Looking back on 2008

2008 has been a year of change for us. After more than eleven years in San Diego, we moved back across the country this spring.

With Holly’s travel cage belted in the back seat, we set out on a 3,000-mile journey from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

We arrived in Virginia Beach at the bloom of a brilliant spring. Summer reacquainted us with thunderstorms, mosquitoes, fireflies, and warm summer nights. Throughout our time in Virginia Beach, we took several road trips (usually with Holly) to see family, friends, and explore southern towns.

At the end of the summer, we moved to Washington DC, arriving just as the leaves were beginning to change colors. Our neighborhood was designed with many trees, so we were surrounded in autumn color and, eventually, in piles of crunchy leaves.

We’re enjoying the area; there are miles of wooded walking paths, a small lake nearby, and a village center offering everything from a pharmacy and a Moroccan restaurant to a grocery with shelves of Asian chili pastes and Mexican cheeses. To top it all off, a twenty-minute drive gets us into the nation’s capitol. There is so much to explore in 2009!

Here’s a song that looks back on 2008 (to the tune of the Twelve Days of Christmas)…

On the Twelfth day of Christmas, I made this song for you…
Twelve short months passing,
Eleven years of So Cal,
Ten months of East Coast,
Nine days of driving,
Eight family visits,
Seven months of beaches,
Six neighborhood dogs,
Five miles of sand*,
Four new addresses,
Three different homes,
Two vagabonds,
And a green parrot in the back seat

*We ran a five-mile foot race through a course full of obstacles, mud, and deep, soft sand. You can see it’s not your average course and participants get pretty filthy by the end, but it was fun and we took a refreshing dip in the Chesapeake (shoes and all) afterwards.

Lake Anne

We just moved to a home near a place called Lake Anne. We knew there was a lake nearby, when we rented the house, because we could see the blue blob on the map. Our expectations ended at water, and maybe a place to launch a canoe.

Our first evening in town (the Tuesday of my birthday), before we even picked up the keys to our new place, we drove by the house to see it again, and then we asked our Garmin for "food". Garmin lead us to a little place the head of Lake Anne. This little place turned out to be an entire village (restaurants, independent groceries, a tax guy, a florist, a pharmacist, some clothing and accessory shops, a chocolatier...even an art gallery).

We were surprised by all the good stuff inside this little plaza and wanted to explore, but Holly was waiting in the car and we were tired, so we stopped at the first restaurant and ordered some food. Before we were finished dining, a storm rolled in: thunder (my favorite), lightning (Holly’s favorite), and rain. Rain like I haven’t seen in years. But we couldn’t wait; we had to get to our terrified parrot.

There was no chivalrous alternative; we both had to make the torrential run. By the corner of the building, Chris’ sneakers were well ahead of my flip flops. By the time I sunk into the first puddle, I realized that I was as wet as a person could ever be and I still had a parking lot to go, so I slowed to a shuffle. By the time I got near the car, the rain was pouring off my eyelashes with such force I couldn’t see the car, ran several feet beyond it, and had to circle back (Chris thought this was worthy of much teasing).

All was redeemed by the relief on Holly’s face when we were both safely in the car. (OK, for all you non-bird people, think: dog with ears pinned back, tail between his legs…turning into a dog with tail wagging and body wiggling. Cat-lovers: sorry, try to relate to a dog for this one.)

We moved in on a Wednesday and made our second trip to the village center that Saturday to “check out” the farmer’s market. The weather was storybook-perfect, and the farmer’s market was more than we expected. We came home with 6 bags full of veggies, meats, apple cider, and fresh goat cheese. Yes, we had just moved and didn’t have any food in the house, but even so, it all looked so good we couldn’t pass it up for grocery store stuff! 

The farmer's market ends in two weeks, and we're not sure what winter will bring (except I hear there will be Santa-on-a-Barge in early December), but Lake Anne is a little gem we didn’t know we were getting when we fell in love with our rental and it makes us even happier with our new home.

Here are some visuals to help you out...

It isn't much to look at in this direction (it's 30 years old), but look over here...

Moving

Lessons Learned...

...About Moving

• If you don't want the movers to load it, hide it at the neighbors.
  We ended up unpacking several things that belonged to the rental house in Virginia Beach. Luckily, our former landlord was cool about it.
• If you want the food in your refrigerator, it's best to load it in the car when you leave.
  We left all our condiments, olives, cheeses (even my prized Norwegian goat cheese), Chris' peppers, Mom's zucchini relish etc behind. Hopefully our former landlord found something he could use.

...About New Houses

• Just because you can open a door from the inside doesn't mean it's UNLOCKED!
  We learned this lesson two hours, a locksmith fee, and a new doorknob later.
• Just because there's a light switch, don't expect it to control a light OR a plug outlet.
  There are a few I just can't figure out. I think we're turning on the neighbor's disposal.
• Gravity makes moving things upstairs really hard.
  Moving into a 3-level home isn't easy, especially when it comes to moving stuff to level 3.

The Firefly

The first firefly of summer drifted through the twilight this evening.

It brought with it a flood of memories. Memories of warm evenings in my grandmother endless back yard, chasing little yellow flashes until it was so dark that their light was nearly all I could see.

I stood in the silence of my front porch tonight, watching this lone firefly dance through the air. It seemed to whisper “summer is here”, and then vanish into the neighbor’s yard.

All creatures have a purpose. The firefly’s must be to make us smile.

(None of these photos are mine. The last one, the one in the golden light, can be credited to National Geographic, but the others were just found on Google.)

Rabbits

We have rabbits.

I had rabbits when I was a kid, but they were of the soft, colorful, caged variety. These are scratched-up, clover-eating brown rabbits that live under the shed in our backyard.

"Peter" is the name for whichever rabbit is in the backyard at the time. It's not original, but it works. Peter is also the name of a specific rabbit. The one with an earring. There is also a smaller rabbit with a bum back foot, and a blemish-free, clean-looking rabbit. I call them Paul or Mary, depending on my mood.

Doesn't that look like an earring?!

We also have neighborhood ducks. The neighborhood ducks are just normal-looking, green-headed Mallards, but the lady across the street has a duck I've never seen before.

I don't know what our neighbor calls her duck, but we call it Jimi...as in Jimi Hendrix (maybe in his graying years).

That's the fauna update for my neighborhood, at least until the next visit to my next door neighbor's wildlife park, I mean house!

The Pink Mouse

Our San Diego house had a little room we called "Hell's Kitchen", partially because it was lower than the rest of the kitchen, but mostly because its journey from an ill-designed laundry room to a proud kitchen space caused us many headaches. (It all began when the gas line leaked. Then the electrical shorted out. We tore out the walls, rerouted gas, electricity, and water; re-sheetrocked, textured, painted; and then tried to find cabinets that would match the rest of the kitchen. Eventually, it was transformed from a weird laundry space to our much-loved bar/butler's pantry.)

Before Hell's Kitchen was a laundry room, it was the garage, so the foundation and walls weren't clean and finished. Near the doorway, the stub wall foundation wasn't square, so where the drywall met the foundation wall, there was a bit of a hole. The rest of the space seemed clean and finished, and then there was this dark cob-webby hole with a little chicken wire visible. I always thought it was a bit of an eye sore, so a couple of Thanksgivings ago, my mom suggested that I put something in there, like a mouse, to make fun of it. We'd had a few glasses of wine, and it was good for a few laughs.

For Christmas that year, we received a funny-looking little pink mouse with a gold bell at the end of its tail and a card that read "maybe it was one too many glasses of wine, but it sounded like a good idea at the time". We thought, for sure, she'd lost it. Maybe she found this little pink rope mouse one evening after one too many glasses of wine or something. I mean, how else could you explain a pink mouse and that note? After a few days of laughing at this mouse, I got up the courage to ask "So, about that mouse..." and I found out that the laugh was on me.

Now we have had so much fun laughing at ourselves for laughing at the mouse, that it has become a central part of our lives. It was important to me that the mouse find a satisfactory hole in our new home. As it turns out, it wasn't all that hard to find. Old homes just have unexplained holes that need to be lightened by a little pink mouse.
Thanks, Mom!

Time Flies!

We’ve been in our new rental house for two weeks. The time has gone quickly, and most of our free time has been devoted to unpacking and finding the right place for our stuff. Funny things happen when other people do the packing…you get aerosol can lids (no aerosol cans…they can’t be shipped), random bits of string, jars of hot sauce with an eyedropper of contents, and every spare rusty nail that might have been laying about in the garage. Unpacking has been a bit like Christmas, with a sense of humor!

Our rental house is nice, and it reminds us a lot of our home in San Diego ~except that it’s on a very quiet street and the neighbors keep stopping by to say “welcome to the neighborhood”. Spring here has been amazing. It seems like people try to fill their yards with as many spring colors as possible, as if to reward themselves for the long cold winter. (I don’t think winters are that long and cold here, but ask me again this time next year!) Just on our block, there are pink, red, purple, and white azaleas; white and pink dogwoods; purple redbud trees; luscious white cherry trees; orange-red tulips; purple irises; and then plane ole trees with colorful green, purple, and red spring foliage.
The bird has been enjoying my new schedule of working from home. I think she feels grown up getting to "go into the office” every day. She likes it so much that she doesn't care if I'm there or not. For example, today (Saturday) she begged to go in...even though I wasn't there.

Our San Diego house finally rented. We tried hard to rent it to a nice, small family or a young couple, but in the end it rented to three young guys in a rock band. They say they don’t practice late at night and that the band has its own studio for weekly practice, but it sure sounds like a recipe for angry neighbors! We're keeping our fingers crossed.

That's it for now. Things here are good. Summer is coming, and we're excited for warm, mosquito-ridden nights with the top down on the Mustang. Work continues to go well for both of us. Holly, too, if you count the hours she logs "in the office".

We miss you all.