Posts Tagged ‘moving’

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Homes have anniversaries too – the cabin is two


2010
05.30

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As I sit here at the cabin waiting for paint to dry, I realize that Memorial Day weekend, two years ago, we moved in.  I think that has to be the strangest, funniest, and unusual move ever.

Background

My husband and I used to go for drives all the time – up Kern Canyon, to Gorman Post Road, Rancheria Road at dusk to look for animals – but we hadn’t done that in a long time.   So approximately two years five months ago, I said, “I’d like to take a ride up the canyon.”  We did, we stopped at Cheryl’s Diner for lunch, and here’s how it went from there.

The Surprise Quest

  1. We talk about how we’ll never leave Bakersfield, even though our kids and my sister and even we are always talking about escaping.
  2. We talk about how everyone wants a place close to nature, with wildlife, better air, etc.
  3. I have a V8 moment: we could BUY A CABIN close by that anyone in the family could use to get away!
  4. We quickly do calculations in our head to see if we can afford it.
  5. We start for home and pass Alta Sierra.
  6. We see an open house sign and go in.
  7. We go back the next day and make an offer.
  8. We start escrow and then pull out when we find out improvements were made without building permits.

The Right Place

  1. Once started, momentum builds until we find the cabin we want.
  2. Being us, it doesn’t take very long.  Why confuse ourselves with too many choices?
  3. To get to this cabin to see it, however, we hike about ½ mile in deep snow.
  4. Our realtor slips and slides behind us in her Uggs.
  5. We get there, stand on the balcony, look down, and see a plowed road.  All the hiking for naught.
  6. Mark gets the car and brings it to us.
  7. We make the offer and wait for the brand new cabin (ok, a two-story house) to be finished.

The Preparation

  1. Ikea becomes our best friend.
  2. We make scale models of the rooms and scale models of the beds we liked at Ikea
  3. “We” means my husband because I can’t make anything precise that has numbers involved.
  4. Goal – sleep as many people as possible.
  5. We move the little beds around the little rooms and find we can sleep 12 if we buy two bunks that are queen sized on the bottom and single on the top.  Plus four beds and regular bunks.
  6. We make trip after trip to Ikea in Burbank, 90 miles away.
  7. Once, we pick up my sister at the Burbank airport and barely have room for her in the car.  Yes, we’d been to Ikea.

The Move, Memorial Day Weekend, 2008

That’s the cabin way up there.  The U-haul is in the neighbor’s driveway.

  1. Rent the U-haul.
  2. Enlist as many people as we can to help, which is the grandkids, our daughter, and her husband.  My brother showed up for a while too.
  3. Drive the U-haul and crammed cars and find we can make it easier by parking the U-haul in the neighbor’s driveway.
  4. Begin to understand just how steep our driveway (which is dirt) is as innumerable trips are made to the car.
  5. Realize stairs would be very helpful.
  6. Finally get it all in, realizing that tired Mark and Matt have to assemble all the beds by bedtime.
  7. Have the grandkids assembly all the lamps so we’ll have plenty of light.
  8. Turn on the faucets and find out we have NO HOT WATER!
  9. Call the builder in a panic, leave a message, figure out how to configure dial-up internet and send the builder an email.
  10. Get no response.
  11. Call the electrician whose name the builder gave us.

And next

  1. Watch the ELECTRICITY go out, negating the rush to put the lamps together.
  2. TRY NOT TO PANIC EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT LIVING IN THE MOUNTAINS AND PROPANE TANKS AND SEPTIC SYSTEMS AND WHO TO ASK FOR ANYTHING.
  3. Calm down
  4. Walk a couple of houses away, find out their electricity is out also, borrow candles, and go out to dinner.
  5. Laugh so hard on the way back from dinner, probably about nothing at all although cows figured in, that emergency restroom moments occur.
  6. The ELECTRICITY IS ON.
  7. The electrician has stopped by just out of kindness (Matt didn’t go to dinner) and says the hot water heater is no good.
  8. Send more panicked messages to builder.

Next

  1. Listen to your daughter tell the kids that they CANNOT STAY all weekend and they’ll be leaving the next day.
  2. Endure general displeasure.
  3. Sleep.

Settling in


  1. Get up Sunday morning to find the Bakersfield Six (grandkids) have made PROTEST SIGNS and “chained” themselves to the beds to prevent leaving.
  2. Have mom waver on leaving.
  3. Continue unpacking, go to Lake Isabella to pick up some needed items from a city that has a good hardware store, a Vons, but not much else.  Oh yes, a McDonalds.
  4. Return to find the kids washing their hair in COLD WATER just to prove they can do it without hot water.

Walking down to the Greenhorn Grill for lunch

  1. Go to lunch, get seated, look at the table next to us, and it’s OUR BUILDER who has not returned any messages.
  2. He says,” after I finish eating, I’ll install a NEW HOT WATER HEATER I have in my truck.”  (He only lives about 4 HOURS away.)
  3. His name changes from BUILDER to GOD.
  4. The mood lightens.

Monday morning

  1. We see a deer.
  2. Even though it’s Memorial Day, it lightly snows.

The rest of the weekend proceeds smoothly, but wow, what an introduction.

AND THEN we proceed to enjoy the cabin.  Mark builds stairs, we get asphalt put on the driveway, and we spend quite a bit of time up there.  I love going up alone.  I don’t think I’d be doing art if it weren’t for the cabin.  The kids come up, we sled in the winter, laze in the summer, and do a whole lot of nothing.

We have our Chinese lanterns on the balcony and I have my Star Trek flag hanging.

This is the wildlife we’ve seen, mostly on the drive up and back.

Wild turkeys

Wild turkey chicks

Quail

Robins

Stellar jays

Western tanager

Rose-breasted nuthatch

White-headed woodpecker

Black-eyed junco

Ravens

Other woodpeckers

Magpies

Martin – it was amazing to see a martin

Deer

Wildcats – I’ve seen four!

Coyote

Raccoons

Looking back at older posts, I see I’ve written lots about cabin adventures.  I don’t think my husband is enjoying it very much – yet – but this year we can work on that.  The rest of the family loves it.  During these years, retired but not old, family seems to be what it’s all about.  Giving your family good times and pleasure is everything.


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Connect the Dots – an End to Strange Days


2010
05.10

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Posted in Essays about Life, General | 1 Comment »


Can you do great art, or even good art, or any art, while waiting in an airport? You can do the “any art” category with sticky things from an American Girl  polka dot book and watercolor pencils.   You can connect the dots.

I had a lot of time in the Denver airport, so I fooled around with a journal page I started at my daughter’s house.  It was idle time, which lets my brain sort, file, and process.  After all the mess of moving, during which I went to the soccer tournament in Las Vegas, the art opening in Oceanside, and Colorado for 10 days, I felt rather scattered.  Travel time helped me connect the dots.

I came home feeling settled, unhurried, and interested in connecting with family and friends.  I felt like, although we still have boxes and boxes to go and lots of little details, that I can be part of real life again.  It’s been like having a cold or the flu – you know you must have felt well at one time in your life, but you can’t remember what it felt like and can’t imagine feeling like that again.  And then, one day, you are better.  You remember.

During this time I had written an email to William.  Life was feeling surreal to me, and by writing I can process.  I called it Strange Days, and I’m going to copy it in here to try to explain how disturbing this move has been.  (I changed all the “yous” to “William” so it would make more sense.)

April 15, 2010

I’m having the oddest feelings lately and it’s all connected to moving.  Having made the conscious decision to move, making sure that we chose the kind of house we think we should grow old in, every single thing I put away, every picture I hang, takes on a new meaning.

My bedroom is now in its satisfactory state of clutter.  The only thing in the room indicating it’s a bedroom at all is the bed.  That’s a pretty strange and unconventional approach to a bedroom, but for me it’s functional.  Mostly it’s an office – I have two printers and a scanner, a computer, all my photo supplies.  Large bookcase.  I have a new curio cabinet full of all my little collectibles – the enameled boxes in the shapes of animals, the little glass animals, old metal monopoly markers, my Planter’s Peanuts salt and pepper shakers, an old skate key, a metal ice cream spoon that used to come with those sundaes in the freezer case, etc.  So many of the objects are rooted in the past.

As I put the objects in the cabinet, I think, what will these objects mean to me when I’m 73, or 83, or 93?  Will they be a comfort to me and I’ll still enjoy them? I have this odd desire to render everything sterile right now. But at the same time I plan to buy cabinets so I can finally display my Star Trek action figures and my Harry Potter action figures.  Then my mind fights a battle with itself – you’re 63 and you collect action figures?  You want to display them?  Well, why not?  Why can’t I do what I want?  But is it going to matter in 10 years?  Then I wonder why I’m thinking about it at all.

I feel kind of removed from things.

I look at the wall across from where I’m sitting – I put up pictures today.  There are five objects on the wall opposite.  My Bright Eyes Buddha poster, the birch tree photo I took in Alaska, the green leaf photo William took, the map William drew in 7th grade, and the beautiful leaf and fruit he drew for me the first year I came to Lugano.  Then on other walls there are two posters Michael gave me from shows he was in, two mirrors he made for me, lizards William gave me for my birthday the third year in Lugano, a special horseshoe Michael brought me from a trip, and on and on.  Nothing is fantastic art but it’s all precious.  It’s personal.

Over my desk I have the autographed photo of Jonathan Frakes (William Riker on Star Trek), the autographed photo of BB King, the poster of the Titans signed by so many of them (from a history day project), a photo signed by all the old 5th period lunch bunch from Fruitvale, and something Jeff Johnson made for me after I organized my first film festival at the Fox.  And my two Arthur Rackham book plates from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

I’ve pared down the photos.  I have quite a few of me with people who’ve died.  AIDS.  Michael Barrie, Ron Aiello, Charlie O’Malley, and then Dell Allen.  Cancer.  Then photos of family, William and Michael.  William and Michael qualify as family.

I could go on describing it all but I guess the point is I’m looking at it all from the perspective of being 80 or 90.  And I can’t even imagine what that will be.  I suppose that Mom and Dad’s current state is mixed into this strange feeling.  I really hope I’m not watching my future.  And I’m not even expressing the feelings I’m having with accuracy.

I like my clutter.  I’m happy with my things.  But I wonder about the feeling of removal.  I think it might have to do with the newness of the house.  Getting familiar with the area and getting it all arranged.  It may be less than a mile from our old house, but it feels isolated.  I didn’t think it would feel like that.  Being in a small, gated community on a very quiet street without much happening feels isolating.  Yet I know it’s just because it’s all new, and it’ll be a neighborhood like any other once we’re established.  I mean, the people from next door brought over homemade cookies to welcome us.  They have seven kids!  Wow.

I think what I have to do is start going to things again – openings (missed one tonight), gatherings (missed the writer’s workshop last night), get back in public and mingle.  But maybe what I really need is for my studio to get organized and for all the paintings to be hung, etc. so we feel like we are living, not moving.

I suppose this ill-defined feeling will pass of its own accord.  Hope it doesn’t take too long.

Of course, the feeling passed.  I’m home, things look and feel like home, and we love this house.  We’re thrilled with it.  The whole process of calling this move “Operation Old Age” in light of what we’ve learned from and about my aging parents, put a new slant on the idea of moving.  Psychologically, it was working a number on me that I didn’t even recognize.

Thankfully, I’ve connected the dots and it all feels right.  I feel like me.


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The Big Move: An Update


2010
04.14

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Tiger and Lily have caught their first bird and showed their deep love for me by depositing it in my bedroom..  I should have been tipped off by the growling under my bed.  My dead bird solution is put a bowl over it until my husband gets home.

Tiger has given up and is sleeping.  The bird awaits my husband.

An area rug has been purchased and returned and another one bought that works.

This is the rug that worked.

The sage green walls depress us.  They deaden colors.  Gorgeous paintings look muddy.  We need new paint.  Soon.  Happy colors.

The day after the big wind and night of the big rain, there was a dead frog in our scummy pond.  Can frogs drown?  I thought about taking a photo of it but didn’t.  It was so sad and dead looking.

A landscaper came by to check out the waterfall and pond that overflows.  That’s only going to take about $2,000 to repair.  Gulp.  Has to be done.  He promised to save the remaining frogs.  By coincidence, I called the place that originally put the water feature in.

I used my oven for the first time.  It’s a convection oven – I had no idea!   I got the most evenly-baked cornbread ever.  It has some sort of mechanism that guarantees nothing burns – even if you have cookies on three racks.  That’s good because a family specialty is burning bread.

We are less tired every day but we still have a lot to move.  My studio is still torn between two houses.

Kind of a mess, isn’t it?

My husband had time to help my father with something finally.  Last week, on Thursday, when William and I were at my parents, my dad said his shower had no hot water.  When I was there yesterday, he complained about having to take spit baths because of the situation.  Mark went over today, and miracle worker that he is, he fixed it.  Dad was turning the faucet the wrong way.  That is scary.  Luckily, no one had to say the P word (plumber).

We hung my bedroom curtain – the special one I invented to be totally light-blocking on a sliding glass door.  My daughter made it for me – but we have tall doors in this house.

Haha.  I bought more fabric and Jen will add on to the bottom.

As I put things away, I want more and more just to throw them away.  I’ve realized that I don’t need to display every single photo I’ve ever put in a frame.  I don’t have to keep every single special rock in my curio cabinet.  You know – those rocks you pick up because they will always remind you of…insert any random event here because who can remember where any of them came from?

But – the rooms are shaping up.  Some of them.  Here’s the outside bedroom, to be used by grandchildren until we get decrepit enough to need live-in help.

They have their sofa bed, a television, and the bookcases with toys.  Some of the grands have developed a decorating scheme for the room which we haven’t seen yet.  But they did affix a sign to the door saying “no ducks were harmed in the making of this room.”

Living room looking as good as it’s going to get.

Dining room looks good.  Of course, we’ll probably never eat in it.  Woofie is in the bottom right corner.  And my purse is on the table.  New house dilemma: I don’t have a place where I am used to keeping my purse yet.  Consequently, today when I was zooming to meet Mark at World Market to buy the rug that didn’t work, I couldn’t find my purse.  I went by the old house.  Not there.  Thought I might have left it after showing the house yesterday.  So I drove to World Market rehearsing what I would say when the policeman stopped me and I had no identification.  Asked at a few stores: Did anyone leave a purse here yesterday?  Came home and found it.

On a serious note, I do feel a bit strange.  We moved so we would be well situated when we are old.  It’s odd to look around and think, wow, if all goes well, I’ll live in this house for 30+ years and never move again.  It kind of makes me want to sit in front of the television.

Then I wonder why I have this big pile of possessions that my kids will have to deal with, and will they think the same thing I thought when we closed out my mother-in-laws home?  Is this what a life comes down to? A pile of stuff no one wants?  It’s unnerving.

I need to get back in the studio.  Maybe next week.

Now I need to get back in the kitchen and make dinner – it’ll be a repeat of last night.  Leek and potato soup, salad, and some sort of bread.  Gotta use those veggies!


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The last move


2010
04.10

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Posted in Essays about Life | 3 Comments »


Move move move.  Dance moves. Pick-up moves. Sneaky moves. Move it!  Get a move on.  Smooth move. And so on.  And then there’s the biggest move of all – the house to house.

What would we do without family?  My son-in-law and daughter, Matt and Jen; sister Cris and her husband Bill; nephew Daniel and his girlfriend Melissa; niece’s husband Jeff; my husband Mark who is always a hero; and The Bakersfield Six.

They all made it possible to get the heavy stuff over.

This is the last move for sure.  I feel so out of sync, out of time, out of the real world.  I can’t quite remember what I usually do with a day – all I’ve been doing for weeks now is moving.  And fulfilling previous obligations, which were fun – the trip to Las Vegas for granddaughter Sarah’s soccer tournament, the Black Eyed Peas concert. And this week William came to visit.

William was a student of mine in 7th grade – six years ago?  He’s twenty now.  He went off to boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland, where I visited him three times, and then to college in London, where I visited once.  I had to cancel last November’s trip because of the recession, so I haven’t seen William for 1 1/2 years.  Naturally, when he came to Bako to spend three days with me, I didn’t unpack one single box!  The time was dedicated to him.  The drive to get him at Union Station in Los Angeles was beautiful.  Until I got into Los Angeles itself and my navigation system went berserk.  It took me all over the place and when I saw Staples Center I knew it was kaput.  So I got off the freeway, pointed the car in the right direction, and made it – frazzled, but I made it.  The final insult was that the CD player wouldn’t regurgitate the navigation disk until the next day, when it spit it out unasked for.

So besides those events, it’s been pack, carry, move, unpack.  Over and over again.  We’re rich enough to buy a beautiful house but not rich enough to hire movers.  Wow, we have a lot of stuff.  I’m getting rid of more and more as I unpack.  I’ve taken pictures of each “discard” and put them on Kodak for my kids to see so they can claim what they want. I’m up to “Up for Grabs Album Six.”  Lots going out.   Whatever wasn’t adopted went to Goodwill.

We did have a lovely sky on moving day.  View from the backyard.

I’ve also been taking pictures of special items as I unpack, and I’ll write on them why that item is special.  Already, I look at something and wonder if it was my grandmothers or Mark’s moms.  If I can’t remember, is the object still special?  Things are just things ultimately.  But for me, things are part of the fabric of my life.  I like to look at something and recall where we bought it – which country, which vacation.  I like to remember events and people.  My things all say something to me.   They all have stories.

When my mother-in-law died, we sorted out her possessions.  I took many of them because no one else wanted them, but I knew that they all meant something to Marian.  I was sad looking at the mound of collectibles, some old and chipped, and wondered if that was what a life boiled down to – the accumulation and degradation of objects.  So I took her china, the Waterford, the collectibles she bought on trips all over the world.  In my weird way, I honor Marian when I use these objects, display them, etc.  Not in excess – a great deal did end up at Goodwill.  So that’s why I’m writing on photos of my special objects, just in case my children wonder about them.

For example, Mark’s grandfather gave us this dish on our wedding day.  It’s hand-painted china; don’t know if he got it somewhere or already had it – and it wasn’t quite the kind of question you could ask.  “So GG, did you buy this for us or did you already have it around?”  Wish I  knew, but I guess all that matters is it came from GG and it’s old.

I want the kids to know that this cocktail shaker was my parents, and it witnessed many a great party with singing, dancing, food and drink.

Another strategy I’m being careful about is making things accessible.  I don’t want platters stacked high, so I have to move and lift and replace when I want one.  I want my tablecloths easy to find without digging through plastic bins.  If I run out of room, I’m going to have to get rid of something.

The house has challenges.  It’s so much bigger than the old one, yet I’m down a couple of cupboards with shelves, like the cupboard under the stairs, and I’m down bookcases.  We’ll solve those problems, and indeed, they are wonderful problems to have.

Being flat-out exhausted is a wonderful problem to have also, in that we’re moving from one beautiful house to another, and that puts us in the highest echelon of families world-wide.  We are not rich by any means.  At least, in how America defines rich.  But we have riches beyond compare when measured against the rest of the world.  So my complaints are not real complaints.

BUT – I am never moving again.  I’ll have to be hauled out feet-first, or taken to the old-age home if it comes to that, because this is a strenuous occupation for 63, and I don’t want to be contemplating it at 65, or 68, or 73, etc.

We have so long to go until the move is complete. The living room looks pretty good.

But my husband’s office is still a work in progress.

But we’re far enough along for me to reenter the real world.  I have friends out there, on facebook, on twitter, and in person, plus family members, and I need to reconnect.  I haven’t blogged for quite a while.  I never feel isolated like this when we’re on vacation, but this moving is a whole different deal – bone tired, unable to think, cook, process, much less interact.  When William was here, I felt like I’d been released from prison!

So that’s that.  The Big Move.  Underway.  In progress.  Step by step.  And next week the cats get to go outside.  Meanwhile, they have adapted well and look much like they did in the old house.  Lily just stretched and is contemplating if she should really get up, or extend her afternoon nap.


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Operation Old Age Begins with a New Home


2010
02.23

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Posted in General, Photography | 3 Comments »

Today’s post is pretty darn close to the Creative Every Day theme of Home.  Coming at the end of February, this is the kicker.

We made an impulse purchase yesterday – we opened escrow on a house!  We seem to buy our houses with less than thought we give to spending $9.99 on a new can opener.  It’s not quite as alarming as it sounds, actually.  For anyone who’s been following my blog, you know that I’ve been dealing with aging parents.  Mom is 86 with Alzheimers and is starting to forget who people are; Dad is 91 and is just now repeating himself, forgetting things, sleeping most of the day, and Sunday told me he thinks his mind is declining.

That’s all pretty normal.  The problem is created by Mom and Dad giving no thought to their declining years other than a refusal to leave their home or let anyone in their home to assist.  Which puts the burden on us kids.  And “us kids” – well, we may be in our 50s and 60s, but we are still helping out our own kids with grandchildren.  The world is getting smaller and we are gravitating back to the days when extended families lived together or in a compound and assisted each other.  Only problem is, we don’t live near each other and we’re getting squeezed.  Even living in the same city is not near enough. I wrote an essay about that, Stuck in the Middle, mainly to get my thoughts square I guess.

So my husband and I concluded that we need to take whatever steps we can to ease the burden on our children NOW, when we are 63 and healthy and vital.  Because if we wait until we need to take steps, we won’t be able to.  We decided to sell our house – our beautiful house on the lake.  That was not an easy decision.  We love this house, we’ve put so much into it, and it’s been perfect for the grandkids and for entertaining.  But we thought we should have a one-story house with less maintenance, less yard, but most importantly, with a room and bath separate from the main house so that when we get like my parents are, someone can be hired to live in with us and take the burden off the kids.  And moving, while daunting and scary, can only get harder as the years pass.

We were going to wait a year and then start looking.  Just the other day I asked Mark if he’d given any thought to neighborhoods and suggested that we might want to think about areas we’d like.  Of course, it would be within a small radius of where we are now since two daughters live close by.  I said I’d always been curious about the San Trope development.

Which brings me to last Saturday.  I went out to take photos of orchards in bloom, took my usual route home which passed San Trope, saw an open house sign and on the spur of the moment turned in.  The street was Via Lugano.  Not only was Italy our favorite country, I visited William, a former student, three years running while he was in boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland.  It must be an omen.

I got to the house.

See the brown door?  That’s the front door.  This is the door to the left of the brown door:

It leads into a room and bathroom separate from the house!  I couldn’t believe it.  Some good karma was going on here.

Walking in the front door, there was a large area for a living room.

And a dining area with a built-in breakfront.  But take a look at that door you can barely see on the right.  It leads into a room with fantastic north light.  Studio, anyone?  I was getting goosebumps.

Nice big open kitchen with a giant island – something I’ve always wanted.  And the drawers have pull-outs so you don’t have to squat and search through the shelves for a bowl.  Knees work a little less well each year, so this is a wonderful feature.

A nice family room with fireplace (because we really need that in Bakersfield) and built-in entertainment center, which we’ll probably use to display sculpture.

Fantastic master bath – look at that tub!  Bathtubs are very important to me, and we can put in bars and a little staircase when I need it.  Like small dogs have to climb up on beds.

Now I was really flipping.  This closet is as big as a room, and the house is 2,800 square feet.

Next is the best part.  I was afraid we’d have to move into a smaller house in a crowded area.  But this house is on a golf course.

We may get hit by an errant golf ball, but we’ll never feel hemmed in.

The yard isn’t too bad.  Not much maintenance, and we’ll gradually replace the shrubs with cacti.  And we’ll plant a row of queen palms in front of the fence – it might block a golf ball here and there.

The front has a nice parking area, and when the trees have leaves it’ll be like a park.  And our end of the street ends with a canal, so no development there.

I drove home and said, “Mark, I’ve found our house.”  He came back with me, we went back on Sunday and made an offer, and by the close of Monday we were in escrow.  It’s a short sale but everything has been approved.  It all just seemed like fate.

Operation Old Age has begun.  Packing and moving will probably hasten the old age – Mark can hardly face it, but it would only have gotten worse.  And of course there is the matter of selling our current house.  Naturally, the next couple of months are the busiest of the year for me without selling, packing and moving.  We truly can’t afford to own three houses!  (The cabin in Alta Sierra is house-size.)

It makes us sound rich, which we are not.  In fact, I hope we have enough to get us through old age.  But compared to most of the world, we are wealthy.  We’re aware of that and quite grateful.  We’re wealthy in family, in possessions and health, in love and friendship, in self-fulfillment.  And we have the self-awareness to begin planning for the future as much as possible.  Operation  Plan Ahead, or Operation Old Age, is underway.