Tag: moving

Who wants a postcard?!

So we’re mostly settled in to the new apartment (update coming soon), and now we need to send out new address cards. If anyone wants a postcard or greeting card (not sure which yet) from sunny California, leave your address in the (screened) comments below.

California interlude 1

Took the afternoon off yesterday to go catch a movie at the nearby movie theater. Andy by nearby, I mean I can see the building from my bedroom window (so weird). Saw Red 2. Eight bucks for a matinee, that’s just nuts. On the plus side, concessions seem to be cheaper than they were back in PA.
The movie itself was okay. Not as great as the first one, still a lot better than most action flicks. It looked like everyone but Bruce Willis was having a great time getting together again & making the movie and he was only there because he had to be.

Safeway’s store-brand Cheerios taste pretty good, but they have texture of Captain Crunch. I never expected to tear up the roof of my mouth to the taste of nuts and honey.

And the best part of apartment living out here is that we get a constant stream of mail for previous tenants. So far I’ve been marking it “Return to Sender” and “No longer at this address”, hoping it’ll stem the tide over time. I know we still got mail for the prior tenant at our old place for years.

Mission accomplished

After an epic trip to get to California (two flights from home canceled, two flights out of Buffalo delayed) we have achieved our primary goal – we’ve found a new place to live! In our first sixty hours in the Bay area we saw an average of one apartment or condo every six hours, and we eventually settled on the second place we saw. There were a lot of contenders, and most of them had one feature that made them stand out as amazing, but the apartment we chose has a bit of everything: close enough to Gill’s office for her to walk, close to the Iron Horse Trail for easy biking/walking north or south, close enough to Central Park for easy access to green space, and close to shops & food.

Saturday was kind of hellacious, with the high temperature getting up to 106 Fahrenheit. Everyone we met assured us it wasn’t normal, and the Weather Channel said it was 34 degrees over average. For dinner we met up with one of Gill’s new co-workers, had tapas, and I got to listen to a two-hour debate on the direction and problems facing Gill in the new job.

I’m excited to move out here, but I’ve got plenty of concerns as well. Gill mentioned a couple days ago about how Rust Belt cities, like where we’re from, have a bit of a prideful inferiority complex. That is, we might put down our towns, but we’re damn proud to be from there. Out here it feels like the opposite somehow. It feels like everyone keeps telling themselves that it must be great and perfect, almost like they’re trying to justify the expense in their minds.

I dunno, I guess we’ll have to see how it all shakes out.

Current Mood: 🤔contemplative