the hard way that I really cannot pack while he’s napping.  The RRRIIIIIIPPPPPP of the packing tape, the clanging of pots and pans – it wakes him right up.  So instead I shall sit on my ass and knit a knee sock and talk at y’all.

 

We’ve had a busy morning.  Drove Jeff to work since I packed his bike pump (after he pumped his tires, TYVM) but his front tire isn’t holding air.  So this is my penance for being on top of things. 😛  Then Simon had a pediatrician’s appointment way up in Pasadena – just a quick jab for his flu shot.    After that, I decided to reward myself that he barely cried (shut up, there’s logic there).  So I went into this coffee shop by the pediatrician’s office, feeling all righteous and “lah de DA look at me not going to Starbucks!  I’m supporting a local business! Hurr durr durr”.

 

My reward was a creepy little place that was empty at 10:00am, a green tea smoothie made from powder + ice + milk, and (I noticed in the bakery case on my way out) a spot of mold on the displayed muffins.

I will not be going back.

 

As I’ve been doing these last-minute errands before the move, knowing full well I’ll never see any of the people I interact with ever again, I’ve been saying little goodbyes inside my head:  “So long, Brenda the receptionist at the vet’s office!”  “Goodbye, bank teller lady who always compliments my wraps!”  “Rudy! Our favorite photographer at JC Penney!  Farewell!”  It’d be pretty damn lame to actually say goodbye to any of these people – like they know me from a hole in the wall anyway – but I still feel the need to inwardly commemorate the occasion.

 

I’m also doing it to places:  “Au revoir, stupid weird intersection!”  “Adios, Target Starbucks that always screws up my chai!”  “Sayonara, mail drop box that looks like it wants to give me tetanus!”

 

Probably should see about adjusting the ol’ meds, eh?

 

I’ll end with a couple pictures from Simon’s 1-year session.  It continues to baffle me how I managed to create something so stinkin’ beautiful.

(My real kid – the one with the lazy eye and mole-y skin and lank hair – is probably still waiting to be picked up at the St. Mary’s NICU.)

 

(I love that one.  A grandma in the waiting room nearly had a heart attack when we took it. :-D)

 

So dignified!

 

That last one reminds me so much of Jeff’s official clerk portrait:

So maybe Simon’s not a NICU switcheroo after all. 😛

 

Time to stop dredging apple slices in Greek yogurt and get to work.  TO ZEE KUH-NITTINK!

 

I think it’s catching up to me

I’m cranky today.  It’s a zillion degrees out and the stupid little wall AC that’s supposed to cool our entire apartment isn’t, I have a bunch of packing to do and mayhem-in-a-diaper is making that rather difficult, and for some reason my computer is running slower than molasses.

 

So rather than sit here and bitch anymore, I’mma do something about it 😀

 

Exciting thing #1:  You know my beloved Dyeabolical Strong Arm sock yarn, the one that’s been discontinued? I have made 6 pairs of socks with this yarn.  It holds up better than almost anything I’ve knitted with, and it’s squishysoft and gorgeous.  Magical!

 

I love that stuff.

 

So when Kara mentioned she was de-stashing some, well…

That’ll be greeting me in Ohio.  All the Strong Arm for meeeeee!

 

Exciting thing #2:  I have disposed of the remaining donuts.  So they’ll no longer be haunting me.  Also, this is why we never buy donuts.

 

Exciting thing #3:  Simon has some new skills:  shaking thing with rhythm, manipulating his stacking rings really quickly (laboring over each piece is so yesterday!), and banging on his little drum.  Yesterday afternoon he was playing with the stacker and I was packing in the kitchen, and he tossed another ring on the post.  By that point I had said “YAYYYY!!!!!” and applauded about 400 times, so my enthusiasm for the accomplishment was, understandably, waning just a bit.  So I said, “Yayy!” and went on about my business.  Looked over a second later, and Simon was staring at me, solemn-faced.  Once we made eye contact he slowly clapped, once or twice, to show me what I needed to do.  When I said, “YAYYYY!!!!!!!” and clapped, he burst into a giant grin and, satisfied, went back to his  stacking.

 

It’s like he was saying, “That’s right, Mama.  You’d BETTER be impressed!”

 

Speaking of the lil’ stinker:

He comprises Exciting Things #3 through 13,248,895.

 

Exciting Thing #13,248,896, though, is that in less than an hour we get to leave to pick up Jeff, and once he comes home I’ll have the rest of the evening free to pack.  Whoopee!   After Simes goes to sleep, I think I’ll try to finish the lef oof that knee sock.  I’m about 3/4 of the way there!

 

Now that we’ve danced to Gangnam Style 5 times in a row (at least 600k of its 1.75 billion views have come from our IP address), it’s time to go be a Mama.  That is, feed him Joe-O’sand sing Jayhawks songs off-key while I make a racket arranging pots and pans in boxes.

 

What’s your exciting thing for today?

Less than a week!

This weekend was pretty awesome.  Jeff and Simon enjoyed a LOT of quality time together, while I worked on packing.  (Jeff says – rightfully so – that it’s better for him not to try and pack, since I’d just yell at him for doing it wrong.  Smart man.)  So my boys left me at home to get stuff done, while they went off on such exciting adventures as “get the oil changed!”, “buy more bubble-wrap!” and “walk the dog!”.  Regardless of the packing, though, I think some one-on-one quality Daddy Time is good for Mr. Simes.  Learn that he can exist without a boob 2 feet away, you know.

It all paid off, too.  The living room is now completely packed, except for the things we can’t do without (Simon’s toys, iPod dock, and PS3), and that’ll all be quick and easy to pack on Saturday or whatever.  The blue room is long since done.  The bedroom is mostly done, except for my top-of-dresser stuff (jewelry boxes, hankies, coin jar).  That’s 1 box and will take about 10 minutes.  Bathrooms will just take a minute and obviously need to wait a few more days.

That just leaves the kitchen.  Ugh.  Jeff got all our appliance boxes out of the storage unit on Saturday (knife block, KitchenAid, slow cooker).  I just need to buckle down and do it.  I hate packing the kitchen.  Everything is so fiddly and breakable and I always pack up some tool then realize the next day that I need it.  But last night I made us channa masala and naan and these little tandoori wraps for dinner (thank you TJ’s frozen section!) and I made a big deal about it being the ceremonial LAST COOKING EVERRRRR in that shoebox kitchen, so now we’re on tofu dogs, sandwiches and yogurt full-time.  Whee!

Yesterday while I was packing, I came across a box of Jeff’s old family photos.  Look what I found?

Who does THAT look like???

And if that’s not proof enough of Simon’s parentage, check out this one:

I showed that to Jeff and said, “NOW do you believe he has your nose?!”  (Jeff had previously maintained that “all baby noses look alike” and “it’s impossible to tell”, every time I or any of Simon’s grandparents insisted that there is great probiscular similarity.

 

Finally, a little glimpse into Simon’s future:

It’s the feet that kill me, there.  So wee!

 

What’s interesting to me is that Simon looks so much like my dad one minute, and so much like Jeff the next.  With just a change of posture or expression.  Genetics are awesome!

 

I’ve had a hankering for donuts for a few weeks now.  We were going to go to the iconic Randy’s, but that never worked out.  So yesterday afternoon we ran to Abuelita’s (the LYS here in SouthPas) so I could get a sock bag since I packed all mine.  (I may have also run out with a skein of Pagewood Farms merino/bamboo sock.  Ssh!)  And while we were at it, we stopped by Winchell’s and got a few donuts.  They’re adequate – nothing to write home about – but to my donut-needing self they’re OMG SO GOOD.  I can’t keep my face out of that damned box.  This is why we never buy them!

 

But yay for breastfeeding – these things aren’t going to my hips!  Whoopee!  I may have to breastfeed someone forever.  Become a wet nurse or something.  It’s the best diet plan out there.  It will be a sad day when I must once again refuse cheesecake and hollandaise and french fries.

 

Now I’ve gotta get to work on that ( ::sigh:: ) kitchen.

 

Simon is currently occupied with his IKEA stacking ring toy.  He works tirelessly to get a ring on:

 

And then balance it carefully on the rubbery post.  Mission accomplished, he turns to me for grins and accolades:

And then I die of love and happiness.

 

Have a great day, y’all!

Laying low

After all of yesterday’s running around, Simon and I have stayed home today.  He made his wishes to that effect apparent when he took a 2 1/2 hour nap, from 9:30 to 12:00.  Little dude was tuckered out!

 

Yesterday evening we picked Jeff up from the train station and went up to this Mexican restaurant in Pasadena that we really like: El Portal.  Their fried fish tacos are the bomb-diggity!  And Jeff gets this carne burrito that’s essentially just a side of beef wrapped in a tortilla.  Massive.  Disgusting.  But he likes it.

 

The past two nights we’ve done something different for Simon’s bedtime, that’s actually worked out sorta well.  Our old routine (outlined in exhausting detail last week, if you care) was getting really frustrating for me.  Simon now likes to flip from boob to boob when he’s tired and avoiding sleep, culminating in biting me and whining once they’re empty and he’s not asleep.  So my new plan to put a stop to THAT shit has consisted of putting the boobs away, then pinning his arms down and doing the rocking back-and-forth and humming thing that I do when I’m wearing him into a nap.  Wednesday night the novelty of it was enough that he conked right out, but last night he struggled mightily (including several attempts to bite my boob through my bra/shirt.  Eewwwwouuuuchhhh!)  After he fell asleep from rocking, though, he startled awake a few minutes later and I ended up boobing him back down.  So we’ll see what happens tonight.  I still prefer boobing right up until he sleeps (because once he drops off he’ll usually sleep-nurse long enough to stimulate a second let-down), but I’m also a fan of keeping my nipples attached to my body, lol.  Nursing a big kid is a whole different game than nursing a tiny baby!  We still love it though 🙂

 

Yesterday evening I was thinking longingly of my long-neglected knitting, and all of a sudden I was struck by the undeniable urge to cast on for a pair of striped stockinette knee socks.  So I entered the blue room (which is where we’re keeping all our packed boxes) and climbed Empty Box Mountain to reach the far-flung Yarn Stash Binland:

And dug out a local handdye (La Jolla “Baah”) and some Fiberphile that I’ve had since the Great Stashbinge of 2011.  And then I fell asleep, because it was 10:00 an I am old.

 

But this morning!  While Simon slumbered on the couch next to me, I painstakingly HAND-WOUND both of these hanks (and the Fiberphile was more than a little knotty, I don’t mind telling you), since my swift and ballwinder are also buried and we got rid of the lamp with a shade that was perfect for an impromptu swift.

 

And I’m about to cast on in a minute here, if Simon will stay engaged with his toy piano and push-walker long enough for me to cast on 88 stitches and join in the round without twisting 😉

 

This afternoon – I’m posting here, so you’ll hold me to it! – I have got to work on packing.  Tea said she should be able to watch Simon for a bit, and that’d be great – it would give me the chance to get started on the kitchen.  Packing the kitchen is so deceptive – everything’s tucked away in cabinets, so it doesn’t look like *that* much, but then you’ve gotta wrap everything, and …buh.  It’s a lot.

 

The good news is that I put together a whole ‘nuther box of stuff for Goodwill.  Mostly Jeff’s stuff :-P.

 

Happy Friday!

 

(PS – did you know that though Pyrex is incredibly durable, when it breaks it shatters magnificently into exceptionally pointy little grains of glass?  And that then you have to not only sweep and vacuum up the shards, but also go over the entire floor with strips of packing tape?  There.  Now you know.  So you won’t feel compelled to break any and find out the hard way.  You’re welcome.)

Busy busy busy!

I feel like we’re really getting into crunch time on the move.  This is when my mind abruptly switches from “ahh you have 10 days. You’re fine.” to “HOLY SHIT 9 DAYS WHAT ARE YOU DOING SITTING ON YOUR ASS AND BLOGGING!?!”

But in reality, we’re in pretty good shape.  I’ve packed up almost everything except the kitchen and the pictures, etc. on the walls.  I did most of our clothes last night and will finish those up this afternoon when Chicken wakes up.

BTW, this is how I’ve been accomplishing all this blogging:

See my little Skype window with sleepy baby (on unmade bed :-\)?  Yeah, I’m not going to wake him up just to make the bed in a desperate effort to convince y’all that I’ve got my shit together 😛

He’s extra sleepy this morning because we hopped up to take Jeff to work, then ran to Target and the dry cleaner on the way home.   Busy times! In Target’s Starbucks (where I enjoyed a delicious iced peach green tea), he made friends with an ancient Chinese woman.  They played peek-a-boo and she blew him kisses.

Oh.  So you know how I talked the other day about missing seeing green stuff in the Midwest? I thought I’d take a couple pictures at stoplights today to show you what I’m talking about.  Essentially, LA is just dusty and brown, and just doesn’t feel “clean” (to me).  A lot of the sidewalks are carpeted in crushed mulberries and palm tree berries and these other ones that I can’t identify.  Palm fronds fall onto the roads and get ground to dust by cars.  So a lot of the suicide lanes and medians look like this:

since there’s no rain to wash it away, and I’m sure the city can’t afford to take care of it.

Speaking of “not taken care of”, that’s another thing with the palm trees.  No one prunes them (again, I think the municipalities have better things to worry about), and y’all know I’m not a fan of palm trees anyway, but when they look like this:

(source) it doesn’t really help (they remind me of Captain Caveman).  Just…ew.  Who wants to look at that?

The other thing about LA’s landscape – that’s actually probably a good thing – is how little grass there is.  Since LA is so dry, most of the water comes from the mountains, a source that’s quickly being depleted.  So I can totally respect water conservation, and am glad when people don’t waste it irrigating lawns for no good reason.  THAT SAID, this is not pretty to look at, is it?

But I don’t absolutely hate everything about LA, despite how it might seem 😉  It was pretty neat getting to see flowers like this in the middle of winter:

and the jacaranda trees were *everywhere* in spring:

That part, at least, really is nice 🙂  I also love being able to see the mountains in the distance, as we walk around our neighborhood.  I’ll miss that in Ohio!

But I still can’t wait to go where it’s green and pretty in the summer, rich orange in the fall, and a thick blanket of snow in the winter.

 

…I remember in January I was walking down Colorado up in Pasadena, and I saw all the fashionable girls running around in leggings and big heavy coats and scarves.  IT WAS 70 DEGREES.  Unless you literally just stepped off a plane from somewhere with real weather, THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THAT SHIT.

 

Anyway. How’s that for a tangent? 😛

 

We had the most fun this afternoon.  Simes and I got together with a couple of my Twitter LSG’ers in Griffith Park near the observatory.  It was so nice!

I love it when people step out of the Internet and into real life 🙂

 

Simon was exhausted from playing with his new friends and conked out almost before I could get him strapped into the car.  He woke up when we came in, but quickly boobed back down.  I took a shower (!!!), and here I am.  In a little bit we’re going to go pick Jeff up at the train station then head to this really good Mexican restaurant in Pasadena for dinner, and I might try to coerce Jeff to take me to Menchie’s afterward.  I haven’t had a real meal since yesterday, so I think I need some fish tacos followed by frozen yogurt, yes? 😛

 

Hope y’all are having a good evening!