Nobody Knows Anything

My new schedule is this: on days when there is no preschool, try to get up at around 6 and go for a short run. On days with preschool, drop Sophia off at 8, come back home, strap Simon into the jogging stroller, go for a longer run.

This seems to be working out pretty well.

Of course, I’ve only done it one day.

Yesterday morning Sophia said, “It’s time for school! It’s time for school!” and since it was only 7am, Darin and I were more underwhelmed by her enthusiasm than we might otherwise have been. I got her to school and had to ask her for a hug and a kiss before she raced off to try out all the cool toys in the classroom.

C’mon, would a little separation anxiety kill you?

I realized that I would have lots of morning time, and since Simon is still too little to say, “No, not the jogging stroller!” I decided I could use some of the morning to run. Which we did today and I think this plan is going to work out fine. It will work better if I get into shape (puff, puff), but one thing at a time.

Something funny I’ve noticed about Simon when we’re in the kitchen is that he likes to run laps around the kitchen island. Thud thud thud thud thud thud THUD THUD thud thud… I suspect he runs there because I’m standing at the island using my computer. (Soon my office will be cleaned out and usable. Soon. If I believe hard enough, it will be so.) But he just goes ’round and ’round. It’s hilarious.

Maybe one day we’ll go running together.

Okay, possibly this is the stupidest question ever posed, but…

Imagine the land between San Francisco is completely flat. No hills, no Grapevine, nothing. Both SF and LA are at sea level. Now imagine you’re going to ride your bike from SF to LA and back again.

Here’s my question:

1. The ride from SF to LA is harder.
2. The ride from LA to SF is harder.
3. The two legs of the ride are equally difficult.

My mental model is that the ride from LA to SF is harder. Darin says I’m wrong, that maps of the world are purely by convention.

As I drove yesterday I thought about why I imagine going from LA to SF is harder. Was I somehow applying the law of gravity to a north-south axis? Then I realized I had a mental model that rivers like the Mississippi go north to south (though that’s probably because they get such a good headstart coming off the Canadian mountains). Except, of course, the Nile, which goes south to north…and in my mental model of the world, the Nile is below the Equator. (I know this is wrong. I knew the second I vocalized it. But I had never thought about it explicitly before.)

More data: it takes about a tank of gas to go from our house to LA. I filled up right before leaving both times and the gas light came on toward the end of both trips. But I had to stop to refuel on the way home yesterday because the indicator dipped below the E mark—but on the way to LA it didn’t get that low. Did I use more gas coming home because I was coming north or because I drove, um, speedier?

Can anyone help me out here?

We came, we ate, we left. Never took Latin, can’t give you the cute version.

We had a splendid time down in Los Angeles. We stayed at Maureen’s magnificent house, where Sophia and Rebecca played for 14 hours a day (clearly Sophia was trying to make up for lost play time) and no one got any sleep. We visited with a few of Sophia’s friends, including Tamar’s Damian, and we had dinner with Fernando (he of the plaintive comments in the previous entry).

On Saturday I took a 4 hour nap with Simon while Sophia played with Rebecca. It was heaven.

Driving back yesterday was not quite as much fun as driving down was. For one thing, I knew what I was in for this time. For another, we were doing it in the middle of the day, so the kids were awake and vociferous. The hour or so stretch where they both napped was lovely, because it happened through the Pacheco Pass, which when not at a complete standstill is a very beautiful drive.

I learned a few important things while I was down in Los Angeles. One is, I miss my friends from down there more than I knew. (And I didn’t plan this trip at all well—Michele couldn’t make time to see me because the visit was so last minute. Waaah.) Two is, I don’t miss LA at all.

Despite the various hardships of this move (yes, yes, I know: on a scale of “the life of an heiress” to “life is Appalachia” this move is closer to the former than the latter), Silicon Valley really is better for me and better for the kids. As I drove down Ventura Boulevard I thought, God am I glad I don’t have to drive this every day any more. There are huge open spaces near where we live. I often can’t tell where I am on the freeway because there are too many trees. I always knew where I was in LA because you can always see the buildings.

So now if I could only get all of my friends to move up here…

Friday I was doing what I usually do, which is try to fill up the day with as many things to do as possible before it’s time for dinner, preferably with Daddy but, you know, if not then not. Whatever.

So I talked to Darin Friday afternoon about what we should do for dinner and he told me, “I have to work this weekend.”

“Oh,” said I. “Maybe we’ll go to LA.” I’ve been talking about wanting to come down here, and Darin thought that a weekend when he’d be busy would be perfect.

I called my friend Maureen and she said, Sure, c’mon down.

I called Darin back to tell her that we’d go down on Saturday when he laid it on me that he’d be working late Friday night too.

“Just a sec,” I said, and I called Maureen back. “Can we come down tonight?” I asked.

“Sure!” she said.

So I tossed some clothes in a bag and threw the kids in the car (albeit gently, and with proper strapping into their car seats) and headed off toward LA. A trip somewhat hampered by the fact that we left at 5:30pm, and also by the fact that the Pacheco Pass (the highway connecting 101 and 5) was a parking lot. Literally. The standstill was so literal that everyone turned off their engines and quite a few people were walking around. I still don’t know why.

Instead of getting in to LA at 10:30 we got there at 12:30am, and I realized that I’m not exactly built for spur-of-the-moment roadtrips any more. (Note to self: when possible, bring a co-pilot.) But the kids were pretty good companions and so far we’ve been having a blast seeing the old ‘hood and the friends Sophia talks about incessantly.

The past five weeks (It’s been five weeks! How can it have been five weeks?) have been difficult on everyone—Sophia hasn’t had her preschool or her circle of buds, and I haven’t had very much adult companionship. I’m not the most gregarious of people (she said with obvious understatement) but during this move I’ve been accosting other moms in the park—”Hi, how old are you kids? Belong to any mommy groups? Are there any other parks around here?” And so on.

Sophia starts preschool and dance class soon. Help is on the way. Life will become normal again.

What’s funny is, though I lived in LA for 6+ years—the longest I’ve lived anywhere since leaving my parents’ house—I don’t exactly feel being here is natural. I had to fill up my car Saturday morning and I couldn’t quite remember where the nearest gas station was. I drove by the old homestead and thought, Hey, I used to live there. It didn’t immediately bring up nostalgic feelings.

In a few days we’ll head back home (or, as Sophia put it when she was getting sleepy and cranky this afternoon, “Let’s go back to our new house now“)…hopefully with no parking lot on the Pacheco Pass. I’m glad to be back here in LA. But this isn’t home any more.

Addendum: This morning, as Maureen was getting a small passel of gifts together, I discovered today is Father’s Day. Darin isn’t exactly the Hallmark type but…what a weekend to go away. Happy Father’s Day, dude! Don’t stay up too late playing Zelda every night.

I mentioned on my mailing list that one of the reasons I haven’t been updating here is that I’m still using dial-up to get the Web, which is a pain in the tuchis and most of the time I’d rather not bother until we get DSL.

Well.

Ex-cuuuuuuuuuuuuse me.

A number of people wrote me to ask what my problem was, since dial-up is clearly just as good as DSL.

And all I have to say to that is: go get DSL, use it for 6 or 7 years (which is at least as long as Darin and I have had it), and then get back to me about how great dial-up is.

Dial-up is slow. Dial-up leads to pages taking molasses years to load. Dial-up leads me having the time to take Simon upstairs, change his diaper, tickle him a little, take him back downstairs, check in with Sophia, and get back to the computer before some pages have loaded. (Don’t even try to the California DMV site on dial-up. Completely not worth the time.)

Dial-up uses your damn phone line.

With DSL I am on the Internet. With dial-up, I have to wait for the modem to dial-up, connect, and stay connected.

Yes, it’s great to have dial-up available. But a comparable substitute for DSL? No way.

Well, according to my real estate agent, who called her office and canvassed other agents…the proper rule is NOT to tip. The reason being that they’re professional movers, this is their job. So I didn’t tip them. I guess she might have been leading me down the wrong path, but…

Or maybe the movers got back at me. Part of the moving package was “unpack but do not put away.” I told them to unpack the kitchen, the kids’ room, and our room.

Well, maybe this was the right thing to do (according to one friend, I should have absolutely had them unpack), but…we’ve been swimming hip deep in stuff ever since. We couldn’t circumnavigate the kitchen island for a day and a half. (Seriously. We should have taken pictures.) We’re getting the house more under control, but what I really need to do is hire a few babysitters to watch the kids while I dig in at the biggest trouble spots.

We also bought a stainless steel front refrigerator, which does mark up with fingerprints just as much as everyone says. And we’re returning it, though not because of the fingerprints. It’s because stainless steel doesn’t hold magnets. WTF? It’s metal, isn’t it? Anyhow, we need magnets to hold priceless works of art that will come flooding our way soon, so the stainless steel fridge goes back to Sears and a shiny new black one—that holds magnets—will be here on Friday.

We got the keys to the house Friday evening. We spent Saturday shopping for a refrigerator and a TV—Sophia had enough of shopping early on and wanted to go play. No, sorry, hon: shopping day.

Sunday was spent doing fun things far away from the apartment of irritation: Darin took Sophia to see Finding Nemo—Her first movie in a movie theater! Might as well just cut her a set of car keys right now—and Simon and I visited our new neighborhood. I took a walk into town and bought some new running shoes. (Hey: you celebrate your new house anyway you choose. Me, I’m going to start running again, because I have moved to the running mecca of the western world and can’t wait to get started.)

When we came back to the house, Simon fell asleep. Darin was there with Sophia, who’d fallen asleep as soon as they left the movie. So we put the two of them to nap on the picnic blanket in our dining room:

Now, if you didn’t just say, “Awwwww” I’d get your DNA checked, frankly, because you’re lacking key homo sapiens sapiens sentimentalis sequences.

§

We camped out at the house Sunday night so that we would be sure to be here when the movers got here. They said they’d be here around 8 to 8:30. I assured Darin I could get the kids into the car and to the house by 8 from the apartment, but he said we should rough it and be here.

Of course, Darin and I both slept very badly—despite the fact that Aero beds are better than most other kinds of temporary beds, they’re not great. And we’re both wound up with excitement about the move. And he had a few things on his mind about work. I figure we’ll make up for the bad sleep when we finally get to sleep in our own beds again. Finally.

And it’s a good thing we camped out here, uncomfortable Aero beds or no, because about 30 seconds after Darin left for work this morning the moving truck arrived, about 30-45 minutes before they said they’d be here. All morning I’ve had the joy of discovering my carefully laid plans of what furniture goes where were for naught: there’s one room big furniture can’t fit into, because the angles of entry are all wrong. It’s frustrating. All of boxes of books have gone into my office, simply as a central storage zone, but there are so many boxes they had to start storing them on the back porch. And that’s before my desk goes in there. Heh.

I also don’t have any cash on hand to tip these guys when they’re done. Anyone have any rules of thumb on hand for how much to tip moving guys? (Please leave suggestions in the comments box.)

§

Something I discovered Sunday as I waited for Simon to take his pre-walk nap was that I think I’m going to like this house. It’s smaller than our LA house by only 100 square feet but it felt a lot smaller on my initial viewings because it didn’t have the soaring open spaces of the LA house.

What it does have that the LA house didn’t is a much more efficient use of space. Lots of closets. Lots of storage space. The kitchen is great—much better than I originally thought. (Although the fluorescents overhead have got to go.) I don’t even know what’s going to go into all the kitchen closets…because there’s a walk-in pantry! The family room right next to the kitchen! All of our bedrooms upstairs! In LA our bedroom was on a different floor than the kids’, which was tough.

But the absolute best thing, bar none, is…the location. (Yes, I know the cliché.) We can walk to town, which I did yesterday no sweat. Well, actually, quite a lot of sweat because it was hot yesterday, but you know what I mean. And there are neighbors…with small kids…who play in their front yards. Yesterday I met some of our neighbors, who were letting their boys play with the hose.

You don’t see too many kids playing in the front yard in LA.

In fact, not too many front yards in our old neighborhood.

So despite the unending torture of this move…I’m really really excited about the house and the neighborhood and our new life.

If only all of these boxes would unpack and put away themselves.