4.8.99

    Well, we're here. We're in our new home, which is twice the size of the old home, and there's boxes everywhere and plenty of things to do but we're listening to jazz and just puttering around.

    Putter. Putter. Putter.

    The drive up from L.A. was fairly non-eventful. We hit some crazy weather for a couple hours round about south of Sacramento but nothing too exciting. I was astounded at the beauty of the land the entire way. My favorite was acres and acres of cherry trees which had just begun to bloom. We also saw a field of what looked like thousands of cows. Oddly enough, the Holsteins seemed to stay grouped together.

    We stopped the first night in Red Bluff, 30 miles south of Redding, at a Days Inn. Not a bad little motel. For $38 we got two beds and a nice clean shower and nary a roach in sight. T. and I ended up sleeping in separate beds so that we could spread out. I ended up having dreams all night of trying to keep up with him and losing him again and again. We were driving separate cars, me in the Honda and he in the truck, so that's where those thoughts came from but I bet I wouldn't have dreamed at all if I could have snuggled up next to him.

    After getting through Shasta and Grants Pass we split up. I raced on ahead to try and get to our new apartment before the rental office closed. They told us that they wouldn't wait a minute past six o'clock. Frequently pushing 90 miles an hour, I drove like a bat out of hell. I arrived at the rental office at 5:52 p.m. to be greeted by the snottiest woman that works here. She really must work incredibly hard to keep up the her consistent level of snottiness. She has been nothing but rude to us since we met her.

    I got the keys to our new apartment and started unloading the car. A scant thirty minutes later and T. shows up. I couldn't believe it. Granted, I hit a little bit of rush hour traffic getting into Portland but for the crazy way I was driving and to beat him by only thirty minutes it didn't seem worth it. Although, we would've had to sleep in a hotel otherwise so I guess it was a good thing.

    We pulled the truck up to the apartment and unloaded just enough stuff to get our bed unloaded. The mattress must've gained weight in the drive because I was ready to lay down and cry by the time we got it into the bedroom. I was exhausted, done for, worked, dead. So, we went to dinner.

    I have to say that T. has a remarkable amount of patience. I was horribly. I was bitchy and irritated and completely out of my mind. I snapped at him several times and gave blank stares in answer to easy questions. After a giant dinner of fajitas, chips and strawberry margaritas at Chevy's, I was back to my old self. Food never tasted so good.

    Two buildings down from us is a friend of mine from college, Byrne. She lives there with her hubby, Dave. I didn't know Dave that much in college but he's a great guy. All of my close girlfriends from college have the most wonderful boyfriends and husbands. I'm really proud of all of us for having chosen so well. Dave came over yesterday and helped us move the rest of our stuff in. We were so grateful as we were both so tired and it would've taken twice as long.

    Last night, Byrne and Dave cooked us dinner, too, which was lovely. I hope they don't get sick of us because we like them a lot. They're good people.

    Last saturday night, our friends in L.A. threw us a little going away party. It was so bittersweet. There are a few things we'll miss about Los Angeles. We'll miss Inn 'n' Out, the best fast food burgers in the world. We'll miss the stellar entertainment and our favorite radio show, Kevin and Bean on KROQ. It's hard to say that we'll miss the weather because Southern California just doesn't have weather. Constant sunshine just isn't weather no matter what you think. What we'll really miss, without a doubt, are the friends we made down there. It is sometimes hard to find good people and I wonder why we can't all be in the same place at the same time. Thank God for email.

    I have to tell you this story. It's about one of the reasons we're glad to be out of L.A. The apartment we were living in was pretty bad. It was tiny and ugly and stinky and our neighbors were annoying. A month after we moved in the carport ceiling collapsed on my car, denting the hood. Two months after we moved in our other car was broken into and we had all our CDs stolen and our stereo. While we lived there we put up with the entire complex's brood playing two feet from our front windows. We put up with our next-door neighbor's thug son (Tourettes Boy Who Doesn't Have Tourettes) and his thug friends hanging out playing the radio way too loud and carving their names into the communal picnic table. We put up with polka music. We put up with the indoor/outdoor fighting of our white-trash landlords. In short, we hated that place.

    Usually, T. and I would go to a laundromat so that we could get all of our laundry done in just a few hours without having to battle our entire complex for two machines. About a month and a half ago, for some strange reason, I did a few loads of laundry in our complex laundry room. A few days after that I noticed that I couldn't find my brand new jeans. Also missing were my khaki shorts, T.'s new workout shorts and a few of his T-shirts. Someone had stolen them from our laundry.

    While we were fairly outraged there was nothing that we figured could be done. T. had seen some people using the facilities that didn't live in our complex. It's not a locked area and everyone has equal access to it. We figured that it was a lost cause and we never really said anything.

    On Monday, with all of our belongings packed up in the truck and the apartment cleaned out and cleaned up, T. went to our manager's door to get him to do a walk-through with us. He comes to the door wearing one of my shirts. Not just any shirt but a University of Oregon, Oregon Commentator shirt. This was the shirt that I got when I was a writer for the Oregon Commentator while in college.

    We were flabbergasted.

    We didn't know what to do but we decided not to say anything. Tomorrow we'll call the owner's of the building and let them know what kind of people they have running the show there. We figured that if we confronted Chuck, our white-trash manager, that then we'd have to make them turn out their dresser drawers for the rest of the items. And, since we were out of there that very minute, there was nothing to keep him from a little retribution, possibly knock a few holes in our walls and then make us pay.

    We just couldn't and can't believe it. Of all the people to be stealing from you, it's the damn managers.

    Yes, we're glad to be out of there.