Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

No, I haven't been incredibly busy today; this post combines stuff from the last week or more.

This afternoon I went to a low-key party at my friend Lori's house, where I talked to her, adrian_turtle, and a variety of people I didn't know, or knew vaguely but couldn't remember their names. In and around the conversation, I ate grilled corn, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, pineapple, rutabaga, and a bit of steak. (The party is outdoors, and I had RSVP'd as "weather allowing," not expecting that it would, but we lucked out, this being one cool-enough day in a string of hot to very hot ones.)

Yesterday I finished editing another chapter of the book I'm working on, and sent it to the client (who thinks I'm great). The day before, I started on a different (small) editorial project. I'm doing two passes on each book chapter, and wanted to take a couple of days between them, hence interleaving this. The other project is going more slowly, in part because it's proofreading as well as copyeditingg, and the document is already in PDF format. This is my second project for this client; having clients want to hire me again feels good, whatever the size of the job. This one is small, or I wouldn't have taken it on while preparing to move.

I called both Belmont Light and National Grid to put the apartment utilities in our name about a week ago. both were straightforward until the end of the call, at which point the Belmont Light person told me that I need to come to their office in person within ten business days to show her photo ID. And they're open 8-4 weekdays, except they close at 11 a.m. on Friday in the summer. If I had any sort of job with regular hours, this would be annoying if not worse; as it is, I expect it to be a minor nuisance, and in return I don't have to deal with Eversource, and National Grid only for natural gas (for the stove). So that's what I'm doing tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, cattitude spent a bunch at the new apartment, measuring the rooms in detail so we can figure out how we want to arrange the apartment. He did this for the last two moves, and we still have the little bits of paper that represent our desks, couch, bed, table, chairs.... He's going to measure the basement, and make more detailed measurements of the windows that we want to put air conditioners in, while I'm talking to Belmont Light.

About an hour ago I filed my first change of address, with the post office. After I post this I will check it off the (electronic) list.

(We hired a moving company last month, and the friend who was so helpful when I was having the cataract surgery has agreed to drive the cats, and probably one of us, from Arlington to Belmont on the day.)

We are making some progress toward unpacking the kitchen, and deciding where things go. Today was pots and pans, and the nesting pyrex mixing bowls. we'd already found places for (some of the) mugs, plates, bowls, knives, and silverware.

last night i cooked a meal that came out well, not merely "yes it's food": not something complicated, but a slight variation on what i usually do with ground lamb. and the rice came out well, which means i'm starting to understand the stove.

anne came over this afternoon, mostly to socialize but also because I wanted to give her a winter coat that doesn't fit me.

She got here around two, and adrian_turtle, cattitude, and I went downstairs with a pinhole camera. We chatted with a few neighbors who were also looking at, or for, the partial solar eclipse*; then snacked on cherry tomatoes fresh off the vine before going to the back yard to look at tree shadows. The leaves were close enough together that we didn't get very good crescent shadows; the pinhole camera placed on a table was better. The sunlight on Adrian's straw hat created tiny crescents on her face, a cool effect that the camera didn't pick up (meaning she didn't get to see it).

We went inside a bit after maximum eclipse and socialized a little longer; Anne left so she wouldn't be going through Downtown Crossing at the height of the rush hour, and we did some more moving-related stuff.


*I think the maximum here was about 62%.

cattitude has ascertained that the requirements for a Massachusetts driver's license or non-driver ID include a social security card. I have been keeping mine in a jewellery* box, the kind with a little lock on the front (which I haven't used for jewellery in years, because it's not suited to the kind of earrings I wear). The people who did our packing locked the box, and either the key is in some other random box, or it's locked into this one.

I am considering whether to try picking the lock, or use a box-cutter: I don't actually need a jewellery box to store my social security card and a few credit-card-sized plastic rectangles.

The unpacking is also involving a certain amount of "I forgot I had this," along with trying things on to see if they still fit.

Other than that, I have been exercising, doing some freelance work, wrestling with my credit union's phone app (it's ahead, 2-0), and spending time with adrian_turtle. Cattitude and I have been enjoying the mild early spring, and right now I'm hoping the forecast snow doesn't kill the blossoms on the cherry tree around the corner. (I expect the forsythia and periwinkle, of which there are a lot in this neighborhood, will be fine.)

*Firefox wants this spelling, flags "jewelry" as an error.)

ETA: ckd took a look at the webpage, and apparently they just need to be able to verify the number.

Almost everything is in boxes, but my computer is on my desk as I type this, cattitude is running laundry so we can put sheets on the bed for tonight, and the cats are happily exploring.

I have two freelance assignments due in the next couple of weeks, so I am going to be busy, and I suspect Cattitude is going to get to do more of the unpacking than me this time. (Last time he was working full-time at Microsoft, so I did more.)

Yesterday, cattitude and I spent some time measuring rooms in the new apartment, and then he took a bunch of photos, and I went to adrian_turtle's place. Cattitude and I had falafel for lunch, at a place in Davis Square that he liked as much as I'd hoped, and Adrian and I made black beans and rice for dinner, which was what I wanted after several days of rich/heavy restaurant food. Today we went rug shopping; the store will be delivering two rugs tomorrow morning, so we can get them in place before the furniture arrives. Adrian very kindly offered to be there at 10 for the delivery, so we don't have to get up incredibly early (she lives ten minutes away, and it's more than an hour from our hotel).

I did some exercise before dinner today, after several days of almost nothing (some walking, and too much standing while they were packing our old place, but none of my weight/resistance stuff), and we had a surprisingly good dinner at a kebab place with the unlikely name "Moby Dick of Boston." One of today's specials was chicken with sour cherries, which sounded interesting and good, and turned out to be excellent, a huge amount of basmati rice with shredded chicken and a not-too-sweet cherry sauce.

The cats are coping with the situation.

We landed at Logan at about 5 this morning; the cats arrived a few hours later. We are here, in a hotel room for a bit while our stuff travels by truck, but adrian_turtle came over here and handed us the keys, and had dinner with us. The cats seem okay; they are spending a bunch of time under the bed, but they do that at home, too.

We are way behind on sleep (having been underslept even before the red-eye flight) so just this brief update for now.

I have now booked both the cats' trip from here to Boston (we're having professionals transport them for us) and our tickets. Both on red-eye flights, which the cats probably won't mind. We already have the moving truck booked. There are still fiddly bits, of course, and stuff to do once we get to Boston, but that's the essentials out of the way.

*whew*

I haven't done much reading lately, because until a few days ago all my books were in boxes, and I was between library cards. Having unpacked one bookshelf worth (miscellaneous) and gotten a King County library card, I've done a bit of rereading: Changing Planes by Ursula Le Guin (from the library) and The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett (our very own copy), both of which stood up well.

Our stuff is now off the truck and in the new apartment. There are too many boxes, to the point where we won't be able to pursue the original plan of culling and alphabetizing books as we unpack. Some of the "too many boxes" is that the packers used a lot of paper around some of the stuff, but I suspect the book boxes are entirely full of books.

My desk didn't survive the move (we thought it might not—it was 20 years old and made of particleboard), and the armoire was damaged. That should be repairable iff Ikea still makes that model and the part is available, but in the meantime it is lying on its side, making the bedroom seem more crowded, rather than being a place I can unpack clothes into. However, my dresser (which has sentimental value as well as being useful) and the nested Pyrex bowls (ditto) survived, and those would have been a lot harder to replace.

We are also going to have to throw away a variety of stuff that we either didn't get the chance to sort through, or that the packers put in boxes or on the truck before we could say "no, leave that." (The annoyance there is a broken table that I did explicitly tell them not to pack.) There are other bits of furniture we may conclude we don't need (or don't have room for), but couldn't know that until we got here and started arranging things.