What next?

Moving is always a revelation. This move has been...interesting. Since we took possession, there have been a variety of issues that didn't show up on the home inspection, despite the thoroughness thereof. Weird.

First was the water. The outside spigot where one would normally attach a hose is attached to the hot water line. We could boil eggs in the water it spews forth. Obviously this explains why the previous owners had no plants. They must have boiled them all while attempting to water them. Yet they professed no knowledge of this phenomenon when we asked. You'd think they just MIGHT have noticed that the water coming out of their hose was steaming.

Next, the condensate line from our air conditioner was nowhere to be found. Normally this is not my first priority in settling in, but...our air conditioner stopped because the line backed up. Fortunately, our HVAC tech was able to find and clear it--after about 18 hours of non-air-conditioned discomfort. In his search, however, he also detected a live wire in the space behind our furnace that he claimed was sparking. Enter the electrician. Who confirmed that we had a 240 volt bare wire, attached to nothing, lying about behind the wall of our 4th floor study. Gee. Previous owners knew nothing about that either. I am detecting a definite Seargeant Schulz syndrome here ("I know nothing, NOTHING!")

Then, one morning last week, I attempted to adjust the angle of the showerhead. Big mistake. The entire assembly (and I mean down to the surface of the tile wall) crashed off the wall and whacked me on my ankle. Yet another bruise. Yet another trip to Ace Hardware. Yet another call to Lonnie, the plumber at Cropp-Metcalfe. Because the pipe in the wall would not accommodate the standard shower arm, it being threaded on the outside, rather than the inside. We were thus afforded the opportunity to check out the other showers in the house for a few days. I haven't bothered to ask the previous owners about this.

And then, there is the washer/dryer. The detergent/bleach dispenser was absolutely black with what looked like mildew when I first went to use it. I opted to run an empty load with a serious shot of Clorox poured through the dispenser, and that helped a lot. However, there's still a sort of smoky odor that comes from the washer/dryer. It's also in the upstairs bathroom, whose door had been closed to keep the cat out. And you can catch a whiff of it occasionally in the upstairs bedroom. Were the previous owners heavy smokers? The drapes don't smell...maybe they were cleaned. Perhaps we have a ghost who does laundry and frequents the 3rd floor...that ghostly couple on "Topper" were always smoking, weren't they?

For now, I am on tenterhooks, waiting for the next issue to arise. Who knows what will come next?

..and the inevitable poem:

Almost Home

Houses have a soul.

This one is no different.

It lives and breathes and speaks

in different accents than the ones before,

but, as with new friends, we decipher

as best we can

what our relationship will be.

It was chilly, dry and sterile,

its courtyard a blank brick box

with a thirsty black fountain

and sprouting weeds

in the concrete planters

crouching on the wall.

Inside, the mismatched colors,

the schizophrenic lavender-browns paired

with creamy yellow and grayed-out whites,

swallowed the token pictures on the walls:

like thick glasses framing the squinty eyes

of a child who had forgotten how to play.

But now, we have angels dancing along the kitchen counter,

and arks on every shelf;

pictures and colored maps embrace odd corners,

and a fan-shaped mirror hangs

above a fan-shaped window

like a silent play on words.

There is pottery in the windowed bathroom cabinet

and cheerful monsters on the windowseat,

and a lion doorknocker smiling

on a Christmas red door.

And the courtyard now has flowers:

Velvet petunias and firecracker geraniums

tempered with spiky purple plants,

with basil and mint, and pots of holly…

The leaves rustle, and the fountain almost burbles

—just a little—

when I come through the gate.

It’s almost home.

Eventful

Hard to believe my last post was less than two weeks ago. I feel as if I've been fast-forwarded to the end of the month, with little to show for it in the way of accomplishment. We have emptied boxes and put stuff away, but now we are down to the substantial residue of stuff that needs to be sorted, filed, disposed of, or thought about. These are the boxes of little covered china boxes, or the dozen or so cat sculptures I've brought home from trips, the dozens of planned-but-uncompleted projects that have whiled away the past few years in storage or in the attic. This is the pile of tablecloths, placemats, runners, napkins that speak to my inability to set a table twice with the same napery. Also to my unwillingness to iron napkins. It doesn't help that we have had (still have, in some cases) a variety of tables of various sizes, and thus possess an equal variety of tablecloth sizes and runners in coordinating colors.

And yet, and yet...in spite of our overabundance of stuff, the new house demands more. We have different-sized rooms that need rugs; a room or two that we have no furniture for (or at least not appropriate furniture); we need a toaster because this oven doesn't possess that function. A longer hose, a shorter curtain, a cushion for the windowseat, a paper towel holder, shelving to turn a closet into a linen closet....It's enough to earn us a place in the Consumption 'R Us Hall of Fame.

However, in spite of my protestations, I have accomplished quite a bit since the last week in June. Closed the sale on our old house, settled on the new, flew to Providence to meet my daughter's movers and sign off on the move-in, unpack, then fly back to meet OUR packers and movers and vacate the old house and move to the new. Once here, we've unpacked, had the HVAC system and plumbing vetted, phone, internet and cable installed, as well as the security system, WiFi network established, neighbors met, and a rough idea of where things need to be moved to and what must yet be done.

I guess I am just not satisfied until I have created a semblance of order out of the chaos we've created. Wish me luck.

Assortment

A box of nothing but vases
3 card tables
2 deep fryers
A mandoline
A box of piano books and music (no piano)
6 boxes of cookbooks
A box of wires, electronic connectors, and at least 10 thumb drives
11 umbrellas
6 sets of rigid plastic shelving
12 rolling storage bins, metal mesh
5 restaurant-grade aluminum cookie sheets
8 short, wide bookcases
2 matching taller ones
A box of miscellaneous cooking utensils
3 beds: a double, a 3/4, and a twin missing critical hardware and mattresses
4 sets of china
A double set of ironstone
An infinite variety of salt and pepper shakers and sugar bowl/creamer sets
Assorted pieces of milk glass
Assorted silver pieces, unpolished
Assorted cut glass bowls and dishes
Assorted crystal pieces: candlesticks, drinkware, etc.
Plastic storage-ware

A partial list of what has been unearthed in the quasi-archaeological expedition that we call moving.....and I haven't even arrived at the really mysterious level: the stuff that has been in storage for the past five years...I will be surprised if we don't find a missing person somewhere in this pile, or at least the ashes of a dead pet. But that was the garage-cleaning story...