One Year Later...

Exactly one year ago today we were in a limo on the way to the airport. With one way tickets. On the way to California. Mr. Minivan and Boy #1 were looking out the front window. Boy #2 and I were looking out the rear window, tears rolling down our faces. We were moving. Now it's a year later and we've all pretty much adjusted. Mr. Minivan still works a lot but is home a lot more, too. He is coaching Boy #2's basketball team. The team has a lot of potential, I'll say that. Boy #1 has made some really nice friends and is currently playing basketball and tennis. Boy #2 also has made some good friends and is playing basketball and baseball. I know where to go to get shoes repaired and to get a picture framed. I know which grocery store always has good grapes and which one has the yogurt I like. I rarely have to use my GPS anymore and almost never get lost. I have even started bumping into people I know. I have made several friends and one very good friend, thankfully. They say what a difference a day makes or a year makes, but the truth is--what a difference a friend makes.

Some observations

I have realized why I go to the grocery store every day. Not only is it a break from unpacking, but it is a little bit of face-to-face human contact other than my own family. I find myself chatting up everyone from the deli lady to the produce guy to the checkers. And they have to be nice to me because I'm a customer. I have also noticed that whenever a service person comes to the house I switch into hostess mode. "Would you like a Coke or a bottle of water?" I ask the phone guy and the cable installer. I am days away from offering them cheese and crackers, I fear.

A couple of days ago was Boy #2's first baseball game. A very serious league, this one is. Lots of rules. A real dugout, a real umpire, and a real scoreboard. It was about 68 degrees and I had been running around all day. Besides, I'm from Chicago. That's practically a summer day back home. I wore a tank top. I walked up to the bleachers and saw the other mothers. In. Scarves. And. Fleece. Can you believe it? Actually the temperature did drop soon after I got to the game and I put on my sweatshirt, but really, scarves and 68 degrees? Fragile people. And they all told me I'll be just like they are soon.

The unpacking continues. More observations as they occur.

Welcome to the Neighborhood?

In some communities, when someone new moves in, the Welcome Wagon visits. Sometimes the neighbors come to introduce themselves, usually bearing cookies or maybe even a bundt cake. L.A. is such a fast-paced city that I didn't really expect the Welcome Wagon, but what I got was so much more.

Last Saturday, as Mr. Minivan was putting yet more trash bags and moving boxes out in the alley to be picked up, he found a smouldering mattress. Yes, that's right, a mattress had been set on fire and then left to smoulder outside our back gate. Maybe it's a local custom involving marshmellows and graham crackers, but since none of those, nor any Welcome Wagon, was to be found, he poured water on it and continued taking out the trash.

Right after that we went to the Little League opening night festivities. Quite the event, with giant inflatable slides, a raffle (I later found out I won a Curt Schilling autographed jersey, but I digress), a silent auction, and lots of food for sale--the local fireman were even grilling hamburgers and hot dogs. Very small-town in the middle of the big city. We told the fireman what had happened in the alley and they told us we shouldn't hesitate to call the police or fire departments about something like that. But it was over and we enjoyed the rest of the evening.

Yesterday I was out in front getting the mail and a fully-uniformed fireman walked up the driveway, saying "Hi." How nice, I thought, he's here to welcome us--what a nice surprise even without the bundt cake. But, not exactly. He told me that there were a bunch of fireman out in the back putting out a smouldering mattress and that there was also a burned-out couch back there. He asked if, since we were new here, we were putting extra furniture out in the alley. I was horrified. I explained what had happened on Saturday. The neighbor next door was out in the alley, too, giving me dirty looks. She never did introduce herself. I guess I too would be a little crabby if new neighbors moved in and furniture started spontaneously combusting all in the same week. So, anyway, the policemen took my name as the "reporting party" since the neighbor was too busy glaring at me to get her ID. I told them I didn't want to see my name in the local paper. And now along with unpacking and trying to find my way around, I also have to keep an eye out for my local pyromaniac. All in all, I'd rather have the bundt cake.

We're here.......

Several hundred boxes, many tears, a lot of dinners out, and many good-byes later, we are in La-La Land. It's beautiful here but a bit strange. These people are freaked out by rain. It was raining the day we went to register the boys at their new school. At 10 in the morning there was a flurry of activity in the office. Several teachers came in to tell the administrator that it was raining and that "we might have to go to the rainy day schedule." An announcement to that effect was made, and I asked what the rainy day schedule was. "Well, the kids don't go outside and they have recess and gym inside." Kind of what is called "indoor recess" at our school back home, where that decision is made 10 minutes before lunch, I guess. And then a little while later the rain stopped and there was yet another big discussion on whether to go off the "rainy day schedule." I also heard a woman on a cell phone at the grocery store assure someone that she was, indeed, "warm and dry." These Californians are very fragile, it seems.

At another grocery store I was behind a woman at the deli counter and she asked to see the ingredients in the turkey. I remember hoping it was an allergy-related request. Then in the produce department I noticed that California-grown avocados were $2.89 each. I asked the produce guy why I paid 99 cents for them in Illinois and they were more than double that in the state where they were grown. "Because this is where all the rich people live," he answered. I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore.

I've had no celebrity sightings yet. I think I will start drinking coffee because it seems that coffee shops are a sure bet for celebrity sightings. Just look thru any issue of People magazine. That, along with unpacking the hundreds of boxes, will be my project for next week.

My house is mad at me

It would appear that my house does not want me to leave it. How else can I explain what I encountered last night? I went into my laundry room to do yet another load of laundry and found the cabinet that hangs above my washer and dryer had jumped off the wall and was lying on top of the washer and dryer! You know that cabinet--the one that holds the bleach, refill bottles of Windex and Fantastick, vacuum cleaner bags, and other laundry room essentials. It seems a little coincidental to me that, after being bolted to the wall just fine for at least the 12 and a half years that we have lived in this house (and probably many more years previous to that), it would just topple off the wall the night before our realtor had scheduled an open house. Don't you agree? I can't take this kind of stress. If this is what my house will do to show me how upset it is, what will my friends and family do?

You'd better sit down for this one.

I had to. Well, I don't know how to say this exactly, but I'm just going to go ahead and say it. We're moving. Yes, you heard that right. We're moving. I know--I still can't believe it myself. The possibility has been out there for the last couple of years, but you know how when you hear about something for a long time and it doesn't happen, you sort of don't believe it ever will? That's how this has been. Mr. Minivan has been telling me (and anyone who will listen to him) that this was in the future, and now the future seems to have arrived.

His business needs to relocate. We are headed west to the city of angels. La-La Land. Los Angeles. Which, I might add, is a fun place to visit--but to actually live there? Don't those people get bored by all that sun? Here in the Midwest we actually appreciate a nice day.

For the last few weeks I have been very busy getting rid of some of the crap in my house--I mean donating some of my gently used items to charity, and throwing out some less than gently used items. My garage is so clean you could eat off the floor. Well, not really. And my house is such a vision of cleanliness and organization that my children think they're in the wrong house. The "For Sale" sign is up on the front yard. I guess it's really happening. People I barely know are telling me they are going to miss me--my mailman and the dry cleaner. My cleaning lady of 13 years started crying the other day because she's upset I'm leaving. People I do know want to spend time with me--"let's go for coffee"--or in my case, a Diet Coke. I have now become a reason to throw a party. My parents are putting up a brave face and are trying to avoid the reality of all this by going on a Hawaiian cruise. It's very sad and very exciting all at the same time.