Yesterday was rough. Woke up nauseated. None of my usual remedies helped. By evening it was really bad but at bedtime I finally puked and immediately felt much better. Weird. Good ol’ medication side effects, I guess.
My god I love living here in our cozy house in the land of rain. Yesterday I kept a fire burning in the woodstove for extra coziness. We have tons of windows so no matter where I am I can look outside and see misty trees and distant hills and quiet neighbors. We’re on a dead-end street set well back from any high-traffic roads and it’s QUIET. Hope to get my audiobook recording mojo back soon!
This morning was Sit On Hold time. First to the SSA so they know I’ve moved and can adjust my SSI benefits, and then to Alameda County social services so they can terminate my CalFresh food benefits and Medi-Cal. Eventually reached a helpful human in both instances, but after that I gave up on changing my address with my bank after sitting on hold wayyyy too long with them. It’s less urgent. I’ll try first thing in the morning.
Now imma work on my embroidery project and listen to an audiobook.
I went to the library today! It’s a 4-minute drive, and they’re open seven days a week! I took my post office change of address notification to prove I live here and a very friendly librarian signed me up for a card. So happy. And I found a Lianne Moriarty novel that I’ve never read. It’s a small library and very pleasant.
Henry and Co. came over today, in the daytime so they could see our yard and stuff. There was even a bit of sun so they took the baby outside for some bare-bottom time :D
Henry brought ingredients for Chloe Sandwiches (aka capresi sandwiches). So delicious. And he helped me unpack and put away all the rest of the kitchen stuff and he didn’t even need direction. He just DID IT. And he also carried things to the basement.
Lulu ran around the house and in and out of the yard and was very very busy. She is a wonderful child.
Errands today. Ace, Costco, Trader Joe’s. Costco made me VERY cranky but TJ’s cheered me right up again. Now we have a fridge and freezer full of good food. The fridge here is nice: double doors on top, and a freezer beneath, that has a smaller upper drawer and a larger lower drawer. The upper drawer is great for ice cream!
Speaking of ice cream, I discovered a trick! Coffee ice cream is my favorite, but the caffeine keeps me awake if I eat more than a couple spoonfuls. But if I mix those two spoonfuls with some vanilla, i can get more of that coffee flavor!
Spent some hours this morning flattening boxes and folding packing paper for reuse. And then, ugh, more unpacking. Ugh ugh ugh. We can’t find the kitchen trash can! We can’t find the garbage bags! Ah well. Everything will turn up eventually. Got tired and had a lie-down in the afternoon (with the window at the head of my bed cracked open so I could smell the rain), and then Henry and Co. came over in the evening to help and visit! Henry carried heavy things to the basement, and Lulu helped me unpack a few book boxes, sort of. Lol.
Stayed in bed till noon. Dave brought me OJ and a hash browns puck from McDonalds and I absolutely LAZED. First morning without an alarm clock since last Friday. Then i got up and took a shower in our new bathroom, and then spent the rest of the day unpacking kitchen boxes. Good lord. Dave has a huge set of dishes – 12 place settings – and about a million glasses and every utensil ever invented. I got about 3/4 through it. For dinner we tried a hole-in-the-wall taco shop, Rigoberto’s, that’s a four-minute drive away. It’s a proper San Diego-style place, with a salsa bar and, frankly, better burritos than anywhere in the Bay Area! And omg inexpensive. $15 total for two huge burritos and all the salsa and lime wedges I wanted to take (obviously we’re only doing takeout because of THE PLAGUE). They’re open 24/7, even!
We froze last night because a) air mattresses have no insulation from the cold floor and b) the thermostat was set to 64 overnight! But tonight we have our lovely beds and I re-set the thermostat to a more comfy temperature so I’m sure we’ll be warm.
The moving van came today, as expected, and they were only four hours late. A team of polite, burly men schlepped all our stuff in and unwrapped the furniture. Our house looks like a cardboard box bomb went off. I wish we had left everything behind! Ugh! Too much STUFF!
But, as I said before, we have our beds and our wonderful leather sofa so things are beginning to be more civilized.
From time to time throughout the day I stepped outdoors to breathe great lungfuls of cold damp clean tree-smelling air. My god it’s delicious. You can practically taste it!
Slept well, nice breakfast at the adjoining restaurant, and we were on the road before 9am. Easy drive, no traffic, no inclement weather, and we got to our new house just before 3pm. Henry, Jayla, J‘s brother Geno, and both little girls came over in the evening to help unload the car. Super helpful, and so much fun to see them! Lulu had a ball exploring and running back and forth in our big empty house. We got excellent takeout Chinese food from a place 5 minutes away. Exhausted, bedtime!
Up early, drove to Union City, waited for the movers, who were an hour and a half late. Lol. But we had a nice time hanging out with K and M and Em. We ate great burritos for lunch. Movers finished about 1:30 and we were on the road by 2.:00. Easy drive, got to Mount Shasta City at 7pm. Staying at a really nice Best Western. Time for bed!
Moving day! In theory. Movers were three hours late and didn’t finish Dave’s apartment till 8:30pm. I sat in the car, out of the way, all freaking day. Exhausted. They’re gonna do my room in the morning… let’s hope they’re not three hours late again. Spending the night on air mattresses in empty apartment instead of already driving to Portland. But my phone taught me to play Spades, which is super fun. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spades-card-game/id1585858397
The NYTimes crossword had such a fun theme today! The kind where you figure it out all of a sudden and say “Ahhhhh I see“!
Dave was out all day making his antenna trailer fit to tow over the mountains and clearing a path in his industrial unit so the movers and get his piano and fridge. I packed a suitcase full of meds and prepared my pill organizer for the next few days, did laundry and dishes, and made a big list of stuff that needs to ride in our minivan rather than the moving van. Two more days!
Suzanne canceled our appointment because she woke up with a sore then, poor thing. We’ll have a virtual appointment tomorrow if she feels well enough. So that stop was crossed off our list of errands today. We had to go north anyway, to pick up my meds and to stop in at the house to drop off and pick up some stuff. One of the kids in Em‘s school carpool had contact with another child who tested positive, so I only ran in to the house for a moment and kept my N95 mask on. Poor Em. She’s so happy to be back in school, but she only started on Monday and there’s already been a covid exposure.
Tonight we watched our English cops for a while (24 Hours in Custody, on Amazon Prime) and then the first ep of the new Pottery Throwdown on Channel4! Ahhh lovely Judge Keith and his tender heart, weeping at beauty.
Hoo boy the weekend is swiftly approaching! We’re still waiting to find out if the movers are coming on Saturday or Sunday, but either way it’s excitingly soon. Tomorrow: therapy, pharmacy, and a stop in UC to have lunch with fam and droo off/pick up some stuff. Thursday Dave needs to get his trailer set up and clear a path to his piano in gis industrial unit, and I’ll do laundry and other house chores. Friday we‘ll pack up all the stuff that’s going in the car with us, and Dave will uninstall his good toilet and reinstall the original.
We’ve been trying to eat as much fridge food as possible. Some of the freezer food will travel with us in a cooler and keep Dave’s insulin cool, but we’ll need to toss the ice cream so, y‘know, I’m doing my best to east it up :D
The first Winne the Pooh book is in the Public Domain! Henry and I are planning ro record it as a Librivox duet, trading chapters, after we’re settled in OR!. Disney still owns the red-shirt version. I saw this handy poem on twitter:
If shirt he wear, artist beware. If nude he be, your Pooh is free!
I started watching The Tourist on BBC1 today — first ep was GREAT. Unpredictable, gripping! I hope it stays good till the end.
Here’s a song my therapist told me about. I love it. So sweet. Plus the guy’s voice is exactly my range so I can sing along without bouncing into a different octave all the time. :)
The new season of Queer Eye is so good! I especially liked Angel, Dr. Janeka, the homeless advocate guy, and the gumbo guy. Only two more eps to go, but then I have some older seasons to catch up on since I think I only watched one season with Chloe a few years ago.
I made fantastic roasted veggies for dinner again. Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and mushrooms (in a balsamic sauce). Dave loves my cooking! *heart eyes*
It’s 2022 and I’m STILL ALIVE! Everybody dance now!! Bam, bam, bam-bam-bam!
We slept late and spent the entire day doing absolutely nothing. :D
Dave sat on the sofa and watched a South Korean sci-fi series that he says was terrible but enjoyable, and I sat near him and watched 5 or 6 episodes of the new season of Queer Eye and worked on my Christmas Robin embroidery. And now we’re watching one of our English cop reality shows (24 Hours in Custody, I think). There’s this one cop, Rachel, we’re absolutely crazy about. We shout RACHEL! whenever we see her. She needs a spin-off!
Pretty soon we’ll head to bed and watch a couple episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and then go to sleep. I love our quiet, comfortable routine *heart eyes*
One week till moving day! Dave’s getting the car serviced tomorrow.
We woke up earlier than usual but then lounged laaaate :D Got up eventually and finished Landscapers — what an amazing show! Unlike anything I’ve ever seen before and just beautiful and surreal and heartbreaking. Olivia Coleman is a true genius, and the young man who played her solicitor, Dipo Ola, was marvelous. His final monologue, my god. We’ll be seeing a lot more of him I hope! Then I took a shower, and we went to lunch with Dave’s son. I think my stomach has shrunk. I get full after a few bites and I’m losing weight rapidly (down to 111 now, yikes). Gotta eat more, maybe little bits more often. And more ice cream.
Anyway, after we got home Dave finished watching “Don’t Look Up”, which he’d started this morning while I was watching Landscapers. I joined him on the couch and watched the last half or so and it was great, sort of a cross between a modern Dr. Strangelove and an all-star 1970s disaster movie. Sharp and satirical and much better than I was expecting.
And now we’re snuggled on the couch watching the English cop shows that we love and sipping my homemade cranberry liqueur. We’ll be asleep before midnight, so Happy New Year and I’ll see you in 2022!
I was exhausted yesterday from my busy Tuesday. Argh. Still frustrating, even after so many years. Anyway, we slept late and then I rode along while he ran a couple errands, but then I had to go straight to bed whennwe got home. I was wiped out.
Today was much better! I baked my cranberry-banana-oat muffins AND a little loaf of peasant bread that turned out great!
