Back Porch Report

This is me, posting from the covered back porch of the New House, where the Internet reception reads as "very good" even though the modem is all the way in the bedroom!

What I can see:

• our backyard and garage and Twinkie
• the back porch of the motorcycle-riding neighbors who kindly informed RW the other morning that we'd left the door of the van open all night.
• the roof of the house next door on the other side.
• the Lions Gate Bridge, though not the water itself.
• Lots of sky.
  
• And maybe, if I stand and squint, a few hints of mountains way over to the Southwest.
• Also Shy Kitty, through the back window, perched on top of some boxes that are perched on top of the kitchen table.

On Tuesday I was at the old place and RW was at the new place, and I was packing and packing and shoving stuff into place for the movers, who were not at all pleased about the inordinate number of both books and stairs, and I had this moment of thinking: why are we doing this? Why are we leaving this place?? (Because, wouldn't you know, our landlady is probably taking the house off the market after all; we wouldn't have had to leave at all.)

And then the second truckload was loaded, finally, and RW drove up the hill to get me and bring me over here, and I came in to the house all full of boxes already with the movers swearing and kvetching about having to move stuff to the rooms they were labeled for rather than dumping it all in the living room, and I thought: Oh! This is a nice place. And any lingering nostalgia about the old place vanished into the ether.

I perched myself on the extra single bed that we've got in the living room for the time being, out of the way of the movers, and tried to rest my back and resist the urge to jump up and move things around. (It's hard for me to just sit there while other people are doing manual labor, even if I'm paying them.)

But I did, mostly-- I just sat there, feeling the rightness of the place.

This house is not perfect; we knew that when we bought it, and have discovered a few more idiosyncrasies in the past few days. (For one thing, the shower is crappy.) But it is, as our realtor kept saying, a good house.

By Tuesday night, I had more or less set up all our bedroom furniture, and even unpacked a few books.

On Wednesday, the Shaw guy came and made our phones and wireless work.

On Thursday, I put together the Mermaid Girl's bed and set up her furniture. (Miraculously, even though her room is about two-thirds the size of her old room, she appears to have more wall space here than she did there, so everything fit just fine.)

I should be back at the old house this evening, packing the stuff we left: most of the bathroom, much of the kitchen, and tumble of stuff from RW's and my office spaces. (I probably could've packed and moved everything on Tuesday when the movers were here, but I ran out of boxes.) So really if I'm not packing over there I should be UNpacking over here, so as to free up more boxes to take over there.

But I'm not. I'm just sitting here, enjoying, and contemplating (as Chasmyn suggested in the comments below) all the things I have to look forward to in this house.

It's a beautiful evening.

*Addendum: As I was getting ready for bed (RW and MG are out of town for a few days), I heard faint booms from outside and remembered that this is the last fireworks night. So I ran back out to the porch, and yup, I could indeed see the very highest fireworks, far away and small over on the Bay, but clearly visible.