New Orleans

I've only been to New Orleans once. Years ago, my old roomate Erin and I drove from Long Beach, California to Maryland (she was moving back from Hawaii to Maryland, and had her car shipped to Long Beach), and we decided that we HAD to take a detour to New Orleans since we were going to be a mere 12 hours away on the route we were taking. We spent a single night in New Orleans, and Erin drank so much that she puked (again) as we were pulling out of town on our way to Atlanta the next morning.

Boy, we had fun. We went out in the French Quarter, danced, drank, and I sang Karaoke for the first (and only) time in my life. We thought it was awesome that we could walk the streets with our beers in hand. The people were friendly, and I wish we'd had several more nights to stay in town.

That said, it's a shame that New Orleans is still not safe from further storms, that two years after Katrina hit so many people are still not back in their neighborhoods.

I'm ashamed and embarassed that they're still not okay. FEMA fell down and hasn't corrected their failure. There isn't money to build the levees to protect the city. It's horrible, and I'm fairly inarticulate about my feelings here. But it sure makes my current troubles seem small.

Downer

Right now it's looking like the sale of our house here in California isn't going to go through because of the things that are happening to lenders all over the area. I hear that the buyer is still looking for a lender that will fund the loan, but we did not close today as we had hoped. Our lives are in boxes, and we're trying to stay positive and hope for a good outcome, but we won't be in Bend on Friday - we can't close there unless we close here. This sucks.

My favorite pizza topping

I'm mostly posting this because I know that keeneye reads my blog. And because The Minkz posted about piggies. But, it's utterly true, and completely important. My favorite pizza topping is bacon. Yum. You can't put it on the pizza when it's raw - it has to be pre-cooked. But friggin' yum. Bacon and onions, bacon and mushrooms, bacon alone... Bacon on pizza is awesome and shouldn't be missed! So keeneye, please, try some bacon on a pizza before you open. Small pieces. Cook the bacon about 80% before you put it on the pie. Yum.

Getting ready to move

Cable internet and phone service - ordered DirecTV - waiting for a call back Gas, Electric - need to arrange (i don't even remember if there IS gas at the new place. check that.) Schools - called (need to call the schools here to get current records) Boxes - over 75 packed, who knows how many more are needed Moving truck - arranged. whew. I know there are 476 other things I need to do, but my mind is blank. Hold me.

Burger's Travel Adventure

Burger was supposed to leave Baltimore yesterday afternoon to fly home (she was at gymnastics camp last week, and has been visiting friends and family in the Maryland area since Sunday). The plane that was supposed to take her home was stuck in Pittsburgh with the bad weather there yesterday, so she sat at BWI (the airport) most of the day yesterday. 8:00 pm rolled around and the plane was still not going to leave BWI until after 10. Problem is that Orange County airport (where she's supposed to land) does NOT allow planes to land after 10 pm - so she would have had to have left BWI before 7 pm in order to make it home last night. The plane she was supposed to be on was going as far as Phoenix last night and was going to leave for Orange County this morning.

We could NOT imagine letting Burger travel to Phoenix by herself and letting her find a hotel there on her own. No way. Hubby called the airline and explained the situation, and they put her on a flight out of BWI this morning, and she'll be home around 1 PM today. Thank heaven. Whew.

Burger was with my brother, his wife, and their 6 kids the night before last, and my Hubby talked to my brother earlier to ask if they could pick Burger up again from the airport, just in case. Then he talked to Burger, was bummed she didn’t get to see a good friend of the family while she was in town, and she asked that Hubby check if she could go to said family friend’s house to spend the night. She was picked up at the airport, fed, and given some company and a nice warm bed for the night, and while she was still sad that she wasn’t able to make it home yesterday, she sounded mostly okay when I talked to her before she went to sleep last night.

I hope she's learned a little about being independent. I wasn't too worried, because she was in a controlled environment, and I knew we'd have a safe place for her to stay no matter what. I am SO glad she didn't have to spend the night in Phoenix alone -- had that looked like that was going to happen, I would have called the one person I know in Arizona and begged for help!

Panic

The buyer of our current home didn't want to pay for a full appraisal and had a drive-by one done. I used to be a licensed real estate appraiser, and always hated having to do drive-bys, because all you can see is that the house is standing. If you have a neighborhood of cookie cutter homes, it's not too difficult to get a decent idea of what a house is worth, especially if the house is in a fairly new development.

Our current house is 70 years old, and is about half again as large as most homes in our area (at a whopping 1500 SF) - our lot is also half again as large as most lots around here (we have +/- 12000 SF of land - most lots are 8000 or fewer SF). The condition of the house is awesome - we renovated the house when we moved in, aside from the kitchen (which has handmade cabinets that are in amazing shape - they're NOT original to the house) and the larger bathroom, which has its original 70 year old everything (plumbers freak out when they see the toilet, as it's rare). All new systems, appliances, fixtures. You cannot tell this from driving by the house.

We also have 800 SF of workshop, which in SoCal is rare -- it's like having a basement, and amazing for storage. And a 2 car garage.

So we're at the top of the market here in our little town, we're twelve minutes from the ocean, and we have a huge avocado tree that produces more fruit than we can eat (I think I'll miss the tree the most. Nothing like having fresh avocados available 9 months of the year - for free!).

The appraisal came in about 60K lower than it needs to be. I wanted to cry, because I'm so set on getting out of this place and into Bend. Cry with me for a few moments, won't you?

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, the (I hope) good news is that we had a different appraiser come by and do a walk-through yesterday. I hope he can find the right comps - they're out there (Zillow has nailed most valuations in our area, and we're selling for less than they think we're worth - we priced under what we felt our real value was because we wanted a quick sale - and getting a contract in 14 days in this slow market shows that we did price our place well). Fingers crossed.

Zippy's school

I'm so late to the game. I just sorted out that the local elementary school is about 3 blocks from our new house, which really makes me happy - this means that we will be able to walk Zippy to school next year when she starts kindergarten. My guy apparently told me this in the very recent past, but somehow I didn't process that information. I'm such a dork.

I'm a little bummed that she won't be able to start this year -- but the cut off birthday for kindergarten is September 1, and Zippy's birthday isn't until September 21.

I do need to find some sort of preschool program for her - and I need to call the special education folks (the High Desert ESD) tomorrow to see if there's a preschool that does speech therapy. She'd qualified to do a preschool program this past year in California, but we weren't quite ready to let her go. (Another reason that we decided to keep her out of the program this past year is that we felt like the staff at the local school thought she was less intelligent than we know she is. She's a late talker, but that doesn't mean she isn't smart - my brother was the same way, and trust me, he's way too smart!)

.Bomb strikes again

Waah! www.oneswitch.com, where you could once change your address for multiple magazines at once, is apparently dead - their URL resolves to Network Solutions. That blows. Now I have to change them one at a time. Bah.

Moving Sucks

Who wants to come help us pack? There's soooo much to get done, and so little time! I have to get Burger registered at the new school, get the utilities situation sorted out (thanks for the advice, Jake and everyone else!), change our address, change the address for our stupidly high number of magazine subscriptions (and I know there's a website out there that can help me do it. Now I have to add "google that website" to my list), pack boxes, find out about speech therapy services for Zippy, and more more more. All while working full time and going to NYC way too many times.

The good news is that I'm really looking forward to moving to Bend. I've loved every second I've spent in the area, and people there are nice, real people. Everyone I've met there feels like they could become a friend - and there's a real sense of community there. I cannot wait to live there, so I'll suffer through the pain of the move to get there.

One side note - as I was driving in Bend on Sunday there was a guy (I assume) in front of me in an obnoxious yellow hummer (sorry, but really. Who needs that vehicle except the military?) who was being very agressive revving his engine while tailgating the car in front of him. Shame on you, Mr. Yellow Hummer man. You're one of the main reasons we're done with California and its perfect weather and great beaches after two years. Yuk.