finally here

• sorting, piling, taping, boxes, moving trucks, sweating, loading, cleaning, painting, cuts, bruises, so very dirty
• driving, tired, maps, more sweating, so very bleary
• stanley knives, rubbish, packing materials, bubble wrap, dumps, so very tired
• unpacking, assembling, washing, drilling, list making, so very weary
• choosing, deciding, head scratching, imagining, so very puzzled
• seeing what's possible, loving it, showering, so very clean
• walking to internet cafe to write, so very hopeful
• recovering and sighing happily, so very cheery

counting down to Edinburgh

we are on the hole filling, painting over the mess phase... we each have a bag of undies and clean clothes to live off of. Fridge is clean and food free. We have granola bars and take out menus.

Have to wrap the couch and the bed and the tea bags... movers come (I am being optimistic) tomorrow noon and load us up. Then we clean up the remainder of the house and get in the car and climb north for 3 hours. Stay in cheap roadside hotel and get back in the car at Oh:Dark Thirty Wednesday morning to continue the journey 3 1/2 more hours to sign the lease at 10:30 a.m. in Edinburgh. Movers to come to new pad with stuff at noon.

Fingers crossed. New home awaits!

I'd post

a photo of all the boxes I am crowded behind, but we already packed the cord that connects my camera to the computer. Mark, sans job is totally a dynamo with this packing business. I am literally left in the dust, weakly protesting that we don't need to pack up the bathrooms yet as we have 7 more days to live in this house. I can't complain -- he is really doing all the heavy lifting. I am still in the musing stage where I have to consider all my cosmetics and decide which lipsticks are not going to make the move with me. Mark has lists and schedules and time tables. I am clearly not in charge. It is lovely. Even if it is rushing my esoteric approach to packing. And things are getting 'ungrouped' which is a pet disturbance. ("The pillows all have to stay together!")

So I am hanging on to shreds of what is normal. And redefining that word hourly.
Next week at this time, we should be in our car driving part way to E-burgh for our Wednesday morning lease signing and key getting and mover meeting.

Now to ride the wave and throw out what is no longer serving me. Like old eyeliners of my life.

Add Lex in the middle for Charlie's Angels shot. These gals are not only brilliant, but beauties.  

Libby, me & Ulrika. Coach girl power when as we pow-wowed and reunited at Libby's London house for a day of sharing and eating Lurpak.  

summer summed up

Retiree Mark on Parker's Piece (a.k.a Parkers Posey) as we await the 6:00 p.m. opening of Mai Thai restaurant so we could use our (no lie) early bird coupon.

This photo is the wallpaper of my (new) flash mobile phone. I look like a proper savvy career girl again. Or at least my phone does.  

let the packing commence

Starting, um, Saturday!

I just can't seem to want to give up shades of normalcy. Once the first drawer is emptied, the first box created and taped and filled, we will have no more room to walk or breathe. I love normalcy. I loathe chaos.

So I am lalala, Ican'tseeyou to the giant stack of packing supplies in the corner of the living room. (if you face the TV you can't even see 'em!) And taking today as Throwing Away Magazines. It seems safe, makes room and is painless. (relatively, if anyone remembers my 10 year collection of Vanity Fairs in my Quebec House place, you know it ain't THAT easy)

Movers come July 25.

Plenty of time.

lalallalalalalalalala

mark's 2 cents

Mark adds:
- sunny days biking along the river
- discovering cute pubs

And I am adding:
- hanging laundry on our line
- the countrified blue blood Cambridge village types rather than the townies with their king cans of 10:00 a.m. lager who scared me

( I have to make him read this by the way, he claims he ' knows' what is going on in my life, so he doesn't need to read my blog. See how wrong he is??)

things I'll miss in Cambridge

1. watching the treetops and bird activity from the office window
2. biking midday to Cambridge market and looking at used books and fresh fruit
   
3. sessions at the complementary health center with my acupuncturist (and first mother of greenie) Laura
4. the predictability of the overly friendly butcher and the consistently amazing chicken breasts
   
5. living on the dead end with only foot traffic, bike traffic and people turning around in their cars who don't know it is a dead end
6. finding people resting, reading, hanging on any of the many greens at any time of day
7. the library -- order online, pick it up in person, badda boom badda bing
   
8. walking into any class at the gym and knowing someone and being friends with the instructor
   
9. the occasional booze fueled fight in front of our house, giving us front row seats to our morbid curiousity
10. the International store where I could discover ingredients I never knew exisited and I could count on for everything I ever needed for Indian or Thai cooking
    
11. daily Sainsbury trips
12. stretches of time with nothing but dinner to plan
13. my first home in the United Kingdom
14. familiar faces and casual acquaintances at the gym
15. actual friends and cheery souls who made the gym our second home
16. the bumpy, buggy bike path to the gym, where you pass a military training field full of bunnies
17. number 2 bus down Mill Road
    
18. No suits
19. Picturehouse Arts Theater -- for its bad lattes, its tasty cakes, wornout couches and ability to help us feel part of the cool culture, and the steady diet of essential film for 2 years
20. CB2 -- bloody mary, lamb burger lunches
21. annoying owner lady at the noodle house
22. our nearly nonexistent but friendly relations with our neighbor Chris
23. the gas fireplace -- nice for a quick ambiance shortcut or a warm up
24. our parking spot -- crooked and hard to get in, but always there
    
25. the place where we made it all come real
    

P.S.

1. Thank god England lost on Saturday to Portugal. I mean, sorry St. George, but I couldn't take the pressure. The country really shuts DOWN and collectively bites all of its nails. Too much angst and violent hope. Now people can be bitter and complain about the now canned manager Sven and get on with living and there are now only the semi finals and the final to endure. I am voting for Italy.
2. Thank god we can replace football with the Cambridge Film Festival. We are signed up for 8 films in the next 10 days. Mark hearts not working. I heart summer movies in A/C.
3. Covered 700+ miles on the train north yesterday -- to E-burgh and back in one day to visit and measure and touch our new garden flat. Eating in the 1st Class dining car is truly a highlight of living. We are giddy excited and Mark has the flat completely (I am very serious) laid out on Excel, with furniture and storage placement according to height and width measurement specs. These are reasons why I love him.
4. And finally, a disclosure. I think I forgot to brush my teeth today. Seriously.

fourth of July

In England... easy to 100% forget this holiday. I actually didn't even remember until I looked at the calendar at noon. And while I would really like a grilled brat, a familial or friend gathering, I am ok being over here.

July 4th just makes me think if being at Silver Lake all day with the family, getting as tan as possible (possibly flirting with Bill Cooley, my summer lust) and high-tailing it home to Hales Corners for fireworks at the park... a.k.a. Trolling around with friends and scoping out as many upper classmen boys and looking for a party. It was teenage hormone time. And also remarking every year about babies in diapers and sparklers too close... and lots of OFF!

It was a time to reconnect with people from school that you hadn't seen since it let out and cause trouble. Not very patriotic. And sadly, now that I am older and hardly ever trolling for upperclassmen, and way over here in a country that we are celebrating independence FROM, I don't miss it. Sad really.

I like that flag cake.

2gether2much

Mark's last day of BT employment was yesterday. Yay for him. No more answering to the Man. No more office. He is his own person now until Uni of Edinburgh claims his brain and his waking hours in September. He is free bird.

And now we embark on what most retirees fear and dread and get therapy for. Both of us home. Together. In the 3rd month of marriage. I have had the run of the house as the lady of the manor now for almost 2 years now. Sending him off in the morning like a nice June Cleaver with a packed lunch and a kiss and sinking happily into My Day. Napping at whim, coaching with office door open, having questionably un-nutritious lunches, going to day-time gym classes on my own, being OCD about checking e-mail, chatting to Lexie for long conversations about tidying up the house and coaching issues and sex lives and nothing and everything , tidying up 10 minutes before he gets home. And I was always happy as a puppy to see him. Ahhhhhhh. Sweet, beautiful life.

Now no more sending him out the door. Since we have been back from our marathon wedding trips, he has been around more than ever and I have not, repeat not handled it with grace and love. We were both trashed and exhausted and eager to zone out and routine-ize out lives. Which for me included him being, um, not here. Solitude has been the more glorious gift of this move over here... Who knew I would lap it up so greedily?

Where was my space? My TV time? My silent place? My long and empty day to fill without conversation or negotiation or witness? I missed it!! So I have been kinda snappish, short and annoyed. And now I must stop. We have been given 2 months together without the pull of full time jobs. To pack, to move, to lay by the pool, to go the gym, to be. Something , I know, we must take advantage of and ENJOY! It shant happen again until we ARE retired. Yet, I can't help but wonder, why now this lesson/or this gift? I struggle without boundaries of you go, I stay, see you later. How do you miss someone who never leaves?

We have never been ones to shy away from a challenge with each other, but this one is throwing me. In the next year we will be swapping roles -- from student to earner. And I am resisting giving up this luxury of time and space. Or, resisting sharing it. Selfish cow that I am.

I know marriage is hard and we just started. Or maybe I should say, live is kinda hard and marriage is part of it. Or the coach in me would say, new things are scary. Uncharted territory can shake you up. It wakes you up and makes you notice where you are going and what you are doing. Maybe I have just been a bit too cozy in this easy place and now it is time to wake up and join the land of the day-job, the land of stepping up and the land I just signed up for -- of togetherness. Lots of it. For a long long time.

keeping up with the blogs

Since some of my pals (neurotic-ah and Madeline, black lab extraordinaire) now have blogs, and are so dang lickedy split on new postings, I feel the need to be writing more regularly, since my readership is spreading itself out over several mediums. ( I KNOW it isn't a competition, KQ... I am just built that way.)

• We have a future home. I have uncrossed my cross-ables for the most part. I think it is safe to say, we are going to be renting a 2-bedroom garden flat in New Town section of Edinburgh.
  
• HURRAH!
  
• New pad walking distance to fishmonger, butcher, greengrocer and many other fancy other things.
• Note, there for the entire famous and fabulous Edinbugh International Festival and Fringe Festival
  
• (what, look for a job? They have 2 fer 1 tickets!)
  
• Moving weekend of July 22 - 8 hours long haul in a large truck. Gee, I can hardly wait.
  
• Also, stay tuned for irritability at disassembly of Ikea furniture. For the 4th time in 4 years. I think this time it will disintagrate into sawdust.
  
• Mark's last week on the job! I think he is still kinda waiting for the big shoe to drop, but looks like all is happening as it should... and we get a big check on Friday that will keep us in rent and mobile phones for a while. Yehaw.
  
• He is stunned and determined to use this time to "get fit" and not watch TV. I say, are the 2 mutually exclusive?
  

The hard part is that I have nothing interesting to say right now. I feel like it is all in the coming. Now I am just standing still. Looking down the road at where we are going. And waiting a bit for a bus. In no hurry, but not particularly patient either. It is a bit itchy here.

P.S. Musical discoveries (for me) - Zero 7, The Garden and Embrace, This New Life. Yummy.

things of the brain

• my interest in the world cup was short lived. US is out of the next round. I no longer care. Total fair weather. And I am becoming immune to the constant blare of play-by-play on the TV. I have given in.
• fingers crossed, we have a place in E-burgh. nothing further until I uncross my fingers.
• In preparation and in anticipation of the move north, I am gleefully reading the just released paperback of installment 2 about the lives and times of the fictional residents of 44 Scotland Street... in Edinburgh! I am tickled with the mention of streets, pubs and general quirkiness of that which will become my hometown.
  44 Scotland Street by Alexander Mccall Smith
• JUST now finally feeling normal. It has taken me a month. A MONTH to catch up with my life. And actually want to do anything except stare into air and not talk.
  
• I now want to catch up with OTHERS. Please tell me what is happening. I must get out from my own navel. (Helena, do you hear me??? Rabatin, you have a few weeks to unpack and then look out!)
• I am amazed at Kelly's ability to do her hard and important job of teaching tomorrow's smarties, write long and interesting things in her blog constantly about all the things she is doing and thinking and also keeping up with all of the things in everyone else's life and dogs. I am able to answer e-mail. Just.
  
• I can't think of anything else except happy wedding weekend to Barb n Mike as they officiallly join in union to become the Underbates!!! Everyone pray for mild and beautiful weather in DC for the intimate wedding on Saturday. Mazel tov to you... can't think of a more suited couple.
  

shouting for the USA

The World Cup runneth over in this house, as one might imagine. It is on. And on. Every game is important, every game interesting, things to score, teams to suss out, figuring and waging. Points to count in each of the groups. We have a schedule of games posted in the kitchen. And a handy score sheet open at all times in the World Cup Guide in the living room. Suffice it to say, it is a part of my June as is birds and grass cutting and BBQ and air. And I do give a mild toss, as it is interrupting my usual log on to our television with daytime nonsense and evening American drama. (We get Big Love, Grey’s Anatomy and House now!)

And in the natural course of events, US playing Italy happened to be on in my living room last night. Given my heritage and the fact that the US SUCKED it hard in the first game v. Czech Republic, I thought I'd best be witness to the suffering. And join in the reindeer games.

Many of the European football teams are elitist. Long standing, clever, creative, finessed, cunning, and well, smug. Italy is one of them. The US, as we all know, is a newbie and we don’t even count as we play soccer. But this game took ‘em by total surprise. Italians ran slow and looked a bit constipated and the American chaps all looked like they had taken care of business and were ready to run. They passed, they defended, they were impressive! And I have an official crush on the keeper, Kasey Keller, with his giant paws so elegantly crushing those ill-fated Italian kicks. Now, the Italian players in their electric blue kits complementing the olive skin and dark shiny hair... they are a handsome bunch. And a shout out to Italia as I am 1/2 Italian, but last night, I was all USA baby. We held our own. We tied 1-1, which before Mark I woulda thought was bad. We are still in the game by the hairs on our teeth.

Most frighteningly, I found myself impersonating Mark. Standing during the game. Drinking fast. (subbing water for ale) Yelling "Come OOOOOOOOON" in various stages of urgency.

In short, caring.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME???

Am I girl deprived (see KQ- you make me jealous with all your DC trips and whatnot) and merely succumbing to the alpha male in me? Or joining out of boredom and lack of being able to commandeer the TV away from Mark? Beat him and join him? When in Rome? (er, or World Cup Country anyway?)

I am guessing it was a one-off event. But in case I am going to the dark side, please remind me how much I need a pedicure.

bonnie scotland

Just back from a crash course in Edinburgh neighborhoods. Armed with a handful of apartment appointments and an A-Z Edinburgh street map, Mark & I have been around and around and zigged and zagged in all of E-burgh's faceted nooks. Determined to find an unfurnished 2 bedroom (with room for a guest futon!!) in an adorable area, I have severely gone cross-eyed from map reading while in a moving car. (not to mention highly pukey feeling on several occasions over speed bumps)

Alas, no slam dunk on finding the perfect spot to make our new nest, but thoroughly fell in love with several areas and have plenty of hope for a very nice place to come our way. I even found 10 Scottish quid in the street, which I take as nothing less then Manna from Heaven telling me that all is OK and will provide. After all, the sun was shining for 2 of the days and the car hire place upgraded us to a convertible! After 1 of those sunny days, we even figured out how to actually take the top down! (which I am not ashamed to admit, make me feel very cool.)

We will most likely make another trip north in order to get it right, but we are both giddy about the move. What a fantastic and pretty and fun city. And also calm, if you know what I mean. Buzzy but manageable. And no rest for the wicked. And it is a certain cure for post wedding(s) blahs. (when do we get a chance to have those???) I am just happy to have 2 days without being responsible for anything except personal hygiene. And even that is iffy.

Highlight of the E-burgh flat search 3 days was watching Mark after England's HARD won win in England v Trinidad/Tabago game ... in a Scottish Pub. Where no one wanted England to win. They were rooting for Trinidad because one of the players was actually named Jason Scotland. (the joke being that was Scotland going to the World Cup... har har har) For once Mark is going to be the less popular one... with all the years of England being cruel to the Scots and whatnow. I look forward to being the nice American since I have been the frowned upon American for far too long. And for once, I like the taxi driver to ask where I am from... (which happened in Scotland!) Hurrah!

It is weird for Mark -- the same, yet foreign. I guess it would be like me moving to Canada. Part of North America. Similar but different. And them being kinda irritated in living in the shadow of mean bigger neighbor.

So many fun and excited new things in store for us. Now can someone please just come and disassemble our crappy Ikea furniture and pack for me?

Mark's Nan Mona and Grandad Ken... on a visit to Harrogate to see them post wedding 

and naturally, the rain stops just as it ends 

darling Lex in her fab blue Monsoon dress 

a secret Dad joke?