ARRRGHHHH

The deal to sell our house has completely fallen apart.
Because of too many details to go into, and to not impugn anyone, let's just say it fell apart.
Anyone know anyone that wants to buy a cute little house, let us know.

We are in shock.
We are OK.
We have applied for jobs just a little sooner than we had wanted.
We will win that loto!

Be well.
Think good thoughts.

C

Fall is in the air...

Many years ago, almost 20, I moved from eastern Washington to the Pacific NW.
My first day in Hamsterville, the girl I moved to be near dumped me.
I remember it quite well. With the depression that comes from getting dumped, I walked a lot.
Autumn has always been my favorite season, and it was definitely fall.
I took a long walk, one day, up to a local lake. It had rained the night before and the smells were all new and different.
As I walked the winding trail up to the lake, I smelled wet earth, damp pine needles, cedar, dirt, mold.
A few months later, still smarting from loss of love and direction. I took an advanced first aid-wilderness first aid class where we spent one full day out, under the trees, figuring out how to save multiple victims 3 days from the trail head. I remember the smells that damp fall day I took my final test, and passed.
I came back to help with the class three more times, acting as a victim twice, lying in wet pine needles and cedar boughs.
Today I walked out into the front yard, walking a certain brown long dog and letting Puppette sniff all around, I was noticing new smells.
There are more leaf trees here, so it smells different. The sound of acorns falling on the house, the truck, the shed. They pop under your shoes when you step on them.
Part of what you experience in life is visual, part scent.
I am in new scents and trying to enjoy all of it. But there is the ever present knowledge that this is not Hamsterville, not the surroundings I have known for so many years.
Vive la difference!

Get ready for a little contest.
If you can guess the total miles logged on the minivan, and come closest with out going over, K and I will send you a New York present!
Guess only once.
I will take guesses for one week.

Let the fun and frivolity begin!

C

The neighborhood

There is a duck pond about 1/2 mile from the house. There is a duck crossing sign and we got a chance to see the ducks crossing. These are K's favorite, Indian Runners.




Here is the beach we can drive to, just about one mile away.


A local hanging out on a nice day.

Poppy and K's dad.



In New York, it is a soda, not a pop.
It is a pie, not a pizza.
The common greeting is "How ya doin'?" A rhetorical question that I was raised to answer.
K and I keep running into people that feel compelled to tell us their life stories.

The roads here are narrow and everyone drives at least 10 miles an hour above the speed limit. Now, I love to drive fast, and I love windy roads as much as the next testosterone laden male, but in a small pick up truck and a sea sick passenger, it is not nearly as fun. We tend to go slower than the posted limits, but the driver behind us is close enough to read the serial number on my muffler.

We have a new adversary.
It is small, sneaky, parasite.
Ticks.
In the many many years I lived in the great NW, I took 4 ticks off my dogs, collectively. In less than 2 weeks, I have pulled three off Poni, one off Puppette that were just crawling on their fur, one that was crawling on my shirt. We have dislodged one from Poni and Puppette each. Despite the Frontline, they lock on and suck up. I dreamed about ticks all last night and I itch almost constantly. EEEWWWWW!!!!

We have found several wonderful restaurants. We ate at a great deli yesterday, K had a meatball hero, I had a hot hero with ham, prosciutto, provolone and riccotta cheese.
I cooked last night, pushing my creativity a little.
Most of you know, I love to cook. But... most all of the cook wear is in the PODS container. I did steaks with sauteed mushrooms, roasted red potatoes and a satueed onion-squash medley using a 10 inch cast iron pan, a 2.5 quart sauce pan and a 1.5 quart sauce pan and a dollar store round baking pan. It was so nice to be cooking again. It was a nice challenge to get things cooked in impromptu pans. The steaks were great, the mushrooms were baby portobellas and the onions were sweet against the squash. Ahhhhhhh...

I never seem to say what I want on this. I have great ideas throughout the day and never remember what I wanted to put down in words.
The Long Island sound is beautiful. It is protected and the rocks are smooth rounded in pinks, reds, tans, even some almost clear as they shift under your feet. The water is not as cold as the Northern Sound out West.
It is good here. We wish it would slow down just a hair more, let us breathe.
Soon. That amazing little word that promises tomorrow, promises time, gives hope.
Soon.

C

Perspective

Through a great round of missed connections, misunderstanding and mistakes, we were without hot water for a over week.
We moved in to the little house on a Sunday and knew that we would not get gas for the hot water heater.
Then it dawned on us that Monday was Columbus day and that no services were available.
the land lord had put all the helpful numbers right in the lease so we knew who to call for what and that was all expedited so easily. But there was no info for the gas company.
I called a gas company and was informed that Gas Company "Able" could not fill the tanks for gas Company "Baker" and so on. So I called to find out who filled these tanks before us. That took over 24 hours to get an answer.
Then, on Wednesday, I called our prospective gas company and talked to a nice person who took all the pertinent info and then, was hopelessly human, and forgot to schedule the appointment. We did not find this out until the following Monday.
K and I stayed home all day Friday to wait for the cable guy, the water meter to be read for switching over to our account and the gas company.
K and I are very reasonable people. We waited until Saturday and called the gas company. The office was closed and I got the main US corporate line and explained the problem. Monday I called the gas company again and that is when the nice person who took all the pertinent information, admitted openly that she forgot to schedule the appointment.
She sent a guy out who told us, upon seeing the tanks "These are out of date and I can't fill them." I looked at him.
I do not think I smelled bad, I do not think I looked unwashed, but he said "I am gunna get you gas today, somehow."
So we had gas, finally. But then the pilot light would not light. So close but yet so stinking far. (yes, that was intentional, shut up and keep reading)
So he gets the pilot lit and we let the tank steep for 30 minutes. No hot water yet. It is a new tank but god only knows how long it sat empty. So it took a long while to heat up.
We passed yesterday looking at more houses, looking at the surrounding towns. We came home, teasing each other about hot showers. We ate late and fell asleep later and did not shower.
The gas company was coming today to swap tanks and get us set up. That they did with a shiny new tank with a gas gauge to ell us how much we have left.
I got the first shower.
The last shower I had was at K's parents house over 13 days ago. We had been heating water on the stove and doing spit baths for almost two weeks.
I showered!
I used 4 times too much shampoo, I scrubbed that soap into me grimy skin and shaved off several days of stubble.
AHHHHHHH!
I scrubbed hard with the towel, like a loofa. I think my skin squeaks.
K is in the shower now.
It is interesting what you take for granted. Hot water to wash dishes, take a shower, wash your hands.
Cleanliness... it is, I truly feel, never to be under rated.
Two things: I need to duck when entering the shower to keep from hitting my head on the damn sliding door upper track (which I have now done 4 times), Every one and their freaking cat out here has sliding shower doors. I can not tell you how many houses we have looked at online that have sliding glass shower doors. What the hell were these people thinking?
It helps to open the skylight in the bathroom to vent it.
We just had a fan installed in the bath room in Hamsterville before we moved and now we are back to no good venting. On step forward, one step back and into the hot steamy shower with too much shampoo and soap and bubbles and...

More soon.

C

Still alive, still ticking

We found a place to rent. A nice house K and I have been looking at online for months.
It is small and cozy.
Poppy is still with K's parents until all is settled here.
There will be more posts, soon. Promise.
All is well.

Thank you to everyone who helped get us here.
The food is soooo good.
Time to start exercising.

Be well, all.

C
PS: we are one block from the water!!

New York, at last.

We arrived on Monday. At last check, the odometer read 4730 miles. The odysey is now done in the traveling stage. It is weird to have the crossing finished. I wake up every morning thinking that we need to get on the road nad make 400 miles before we rent another hotel. We moved out of opur last hotel and will stay with friends and family.
We were driving the other day and K said "let's just drive around, look at the roads." I looked at her and said:
"But what destination do you want me to program into the navigation system."
"No where."
"But where do we go?"
"Just drive around."
"But don't we have to be anywhere?'
"No."
I looked at K as long as I could without veering off the road.
No destination.
We are at our destination.
That, by no means, implies that we are done.
Today we signed a tentative lease on a house. It just hapens that it is one of the houses we have been looking at for months. It went off the market and then just came back on the market yesterday or today. We were looking at a house one block over and our real estate guy here said he had one more place to look at. We were in the drive way before we realized it was that house!
It has a fire place in the kitchen area and a great sun porch, a nice deck. It is litterally one block from the water.
It is 10 minutes from where K and I would like to work.
The food is soooo good. We have eaten at teh same deli two days in a row. K is enjoying bologna and liverwurst with mustard on a roll. I had a chicken breast one day, Boar's Head ham today. We finished with an lemon Italian ice. Tonight we had "a cheese pie" for dinner. The food is sooooo yummy!
It got hotter than hades today with humidity that relaxed my bow hair wonderfully.
The dogs are well. Puppette sleeps alot, I think she is just tired from the heat and the continued disruption to her world. Bugsy is now a slave to his name tag. When I lovingly teased the Bug with the laser pointer, I created a monster. He has become so nuerotic chasing his name tag. Any time light hits it and a reflection is thrown, he stalks it and pounces upon it like the great hunter he is (deep inside his little badger dog heart).
We still do not have an internet connection. I am on a family's network for this. More regular posts might be forth coming.

That is all for me for now.

Be well, all.

C

The continuing saga...

And into the east we go.
Putting Tennessee behind us, onward into Virginia... the states keep falling.
Loved this bill board:
The little prince surveys his mobile kingdom.

Puppette asks: "Are we there yet?"


The other Prince surveys his world from the safety of his cage.

Not much to post from C. It has been a long trip, the end is now in sight.
I am tired.
I am overjoyed at the news that our friend Richard is doing wonderfully well after surgery! They let the man have a triple americano a day after his surgery, he is doing so very well!
Best wishes Richard, Sherri.

K is out, she has pictures she wants to post, but that is for another day.
Once we reach our destination, we might be off line for a day or two until we can find a free wi fi spot or get internet in our place.

Be well, all.
C