checking things off the list ...

2006-07-06 - 11:39 a.m.

Letter to a woman I'm meeting at a conference this weekend:

This is what I've been up to:

In December we bought a new house. It's 100 years old this August (which
is pretty old for California). It's most recent 40 years have been as a
rental unit owned by a cheap old man who was making no money off it
(rent control) so put nothing into it. Also, it had been turned into a
duplex. So -- we're turning it back into a house (it's a two story
B̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲----- brown shingle, which is sort of a box with Victorian trim
inside and brown shingles outside) and it seemed to need rewiring,
replumbing, reshingling, replastering .... Really -- it will be great,
eventually.

So then we're also trying to sell the house we're living in, which has
been big fun. We think we have a buyer, but it's not all signed yet, so
you never know ...

And then N, our daughter, who's 16, is going off to Spain for a
month. Right now she's at my mother's in Massachusetts, so I'm trying
over the phone to calm my mother down about getting N on the plane with
all the necessary articles while also trying to actually make sure that
N gets on the plane with all the necessary articles. From what I can
tell, N is lying on the bed with major cramps, refusing to pack,
while my mother is quietly pulling all her hair out in another room on
the phone to me, worrying especially that N won't eat anything. Hmmm.
I'm imagining that it will all work out somehow. Plus, children are
fairly resilient.

Then we're planning to meet N is Madrid in a month (assuming that
we're not bankrupt from home renovation). But I worried about that a
month or so ago, and I think it's all taken care of.

So A--- has not exactly been the focus of my thoughts ... But oh it will
be, very soon --

See you Sunday!

C

This is sort of exactly what I'm up to. They should be off to the airport by now, so hopefully I'll hear from them once they're through security. My poor mother -- I know this is taking years off her life! She's probably driving N crazy, too. (I can just see the sort of crocodile face she'll make while asking for a gate pass. Gulp.)

On the other hand, she's much more capable than she imagines, so once she's in the swing of things she'll be fine.

N is being met by some guy named Javier in Granada. !!! I guess he'll have a sign. Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well and that all the pieces fall into place so that when I call Javier tomorrow morning he'll have her in his clutches.

There was some awful story on NPR yesterday about these Korean exchange students who came over to America and ended up staying in some seedy hotel for months at a time. Some cultural exchange!

We're assuming that that won't happen to N.

In other news, I went home last night and told K and M my new thinking on the house -- "we'll use boxes for furniture and it will be fine!" M declared that I had gone insane -- apparently there was a sort of fanatical gleam in my eye -- and K concurred. Hmmm.

BUT -- I have talked to the cabinet man and he can make all the changes we want and he also seems to know exactly what he's doing. Everything the architect wondered about, he wondered, too, and was happy to make all the suggested changes.

Yay!

So -- I feel a lot better about that.

Now I have to worry about boarding the cats, and moving.

out of print - new releases

find me! - 2008-02-12
where I've gone - 2008-02-07
Where I've gone - 2008-02-05
where I've gone - 2008-02-01
New - 2008-02-01

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