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notmattSo, yesterday (Sunday) we did something we've never done in all the time we've lived in California.
Amazing isn't it? We've lived six miles from the beach for over two years and never once gone. Sure, we've been to the wharves in Santa Cruz and Monterey many times since we've been here. I even stuck my feet in the water once at the Santa Cruz boardwalk, but we never actually "went to the beach". It's never warm enough to want to go in swimming. Santa Cruz is a popular surf area, but you have to wear a wet suit and did I mention it's cold? But we decided that David ought to see the Pacific before we move to the Atlantic, so we drove to Sunset State Park, hiked over the dune and came face to face with a dead seal. Maybe another reason not to go the beach. Undaunted, we stripped off socks and shoes and all three of us got our feet in the ocean. OK, technically it's the Monterey Bay, not the Pacific Ocean. The bay's not sheltered like the Chesapeake. It's a C-shaped bite taken out of California, so the ocean can pour in unimpeded. It's essentially the same thing. So we stepped in the ocean, hung around for a bit and watched the fog roll in. David was unimpressed. Then we headed back over the dune. I took this ocean for granted. I could almost see it from my office. I may not see it again for a long time. Then we tracked sand into our newly cleaned house. D'oh!
The movers came today and packed us up. Three people packed almost all our belongings in eight hours. Plus two subcontractors that came for two hours to crate up our glass tabletops and secure our washer and dryer for transport. The house had hookups, but we had to buy our own appliances. We tried to just sell them to our landlady, but she didn't want to deal with maintaining them, so we're taking them with us. Oh well, APL's paying for it, not us.
Lots of boxes. Almost everything except the furniture is in boxes. We're taking four suitcases, my backpack with the laptop, the stroller, a car seat, the play yard and the diaper bag. The rest? Boxes. I had to throw out a bunch of boxes earlier. Termites were all up in one end of the storage unit (not connected to the house). We thought we'd eradicated them a year ago, but apparently not. They trashed the two large boxes (full of other smaller boxes) at the far end, but everything else was untouched. But in order to get them into the bins, I had to hack them up with a box cutter, while avoiding termites and two exceedingly large spiders.
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kathleenroberts confessed to having the song "Bear Necessities" stuck in her head today.
Tomorrow, we load all the boxes onto the truck. The landlady's supposed to come by at 6 pm to get the keys and check the place out. I can't say as I'm really going to miss the place much. It just never felt like home the way NoVa or Blacksburg, or even Boulder did. I'll miss Miyuki (our Japanese restuarant). (The food in CA is generally quite good. Maybe why I'm 15 lbs overweight. OK, 20. Damn taquerias. Also, laziness.) But the commute in was never fun. They FINALLY finished the HWY 1/17 merge lanes project a couple weeks ago. They started it before we moved here. We never really made many friends out here. I rarely hung out with people from work. The UCSC Anime club was, well, college students. We just don't fit in with that crowd anymore. It was never really awkward and we were pretty good friends with some of the older members, but we were clearly "the adults". Ah, well.
What a long, rambly post. I should go to bed.
Amazing isn't it? We've lived six miles from the beach for over two years and never once gone. Sure, we've been to the wharves in Santa Cruz and Monterey many times since we've been here. I even stuck my feet in the water once at the Santa Cruz boardwalk, but we never actually "went to the beach". It's never warm enough to want to go in swimming. Santa Cruz is a popular surf area, but you have to wear a wet suit and did I mention it's cold? But we decided that David ought to see the Pacific before we move to the Atlantic, so we drove to Sunset State Park, hiked over the dune and came face to face with a dead seal. Maybe another reason not to go the beach. Undaunted, we stripped off socks and shoes and all three of us got our feet in the ocean. OK, technically it's the Monterey Bay, not the Pacific Ocean. The bay's not sheltered like the Chesapeake. It's a C-shaped bite taken out of California, so the ocean can pour in unimpeded. It's essentially the same thing. So we stepped in the ocean, hung around for a bit and watched the fog roll in. David was unimpressed. Then we headed back over the dune. I took this ocean for granted. I could almost see it from my office. I may not see it again for a long time. Then we tracked sand into our newly cleaned house. D'oh!
The movers came today and packed us up. Three people packed almost all our belongings in eight hours. Plus two subcontractors that came for two hours to crate up our glass tabletops and secure our washer and dryer for transport. The house had hookups, but we had to buy our own appliances. We tried to just sell them to our landlady, but she didn't want to deal with maintaining them, so we're taking them with us. Oh well, APL's paying for it, not us.
Lots of boxes. Almost everything except the furniture is in boxes. We're taking four suitcases, my backpack with the laptop, the stroller, a car seat, the play yard and the diaper bag. The rest? Boxes. I had to throw out a bunch of boxes earlier. Termites were all up in one end of the storage unit (not connected to the house). We thought we'd eradicated them a year ago, but apparently not. They trashed the two large boxes (full of other smaller boxes) at the far end, but everything else was untouched. But in order to get them into the bins, I had to hack them up with a box cutter, while avoiding termites and two exceedingly large spiders.
kathleenroberts confessed to having the song "Bear Necessities" stuck in her head today.Tomorrow, we load all the boxes onto the truck. The landlady's supposed to come by at 6 pm to get the keys and check the place out. I can't say as I'm really going to miss the place much. It just never felt like home the way NoVa or Blacksburg, or even Boulder did. I'll miss Miyuki (our Japanese restuarant). (The food in CA is generally quite good. Maybe why I'm 15 lbs overweight. OK, 20. Damn taquerias. Also, laziness.) But the commute in was never fun. They FINALLY finished the HWY 1/17 merge lanes project a couple weeks ago. They started it before we moved here. We never really made many friends out here. I rarely hung out with people from work. The UCSC Anime club was, well, college students. We just don't fit in with that crowd anymore. It was never really awkward and we were pretty good friends with some of the older members, but we were clearly "the adults". Ah, well.
What a long, rambly post. I should go to bed.
