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Showing posts with label the move. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the move. Show all posts
21 September 2009
11 August 2009
09 May 2009
A wonderful time at the open house today
We had a wonderful time at our open house today.
Chap brought some beautiful wines and brandies and an 18 year-old single-malt Scotch whisky that had several of us absolutely speaking in tongues.
Laura Anne made a wonderful coconut cake. I was worried that I might not have room to refrigerate leftovers. I should not have worried.
Ron brought homemade salsa and chips, which were popular in the entire age range of the party (toddler to an aunt and uncle in their late 80s).
It was wonderful to see some old friends and meet some new ones and get everybody introduced to each other. It was especially wonderful to see all of these folks from different tangents of our lives in the mixing bowl of our living room.
Good times, y'all.
And now we're all tired out.
More tomorrow.
Chap brought some beautiful wines and brandies and an 18 year-old single-malt Scotch whisky that had several of us absolutely speaking in tongues.
Laura Anne made a wonderful coconut cake. I was worried that I might not have room to refrigerate leftovers. I should not have worried.
Ron brought homemade salsa and chips, which were popular in the entire age range of the party (toddler to an aunt and uncle in their late 80s).
It was wonderful to see some old friends and meet some new ones and get everybody introduced to each other. It was especially wonderful to see all of these folks from different tangents of our lives in the mixing bowl of our living room.
Good times, y'all.
And now we're all tired out.
More tomorrow.
23 April 2009
22 April 2009
It took me so long to find out, but I found out...
Bookmarked for later perusal and itinerary-making: Homegrown and Handmade: Art Roads and Farm Trails of North Carolina.
20 April 2009
I don't think we'll have to worry about this any longer
In a comment to an earlier post, Bunny admonishes me:
The animals are settled into a routine of following us from room to room, occasionally taking a little time off to explore the novelty of solitude (an option only sporadically available to all of us until recently).
At any rate, Bunny - I am reasonably certain that this is the last picture anyone will ever see of this chair without a cat in it:
My desk chair (an Aeron with curiously claw-proof nylon mesh seating) was "his" chair at the apartment.
He has definitely traded up here, but to something uplholstered. Yikes.
My only complaint, Barry, is the lack of cat and / or chow content in these photos. Don't let it happen again.Well, after recuperating at home this weekend (from nothing unusual - just the daily slings and arrows that the flesh is heir to) - I don't think this is going to be a problem.
The animals are settled into a routine of following us from room to room, occasionally taking a little time off to explore the novelty of solitude (an option only sporadically available to all of us until recently).
At any rate, Bunny - I am reasonably certain that this is the last picture anyone will ever see of this chair without a cat in it:
My desk chair (an Aeron with curiously claw-proof nylon mesh seating) was "his" chair at the apartment.
He has definitely traded up here, but to something uplholstered. Yikes.
17 April 2009
I wish the set dressers from "Mad Men" would stop calling us
So I think we're about done with buying furniture. The last shipment arrived yesterday:
Danish modern rope lounge chairs, a Hans Wegner design, early 1960s vintage, bought at an estate sale in Westchester, New York. (Carrie found these on eBay.)
(Bunny: Note required animal content - apparently headless cat lounging on boxes/in sunbeam to the left.)
Danish modern rope lounge chairs, a Hans Wegner design, early 1960s vintage, bought at an estate sale in Westchester, New York. (Carrie found these on eBay.)
(Bunny: Note required animal content - apparently headless cat lounging on boxes/in sunbeam to the left.)
11 April 2009
Hunting and gathering: check
A month into The Move, today was a fun-filled day of previously-deferred nesting activity.
After a hearty breakfast at Elmo's and a trip to the Farmer's Market (de rigueur on Saturday mornings), we drove over to Raleigh to check out Hipsteria, a furniture store downtown that specializes in used mid-century modern furniture.
We, uh, bought a few things.
A kitchen table.
A couch and coffee table.
An armchair.
And so on.
Their buyer has a great eye - and I'm looking forward to meeting him tomorrow, when he delivers the furniture. :-)
What a nice surprise to find this thirty minutes away.
Related: Hipsteria in Raleigh (The Estate of Things)
After a hearty breakfast at Elmo's and a trip to the Farmer's Market (de rigueur on Saturday mornings), we drove over to Raleigh to check out Hipsteria, a furniture store downtown that specializes in used mid-century modern furniture.
We, uh, bought a few things.
A kitchen table.
A couch and coffee table.
An armchair.
And so on.
Their buyer has a great eye - and I'm looking forward to meeting him tomorrow, when he delivers the furniture. :-)
What a nice surprise to find this thirty minutes away.
Related: Hipsteria in Raleigh (The Estate of Things)
06 April 2009
Bella and the deer
There's a trio of female deer who pass through our back yard on a pretty regular basis (I only caught two of them in this picture). My home office has a nice view of the yard, but even if I'm not gazing out the window when they arrive, Chow Bella always lets us know when the deer are visiting. (Lots of barking.)
I knew it would happen sooner or later, and as it turns out, it was sooner: I was out in the yard with Bella this afternoon when one of the hooved ruminant trio poked her head into the yard, followed closely by her traveling companions. (They really seem to enjoy eating the clover that grows in abundance where the yard verges on woods - a better setup, if you're a deer in the 'burbs, can scarcely be imagined.)
Oh boy, I thought - here we go. Bella was off the leash (one of the little luxuries rarely afforded her outside a dog park, while she lived in NYC) and I wasn't sure "voice control" was gonna work all that well up against some actual Wildlife On The Hoof.
But Bella surprised me. She trotted maybe a dozen feet closer to the deer and then stopped in her tracks and barked.
Yeah, she barked - but from a posture that every dog owner, and any other student of canine psychology, professional or amateur, would instantly recognize: head down, ass up and wagging her tail furiously as she vocalized.
My newly suburban dog, having spotted three deer in her yard, wanted to play with them.
Happily (I think) deer don't "speak" dog, and they certainly don't grok dog body language. We saw some nice flashes of white deer-tail as the whitetail deer fled. And I cursed myself for leaving the house without my cell phone, or any other camera-bearing instrument, such as a camera.
P.S. I have decided to name the deer after the Andrews Sisters. Henceforth they shall be known on this blog as as LaVerne, Maxene and Patty.
I knew it would happen sooner or later, and as it turns out, it was sooner: I was out in the yard with Bella this afternoon when one of the hooved ruminant trio poked her head into the yard, followed closely by her traveling companions. (They really seem to enjoy eating the clover that grows in abundance where the yard verges on woods - a better setup, if you're a deer in the 'burbs, can scarcely be imagined.)
Oh boy, I thought - here we go. Bella was off the leash (one of the little luxuries rarely afforded her outside a dog park, while she lived in NYC) and I wasn't sure "voice control" was gonna work all that well up against some actual Wildlife On The Hoof.
But Bella surprised me. She trotted maybe a dozen feet closer to the deer and then stopped in her tracks and barked.
Yeah, she barked - but from a posture that every dog owner, and any other student of canine psychology, professional or amateur, would instantly recognize: head down, ass up and wagging her tail furiously as she vocalized.
My newly suburban dog, having spotted three deer in her yard, wanted to play with them.
Happily (I think) deer don't "speak" dog, and they certainly don't grok dog body language. We saw some nice flashes of white deer-tail as the whitetail deer fled. And I cursed myself for leaving the house without my cell phone, or any other camera-bearing instrument, such as a camera.
P.S. I have decided to name the deer after the Andrews Sisters. Henceforth they shall be known on this blog as as LaVerne, Maxene and Patty.
04 April 2009
Meet the new neighbors
"Oh, hi... you got cable?"
(These two visitors are at the perimeter of the back yard, where the woods begin.)
21 March 2009
Happy realization about the new place
"We're basically across the street from a 20,000 square foot dog park!"
About to become a very happy camper.
We honestly had no idea.
About to become a very happy camper.
We honestly had no idea.
Chapel Hill notes
First weekend in the new place. And this has been one hell of a long week.
The packing/loading/driving/unloading process - all of which was compressed into a roughly 36-hour timeframe from 8:30 AM Monday morning (movers arrive at old place and start packing) to 4:30 PM Tuesday afternoon (movers depart new place having offloaded all packed boxes) kicked my ass worse than anything in recent memory, and was similar for Carrie, I think.
Side yard view
But: We have the kitchen, bedroom, and office set up. We've turned the second bedroom (which will eventually be the guest room) into a Den of Sin where we retreat in the evenings to listen to the radio, surf the Net on our laptops and drink beer (there's only so much unpacking you can cope with in a day.)
The great room is still neck deep in boxes and will be for a while until we figure out our bookshelf situation, and our "kitchen table" is a card table and folding chairs yanked from Mom's house, but yeah, this already feels like home.
Gato was pretty freaked on Day 2 of the process but by Day 3 (Wednesday) was strutting around like he owned the place. Chow Bella, sweet as ever, just follows us from room to room and plops down in the doorway to guard... she wore herself out protecting us from the Weird Men Who Had All Our Furniture And Stuff on Tuesday, but still takes guard duty seriously.
The house is situated on five acres on what used to be the outskirts of town, in a region that features McMansions, middle class homes (the nabe right behind us) and trailer parks all cheek-by-jowl, in the way that only a Southern town of about 40,000 people could pull off. The local supermarket boasts two aisles of food designed to appeal to homesick Mexican folks and two aisles of yuppie/organic (organic dark chocolate, etc.) in addition to all the regular grocery-type stuff you'd look for.... it's like that. I shop in all the aisles happily. The noodle soups designed to appeal to the Mexican market, for instance, are pretty awesome (beef ginger pot noodles = massive win).
The Carrboro Farmer's Market is the bee's knees. After breakfast at Elmo's Diner (perfectly nice, inexpensive) we headed to the town square, and bought local hothouse tomatoes, half a lemon poundcake, goat cheese, homemade relish...
Carrie bought locally produced and spun yarn. I predict Farmer's Market blogging from her soonest.
There's more unpacking to cope with, but we've prioritized well.
The new crock pot is slowly simmering a cut-up chicken and veggies, and we'll be eating that in six hours or so with warm flour tortillas.
Life is good, full stop.
The packing/loading/driving/unloading process - all of which was compressed into a roughly 36-hour timeframe from 8:30 AM Monday morning (movers arrive at old place and start packing) to 4:30 PM Tuesday afternoon (movers depart new place having offloaded all packed boxes) kicked my ass worse than anything in recent memory, and was similar for Carrie, I think.
Side yard view
But: We have the kitchen, bedroom, and office set up. We've turned the second bedroom (which will eventually be the guest room) into a Den of Sin where we retreat in the evenings to listen to the radio, surf the Net on our laptops and drink beer (there's only so much unpacking you can cope with in a day.)
The great room is still neck deep in boxes and will be for a while until we figure out our bookshelf situation, and our "kitchen table" is a card table and folding chairs yanked from Mom's house, but yeah, this already feels like home.
Gato was pretty freaked on Day 2 of the process but by Day 3 (Wednesday) was strutting around like he owned the place. Chow Bella, sweet as ever, just follows us from room to room and plops down in the doorway to guard... she wore herself out protecting us from the Weird Men Who Had All Our Furniture And Stuff on Tuesday, but still takes guard duty seriously.
The house is situated on five acres on what used to be the outskirts of town, in a region that features McMansions, middle class homes (the nabe right behind us) and trailer parks all cheek-by-jowl, in the way that only a Southern town of about 40,000 people could pull off. The local supermarket boasts two aisles of food designed to appeal to homesick Mexican folks and two aisles of yuppie/organic (organic dark chocolate, etc.) in addition to all the regular grocery-type stuff you'd look for.... it's like that. I shop in all the aisles happily. The noodle soups designed to appeal to the Mexican market, for instance, are pretty awesome (beef ginger pot noodles = massive win).
The Carrboro Farmer's Market is the bee's knees. After breakfast at Elmo's Diner (perfectly nice, inexpensive) we headed to the town square, and bought local hothouse tomatoes, half a lemon poundcake, goat cheese, homemade relish...
Carrie bought locally produced and spun yarn. I predict Farmer's Market blogging from her soonest.
There's more unpacking to cope with, but we've prioritized well.
The new crock pot is slowly simmering a cut-up chicken and veggies, and we'll be eating that in six hours or so with warm flour tortillas.
Life is good, full stop.
19 March 2009
Reasons I married the right woman, #546
Nesting Mode has commenced right on time, and not a moment too soon either.
Tasked with identifying and purchasing a crock pot for our roomy new kitchen, my wife brings back a 7-quart programmable model.
I was already on the Web looking for the API manual (how do I control this little sucker from the Mac?) when she explained that "programmable" basically meant you could set the start time and temp in advance and for different cooking cycles of the same dish...
Oh, okay.
Old joke. Guy goes into a bar, orders a stiff drink. The bartender says, what's eating you, pal? Guy says, my wife understands me.
Tasked with identifying and purchasing a crock pot for our roomy new kitchen, my wife brings back a 7-quart programmable model.
I was already on the Web looking for the API manual (how do I control this little sucker from the Mac?) when she explained that "programmable" basically meant you could set the start time and temp in advance and for different cooking cycles of the same dish...
Oh, okay.
Old joke. Guy goes into a bar, orders a stiff drink. The bartender says, what's eating you, pal? Guy says, my wife understands me.
17 March 2009
Scenes from a move
The movers having brought his couch back, Mister Gato is feeling more like himself.
And this was *after* giving a bunch of books away
when english majors marry
Originally uploaded by enrevanche.
When English majors marry: a cautionary tale.
Foreground: Some (but by no means all) of the books from our NYC apartment, stacked up by the front door of our new home in North Carolina.
Relocation trip report
The team of movers packed up fifteen years of our lives and loaded everything onto a truck in about six hours, starting at 8:30 Monday morning.
Carrie, Mister Gato, Chow Bella and I were on the road to North Carolina around 3PM, pulling into the driveway at the new place around 12:30 this morning. We drove through a torrential rainstorm for over half the trip, making I-95 even more disagreeable than it usually is, but we all made it in one piece. :-)
Gato, who was not as wigged out by the road trip as we feared, has in fact been pretty comprehensively discombooberated by the actual move. He is currently hiding out in the laundry room, which must feel like a safe place to him (cats hate change, and moving a cat to a new place, if memory serves, usually involves a lengthy adjustment period.)
He is coming out periodically to love on us and munch a little cat food; he'll figure out that this is his new place soon enough.
Meanwhile, the Chow seems to have figured out that she owns a yard now. :-) Lots and lots of grinning and wagging.
We're drinking coffee and shaking off the stiffness of the road. Slept on air mattresses and sleeping bags last night (and slept *well*, once I got to sleep... Carrie can sleep under any circumstances, bless her heart; I am almost sick with envy in situations like this.)
In another three hours or so, the guys will be pulling up with the entire contents of our one-bedroom Manhattan apartment, which we'll be distributing across roughly three times the square footage we used to have.
Life is (provisionally) good.
Carrie, Mister Gato, Chow Bella and I were on the road to North Carolina around 3PM, pulling into the driveway at the new place around 12:30 this morning. We drove through a torrential rainstorm for over half the trip, making I-95 even more disagreeable than it usually is, but we all made it in one piece. :-)
Gato, who was not as wigged out by the road trip as we feared, has in fact been pretty comprehensively discombooberated by the actual move. He is currently hiding out in the laundry room, which must feel like a safe place to him (cats hate change, and moving a cat to a new place, if memory serves, usually involves a lengthy adjustment period.)
He is coming out periodically to love on us and munch a little cat food; he'll figure out that this is his new place soon enough.
Meanwhile, the Chow seems to have figured out that she owns a yard now. :-) Lots and lots of grinning and wagging.
We're drinking coffee and shaking off the stiffness of the road. Slept on air mattresses and sleeping bags last night (and slept *well*, once I got to sleep... Carrie can sleep under any circumstances, bless her heart; I am almost sick with envy in situations like this.)
In another three hours or so, the guys will be pulling up with the entire contents of our one-bedroom Manhattan apartment, which we'll be distributing across roughly three times the square footage we used to have.
Life is (provisionally) good.
13 March 2009
Things I'll miss about New York City
It's the end of a long week, my last week as a full-time New Yorker.
And though I'll be back often, I know there are things I will miss.
Like this -
Carrie had been packing stuff all day, and I'd been on the job since 7 AM and had just capped off a twelve-hour day.
We didn't feel like cooking.
In about twenty minutes, a deliveryman from the neighborhood diner is going to show up with french onion soup, a pastrami Reuben sporting extra kraut, a tuna melt and an order of well-done fries with ketchup on the side, from which Carrie and I will assemble a tasting menu.
It's all going to be really good, and it's no more expensive (delivered, tip included) than two people eating comparable fare at Applebee's in suburbia.
I have had epic meals at fine restaurants in New York City. I will remember the 2004 summer tasting menu at Babbo when I am sucking my gums in front of the fireplace (I hope!)...
...but what I'll really miss are the neighborhood places.
And though I'll be back often, I know there are things I will miss.
Like this -
Carrie had been packing stuff all day, and I'd been on the job since 7 AM and had just capped off a twelve-hour day.
We didn't feel like cooking.
In about twenty minutes, a deliveryman from the neighborhood diner is going to show up with french onion soup, a pastrami Reuben sporting extra kraut, a tuna melt and an order of well-done fries with ketchup on the side, from which Carrie and I will assemble a tasting menu.
It's all going to be really good, and it's no more expensive (delivered, tip included) than two people eating comparable fare at Applebee's in suburbia.
I have had epic meals at fine restaurants in New York City. I will remember the 2004 summer tasting menu at Babbo when I am sucking my gums in front of the fireplace (I hope!)...
...but what I'll really miss are the neighborhood places.
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