- We have a washer and a dryer (thanks to Liz and exokam, and a surprise assist from M!) We girls and a truck moved a washer dryer set. I guess all that deadlifting is kind of useful. They don't work because the roofer got the vent wrong, but the roofer is coming back tomorrow to fix that. I have a whole bunch of ducting and shiny tape to put it all together with and it irks me greatly that I can't just make it go.

- There are curtains in the front picture window. The neighbours are very relieved, I suspect.

- We have a showerhead that I don't hate.

- The boy said "No, you can't just nip into the bathroom before my shower. Use the OTHER BATHROOM."

The TV is still not connected, and KALW is taunting me by playing a programme consisting entirely of orchestral arrangements of movie scores. (Current listening: what seems to be the Bond Theme from Dr. No.) On the other hand: I can now get NPR!

Liz came over with her new bike for a ride and we went to Point Richmond and back. We had dinner at Raj's (which has the best kheer) and had a little quien es mas macho showdown over how spicy to order. (Raj won.) But my tummy is all warm and happy now. That was the spiciest butter chicken I've had in a long time. Mmmmmm.

And earlier, there was brunch with friends, some of whom I have not seen in ages.

Can't wait to be done with the unpacking stage. Still too many boxes.

i cooked real dinner.

boneless, skinless chicken thighs in pesto, grilled (in the grill pan! on the stove!) and then chopped and thrown into a casserole dish with sautéed crimini and porcini (fresh porcini!) mushrooms, a handful of diced fresh tomatoes, basmati rice, and chicken broth. baked until the rice cooked and split a little.

served with a big green leafy salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, and avocadoes. and feta and radishes for me. and negra modelo for the boy.

i love the grill pan and the vent over the stove. some tasty things you can only do with high heat.

this is nearly as exciting as the first time i moved to a place that had a real fridge with a freezer you could keep ice cream in. stove with vent!

I just mowed the lawn.

It's kind of funny looking, and my push-mower leaves the tall grass sticking up like little flags to the shame of how long I left it. Also, the edges are bushy. Must find a hand tool for the edges.

But it smells good. I've always loved the smell of a freshly-cut lawn.

Which is good, because freshly-cut lawn is one of those things to which the boy is allergic. He won't be fighting me for the lawn mower anytime soon. No sirree.

In other news, I met the next-door neighbour. (It's hard to miss the sound of my push-mower. I really must find the oil for its blade. It is in a box somewhere, along with everything else.) We had a Norman Rockwell moment chatting over the picket fence. He's a very nice geographer.

Yes, there's a picket fence. The boy thinks we should paint it black.

I have been cleaning the bottoms of drawers. Scraping gold-flecked scented liner paper out of old bathroom drawers. My hands smell of old cosmetics, circa 1950. And other people's toothpaste. Ugh.

soundhive came over for tea, yesterday. It's not a home until you've made lots of proper noise, she says. It's funny, how we nest. For me it's all about scent.

I will be glad when I'm done and it all just smells like home here.

My first trip to Japan, the first night, I ate: tofu, pickles, sake. This is because I cannot eat fish. I have to say, as meals go, it was a little tragic. They were the only things on the menu I could recognize that weren't american food.

I met exokam at the airport this afternoon, and after some quality lounging at the hotel (where I drank two big glasses of water from the tap, because I *can*, unlike China, where one is more cautious) we went out to eat at an Izakaya that she found in her book. After some cheerful sign language, they led us to a little tatami room of our own. We were very careful to take off our shoes outside. We weren't sure what to do with the shoes, so we left them in the very narrow corridor.

And then we ate:
- house pickles (minus the fish topping for me. sakana wa dame desu.)
- two kinds of fresh tofu, one plain, one sesame, with ground salts and sesame sauce (oil?)
- cold soba with shredded daikon (cool and delicious for humid warm weather)
- pickled cucumber in sesame vinegar
- grilled skewers of salty chicken gizzards, and chicken thighs with spicy miso sauce

We washed it all down with shochu, which is a clear and delicious alcohol made from sweet potato.

Our favourite was the chicken thighs, but it was all pretty tasty. Oishi!

Then we paid the bill, but when we stepped out into the corridor: no shoes! Someone had neatly put them away somewhere.

So now I know the word for shoes: katsu. Katsu doko desuka?

(It turns out, the panel walls hide little shoe cabinets.)

And now exokam is sleeping the sleep of the jetlagged, and I am getting ready to go into the office tomorrow.

just a quick post to say i am in china (beijing is sunny and hot and clear today) and have limited access to the internet.

but all is well and i am so excited to be in china again. my chinese gets a million times better every minute that i am here. seriously.

also: very very jetlagged.

well that was a long week. work conference and prep for work travel and move house. all in the same 2 weeks. let's not do that again, ever.

but there was some lovely long weekend camping in willets, which the boy handled the movers for to let me go to. that was pretty awesome.

and some time with the girl. and the boy. and halli. and we have a new roof, and the attic insulation is almost all done, and the oldhouse is all spic and span and empty. and i found the landlord a new tenant.

and really, a surprising amount of stuff is unpacked.

today there is so much to do. and i am thinking, i am giving myself a free pass today.
i'm going to go for a bike ride and indulge in a massage at the berkeley sauna.
and i'm going to finish reading my patrick o'brien book.
and if anything else gets done: groovy. but i am not going to push it.

I am, at this moment, heartsick and embarrassed to be married and living in California.

So disappointed in the ruling on prop 8 today.

It was too hot again today. I packed kitchen stuff for as long as I could stand the heat (not long!) and then hopped BART for SFMOMA so I could see the Kentridge exhibition again. ( what the girl did when it got too hot out )

So, Mark is lending me his books for the Ham license test. Woohoo. He comes over to my office, and I have to ask him to close the door so I can show him my Morse code trainer (even though Morse is no longer required, I always wanted to get to 10wpm and if not now then when?). Morse code is not the kind of thing that other people like to listen to, so we close the door and I beep away.

Mark is duly impressed.

So, says I, why did *you* want your license?

Mark explains about the sailing and the need for a radio on the open seas. This is all very sensible.

I tell him that I want my license so that if there's a disaster, I'll be able to have a useful radio skill. And because I want the call sign that used to go with the house. And because it's one of those things I've meant to do since I was twelve.

We smile at each other.

All right, Mark admits, it's totally about the geek factor.

Yes. Yes indeed.

there was a whole plan for the boxes and files, but it got interrupted by brunch. the corned beef hash at jimmy dean's has curative powers, for on our return, we got through a ton of stuff. m helped corral 7 years of files and bills and junk into piles and boxes and shredded and shredded until the shredder overheated and gave up a little ghost of smoke. (it's ok now. we gave it a time out and it's working again.)

then i found out m never had rhubarb, and lo! i have rhubarb and strawberries waiting to become cobbler. so we persuaded her to stay awhile longer and i made a cobbler with a cornmeal biscuit crust (i love to bake, but i hate baking just for me). it was fairly awesome and i look forward to more of it for breakfast.

the boy did not have any of the cobbler because 1) he doesn't really like dessert much and 2) he thinks rhubarb is vile.

but m liked it and it is always lovely to introduce a friend to a favourite thing that they've never tasted.

and today turned out pretty productive. i feel like i can see the end of the packing tunnel from here. the two tasks that i was most worried about are pretty much done.

I should be the very model and picture of efficiency this morning. Up and packing and getting my office sorted out. But oh I do not want to. I'd rather be lingering over a slow morning brunch with you and you and you and the child.

But there is an appointment with the boy's friend E, who is also a plumber, and is going to fix the things what need fixing at the new house at 10. So you see there is no time for brunch: only efficiency.

Perhaps I will tidy the kitchen and see whether the New Improved Faster Ant Death bait traps have worked some magic on the very persistent colony trying to move into my utensil drawer.

There's nothing like ants to put one right off all plans of effectiveness in their general area.

- i have my passport back, and it has a stamp in it for travel to china this summer
- i have a single perfect chocolate from recchiutti (i am waiting for the moment.)
- i have keys to the new larger house, where we will soon be living
- the garage is all packed and orderly
- i skipped out of work early yesterday to get my passport and spent 45 min at the Kentridge exhibit at SFMOMA. i got to squeak in all of Tide Table before they kicked me out. the sound is still in my head. i love that piece. i could watch it over and over (and in fact, i will.)
- sarcastic halli and i went to the sushi place that i never remember the name of and i had the fantastic veggie sushi and it was even better than i remembered
- there was a non-vegan delicious cupcake to accompany the after-dinner latte at ritual
- took the day off today and rode my bike semi-aimlessly around berkeley
- the boy took me out for sopa azteca and i had margaritas
- the locksmith who came out to the house had his name on his shirt. it was the boy's name too.
- i ordered a cupholder for my bike. yes. i know. but it's going to have a huge joy to cost ratio.

--
i have to write this down, because things are going to get crazy very shortly, and i should have something to look at before the desire to whine sets in once the move begins in earnest.

After 7+ years of living in the East Bay, the boy agrees that we could totally have sold the old air conditioner that we moved from Hamilton. Thanks to the magic of craigslist, it is now converted into cash, which takes up less space and is much easier to carry around.

--
I know, says the boy, you told me it wasn't going to be hot, but we were moving to CALIFORNIA and I didn't believe you.

Finally finished watching all 501 minutes of the John Adams miniseries, based on David McCullough's book. I can report that it turns out all right for the constitution after all.

i would just like to report that i am now competent with clipless pedals on my bike. i've been putting this off for *years*.

i bought the right kind of bike shoes 9 years ago, and used them for spinning classes.
i bought the right kind of bike pedals 5 years ago, and used the flat side (they're hybrid clipless/flat pedals) with road shoes.

now at last, i have conquered the clipless pedal! i bike on the upstroke! my speed increases!

i think, as a reward for my competence, i will look for another pair of the hybrid pedals so i can use the cleats on either bike.

so very excited.

pretty good train day today. exokam dropped me at the station in san jose (i love a good train station) and i rode amtrak to sacramento. i'm going to the train museum, i said to the woman who printed my ticket and she smiled at me. i love it, she said. i've been lots of times.

well. and who wouldn't? ( more about the trip to the california train museum )

The boy and I had important planning stuff to do last night, which ended up Perilously Close to FatApples, where they have pie of rhubarb right now. ( in which i sing to my pie )

I love this time of year in Berkeley. There are flowers on the trees along the greenway, and it's bright early enough for a morning ride to the Y's spin class to be fun. The market has strawberries AND avocadoes today, and there are lamb shanks in the fridge for tomorrow. I was at the Y on the wrong day for my favourite instructor, but lucky me, the saturday instructor was away so we got Robert after all. After spin class I practiced my jerk with the 45 lb bar. This week I did a very fine jerk with 65 lbs and a spotter, but 45 lbs is a good practice weight. It is incredibly satisfying to snap a 45 lb straight up over my head and put it exactly where I mean to.

Now the boy and I have et our post-market salad and are having a lazy afternoon on the big green couch. We watched the Sarah Connor Chronicles. In the episode, it is John Connor's birthday. At city hall, they're staking out some robot device at a handy nearby café. Someone has a cheeseburger. I want a cheeseburger, says the boy. You are so susceptible, says I. Sarah wishes John a happy birthday. I want birthday cake says I.

So far, we have succumbed to neither, but I wouldn't rule out a cheeseburger.

We met with the banker at our branch yesterday, to ask whether they might give us a better rate, considering Chase next door is offering a way better rate. (But we fear and mistrust Chase. Still.) The banker asks us what we're doing this weekend, by way of conversation.

And the best I can come up with is... laundry. (Hey! We finally got more soap!)

Really a saturday at home with not too much to do besides laundry is just about the best thing ever. It's been a little too busy for the last few weeks with the boy's beamtime and other stuff going on. After my wee holiday in New York, it's nice to be home.