Alien Spouse

Disco Chicken.

This is Disco Chicken, and she's Doc C's favourite objet d'art for illustrating kitsch in lectures. She's extremely well travelled for an ugly bird statue. Disco Chicken's origins are misty but she came into Doc life when she was abandoned at the recording studio he worked at in Boston, then she came to London with him, and she went to stay with my Mum for an extended visit to the beautiful Norfolk countryside when we moved to North Carolina.

I managed to fit her in one of my suitcases, as a special surprise for the Doc, and I feel I should mention that she's about the same size as my Brown Betty teapot, so it was really quite the sacrifice on my part. Still, it will not be another three years before I go home for another visit so hopefully I won't regret this great generosity.

The Past in Boxes.

This afternoon Mum suggested that I look over the stuff that was put in storage in the attic when Doc C and I left for America. It's all those things I haven't seen for three years, some of which I've missed desperately (all of my earrings!), some of which I frankly had forgotten I owned but have fallen in love with again (a pair of trays decorated with girly playing cards!), then some stuff that could immediately be put in the charity shop pile (I love Calvin and Hobbes, but they are big books to pack and imminently replaceable) and still more stuff that I was bemused by (I found three odd socks carefully packed in a lovely gold box. What was I thinking there?)

It was definitely a good thing that I looked over what I already owned before I went shopping in earnest, because I already have more belongings than I can carry onto the plane, so adding to it seems like a fool's errand. Being an ex-bookseller it is hardly surprising that my biggest problem is my beloved collection of books, some of which I've read and re-read a hundred times since I was a kid, and I've done well to reduce it down to just one medium size box - but in all honesty I can't actually close the lid on that already, and there are more books that I still want to bring. Mum's point about the usefulness of a Kindle is well timed, because I can see the benefit of having everything reduced down to a compact tablet. That still wouldn't be entirely sufficient, because a lot of my books are second-hand copies with great covers, or books that have fallen out of publication, or they've been signed by the author and how can you get that type of thing on a Kindle?

Anyway I have some time to further curate the collection before I go back to North Carolina, so in the mean time I've arranged it around the bedroom; so I can look at it at my leisure and make some difficult decisions. I suspect the framed photo of the 38 bus might just have the edge over the framed photo of seagulls on the Palace Pier, but we shall see.

Nancy!

I realise that I have mentioned Edith quite a lot in my posts since we moved, but Nancy hardly at all.  Don't worry she came too!

Nancy seems to be very happy in the new house, and was rolling around displaying her tummy on the first night here.  That is a very good sign that she is feeling relaxed, and I think that the Comfort Zone Diffuser we plugged in before we brought the girls over has really helped.

The only thing that Nancy doesn't like is that Edith has developed more of an appetite since we moved here, so she doesn't get to finish off Edith's food any more.  This is good though, she needs to go on a diet - Actually Jason nicknamed her Fat Nance when he was visiting!

Moving Saga.

When we got home from work yesterday we had a cup of tea and a choccy biccy before settling down to our allotted tasks.  Doc C had a lecture to write, so he got on with that whilst I continued unpacking.  Mostly I wanted to get the study clear, so that the Charter engineer could hook up the wi-fi with not too much hassle when he came this morning, remember this salient point.  First I had to interrupt Doc to get him to help me drag the futon mattress up to the loft.  It fitted perfectly!  It is so comfy up there now, all I need is a lamp and a steady supply of snacks, and it will be bliss.

After that it was fairly easy to arrange the study, it just took ages.  My own personal favourite furniture ninja move was putting the wire shelves (the ones that Doc had bought them for his plants, so they were in front of the living room windows in the old house) under the stairs.  This doesn't sound particularly brilliant, but I positioned them so that we can use the shelves from the kitchen AND Doc can still easily fit his bike under the stairs.  It was extremely satisfying to see that work in real life almost as well as it had in my head when I thought of it at 2 in the morning.

I also carried several box loads of stuff up to the mezzanine, which is where I'm going to be keeping my bookcases and craft stuff.  This was made considerably less easy by the cats, who continue to adore lounging on the stairs and being annoyed if made to move.

Once that was all done, we settled down with a glass of Pimm's and "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962).  Doc insisted we had already seen it, but I am equally certain that I hadn't ever watched it before.  It was one of those debates that is impossible to prove any part of your argument in, beyond the simple fact that is is highly unlikely I would forget forget Angela Lansbury being that evil.

Of course the punchline to this story is that we didn't get the phone call we expected from Charter last night, or this morning.  When Doc called them and asked what time to expect them, they said "Today?  No mate, Thursday" (I paraphrase).

sigh.  Two more days without TV or internet access at home.

Sunday Cleaning.

So tired.  So very tired.

Well we got the majority of our belongings moved to the new house on Saturday, thanks to the aforementioned super-friends Kim, Jill, Randy and Laura, so then all we had to do was grab the last couple of car loads of random stuff and clean the old house.

That's all.

We split up the work between us, so Doc C was vacuuming whilst I cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen.  It took forever and ever and ever.

Towards the end of the day we were loading up the car and I packed the vacuum cleaner first to make sure it would fit.  Doc asked where it was because he needed it to vacuum the one more room.  So I got it out of the car again.  Then we carried on pottering about, and we moved the only piece of furniture left in the house from the spare room to the kitchen (Hey, does anyone want a really ugly heavy wooden desk, that I'm pretty sure smells nasty?  It's free to anyone who wants to collect it!  Hurry this offer will not last!); then I went back into the spare room, picked up the vacuum cleaner and packed it into the car.

Pretty much as soon as I'd done that I realised that Doc hadn't had time to use it since the last time I got it out of the car, and that's when I got the giggles and could not stop laughing.  Doc thought I'd finally lost it, but we were almost finished, so that was OK!

After we'd emptied that car load we were finished for the day, so we had showers and headed into town for something to eat.  On the way Doc asked what I wanted for dinner, and pretty much my only caveat was "Not pizza, because I don't want to chew that much".  So we had nice soft pseudo tex-mex and a bottle of beer, and it was very nice.

Quick Moving Update

Our friends are super stars! Thanks to Kim and Jill,and Randy and Laura we got all off the big stuff moved by about 5 yesterday. The cats were the first to move, we drove them over at about 8:30 to let them explore before we started bringing in furniture. We'd already plugged in one of those soothing cat smell generator thingies, which I think really helped. Nancy was rolling around on the carpet by the end of the day, so she's far more relaxed than I would have expected! We slept in the new house last night, which was very comfortable but neither Doc or I slept well. Mainly because the cats kept jumping on and off the bed as part of their late night explorations. Oh, and Nancy popped the screen off our bedroom window at about 2, so that got our adrenalin pumping! She's fine, just a bit annoyed we closed the window after that. Today we clean the old place. sigh.

We Have The Keys!

Doc C picked up the keys to the new house today, and got the ok to start moving our stuff in!  Yay!

He also got the TV and internet sorted out; this was slightly more involved than one would think, because basic cable is provided as part of the rental arrangement of the house.  Great!  Except it confuses the hell out of the cable company when you then try and get the internet hooked up as well, because their records show someone is already registered at the address.  Doc managed to explain things to them eventually, but then called me with the tragic news that we might have TV but probably not the internet until TUESDAY.

TUESDAY!

I think I can cope, but don't be surprised if blog posts are patchy over the weekend.  I may try texting posts from my phone, but I'm not going to promise anything at this point.  We have a lot of boxes to move and I may well just be asleep when I'm not physically carrying stuff from point A to point B.

Ah, moving day...

Moving House in July.

Ugh.  It's TOO hot.  It reached 90 yesterday, which is the hottest on RECORD, because we're on top of a sodding mountain and that's not supposed to happen.

Edith and I are both just flopping around as if our bones are made from fresh pasta; which is ok for her because she's a cat and that's what she always does, but I am supposed to be getting some packing done in advance of moving.

So far I have packed three boxes full of books, and then I napped for an hour.

This is not the most efficient method.

Front Door.

It seems almost a shame that we will have to put furniture in the front room, it's so gorgeously minimalist right now.

Still two weeks!  Squee!

Three Weeks from Tomorrow!

The rental agent today called Doc C this morning to confirm that our credit check was fine, and so we can pick up the keys on Friday 30th of June.

So we can start moving in three weeks from tomorrow.  I've made up a song about it, which goes:

"Three Weeks Tomorrow! Three Weeks Tomorrow! Three Weeks Tomorrow! Three Weeks Tomorrow! Three Weeks Tomorrow!"

The Doc is also excited by the prospect of moving, but he has said he hopes that the new house is "...everything we hope it is."  I think he's worried that I'll get over excited and expect one of the built in cupboards to lead to a magical land of adventure.

With this in mind, I haven't really liked to mention to him that the whittled cockerel effigy that he found on the porch railing is just a touch "Wicker Man"(1973 - I am aware of no other version); but then, as I mentioned this morning, I have thoroughly considered the zombie escape routes from my office, so let's just call this little stick bird charmingly rustic instead.

House Hunting - Day Two.

Before work this morning we had an appointment to look at a house, and it was actually nice but also actually a shoe-box.  OK, not actually actually, but compact certainly.  I was uncertain if we could fit our bed in the bedroom, and knew for a fact that no bedside tables or chests of drawers would be getting a look in.  The size was probably the only drawback, it was otherwise in a nice quiet location with a tree shaded balcony that I could actually venture onto during the daytime.  Also the owner said that he did not want to rent out any of the units to students, so it was likely to remain nice and quiet.

On the drive to work Doc and I discussed it, and agreed the size really would be an issue; but the more I thought about it the more I thought we could probably manage it if necessary.  In order for it to work there would have to be some serious clutter reduction, and we might need to consider getting a loft bed to maximise the space.  And I actually like those really high beds!  As an only child I'm not entirely clear on why I had bunkbeds as a kid (Moth?), but I loved climbing up the ladder and sleeping high off the ground.  Sleeping on the lower deck was less fun because my hair would sometimes get stuck in the springs of the top bunk, this would not be a problem if the beds were on wooden slats instead of springs though, right?

So that was one option.

I also had the number for the rental agent our friends Randy and Laura were renting through, so Doc gave her a call and five minutes later was on his way (with my camera) to see a house she had available.  He came bouncing back into my office with the news that we were going back this evening, so that I could see it,.. and he had already written a cheque for the deposit and pet fees.  

Apparently if I didn't like it then the cheque would just be torn up by the rental agent, but still!  Crikey!  Doc C can move fast when he wants to!

The house has two floors and a little loft platform thingy (it's like a built-in bunk bed, we could use it for storage or we could put a mattress up there for guests), and the rent is about the same as we pay here now but there it would include basic cable and the house is slightly bigger.  And there is a wrap around covered porch.  And there is a little laundry room just off the downstairs bathroom, which is imminently suitable for litter trays.  And there is a large pond with geese and fish and dragonflies.

We happened to see the agent just as we were leaving, so we've already told her we would like to move in.  She's going to run our credit check tomorrow and, assuming everything is in order, then we can move in on the 1st of August.  Ironically this house is right behind Randy and Laura's house, or what was Randy and Laura's house a week ago.  It would have been so convenient!  But, oh no, they had to move to the other side of town before we even knew this place existed.  Some people, really!

As we drove home Doc was saying this was by far the nicest house we'd seen, and he was really glad to have found somewhere because house hunting is so difficult when you have cats.  I pointed out that we had only really been looking for two days, and he said "And it's been a really difficult two days!"

Doc's asleep on the sofa now.  I think all the excitement has worn him out.

For Rent - Cats Allowed.

After work today we had an appointment to look at one house and a couple of leads on possible locations, then we drove around areas we wouldn't mind living in noting down the numbers on the "For Rent" signs.

The first place I don't think is for us, I think it's too small; although this feeling may have been amplified by the lack of space to move due to the current tenants' untidiness. And if I'm saying that, then you know it's got to be pretty bad.

The second house we only planned to drive by, because it wasn't available to view until next week.  As it turned out I saw a friend of mine outside and we stopped to chat.  He actually lived two houses down, but he told us they were moving soon, because the house in between was infested by loudly partying students during the semester.  Over the summer break there would have been no way we would have known that, so I consider that a close shave.

We have an appointment to look at another house tomorrow morning, and Doc's on the phone to another potential landlord right now.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

The Search for A New House.

During our stay in Washington Doc C got an e-mail telling him our house had been sold, and we had a month's notice to move out.

Which is fine, except it means... House hunting...

Ugh!

Actually I don't mind looking at houses/condos/duplexes themselves, but I do hate trying to find them to view in the first place.  Especially around here, because everything for rent is usually snaffled by students or is surrounded by the little blighters.  It is one thing to work at a university, but it is quite another to have to live near them.  We are just too old for the hi-jinks and Nancy would hate the noise (She did not approve of the fireworks last night, she wasn't frightened by the noise exactly but she looked very put-out by the whole thing).  The two main issues are therefore location and pets.  Is that so very much to ask for under a $1000 a month?  Really?

As I've only just started looking, and I've had a bottle of beer, I'm still being a bit silly and clicking on "air-conditioned" and "wooden floors" as well.  Worth a go.

"The People Who Viewed Our House and Outrageously Alleged It Smelled of Cat" Do Not Have A Leg to Stand On.

To continue the saga of "The People Who Viewed Our House and Outrageously Alleged It Smelled of Cat", when we got home yesterday we both inhaled deeply as we came through the front door and were confident that it would pass even the most finely tuned of noses.  All was well.

I thought nothing else of it; until I came to be tidying up before I went to bed, the last thing I did was to scoop the litter trays and then I noticed something on the bathroom floor.  I picked it up and saw immediately that it was the carefully folded wrapper from a throat lozenge (I have been trying to find a suitably bi-contentinental way of explaining what the damn thing was, without using the actual brand name, all day).  I stomped upstairs and brandished it at Doc C, demanding to know if it was his.  I was already fairly confident that the answer would be no, and, after a few minutes of staring at me in total bewilderment, the penny dropped for Doc C as well.

It had been discarded by "The People Who Viewed Our House and Outrageously Alleged It Smelled of Cat".

How rude is that?  Insult a couple's housekeeping abilities, so that you can almost guarantee that they'll be on their hands and knees scrubbing the floor, or dry-shampooing the carpet; then come back and just drop rubbish in the house.  I was seething, and Doc was equally cross.

Having slept on it we decided not to phone the estate agents to complain, because we don't want to jeopardise a potential sale for our landlady (How bloody nice are we?), but the next time we get a call saying someone wants to view the house we are going to make it very clear that we expect people to refrain from littering in our home.

Grrrh!

Walks Downstairs.

  When I went to Target with Laura I knew I would have the luxury of a good browse without Doc C getting bored very vocally; fond though I am of my husband, it was delightful to shop without him.  I picked things up, I considered their merits and then I moved on, or not, entirely at my own discretion.  

The random selection of objects I purchased has already been documented, and I think it's clear from that that, when I go shopping, I very rarely have a list for what I shall be purchasing.  This is because that is almost guaranteed to make little pixies run ahead of me and buy up all of that particular item.  Plus it's much more fun to be delightfully surprised by stumbling onto a treasure, rather than sadly disappointed when you can't find your sole objective for making the trip.

Anyway, this time I bought a Slinky.

I did used to have a large blue Slinky (it was a proper Slinky though; it was a metal one painted blue, not a rubbish plastic one), which is either at my Mum's house or it's been lost when I've moved house at some point or other.  My blue Slinky was very good at walking down the stairs at my house as a kid, and when I saw this one I thought it might be fun to set it off down the stairs here and see what the cats made of it.  Plus it was only about a dollar.

However, when I got it out of the box at home and set it off down the stairs, it never got further than climbing down a single step.  Doc was surprised at my disappointment and said that in his experience Slinkys (Slinkies?) never work.  The problem is that the steps of a normal staircase have become wider, and the Slinky seems to be smaller; so they are incompatible.  My Slinky either needs an older, narrower, staircase; or my stairs need a larger Slinky.  Either way would freak the cats out judging from their reaction to that great noise the Slinky makes when you run it back and forth between your hands.

Now, of course, I want to find the biggest Slinky available and run it down some really impressive steps.  I'm thinking when we go to Philadelphia next year that I may have to visit Rocky's Steps, because that would be a very good Slinky walking opportunity.

House Cleaning Frenzy - Completed and Explained.

The reason for the intense housecleaning this weekend was that our landlady was bringing an estate agent to look at the house, so she can try and sell it.  We have first refusal, but really, although this houses is nice, it just isn't quite right for us.  We can't let the cats outside here, the neighbours on the left have a psycho yappy dog that is allowed to pee everywhere (The recent snow demonstrated most pointedly that this particular dog is indeed all piss and vinegar), and the neighbours on the right have a Tree-Car!

The main problem with the house itself is simply that it has almost no storage, and we are people who need plenty of storage.  I'm increasingly confused as to where the architect expected the people living here to keep such necessary items as mops, buckets and vacuum cleaners; let alone any actual belongings one might have.  Today we ended up stashing a car-full of stuff in the Mini, and all of the boxes for the TV and computers in the unfinished cellar (American Translation: dirt-floor basement).  I don't know if I've mentioned that part of the house before; but then I tend to forget about it, because to get to it you have to go outside, walk round the neighbour's house and then scramble down a small but steep hill.  It's not really what I would call convenient for storage actually.

Anyway, long story short, when the landlady e-mailed last month to ask if we were staying for another year and if so she would be raising the rent; we decided it was time to look for something else.  We've arranged to stay on a month-by-month contract until we find a new house to rent, and in the meantime we'll have to keep the place looking nice for people coming to view it.

Of course this also means that at some stage in the not too decent future I am going to have to pack again. 

sigh.

I bloody hate packing.

Skirt and Boots.

I bloody love Autumn. Today I wore my brown DM boots, with a skirt from H&M. 

Not just any skirt mind you, this is an olive green heavy cotton skirt, with a black lace print design.  I really like the slightly flared shape, and all in all it's just a great skirt.

Truthfully I haven't been able to wear it for about 5 years, because I've just been too fat for it.  You know how you are supposed to go through your wardrobe and edit out anything you haven't worn for a year or more?  I have a similar method, which simply involves moving house, or even continents, every few years, and see what I can be bothered to pack.  Anything I still really like usually makes the selection.

Which is why I brought a skirt I couldn't actually zip up to America with me.  It's got nothing to do with this being the skirt I wore on my first date with Doc C.  That's just a total coincidence.

Fresh Blood.

Today was Move-In day for the freshman students.

Based on my research, conducted whilst assisting carrying loads of stuff to dorm rooms, I would estimate that the campus levels of yoga mats has been increased by 25%, flat screen TVs by 65%, well loved childhood bunnies by 15% and really short shorts exponentially. 

It's also at least five times louder, and our studies indicate most of that is really terrible music.

Smiley Face, New Bike.

Doc announced this morning that he was going to look at bikes today, with a view to purchasing one. When he moved to London he brought his trusty bike, The Beast, with him and I remember sitting on the grass outside the National Portrait Gallery when we first started dating and seeing him come cycling up and thinking what a handsome devil he was, so I was all for him getting another bike.  For the past year or more I have been trying my best to persuade him that it would be a good investment in his health, both physical and mental, because the man needs to burn off energy some how!

There are some really good bike shops in town so Doc didn't have to travel far for his fix.  He was gone for about three hours, I didn't go because I would just have been in the way really and I wanted to watch more episodes of "Fantasy Island", then I got a text announcing Doc C was a very happy man.  The smiley face I super-imposed on this picture looks positively dour in comparison to the expression he had on his face when he got home with his new friend.

It's a Tarmac made by Specialized, with an all carbon fiber frame, so it weighs a whole 17 pounds.  That's slightly less than the cats weigh, and you definitely can't get anywhere at all on them.

Ngaio Marsh 34: Black Beech and Honeydew.

Here is the last book in our series.  This is Ngaio Marsh's autobiography and I have to say I think they did her proud with this cover.  I love that the white band in the middle, with the same typeface and layout has been used to integrate it with her novels; whilst the image in the oval is the only photograph in the range which I think subtly indicates that this is not a murder mystery.  I also think they chose a nice picture of her, and that it all works together really well.

I read the autobiography, which I like very much, after I read an incredibly boring biography.  I forget who wrote the biography now, all I remember is that it was a woman, but she was very scathing of "Black Beech and Honey Dew" as a source of hard facts whilst committing two unpardonable sins of her own which made me dispose of the book before I moved here.  First the biography is really boring (and that is definitly the fault of the author and not the subject) and long winded, secondly she gave away spoilers without any warning whatsoever!  By way of contrast the autobiography Miss Marsh writes about her own life is very interesting and has some great colourful stories, even though it's true she doesn't address all of the questions one would want answered.

Bookcases As Far As The Eye Can See. Beautiful.

Today we went to the D.I.Y. superstore to see if they had another two of the white bookcases in stock, which, very fortunately, they did.  So we bought those and then I played with all the Halloween stuff that they already had in stock.  I'm pretty keen on getting the small fog machine and tiny strobe light, but I also very much liked the polystyrene gravestones and string of skull lanterns that played the theme from "Halloween" whilst flickering on and off.  I am already getting very excited about the prospect of Halloween, and I really want to have a party this year.

Back to the bookshelves, I put them together this afternoon, and immediately put my books on them.  I have to say this is the first time in my life that I can remember having more shelves than books, and I am very excited to have all that space to fill.  Doc couldn't believe that I didn't have more books here, but as I pointed out I had to get rid of several box-fulls before I moved from Brighton to London, and even more when we moved from the UK to the US.  Plus I've left some in storage with my parents, Thanks Mum!

As you can see our bedroom is quite a rich shade of blue, and all of the bedroom furniture is dark wood (That's the foot of the bed you can see in the foreground of the photo).  When we first moved in we were worried about that blue, because it does seem really dark when you first see it, and I don't think we would have chosen it ourselves, but, hey we're renting, so we've just got used to it.  Still I didn't want to try and match the dark wood furniture with the bookcases, because I wanted to lighten the room up by echoing the white of the skirting boards and ceiling.  I really like how it looks, so I'm pleased we went with that idea.

Finally, yes I did put the photo through Picnik, that's an effect they've just added called Panography-ish.  I really like it!

Clockwork Ants.

Move in went really well as far as I saw, it was really well organised and there were just so many people helping out that it ran very smoothly.

The basic idea was that a car would pull into one of the designated car parks and disgorge it's load of student belongings onto the grass next to that car park.  Everything would then be labeled with a piece of tape and the room number written on it.  The helpers (all wearing special T-shirts and name tags) would descend on the pile and carry it into the dorms, leaving it outside the dorm room, whilst the car was moved to a more out-of-the-way car park.  There were people co-ordinating all of this, insisting cars be moved promptly and telling the helpers which pile of stuff's turn it was to be moved.  It was like watching clockwork ants or something.

For most of the day I was in my office working, but I did carry two loads of stuff and snapped a load of photos to be used on our department's web-page.  It was really fun!

Organised Chaos.

Today is Moving In day on campus.

There will be thousands of students descending on us, and all with at least a car load of stuff with them.  None of the staff or faculty are expecting to find a parking space, or to get much work done today.

It was predicted that it would rain heavily today as well, it hasn't started yet, but the sky does look very grey so it may happen yet.

If I survive, I shall report back to you later.

Things We Left Behind in the Move: Part 1700.

I checked the post this morning and all there was in our lovely little pre-WWII post box was a letter to Doc C from the guy we sub-let from last year.  Naturally my first reaction was "What Now?!?! Another stamp?"

When Doc opened it inside the envelope were an old set of passport photos of Doc C and...

One of our two official copies of our wedding certificate.

How on earth did we leave that behind in the move?  I thought all of that sort of stuff was extremely carefully put away in my Folder of Important Paperwork.  How did this one escape?  And where was it that it's taken over a month for it to turn up?

Most peculiar.

The Ongoing Credit Card Saga.

So you know how I've been here since October right?  And I've got everything pretty much sorted out (apart from that whole full time employment thing, but that is a subject for a whole other post!), with the exception of my last remaining UK credit card.

The problem was that two months ago my credit card company refused to accept my US debit card as a means of payment.  All of the alternative methods of paying the bill that they suggested (after much badgering from me, I may add) automatically incurred the ridiculously high banking fees that are applied to international banking, and would actually more than double my monthly payments.  As a short term solution that might be fine if you are rolling in cash, but if you are a mere mortal it's completely unacceptable.  I contacted their special elite branch of customer services for a better solution.

Last night I got two letters from my credit card company.

One (addressed to my married name) was my latest bill, which categorically stated it had to be paid by the seventh of July, or there would be Consequences because I would then have missed three payment dates.

The other (addressed to my maiden name) was from customer services. The letter said they apologised for how long this was taking, that they appreciated my patience and that they would get back to me by the seventh of July with an answer.

Hmmm.

Do you see the problem there?  I hate to be paranoid, but that's just such a convenient coincidence of dates, isn't it?  It almost seems like they want me to not be able to pay them on time.

It's a damn good thing that I'd already paid my bill really.

It turns out we hadn't closed our joint bank account when we left the UK, which I honestly thought we had, so that meant I could go on-line to use Paypal to transfer money into that account, and then pay the credit card bill with my UK debit card.  Yes Paypal do charge a fee, but it's nowhere near as high and it's not the banks getting it, which has become a point of principle to me.  I'll pay what I owe, and no more!

You know when I was getting ready to move over here, it simply never occurred to me that one of the most enduringly frustrating aspects of the whole thing would be trying to pay my credit card bills.

Bleeding Ears.

One of the things that really bugged us at the old flat was that the girl downstairs would blast music unexpectedly at all hours of the day or night.  She seemed to only own three CD singles, and we could never decipher what songs they were because all we could hear through the floor would be a thumping bass and the highest notes of the vocals.  I know I've mentioned this before, and now we've moved out you would think I could move on but I seem to be suffering from post traumatic stress. 

To get some idea of what it was like I'd suggest that you clamp a stereo speaker to the ceiling of the room directly under your bed.  Make sure that the stereo is turned up as high as it will go, and it needs to make the bed literally shake to be truly effective.  Then set the stereo to play music at random, but preferably very early in the morning or really late at night.  Extra points if you work out an algorithm that ensures that although the music doesn't play every night, but it will always play on nights when it is particularly important that you get a good nights sleep, say the night before a job interview or an international flight.  Now live with that for eight months.

It's actually only today that I've realised that one of the songs was "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis.  I rooted for Leona when she was on "X Factor" and I was delighted when she won, but the negative associations that I now have with her career making international hit are very strong.  It now sets off a Pavlovian reaction, which finds me automatically reaching for my ear plugs.

Moving Offices.

Not content with having moved house, today Doc C is moving offices.  He's going all the way across the hall from his last office, a distance of about 10 feet door-to-door.

The new office does has three distinct advantages

1. It was not formerly been a broom closet (not a joke, it was the actual former use for the Doc's current office)
2. It does not have thin doors leading directly to the classrooms on either side.  This was the set up in the current office, meaning the Doc could hear every word from those classrooms, and has therefore been attending a lot more lectures than he'd intended to.
3. It has it's very own blackboard on one wall.  I fully intend to write graffiti on it regularly.

Of course as the part-time, temporary, assistant departmental secretary there is absolutely nothing in my job description about shifting furniture around, and, as I may have mentioned, Doc C is the only member of staff specifically barred from giving me work to do; yet somehow I have a premonition that I'll be moving bookcases around at some point this afternoon.

Golf: No, We Are Not Intending To Take It Up.

As I may have mentioned we really like our new home, and we enjoy our view looking out over the golf course, but this also brings us to our only slight problem.  It's something we perhaps should have foreseen, but it honestly didn't occur to me as a potential source of aggravation.

The issue is that now we live on a golf course people keep telling us that we have to start playing golf, and we do not want to.

Neither of us are remotely interested in playing golf, it does not strike me as the type of game that I will be any good at, and, whilst Doc can hit the ball if forced to, he doesn't really like it either.  Still Doc's family in particular have decided golf will be our new hobby, with his Dad actually saying this week that "Golf is a good game for married couples". Which I'm sure it can be, just not this married couple.

I have a very real concern that at Christmas we will find ourselves unwrapping matching argyle sweaters and quite possibly golf club cosies, with a comedy British theme to them. 

I think I fear the matching jumpers most of all.  shiver.

Kinetic Phase Two Week Seven: Umm...

Quite honestly this week I've been enjoying luxuriating in all this space and quiet in an aesthetically pleasing environment.  I did switch on Kinetic to check that I had enough space and light, but that has really been it.

Ok, I know I am being most remiss about my work out schedule this month, but we have just moved house and it takes a bit of time to get everything organised properly. 

And I also knew writing about this on my blog would make me feel guilty; so, knowing me, that will probably be the impetus get back into the routine next week.  I don't want to have to write another post explaining myself next Sunday, two in a row is quite enough.

I have finished reading the nutrition bookthough, and it was very interesting (Jayne at Barfoot Kitchen Witch posted something similar today.  It's a good-food-prepared-lovingly conspiracy!)  I didn't know what to expect from it when I bought it, but rather delightfully it preaches almost exactly the type of diet I've been trying to follow for years, which I based on the sensible advice of my Mother combined with additional bits of information gathered from here and there.  It's nice to have that synthesised into an actual medically sound argument though.  It sort of bolsters my belief in my own nutritional common sense.

Essentially it all boils down to:  I could stand to eat a lot more fruit and vegetables, and no I don't really need that biscuit.

The Sofa Has Landed!

Two picture posts in one day?  I know, Crazy!

This second shot is celebrating the fact that the sofa arrived today.  A mere twenty four hours late, which I believe is what they call "Mountain Time".

Last night Doc C was furious about this, having waited in all afternoon for the sofa to arrive; but when the delivery guys arrived today and immediately started apologising profusely, all he said to them was "That's Ok, shit happens!"

That is one thing I love about The Doc, he picks his moments to have a rant very wisely and will otherwise simply opt to be very chilled out about things (People at The Booth are probably reading this and saying "Whatever!", but it's totally true... outside of ticket sales).

Finally having a sofa is great but, even better, the multi-region DVD player arrived today; so I think we might be going shopping for a flat screen TV after work.  Eeeeeehhhhh!!!!

Coffee Table

This is our new coffee table doing what it does best - Holding an entirely random selection of our stuff about a foot above the floor.

If you go to the Flickr image (I've set it so when you click on this photo it'll take you straight there!  The wonders of the new Typepad compose page are manifold!), I may have gone mad with the labels function.  But that is what it's there for after all.

Shiny-and-Dead Plus Sweet-and-Pink

I put these two little figurines on our new dressing table, and thought they make quite a good visual representation of my split personality.

On the one hand, I love that sweet little Momiji doll; and her dress and parasol are both so pretty and pink! Plus she's called Sunshine, and she was my very mysterious Secret Santa gift from the last Christmas Do I attended at The Booth. 

On the other hand, can you really get much more fabulous than a Mexican-Day-of-the-Dead-Cabaret-Singer figurine?  She's wearing full-length black-glitter dress!  She could easily be a Drag Queen!  And I bought her on my first trip to Boston with The Doc, at a great shop called Buckaroos' Mercantile where the shop owner stepped in eventually to stop me buying stuff.

I also think that together (if they were real live people), they would make a fabulous Eurovision entry... sigh...

Wait, Let Me Check My Blog...

When a resident alien, such as myself, moves house they have to let USCIS know within ten days; failure to report a change of address is "...punishable by fine or imprisonment and/or removal."  So I did that yesterday, and all it really requires is filling in a form on-line.  Easy.

It's not a complicated form, I was fine with the past and present addresses, and even my alien ID number; but when asked the date of my last entry into the US and my port of entry I had one of those moments.  I knew the answers to those questions, I really did, but for a few seconds I doubted myself and I certainly did not want to make a mistake on a form required by the US Government on pain of fine or imprisonment and/or removal.  It might not look good.

That is when keeping a blog came into it's own.  I opened up another window, went to Alien Spouse and was confidently filling out those official boxes within moments.

Thanks Alien Spouse!  It's like having an actual memory!

Blue Glitter Skull Badge.

Today got off to an excellent start when I was putting some of my things away, and found my blue glitter skull badge.

This was a present from the ever gorgeous Ginger Jen, and it was my "something blue" for my wedding to The Doc (he had skulls on his tie and socks too.  Which makes it sound like a goth wedding, it really wasn't.)  I had the badge pinned onto the strap of my little black satin handbag, but I took it off when we went out to our anniversary dinner a few months ago and have been looking for it ever since.

I have no idea how it got into my pink-with-brown-polka-dots satin weekend bag, but I was delighted to see it there.

We Could Have Gone Tasteful, But Where Is The Fun In That?

Rich and Kev were shown the local sights whilst I was at work yesterday, and very much liked our small town and the university campus.  In fact they are planning to come again, and stay long enough to fit in a round of golf.

Rich was slightly disappointed that they hadn't been able to fit the sofa on the truck, but as it happens we found one that we like in a thrift shop today.  It's a three-seater sofa bed, which is upholstered in a beige, green, orange and brown plaid.  It's as if they'd rounded up a bunch of golfers in the seventies and skinned them for their sports coats to make our new sofa.  It's so tacky it has come back around to being really fun, it's very comfortable and it's being delivered on Thursday afternoon.

Plus it was $70 (With another $20 knocked off that, but then delivery was $20.  So let's call it full price, with free delivery.)  In the same thrift shop we also found a little square coffee table that could do with a polish, but that is otherwise in good condition.

So we are almost fully furnished!  It's very exciting!

The Story of Our Bedroom Furniture.

We spent most of yesterday waiting for The Doc's brother Rich, and his buddy Kev, to arrive with some furniture that Rich was giving to us.  He was driving it down from Boston, and we were told to expect him on Sunday morning.  At about mid-day we got a phone call to say they were in Pennsylvania, so we knew it was going to be awhile.

Through out the afternoon we were anxiously watching the weather, because the furniture was being moved in an open-bed truck, with a tarp tied over the top of it.  When it started to rain, we were concerned. When it started to rain really hard, we made detailed plans for how best to protect the brand-new cream carpets from the wet furniture.  We were particularly worried about the sofa.  How would we save a water logged sofa?  Would there be any point in trying?  How much Febreeze would it require to really get rid of that mildew smell?  Which local thrift shops did furniture collection?

We got a couple of progress reports through out the afternoon that did nothing to assuage our concerns; the tarp had been ripped to shreds by the storm and they were stopping to buy a new one; they'd been the front car in a triple rear-ending, but it was ok and they were back on the road now.

In the end they arrived at about midnight, and immediately unloaded all of the furniture, which was surprisingly dry.  Rich and Kev even lugged a chest of drawers, a dressing table and various bits of bed frame upstairs to our bedroom.  Clearly to Bostonians driving for 17 hours is no obstacle to completing a job properly.

We needn't have worried about the sofa; it hadn't fitted on the truck, so they brought a small desk instead.

Kinetic Phase Two Week Six: Yes, About That...

I knew I probably would find this week difficult to fit exercise into, what with the whole moving house thing, but as it turned out I didn't do any!  The living room was filled with boxes all week, and I packed all of my exercise clothes on Tuesday, so it was pretty much over and done with then.

No doubt Matt would have a few things to say about commitment, and having to put in a sustained effort to get results, but I've decided not to beat myself up about it.  We've had a very busy week, and I haven't had the time or the resources.

I did however buy a set of scales for the bathroom, which is unheard of for me.  I have never owned scales before, but as I have a specific weight loss goal I think they are necessary.  That doesn't mean I'll be adding my weight to each week's Kinetic round-up, it's just an additional tool in my personal weight loss project.

At the same time we bought a blender (Black and Decker, 20% off at Lowes!), to make smoothies with.  Sometimes I just do not want salad, and a smoothie would be a nice change of pace.  When I say smoothie I mean a drink made with fresh fruit and some vegetables (like spinach or avocado) with yoghurt and/or tofu.  I'm not planning on adding ice cream and calling it health-food, or anything daft like that.

I also bought another book on nutrition, so stand by for my discovering some fantastic new food that will change my life forever.  Actually I doubt that will happen, but I like the author's approach so far, and I may drop the odd tip-bit in here if I find out about some nutritional gold mine.

So in summary, a bad week for exercise, but a good week for overall intentions for my future health.

The Things We Left Behind.

We got a phone call from today from the guy we had previously been subletting from.  He had noticed that there were a few things we had forgotten to take with us.

The Doc popped over to pick them up, and the list includes:

• A single one penny British stamp.
• A handful of small change found under the sofa.  To be totally precise there were five one cent coins.
• A stove-top kettle (which, fair enough, we had forgotten accidentally on purpose).
• A frying pan, which wasn't ours, but he absolutely insists was not his.
• One of those blue ice-pack thingies for keeping coolers cold in summer.  We do not have a cooler to keep cool, so again this isn't ours.
• All of the cleaning products we had left there, to replace the ones we had used.  Including half a bottle of washing-up liquid.
• Charcoal lighter fluid.  We have burnt no charcoal since leaving London.
• Insect repellent.
• A shopping list we had left on the fridge.

Umm, Thanks?

Care Package.

As a housewarming present Mum sent us some essentials, and she timed it pretty well perfectly because it actually arrived on Thursday and we collected it from the post office on Friday.

Inside the parcel were digestive biscuits, Marmite in a squeezy jar, a fridge magnet that miaows, some Thai spices, a Dr Who adventure on CD, alphabet cookie cutters and a small selection of M&S finest knickers and nightwear. The shorts from the pyjama set go with our pink satin quilt rather well, as you can see. I gave them the Cinema-scope treatment, because you really can't get much more glamorous than holding up your PJs with a big pink satin bow!  They look like something Sandra Dee would have worn whilst having a pillow fight!

We had tea and the dark chocolate digestives, sitting by the windows again, as soon as I got home this evening.  After that we rushed out to buy the ingredients for Thai fried rice with pineapple, coconut and prawns; this is cooked by the Doc to a recipe for which those Thai spices Mum sent were an elusive and vital ingredient.

So my Mum basically arranged for us to have one of our favourite meals, that we've been missing for months now, on our second night in our new home. 

My Mum ROCKS!

Birdies and Bunnies and Golfers! Oh My!

I promise I will stop talking about the new house.

Just not today.

We love it!  It's so peaceful, but yet not boring because of all The Nature.  When you look out of the window you see grass, ponds and streams, trees, birds, bunnies, golfers and occasionally a Siamese no-tail cat we are choosing to call "Stumpy", who stares at us whenever we are out on the deck.  Add to that, that whilst driving to and from the house in the past 24 hours, we have seen chipmunks, frogs and even more bunnies. 

This is as opposed to the view from our old place of a car park of beaten-up cars, and then a five lane highway, before your eye could land gratefully on the greenery of the nearest mountain ridge.  And driving to and from we never saw any animals whatsoever; unless you count monster trucks, which I do not.

Imagine this:  When you stand on the deck you do not hear wanna-be frat boys wrestling, and singing along to appallingly misogynistic rap; in fact what you hear is the gentle sound of water running in a stream, and birds singing.

It is ridiculously pleasant.

Oh, and our new bed arrived yesterday and I am here to say that I love memory foam mattresses and pillows.  Particularly when you can smugly say that you didn't pay for the hyper expensive swiss type, but in fact went with a local company at a fraction of the price.

I give the new house Two Thumbs Up, and I look forward to our first weekend there.

A House Warming for Two.

I can highly recommend celebrating your first night in a new house by drinking Chardonnay Champagne from Sailor Jerry pint glasses (recently purchased from Newberry Comics, Boston, MA).

It induces a pleasant feeling of squiffiness.

Welcome to Our New Home!

We were already up and putting stuff in the car at eight thirty this morning, and we stopped off at Panera Breads for pastries, so we could have breakfast in our new home.

That's our view!  And those are our new floor cushions!  And on the plain white plate are our delicious pastries!

Hoorah!

We Have Keys!

So Doc C picked me up from work yesterday (actually he showed up at four because he was bouncing off the walls with excitement.  I made him go to his office until I'd finished for the day), then we went to our new house to meet up with our lovely landlady and get the keys.

I don't know if it's because the house has been re-carpeted, or if we are both true pessimists at heart, but we had both remembered the house being an awful lot smaller than it really is.  It was a pleasant surprise to find the kitchen isn't post-it size, it's actually at least A4.

We started lugging stuff over from the old place straight away, pausing only to pick up take-away pizza and buy shower curtains, so we actually got most of it done by about 10.30.  We were seriously considering sleeping on the floor there, but Doc C thought that might screw up his back, so we went back to the old place for one last night.  sigh.

So tomorrow we'll probably need to do two or three more runs, and that'll be it.  One thing you can say for having moved internationally is that it certainly hones your packing skills.  We are almost frighteningly efficient now.

It's Not All Sunshine and Flowers - Just Mostly!

As I've mentioned we are very excited about the new house, but there are a couple of negative points about the move that I should mention. 

For one thing the kitchen is tiny, I'd estimate it's about the size of a large post-it note.  Fortunately for me that is The Doc's domain for the most part; and he was so hypnotised by the wood-burning fire in the living room, that he decided he could live with having to back out of the kitchen, because there is no space to turn around.

Secondly we checked up on cable and internet charges, and, Wow, it is expensive.  it's fine for the first six months but then the price more than triples, and we're not falling for that old trick.  Not till I'm employed in a full time capacity that is.

So I'll now be mainly blogging from work; which is sort of what I'm doing right now, ahem, so it shouldn't effect your regular Alien Spouse transmission adversely during the week.  However if I do get a bit sporadic on weekends, you'll know the reason why.

Reasons to Move.

We are ready to move!  Let's do this!  Everything we own in the Mini, right now!

Ok, so actually we don't get the key until after five this evening, and we have to sleep in the old place tonight because our new bed isn't being delivered until tomorrow.  Other than that we are all systems go, Go, GO!!!

I thought I'd post a couple of pictures to illustrate what we definitely won't be missing.

This first shot is a delightful portrait of the en-suite bathroom toilet's cistern, are you with me so far?  Do you see the little pink valve?  Do you see the white thing attaching the chain to the valve?  It looks a bit like a freezer bag twist, doesn't it?  Mainly because that is exactly what it is.

I doubt that's a job done by a professional plumber, my money would be on a DIY cheap fix by the owners.  The problem is that occasionally it will get stuck and prop the valve wide open, and the toilet is left running.  Or, even sneakier, it will prop it open just a little bit, so there is a slow trickle and then the cistern will flush itself every so often, it especially loves to do this late at night.  So after flushing you are required to stand next to the damned thing and check if it all sounds right before you can walk away. 

I will not miss that!

The second picture, which is a bit fuzzy, is of the power sockets behind our bed.  That beige thing is the box spring, and usually you can't see this socket because our mattress is flush with this wall.  I only noticed this last week, whilst looking for a power source to charge my phone from, but I felt uncomfortable using it.  As The Doc said "How has our bed not caught on fire?"

I will not miss that either!

Couple that with the lack of sound proofing, and the vertical blinds that are slightly too short, meaning there is a light shining in my eyes all night and I think you start to get the picture.

In short our flat is an annoying death trap, bring on moving day!

Packed and Ready to Go!

We are getting the keys to our new house tomorrow evening, and officially moving in on Thursday.  We are both very happy and excited about this.

The Doc has been packing for the past couple of days, been even more impressively somehow managed to get me to pack most of my belongings this evening.

I know for a fact my Mother probably needed to sit down for a moment when she read that.  She's had to move me more times then anyone else, and how she's remained sane is beyond me; I say that mainly because I am legendarily bad at being packed on time.  At the end of my first year of University Mum came to pick me up, only to find I'd left all of my posters and postcards up on the walls to show her because I was so proud of the artistic arrangement.  She was visibly dismayed by all of the work there was still left to do.

I don't know what's changed, maybe as I've grown older I've simply learnt that moving is less painful if you just get all the preparation done in a timely fashion; or possibly Doc C used some sort of Jedi Mind Trick on me.  He's always doing that.

Either way, I am ready for Thursday now and I am delighted at the prospect of getting out of here.

The Boys-Next-Door

The Boys-Next-Door left for the summer at the weekend, it's been lovely and quiet ever since.  They are clearly coming back though because the fishing tableau is still there, and impressively survived the not-a-tornado the other night.

They've also left a light on in their apartment.

I was considering telling the letting agents, so they could go in and switch it off, but The Doc is against that idea.  He thinks that it's not our business to police their lighting bills, and they wouldn't thank us if we did. Which is true. 

Anyway, they're probably growing, um, something in there and I really don't want to get involved. 

Once again, I cannot wait until we move...

Boxing Day.

I'm at work this afternoon, but The Doc has no office based commitments today, so he is at home.  He's starting to pack ready for our move on Thursday.

Before he dropped me off at work today (I usually do walk, but because of the high winds I was driven in for a change) Doc C told me of his intent to pack up the whole of the living room, with the exception of the playstation, and maybe start on his stuff.

I'm not concerned about what I'll find when I get home.  I'm sure he'll do a very thorough job.  Eep.

Moving in May Rocks!

We have purchased (or got a binding quote on) the following items for our new house:

1. Cutlery (Reduced in the sale at the kitchen place)
2. Mattress and box spring (Reduced in the sale at the Mattress place)
3. Memory foam pillows (Reduced in the sale at JC Penney)
4. Full set of sheets and pillow cases (Reduced in the sale at JC Penney)
5. New towels (Reduced in the sale at JC Penney)
6. A vacuum cleaner (Reduced in the sale at Kmart)

Do you notice a trend here? 

So far we have not paid the full retail price for anything.  The April sales are our friends.

Mattresses - The Final Showdown.

We went back and re-tested the mattresses on our short list.  It was another really tough afternoon of being extremely comfortable.

We had to lie on them for fifteen minutes each, and on the first one this seemed like a really long time.  I think we knew we'd found a winner with the second mattress, when the Doc had to make a real effort to wake himself up and ask me how long we'd been testing that mattress.  That's when I checked the time, and found that we'd been happily dozing there for 25 minutes.  In the middle of the shop showroom.

So we are going with the locally-made faux-tempurpedic, so that means it's helping the local economy and hasn't been shipped a ridiculous distance so it's also an enviromentall sound choice. Of course it doesn't hurt that this was also the cheapest of our top two, and is mysteriously $50 cheaper if we buy the box spring with it, rather than if we just buy the mattress.  Well, ok then, we'll take the box spring too I suppose.

It's a lot cheaper than buying a bed back in England, but it's still pretty expensive considering our current budget.  With this in mind, I'm fairly certain that the furniture in our new place is going to be a luxuriously comfortable bed in our room, and a charming selection of floor cushions everywhere else.