Settling In

Many things unpacked, most of those are "where they belong," for now. Huge stack of collapsed boxes in a corner of the living room quite possibly awaiting some practical re-use before recycling, mountain of non-collapsible boxes piled behind the garage with all the construction debris from the basement project, awaiting hauling one day. The basement project is spinning its wheels at the moment, mired in local regulations and permits and inspections and all sorts of mess, so much of what will eventually move to the apartment down there is still here and we're still doing some crab-walking, slipping sideways through little burrows from room to room.

But it's much better than it was a week ago when Juan and Marco showed up with the truck and heaved everything I own into three already-furnished rooms. One bookcase exploded when they tried to carry it down the stairs in Lakewood and they were unable to reconstruct it out on the sidewalk (it was fortunate to make it as far as it did in this life -- I paid $20 for it and its twin when my friend Rob moved from Denver to Minneapolis several years ago, so it had already gone from his apartment to the apartment on Harlan to the house in Castle Rock to the apartment on Dakota, and that was just all it had to give) and I lost a large soup tureen and a couple of little random plates, all of them packed in one box that had looked like nothing could phase it, but something evidently could. I do love the philosophy: Three moves equals a fire. By that standard, we did amazingly well.

I found myself a fine full-bodied sinus infection a couple of days after arriving and have been through a little scratchy throat, an elephant stomping between my eyebrows, breaking fevers I didn't know I had til they broke, hack hack hack, constant horrendous DRAINING, and ohmygodithinkihavestrep. This morning I doubt it's strep, it seems to be receding, which would be appreciated because one thing I didn't do with my sort of free time last week was go out and contact a new doctor. I've got a name and I know where she is (not far and not even over a lot of hills and not even parallel parking) but it was just one thing I didn't feel up to doing, and now tomorrow I start work, five weeks of training that will not accommodate time off. So there we are. Well, it was the hassle of making a call and going round to see her and fill out paperwork and all that stuff plus hearing that these doctors are culture-happy and it would take at least a week to get the results of the culture and then get some sort of meds. By then I expected to be well over it all on my own. Perhaps not. But I'm working in that direction.

Yesterday my car cruised California Emissions, excellent little car that she is, and today I hope to hang the windchimes from the attic balcony. Seems odd not to have baskets of chocolate eggs sitting around. Maybe next year.