Moving In

“De ja vu all over again,” as Yogi said, that old familiar feeling of opening boxes, moving furniture, laying out rugs, placing lamps, hanging pictures, shelving books, putting dishes away, and looking for toothbrushes, extension cords, address books, and that little book with all our secret passwords - Nonnie and I have done all these things fourteen times before and I hope this is our last time.  Fifteen moves since we were married, and before that I moved from Portland to New York, San Antonio, Greenland, Charleston SC, and back to Portland.  With each move the amount of stuff we have seems to grow, although we did some serious downsizing a few years ago.  Over the years I have lived poor and I have lived rich, and what people say is true: rich is better.

We live in a corner house in a neighborhood of small blue collar houses, although now the cars in the driveways - Lexus, Porsche, BMW - indicate that our neighbors are a bit more upscale.  There is an alley behind the house and we have a large driveway off the alley, big enough for four cars, a luxury in a neighborhood of two hour street parking.  The streets are narrow and crowded, while the trees are huge and beautiful.  Across the street from us, lined by tall trees and a thick hedge, is a cemetery, so that when I look out our front windows I see trees, but no graves, which I hope is the also the case in the winter.

In Albuquerque we gave away eight bookcases, particle wood pieces from Walmart,  so now we are looking for new bookcases.  The difference between particle wood and real wood in price and quality is exponential, but we bit the bullet and bought two new unfinished seven foot high pine pieces - real wood. They delivered them today and I will finish them tomorrow, hopefully,  and see how my office looks when they are in place and full of books, after which I will make plans for more shelves.  The movers who loaded and unloaded our rental moving truck all complained - “so many books.”

Oran came and spent the day with us today, keeping us happy and entertained with his boundless enthusiasm and energy.  We went for a nice walk in Ravenna Park, which is near to our house and has a wonderful path winding along a stream in deep woods lined with 100 foot trees.  At the far end of the park we found a playground and Oran had a good time climbing and sliding.  It’s a great park for daytime use, but would probably be dark and scary at night.

We met our neighbor today, a young woman with two young children.  She said Oran was welcome to come over anytime, and that she and her husband love the neighborhood and never want to move away.  That was nice to hear.  In general people here in Seattle seem friendly - more so than in Albuquerque - but time will tell as to how deep the friendliness runs.  Nonnie thinks the drivers here are impatient and honk too much but in general they seem more cooperative to me, more willing to let other cars change lanes.

It’s been an interesting week to say the least...