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Yesterday was quiet conceivably the longest day ever. We visited our new house and made the master list of things to do, holes to fill, walls to put up, things to tear down. The house is still occupied by the previous owners. Why haven’t they been able to move? While it might be easy to say, call the cops or come down hard on them, it’s easier said than done. What you must understand is that while they’re taking their sweet time moving out, there are moving out. It’s just taking longer than anyone hoped. It’s taking longer than it should. Why? Turns out, not only are they oldish, they’re also completely disorganized and they are, like on the TV, hoarders. Somehow, they’ve managed to avoid becoming Grey Gardens, but they have, over their lifetime, accumulated so much stuff it’s staggering. And like hoarders, they are unable to part with even the most insignificant possessions because…well, nothing is insignificant. Everything is important, everything has meaning, everything will be used for something or other one day. Both the husband and the wife have a tendency to fly off the handle – not with us, but with our real estate agent. They are easily aggravated and everything seems to upset them. They are also the kind of people who only hear what they want and only do what they want. They signed a paper saying they’d be out of the house by the 2nd, they aren’t. They just can’t get it done. AJB and I had a window of opportunity – the first two weeks of November – to start the pre-move in repairs (paint, floors, clean, electricity, etc) and this is slowly slipping by; which means we really can’t start until AFTER Thanksgiving. So when the wife asked me when we thought we’d be out of the Glendale rental, I almost laughed. You see, the longer they take to move out, the longer we stay in Glendale. If you recall, they want to move into the Glendale rental as soon as we move out. We can’t move out until they move out. It’s all complicated and annoying. They don’t seem to get it. Or maybe they do. I can’t tell.

I explained to the wife our predicament and hope she got it. I hope she got that not only are we annoyed, but we’re ready to be home. The husband, at this point, was covered heat to toe in dirt and looked like a boxer who’d just lost the most important fight of his life. Beaten and down, his wife laid into him exclaiming it was all this fault. I felt bad for him. Even when AJB reminded me how often he’d cussed and yelled at our real estate agent, I couldn’t help but see a man whose wife forced him to move – because she hates Altadena – and who had worked for 3 days straight to get this 70 years of possessions into trucks and into our garage. Yes, they’re using the garage. At this point, let them. Look, I know they should have started months ago. Why they waited until the last minute, I’ll never know. I get the whole hoarders thing and I understand the methodology and mindset better than most people know. I probably shouldn’t say how I know (it might hurt someone’s feelings) but I know, first hand that even the suggestion of throwing out something turns a seemingly rational person into a pile of melted goo – or the other side of the spectrum…a raging lunatic. I get it. I do, but if there’s a better way to go about this, someone share it. You can’t come down hard on hoarders. They’re like wild animals – it’s best not to agitate them, they’ll either fight back or run and hide.

I figure, they’ll be out at some point. Since we’re missing our repairs window and can’t start until after the holidays, there’s no point in fretting about it. I’m actually starting to get excited and think about all the things we’re going to do. I reminded AJB that Rome wasn’t built in a day. It’s easy to let it all get to us and get us down, but the truth it, it’s happening. We’ll be in our new house soon.

In other news, this morning around 4am, my 2 year old nephew auto dialed me. The phone rang and when I saw my brother’s name, I instantly thought something bad had happened. I answered and heard lots of shuffling around, figured I was butt-dialed. And then my nephew started talking. Wow! I started talking to him and asking him questions and he talked back, answering them in baby talk. It was great! I know all babies eventually figure out how to do stuff, but what really amazes me is when communication clicks on. He’s always had a toy phone, so he knows how it works, but it doesn’t talk back. I think he might have been a little shocked that the phone talked back. I don’t think he knew it was me and I know he didn’t call me on purpose, he was just messing with the buttons. The amazing thing was that we had a conversation. He talked, I talked. I asked him what he was doing, he told me. I asked him where Mommy and Daddy were and he told me. My brother got on the phone a few minutes later and apologized, but I was so giddy from talking to my little nephew, I didn’t mind. I love that kid. I love when babies don’t quiet know words, but just make funny noises. Kills me.

Ah well. Life is complicated and frustrating. What else is new? At least today started off great.

The Big Stress

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AJB told me that moving is among one of the most stressful times in a person’s life. I’m inclined to believe him. Just a few short weeks ago, we made the final decision to sell our house. We did not take this decision lightly, but I don’t think anyone ever realizes how stressful these things are or how you’ll react to them.

After two grueling weeks of packing (most of which was done by AJB’s assistant) we are officially on the market and had out first agent caravan today. While I remain confident that this is the right choice, it still adds a major element of hardship. We were told by our agent that we should pack as much as possible and clear out the house as best we could. We took this as gospel and cleared out about 80% of our belongings. While packing, it’s hard to know what you may or may not need access to. I asked myself what I could live without and crossed my fingers I was right. At the time, it seemed like I could do without a lot. Little things, like a toaster…we packed it because it takes up space and you can make toast in the oven. OK, so getting along without it hasn’t been horrible. In fact, oven toast is pretty good. I packed up most of my Winter clothes because Spring is here and it’s warming up…except, it keeps warming up and cooling off. And because everything we own that’s left has to be stashed during showings, I don’t know where anything is. We are literally living a bare bones existence, I have one pot holder and no casserole dishes. I did, however, take a stand and kept most of my clothes. Although, it wasn’t much of a stand since I made no formal declaration.

Realizing that there are people in the world who don’t have electricity, let alone toasters, I’m reminded that as an American, I have many luxuries. The hard part isn’t so much living without, it’s that my normal life is disrupted. My day to day routine is fucked up and I can’t find the book I had to return to the library. Things we take for granted are now in new places or in storage. Our kitchen trashcan is in the basement. Our water dispenser is in the garage. It’s like living in Wonderland: Everything is nonsense. Nothing is what it is because everything is what it isn’t. It’s like living someone else’s life. This isn’t our furniture, these aren’t our smells, and strangers are walking through our home leaving lights on and windows open. I can’t cook, I can’t leave my socks on the floor, and aw crap…I packed up The Sims!

Our cats are staying with my brother and I miss them. Knowing that they’re over there, miserable (because they hate change), wishing they could come home, not seeing their little curled up bodies at the foot of the bed…it’s been rough. Not to mention JCS isn’t loving his new guests. I guess this is how parents feel when their kids are off at Summer camp. Empty nest syndrome.

I’m dealing. Some days better than most. With any luck, it will all be over soon and we can start shopping for a house. Of course, this brings up the all new technical difficulties of house hunting, packing up the rest of our stuff, waiting for the old house to clear, waiting for the new house to clear, unpacking, finding new and exciting places for all our things, getting used to new noises, a new neighborhood, and every other challenge that comes with moving out, moving in. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to work, build my new website which should have been done in January, trying to eat right when take-away is so much easier, not getting enough sleep, missing my cats, and living in a fishbowl.

Soon it will all be a distant memory. We’ll be in the house we really love and wonder why we ever moved to Linda Vista Ave.

Dinner at Home

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Tonight, we finally had friends over for dinner. When we first moved in, we planned on having a big house warming party, but that failed. Then we tried for a 50′s themed Summer BBQ…that never happened either. You see, this house was made for entertaining. We have a huge kitchen, two ovens, a semi-industrial stove, a butler’s pantry, a large main room with a fireplace, and an expansive yard. This house wants to party. And because I’m a girl, I’ve always dreamed about throwing fancy dinner parties. You know, ’cause it would be fancy. I like the idea of entertaining, having people over, cooking, and setting the table.

I recently read an article that summed up my desire to entertain. To paraphrase, it said that entertaining it part selflessness and part selfishness. On the one hand, you want to provide a nice evening for your friends, but on the other hand, you want them to adore you for doing so. Life centers around food. The dinner table is the cornerstone of every house. It’s where you eat, get to know people, play games, and discuss important things. Doing all those things over a beautiful table setting and delicious food only heightens the experience.

I would call tonight a success. I was thrown off by a timing mishap in which I was originally told our guests would arrive at 7:30, but they were told 7pm. Otherwise, everything went swimmingly. I prepared an appetizer with sourdough bread cut into thin slices topped with cheese (I forget which, my sister knows…the soft one from Christmas) and apricot preserves, which tastes like marmalade. I followed this with an apple and almond salad topped with raspberry vinaigrette. The entree was vegetable penne rigate with a homemade pesto sauce – OMG, it was so good. For desert, Greek yogurt with blackberries and honey drizzled on top. It was all so delicious, I even surprised myself. I’m always amazed when I cook something good. I usually imagine it won’t ever be as good as it’s meant to be, or that somehow it will be lacking. Somehow, I’ve turned into a pretty great cook, if I do say so myself. Surprise! I guess it’s because I love it and I really try to put a lot of thought into the meals I prepare.

After dinner, we retired to the main room, drank coffee and talked away the hours. It was frickin’ delightful. Naturally, it helps to have delightful guests. We had Dave and Jason over and both of them are quite lovely and so much fun to be around.

I’m really digging this entertaining thing. The whole dinner took about an hour to prepare, maybe a little more. I got most of my recipes from the Food Network website and don’t tell anyone, but the penne was a Rachel Ray 30 Minute Meal. Who knew you could make fresh pesto pasta in less than 30 minutes? It all looked so lovely, I wish I’d taken pictures. I wanted to, but ran out of time. Maybe next time. Oh, and by the way, you’re supposed to toast the pine nuts, but I burnt them a little. Didn’t seem to matter. Oh and Greek yogurt? The bomb. Desert only took 5 minutes to make.

I can see more dinner parties in our future. I love it. Total grocery cost was about $100.00 which ends up being about $25.00 per plate – about what you’d spend at a semi-fancy restaurant, but in this case, you get the comfort of home and the pride in doing it yourself. You could probably do it for less, but we bought everything fresh and got it all from Whole Foods…which I imagine bumps the price up a bit.

My sister recently asked me if I was planning on becoming a house wife. Not that she meant any malice by it, but it later occurred to me that Morticia Addams was a house wife. A pretty good one too. But no, not really. I have a career and my own interests. I also really, really like being around my friends and serving them kick ass meals. I figure, I can do both. If you can have your cake and eat it too, why not? The best part about this is that it’s actually really easy to entertain. Easier than you think. There’s something quaint and old fashioned about having people over for dinner. Something magical as if your taking yourself back to a better place in time when people had the forethought to do these sort of things. It helps that we have vintage 1950′s dinnerware. And now to figure out how to invite people over with hand written invitations. Or is that taking it too far?

Tonights Menu:

Appetizer: Sourdough bruschetta topped with soft cheese and apricot preserves
Salad: Apple, almonds, mixed greens, and raspberry vinaigrette.
Entree: Penne Rigate pasta, asparagus, thin green beans, and homemade pesto sauce.
Dessert: Greek honey flavored yogurt with blackberries and honey drizzled on top.
After Dinner: Coffee and leftover Christmas cookies.