We're Settling In Here

The bugs aren't so bad, so Daisy Duke is allowed to look
out our "Juliet" balcony onto the back patio and yard.
It's not a balcony at all, for the record. It is a door to
nowhere.

That wasn't fun.

Two months ago, I set off to Seattle to visit Rossmosis. Since then, I have:
A. Started a new/old job in Maine;
B. Slept on friends' couches and spare beds;
C. Bought a house;
D. Moved;
E. Attended a game at Fenway Park, watching from atop the Green Monster;
F. Not slept much.

It's tough to blog about all of these happenings when you don't have a computer and are basically holding on to the will to live. I get a little persnickitty when I'm getting 5.5 hours of sleep a night.

But things are settling into a routine. We have our new house. It's a three-story townhouse with piles of boxes in it at the moment. We have a 12-foot ceiling in our master closet, so we're thinking about adding some shelving because, well, we don't have any storage. Practically none, really.

You'll hear more about the house some other time. It's a lofty thing, with stainless steel appliances and a back patio and all kinds of yuppy stuff. Here's what I like about it: It's a half mile from steamy hot goodness.

 It's also about a half mile from my work, which means I am now commuting by foot. On Friday night, TW had some guests over while I was at work. I literally jogged home. It took six minutes from my desk to the back yard.

It's all still a little weird. TW said today, "It's not like we never left." We speak in double negatives often because it's not like it's not fun. I immediately understood what she meant.

It's surreal coming back to Portland. It's the first time in my most recent 16 (!!!) moves around the country that I have moved back someplace I used to live. It's all familiar but it's all so different from Boston.

I slept on couches and spare beds in Portland throughout the month of April, so it's a little more familiar to me. The streets look like home. The walk home feels correct. Aside from the seagulls, I have no real complaints.

Home is starting to feel like home, too. Our litchen (a combined kitchen and living room, the entirety of our second floor) contains few if any unpacked items. Our master closet has been completely cleared out of boxes so we can stack them back in again after we open the boxes and figure out what it is we're going to store back in the closet. It's not like we don't realize how ridiculous that is.

The boxes and spare futon are thrown into the guest bedroom, but we'll plow through that stuff eventually. We'll have to. The Bearded Beernut and Padawan will be staying with us for four nights before moving out West at the end of May.

They are just the front end of a tidal wave of guests. In fact, we've already had two visitors. Whiggida Whaley helped us move in and Hot Rod was our first guest who didn't have to lift anything. My uncle and cousin are booked to visit in early June. Lobster and Farm Fresh Ice Cream are visiting us in August. Inevitably, like the tide making a timely arrival in the bay, my parents will arrive sometime in September.

Though it's somewhat unsettling to have visitors parading through the house, some requiring more maintenance than others, it is a sign that, gosh darn it, people like us. Our back yard was filled with friends Friday night and again, spontaneously, Saturday afternoon.

This is what we moved back to Portland for. We have a quiet area out back, a view of the water, friends and family willing to travel wherever we go. It's not like we're not going to be very happy here.