So, after the good folks at Comcast kindly told us it would cost $78,000 plus change to get cable internet extended to our place out in the boonies, I said thank you very much I'll give that some thought.
No kidding. I threw away the letter, but that was the quoted price to extend the backbone cable the three miles needed to provide us and our neighbors with service. They had a nice, accessible formula they used to calculate the cost, and said that we could reduce the price to $3000 per home if we could talk 15 of our neighbors into a 2-year contract.
No DSL available out here either.
So that left WildBlue satellite. Twice the price, half the speed, and it tends to cut out when it's raining or snowing really hard. Surely that won't happen too often, right? Does that sound like a deal, or what?
It will take a little getting used to: pages can take up to a minute to load, but large downloads move quickly, unlike dial-up. It's functional in a sort of former Soviet Union government agency kind of way.
So a very polite and quiet young man came out last week to install the new dish. He spent a couple of hours all together, between getting it mounted, configured, pointed, etc. And he ran the cable into my office where I hooked it into the wireless network. Anyhow, he'd been at work in the office for a while when I wandered in and sat down to ask him a couple of questions.
That's when I spotted the calendar.
The week before as I started unpacking the office, making the first dent in a wall of boxes several feet thick, I came across a 2005 calendar I'd picked up somewhere. Entertaining to look at, I'd never really put it up because I never had a basement workroom or garage that was suitable as an appropriate home for that kind of calendar. Dad always had the Rigid Tools calendar in the garage above his workbench, but I never found just the right spot for San Francisco Hairy Chests 2005.
So when I found it in a box of miscellaneous crap, I thought hey, these guys can keep me company while I'm busy unpacking. And up they went. On the wall, I mean. Well, most of them were up already, but that's beside the point.
Which brings us back to the quiet, professional satellite installer. I mean, call me old-fashioned, but I think it's impolite to inflict your soft-core porn on complete strangers who are only doing their job. And he'd been there doing his job for at least half an hour already. I was abashed. What do you do? "Gosh, what is HE doing here? He must have wandered up from the basement." It's not as if it was a magazine you could kick under the desk. It's hard to casually take a calendar down from the wall, you know? Who knows, maybe he appreciated it.
If your curiosity is getting the better of you, you can click on the image to see him in all his glory. But don't say you haven't been warned.
Connected at last! Sort of...
Ah, the Weekend
Just as I was starting to feel a little off-balance, we've had an absolutely fantastic, uplifting weekend. Taking a few extra steps here and there to meet new people, and others are doing the same. It feels really good.
We were at the coffee shop Friday morning checking email, when Linda (the owner) introduced us to Louis, a regular customer who is also a California transplant. He and his partner came from San Francisco and Palm Springs before moving here two years ago. Five minutes later another customer jumped into the conversation and we all spent the next half hour chatting away and getting to know each other a little. It felt so encouraging! We came back that night for some live music - a great little jazz trio with a couple of guys doing a fantastic job on piano and stand-up bass.
Saturday we hooked up with a group of about a dozen guys from VGSA, a local activities group, for breakfast and an afternoon of geocaching. If you haven't heard of it, it's a modern twist on the treasure hunt, using a hand-held GPS system. We hiked around Colchester Lake for a few hours on a beautiful, sunny day, cracked the code that led us to the last cache location, and found it buried under a log in the woods near town. The cache usually includes a log book, where you can write a bit about who you are and when you found it, and then the custom is that you can take and leave a small trinket or two. In this case, the cache was a small tupperware box filled with a log book and things left by past hikers. We take anything home with us (we have enough junk already), but we left a wine glass marker from Acacia Winery -- just a little bit of California.
We enjoyed the guys we met on Saturday. It was a really comfortable group: both outgoing and fairly easy-going. It made it easy for us to be ourselves and enjoy the day. Later today I'm hoping to take delivery of the MINI after our 5-week separation, then perhaps a visit to the movie theatre to see the new Harry Potter film. We're hoping that Mark and Gary, the guys we met here back in March, will be able to join us. It would be good to see them again.
House Rules
New House Rule #1: Miscellaneous piles of crap on the stairs or at the basement door must vanish by bedtime.
I stayed at home today to work on the kitchen and put our shelves back together while Paul ran some errands and went out to his school to meet with the band teacher. The two of them have really hit it off so far. I'm betting they're going to work together well.
The propane guys came out and hooked up the dryer, after which I began the first of about 17 loads of laundry. We're emptying the basement dehumidifier twice a day -- the air has been SO moist. Not hot, thankfully, but humid and drizzly.
Today was also supposed to be I-Day: Internet Day. While the house's previous owner had told us that our neck of the woods had no access to cable, Comcast assured me otherwise when I called to double-check. They said there is a lot of work being done to expand their service area around here, and their database showed that we could get the works: internet, tv, phone.
They lied.
The installer showed up at our place late in the afternoon to let us know this would be a pretty short service call. Just long enough to come in and tell us we were SOL. So now our only other option is satellite, which has it's own long list of limitations. Expensive, mediocre speed, and it does not play well with chat or VPN software. I'm really bummed. Paul stopped by the post office and saw a sign-up sheet for a coalition of local residents that are moving to put pressure on Comcast to get us service -- we'll have to see what we can do to help.
Between that and the spotty cell phone reception (we had to switch carriers, and even so have to call from the right part of the house while standing on one foot), feelings of isolation are starting to sink in. I know we'll continue to adjust, and that we're not trying to recreate the same way of life we had out in CA. But boy, is it hitting me hard right now. I had an hour or so of real panic tonight. Delayed reaction as the euphoria of finally getting here wears off. It was a real "What the f*ck have we done?!?" moment. And it's at times like that when the cracks begin to appear and all the "what if" questions start to flow in. What if I don't find a job? What if we cannot afford to live out here? What if we have to move in another 3 years because we just can't hack it out here in the middle of nowhere? What if the price of gas jumps to $5/gallon? What if George W gets buys himself a third term?
Good lord, what if we get stuck with dial-up?
But then a doe and two fawns come wandering through our yard, nibbling on the trees, and my brain settles a bit. Over the past year I've better learned how to handle the big What Ifs. Sometimes you just have to let them come. But in the end, there is a pretty big difference between practicality and blind hysteria. And we've gotten this far. Two years ago that seemed pretty impossible too.
P.S. We've been waking up by 6 or 6:30 and having very busy days, so staying up until 10 or 11 to make phone calls back to CA is proving to be a challenge. Bear with us. We'll make some calls over the weekend!
Moving Day
Back in our own bed.
Oh, the glory of being back in our own bed. It's been four months to the day: March 18th was our last night at home in San Jose, and tonight our old friend is back. A bit musty, but at this point I don't care. Our washer is all hooked up, but we won't have gas hooked into the dryer until tomorrow, so the sheets still smell a bit like moist cardboard. (Paul ran a load to test the washer, so we have damp T-shirts draped all about the house like exhausted kites that fluttered down when they lost their wind. I'm sure we'll be finding them over the next couple of days.)
But as I said: I don't really care about the funny smell. Today has been so very wet that the entire house smells of damp cardboard, so the bed is really no different. Here we are then, each enjoying a classy plastic cup of Riesling while Paul settles in with the newest Harry Dresden novel and I spend a little time writing. If all goes well, we are supposed to have cable internet hooked up tomorrow and I'll be able to post this, but I'm still wary. I would not be at all surprised if the installer showed up tomorrow only to tell us that Comcast had made a gross error, and cable is still not available way out here. We shall see.
Today was moving day, so of course it poured rain for hours. The movers got to the storage unit at 8 AM sharp, inspected the unit, and predicted it would be an easy 5-hour day. No way that could be an 8,000 lb load, they told me. Your last mover ripped you off.
I smiled quietly to myself. "We'll see", I said. We do have a lot of books. And some of the furniture is a little heavy. And don't forget the piano.
They put in an eleven hour day. Believe me, I would have been much happier with their original assessment, as we paid them by the hour, but I'd seen it all go into the unit back in March and I knew it was very dense inside. The aforementioned piano was the star attraction of the day. It's a 107-year-old upright, also very dense inside. Lots of thick wood. And Paul had originally envisioned it going in his office/music room upstairs. Yeah.
Well, the rain in the morning prevented the guys from getting it on the truck in the first place. The ramp was too wet and slippery. So they decided they'd make a second trip in the afternoon and come back for it ($$$). But after seeing these guys in action for three hours, I was not overwhelmed with confidence that they'd be able to pull it off on the other side. (Or rather, push it up, as it were.) It was a little bit like being moved by the Three Stooges. We considered leaving the piano there and going with dedicated, professional piano movers, but by that time we were already in pretty deep. Our movers decided to bring in an extra three guys for round two, Man vs. Musical Instrument, and that pretty much doubled the mayhem. We couldn't quite see how they were going to even use six guys on the piano, stairs or not, so it all got curiouser and curiouser.
About an hour before they all showed up with six heads, twenty-four limbs and one really huge upright piano, Paul and I began considering how nice it might be to have it in the library. Downstairs. For so many reasons, not the least of which was our fondness for the walls and staircase we'd only just started getting to know a little better. So I called the guy in charge and told him that I hated to disappoint them all, but we'd changed our mind. We'd be putting it downstairs, did they mind? Luckily, they'd already headed our to our place with all six guys, otherwise we would have never met Peanut, a wacky older fellow with a grizzled grey beard and a very pronounced limp. Had they actually moved the monster upstairs, I'm sure Peanut's job would have been comic relief. (Thankfully, the foreman cut us a break and did not charge us for Peanut's help. We got Peanut for free.)
It was somewhere about that time we considered measuring the library doors.
So, we have a very nice, very large, antique piano in our family room. Not to sure yet how we will arrange our other furniture around it, but hey, we like a challenge.
Shopping Madness
My shopping stamina is failing me. After only three or four hours, I'm feeling the beginnings of headache and fatigue. Paul considers this a hopeful sign, but considering the length of our lists, this is only the beginning.
Helpful shopping tip: when spending much too much money at Bed, Bath, & Beyond, add a few items that you don't really like to the cart, so that later you can put them back in demonstration of your willingness to compromise.
We bought our washer and dryer today from a local appliance store recommended to us by our propane man. Did we mention we have a propane man? We have a propane man. I'll call him Hank. Anyway, Hank sent us to see his buddy Zip, a former chef instructor at New England Culinary Institute who now sells appliances and gives occasional cooking lessons from the model kitchens at the store. Seems like an interesting guy. Butchered a bear once for Hank, on the day before Thanksgiving. Evidently, it required large volumes of scotch, but I'm not entirely sure where that factored into the project.
Day 30: We're Here!
Pulled into the driveway last night at about 8:30 or 9, with our little U-Haul trailer, a few bags of groceries, and a Domino's pizza. Spent the first 15 minutes walking around the house saying things like, "Hey, I thought there was an actual room here", and "Woo-hoo, the front room is much bigger than I remembered", and "I don't much like the refrigerator."
Then I locked us out of the house.
Fortunately, we had already opened a few windows, so after a few minutes' panic, Paul had a revelation and calmly let himself in through the front room window.
It's still all very surreal. We took a bath together in the giant downstairs tub, large enough that we could both lay down. We just sat there grinning at each other, feeling stupid and a little scared. Then we were awake until well after midnight, talking and dreaming, and making lists in our heads. (Or maybe that was just me.)
Today, we woke up to rain, bullfrogs, and I swear I heard a donkey in the wee hours of the morning. We finished unloading the U-Haul, sorted out the keys, explored the garage attic we didn't know we had, then headed out to a coffee shop 25 minutes away in Essex to catch up on email and such. We won't have internet until Thursday, if all goes well.
OK, time to find a place to drop off the U-Haul. Then we may go look at washers and dryers. Sounds thrilling, I know, but I can't imagine we're going to be just a hop away from a laundromat, so we need to get that taken care of.
Day 28: The Home Stretch
Yesterday, someone shared the sentiment with us that Pennsylvania is essentially Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between. A sweeping generalization, yes, but the truths of that statement are certainly alive and well tonight, thumping with a skull-rattling bass, wearing the Confederate flag in various shapes and sizes, vomiting onto the asphalt, and bellowing very rude things to and about local persons of color.
It's midnight, and Paul and I are in our room at the Danville, PA Days Inn listening to the tailgate party outside our window finally begin to die down. Seems we rolled into town the same weekend as the Annual Greater Bloomsburg Monster Truck Rally. Great. We stop in to see a friend for the evening and end up in the middle of hundreds of insecure, drunken louts competing over who has the biggest penis.
Funny. It's not as entertaining as you might think.
When we left Simon in the room to go meet Patty for dinner, it was with trepidation and visions of returning to find him on a spit over a Weber grill behind our room. When we did return, we were greeting by a police blockade at the entrance to the hotel parking lot. They looked us over, got our room number, told us where to park, and wished us luck. Simon was safe and sound, of course, but glad to have us back.
We are almost home. The house closed today without a hitch, and we should arrive tomorrow in time to get a mattress out of the storage unit before we drive the last few miles to Underhill and find the hidden key.
We are ready.
Had a great time seeing Valparaiso yesterday and visiting with Patty tonight, but I will have to write about that sometime later. I am finally going to get some sleep. We won't have internet access at the house until Thursday, but I'm sure we'll stop in at a cafe sometime before then. Will keep you posted.
P.S. Oh, Mom is going to scan the Degustation Menu from dinner Tuesday night and send it to me. When she does, I'll post it for you to enjoy in more detail.
Day 26: Libertyville, IL
High-speed internet again at last! Thank you, Quality Inn.
We left Wisconsin yesterday with Mom and Dad in our own little caravan. Traded the Hertz Buick Enorma for my folks' 1995 Jeep Cherokee (a red-hot bargain deal!), attached a small U-Haul trailer, and headed south to the greater Chicagoland area.
And great it is. Expansive. Neverending. The Bay Area is large, but nicely arranged around the bay with handy bridges that are much like the shortcuts in Clue: Fremont to San Mateo in one quick and easy five-dollar move. But everything here just starts out at Lake Michigan and spreads out for MILES in every direction (well, every direction but east). And then there are a handful of tollways to tie it together. Getting to and from the tollways is the fun part. Miles of suburban main streets linked together until you begin to feel like Fred and Barney driving past the same two houses and three trees, over and over again. Steak & Shake, McDonalds, Best Buy, repeat.
We stopped in Crystal Lake to see my mother's Aunt Sophie and her family. We got to meet a whole slew of great-grandchildren who thought Paul was the best thing since Playdoh, and their dog who seemed to think the same of Simon. Wouldn't leave the poor guy alone long enough for him to sit down. After a really great visit, we headed on to the western suburb of Geneva, though a literally torrential downpour. Rain blowing from multiple directions at once. The storm was a pain in the ass to drive in, but boy was it great to experience that kind of rain again.
Anyhow, our destination in Geneva was the restaurant Niche, founded last year by Chef Jeremy Lycan and Sommelier Jody Richardson. Jeremy is a former co-worker of Mike Weller's at the CCA in San Francisco, and Mike had told us it would be well worth our while to stop in while we were in the area. Well as it turned out, Geneva is a good two hours outside of Chicago, but we have to say that we'd drive it all again in a heartbeat. What a fantastic evening it turned out to be.
The folks at Niche have a real passion for creating a memorable dining experience, from the food and wine, to the dining room itself and the high level of service provided by a kitchen and house staff that have been working together for years. Their menu changes daily, and looking at it last night, we found ourselves facing difficult choices. But after talking with our server, we decided to splurge and enjoy the degustation menu: smaller servings of six selected courses, with paired wines. Not something we have had the opportunity to do before, but it sure was nice to indulge. It was all good, but each of us decided that the lamb chops were easily the best we'd ever tasted. Just unreal. There was also a delicious halibut course, a watermelon gazpacho, and a cheese course that was so much fun Paul could hardly contain himself. A Gouda with the consistency of cream cheese, served with hot pretzel rolls, fresh honey, toasted almonds, cherries, and a square of something that seemed to be a pistachio granola bar.
We ate and drank for three hours.
We were hoping to meet Jeremy to say hello, but he was out, unfortunately. Our server was very friendly and helpful, and the restaurant's atmosphere was quiet and soothing without being stuffy. Well, quiet until about 8:00, when an enthusiastically garrulous woman sat down at the next table with a party of four and proceeded to talk non-stop for the next 90 minutes. Honestly, we don't know when she actually tasted her food, she never shut up. And can we say loud? She was New Jersey kind of loud, but in full Chicago style: streaked hair, expensive eyewear, and a cubic meter of décolletage. We heard about business deals, romantic conquests, her favorite outfits (black capris with a white tank that reads "Cubbies" across her boobies - her words not mine). We'd had enough wine that we appreciated the entertainment value, but her poor dinner companions couldn't down it quickly enough. Dad was in a position to see their eyes actually glaze over after a time. They must have known her for a while, because it seemed to be a familiar drill. They knew just when to grunt and nod.
After that incredible restaurant, we were brought back down to earth by our luxury accommodations at the Motel 6 in Aurora. From here on out we're going to shell out a few more bucks and go with Red Roof Inn. They take dogs too, evidently. Anyhow, this one really took the award for low marks in service, general decor and hygiene. The smell in Mom and Dad's room was both funky and dank. I call it fank.
So, today we rose nice and early, sprayed the folks down with Fabreeze and Tinactin to fight the fank, and spent a morning enjoying cool sunny weather in the storm's aftermath. Said goodbye to the folks after breakfast and headed back north via several tollways to Libertyville, where we met up with David and Kathleen Pseja. Dave is a great friend of mine from college, a roommate and general crony, and we've only seen each other maybe once in the last fifteen years. So it was terrific to spend an evening with them, and to meet their spawn (David's words, not mine). Conner is five, and is more or less David's Mini-Me with that evil Pseja glint in his eyes and a good dose of the Goldin Good Looks©. He was listening to the Beatles at three years old and wanted to know whether we'd read all of the Harry Potter books yet. Daniel is less than a year old and looks a lot like a cute, red-cheeked adaptation of the Michelin Man. We ate Thai food and cheesecake (did I mention that I've gained just a bit of weight these last few weeks), showed Paul just a few photos from 1987-1991 or thereabouts, and did our best to catch up while enjoying another cool evening.
Tomorrow it's south to Indiana and my college campus at Valparaiso, then the Toledo and a Red Rood Inn. Hopefully it will be relatively fank-free.
Day 23: Fox Lake, WI
Ah, the week is flying by. Such a good chance to kick back and relax with the folks, but we're both starting to get antsy to be done. We're on the brink of being really tired of traveling, and are SO ready to be in the new home and see it again after two months. We're in the home stretch, though. Should be in by late Saturday night if all goes well. We close on Friday, and all the ducks are in a row for that. Insurance, utilities, the works. We even got the green light from Comcast on cable-internet, which was not available when the current owners bought the place almost four years ago. We thought we were going to have to go with satellite internet access, which has a pretty bad rep out there. Never thought I'd be so glad to be a Comcast customer again.
It's been a week of strange sleeping patterns, late-night conversations, boat trips out on the lake, too many cookies, three games of Upwords (I've not been doing well), one night of Rummikub, and a renewed stab at Sheepshead. I baked some more bread, Dad roasted corn and bratwurst, Mom and I got to putter in the kitchen together. And Simon -- he got to run to his heart's content.
Paul took him out to the farm almost daily -- this is the Beyer farm, where Dad grew up. He still owns most of the land, and he and Paul spent a lot of time out there during the week. Simon ran like a maniac, exploring woods, hayfields, farmyard, all of it. It was good practice for him! He flushed turkeys and pheasants, chased a few deer, picked up a few ticks, hopped after field mice, and then slept VERY well each night. Paul and I actually crashed in separate bedrooms this week, which felt pretty strange. I had a bad knot in my shoulder for several days and couldn't get comfortable without tossing every few minutes, keeping him awake, so I moved to the next room and he got to sprawl diagonally in the bed and get some real sleep. It was OK, very practical and all, but I missed him. Will definitely be glad to be back in our own bed after four months.
This afternoon we all trooped down to the basement together, where I proceeded to spend about 3 hours going through boxes that have been in storage there for 20 years or more -- some unopened since we moved to Indonesia in 1982. Kept relatively little of it, but boy was it fun to go through. And with an audience, no less. Found yearbooks and photo albums, favorite books that I didn't think we still had on hand (it was like reconnecting with old friends), boxes of seashells, coin banks, travel souvenirs, old posters, stories I wrote in kindergarten, my old magic hat. What a joy. Even found a few choice things for Eleanor to enjoy. So, I just finished reading The Great Brain, and I think I'll start one of the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series, as soon as I finish up book 6 of the Dresden Files, which by the way keep getting better with each installment. Mike and Terry: keep reading!
Yesterday, Mom and Dad had a bunch of the family over for the afternoon. We got to see aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, children of second cousins, the lot. Paul is inspired to build a lawn washers game (think Horseshoes crossed with Skeeball), and we ate the aforementioned roasted corn and sausage. And many of Aunt Fern's deviled eggs. And lots of fruit salad with wild blackberries picked from over on the farm. And a cookie or two.
Which reminds me, I weighed myself this morning for the first time in oh, a while. Let's say that 14 weeks of sabbatical followed by three weeks of hardcore vacation is taking its toll. I told Paul, "Well, it's a nice even number..."
"230?"
"Gee, how'd you ever guess."
This will have to change.
Day 18: Fox Lake
Mmmm... new hand-crafted furniture...
We visited a few Amish furniture makers today, looking mainly at dressers (aka chests of drawers), as I don't have one. Considering that we'll probably need to rent a small trailer for the last leg of our trip from WI to VT, it seemed like a good opportunity. Found a pair that we really liked and decided to take them with us. We'll also be bringing one of my grandfather's wooden chairs that Mom and Dad have been saving for me. Needs some work, but it will be really nice to have it in our home. Next summer, after Paul's family reunion, maybe we'll have room for a piece or two from his parents.