Suzy Says

Around 8:00 yesterday morning, I was drinking industrial-strength coffee and noticed a sound. Could it be? I ran through the empty rooms to the front door, my heart filled with hope. There it was: a huge white moving truck, taking up most of the street! I hugged the driver when he emerged. I think he was surprised but hugged me back – we’ve been through a lot on the phone, breakdowns in St Louis and the salt flats of Utah as well as the Donner Pass. He’s been doing this for 43 yrs and said this might be the worst trip he ever did. He described it as “cursed”. Hmmm.

Slept well last night after a bottle of celebratory champagne. My bed was a heavenly nest of bliss after two weeks of groveling around on air mattresses in varied degrees of deflation and defilement. Woke up to sunshine and the ability to drink coffee from my favorite mug at my own desk while reading PostSecret, my Sunday morning ritual*. Even though it looks like a box bomb went off, the house is prettier and more welcoming with furniture in it, and I?m happy with my familiar things around me. I think the kittens are, too. They?re happily exploring and napping. Home at last.

*Warning: this week’s batch is particularly heart-rending.

You know what I’ll be doing this weekend (and next week, and…)

With a glass or two of champagne to celebrate, of course!

Guess what?

The truck with all my earthly possessions is trapped by snow in the Donner Pass. It makes a change from being stuck in the salt flats of Utah, or the shop in St. Louis, or the scenic route to see this great land of ours from sea to shining sea, but the end result is the same.

No furniture for Suzy.

Don’t get all excited, my furniture’s not here yet. Tell you the truth, I’m afraid to call the driver and hear what might be going on. It’s raining here, which means snow in the mountains. Good for ski bunnies, bad for truckers (unless they have a thing for ski bunnies). You realize that once the stuff gets here – if it does – I will be complaining about unpacking it and having nowhere to put everything. Just sayin’.

In the meantime, I actually met one of my previously invisible neighbors!

B., who lives to the left or the right of my house, depending on how you look at it, came out and introduced herself when I was getting my groceries out of the car* and gave me a quick overview. She and her husband, who is wheelchair bound due to Parkinson’s, have lived here for 20 years, as have most of the unseen inhabitants, give or take a decade, including my neighbors on the other side. I haven’t seen them, but I have seen and heard their yappy dogs, who have taken it upon themselves to overcompensate.

Here B. lowered her voice and informed me in whispered italics that they didn’t speak English and were, in fact, Mexican. Gasp! I’m pretty sure they already know, and if they overheard her and can’t speak English, they wouldn’t know what she was saying, but I just nodded. It was the same way some people whisper “cancer”. Someone who’s lived in California her whole life, the state where the most popular boy’s name is Jose, shouldn’t find Mexicans whisperworthy. She also truly believes her husband will walk again because she prays every day. Just sayin’.

On to the people across the street from me, who really need to maintain their palm trees. The residents are unseen by everyone, and B. referred to them as “the Boo Radleys” while assuring me their house was lovely inside, despite not having been painted outside for 40 years.

Next to the Radleys is a French couple. He owns a restaurant in San Francisco and rides his motorcycle there every day. Apparently his wife spends most of her time in France, so I doubt that I’ll have a chance to practice my rusty fran?ais or canvass their views on Marie Antoinette any time soon.

The house beside the Frenches has been for sale for over a year. According to B., it’s due to its “terrible layout”. Maybe I’ll call Roger and Tanya at Sell This House and tell them I have a project for them.

As for my house, the same man lived in it for over 50 years, whereas the current owners only lived here for a year, and “didn’t garden much”, hence the lawn and shrubs being overgrown. The rain is watering the lawn as I type, and maybe I’ll do some gardening when it’s over. Have no idea how to prune bushes, though.

*I’m beginning to wonder how I will manage without the rental car once I give it back, while being simultaneously horrified by the constant freeway driving everywhere. I may well be the only person in the entire US of A who prefers city driving to highway driving. But then, I’m also the only one who doesn’t find “This is Spinal Tap” funny, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

Well, the purple mattress wasn’t so extraordinaire after all, except in its ability to let me down, both literally and figuratively. I’d pump it up, and after about an hour, I’d find myself in uncomfortable proximity to the floor, the very thing I was trying so hard to avoid.

Yet another trip to Target (I had never been there before the indoor camping episode, and in the past two weeks, it’s become my home away from home) and $200 later, I was on air mattress number three. The pump thing is built in, so it’s less likely (I hope) to leak. On the other hand, it was as attractive to June as the other two.

Yet another load of laundry and a minor crise de nerfs later, I decided on a two-pronged approach to the June Problem. I went to a fancy pet supply store and got Feliway spray and HomeoPet Anxiety Relief. Unlike the air mattresses, these worked like a charm. I used them for three days and the problem seems to have passed. And the air mattress has been holding up its end of the bargain, too.

So far, so good.

In other news, I have a horrible cold and am writing from the (dis)comfort of my air mattress with a Gilmore Girls repeat on my mother’s 25 year old TV and a dose of DayQuil doing absolutely nothing to alleviate the cold symptoms. I haven’t had a cold for so long that I’m taking this one personally and whinily.

Of course, as soon as I’m stricken with illness, the driver of the truck with my legendary things and stuff in it calls and says he might be here tomorrow afternoon. He was in Salt Lake City this morning and thinks he can get here tomorrow afternoon if he doesn’t encounter a possible storm in the Donner Pass. Let’s hope he has a better time of it than the eponymous Party. After three weeks without furniture, I’m beginning to believe I will never have any again.

Cloudy Sunday afternoon

Yesterday, I finally went to the City for the first time since my non-triumphal return. I have been spending far too much time on the wrong side of the Bay, first in suburban San Ramon (aka Generica) and now in “vibrantly diverse” (aka Keep your doors locked at all times) Oakland. While my neighborhood itself is quite nice, consisting of tiny houses, big palm trees, and no visible or audible neighbors*, if you venture a few blocks away you encounter folks with shopping carts hillbillied up with garbage bags, things and stuff, yelling at you or themselves.

The other day, I saw a chicken walking down the sidewalk. I have a feeling I’m not in Pacific Heights anymore.

The rental car took me away from all that, and I went to the California Palace of the Legion of Honor (that long enough for you?) to admire Marie Antoinette’s few remaining possessions from the Petit Trianon. The Petit Trianon was her refuge from the formal insanities of Court life, where she could wear loose muslin gowns and people didn’t have to stop what they were doing when she walked in the room. It was a place she could let down her powdered hair and relax.

She even had a rustic village, so it was a little like camping. I wish my camping were like Marie Antoinette’s, with the “plain” furniture and porcelain and swishy gowns, instead of peed-on deflating air mattresses and no furniture. Granted, I only lose my head figuratively and she lost hers literally, but I think we would have liked each other. The exhibit certainly impressed me with her flawless taste and remarkably forward-thinking ideas.

My head full of beauty and sadness, I repaired to the museum caf? for a bottle of luxury-priced water. The guy ahead of me in line refused to pay for his $10 PB&J sandwich until his mocha was on his tray with it. An elderly lady behind me in the lengthening line pointed out that her soup was getting cold – would he just pay and let the line move? He said he was ahead in line and wasn’t going to pay until he got his coffee. I said that they were making his coffee and they wouldn’t hold it hostage, but he replied again that he was ahead of me in line. The lady behind me got pretty upset and started waving her money at the cashier, who smiled and nodded and was probably glad he didn’t a) speak English very well; b) come from such a crazy-ass country. By the time Mocha Man got his coffee, the line was out the door and past the BC jewelry. What the…

*It’s a little Twilight Zone, to tell you the truth. The only people I have talked to since I moved here so far are the mailman and a guy who offered to mow my lawn, despite having no gardening equipment.

Now the problem is no longer the mattress, but the state of the mattress. I don?t think even Dubya could come up with a fakely positive State of the Mattress address. June keeps peeing on it, and/or the two blankets I have, one to sleep on and one to sleep with. So far, this has happened the past two nights and again this morning. I spend more time washing blankets, cleaning up cat pee, and swearing than any other activity. Possibly June was more attached to the old, dead mattress than I realized. Maybe I should have buried it in a shoebox in the back yard and let her put flowers on the grave. Cat closure. Or maybe it?s a protest about moving. A pee-in.

Let’s review: I have one kitten who poos whenever she leaves the house, and another who pees in the house, but in unauthorized areas.

Are there boarding schools for cats?

PS The British Invasion continues apace. What the….

Last night, the air mattress lay dejectedly on the hard, hardwood floor. Attempts to revive it with its allegedly rechargeable pump were futile, since the recharger itself was in need of resuscitation. When switched on, it made a low, mournful noise like a cow who has received particularly bad news. It was clear that the mattress and accessory were beyond earthly powers. It was 9:34 p.m., and the nearest Target, which closes at 10 p.m., was 11 miles away. I floored the car all the way, parked in front of the doors, and ran inside the nearly silent store.

“Mattresses?” I gasped at the first red-clad employee I saw (coincidentally, her name was Destiny, which gave me a Hotel Hell flashback. Even Hotel Hell would be better than sleeping on the floor. Well, maybe not.).

“Upstairs and at the other end of the store, in the back. Camping supplies.”

Of course.

I raced up the escalator with the speed of Letterman (would they close the store now I was actually in it? If so, I’d have the pick of the air mattresses) and found the camping supplies for girls who are camping in their houses. There were no fewer than three variations of the mattress which had literally and figuratively let me down, but I scorned them in favor of a BeautyRest Perfect Balance Pillow Top ExtraordinAIRE (get it?), which turned out to be quite comfortable, though Prolly Wolly* purple.

I foolishly allowed myself a moment (OK, the entire drive back) of smugness at having solved the mattress problem. Little did I know…

*Silly family in-joke. You don’t want to know.

While mad dogs and Englishmen are romping around my blog, I’ve been wondering if I’ve been hiding under a rock lately, or am possibly from another, less advanced planet.

First, there was the magically scanning ATM, right there in the grocery store where I’ve been spending so much time and money.

Then, the cable guys came – on a Sunday! – and installed the cable, along with something called On Demand. Apparently, you can turn it on anytime and watch network TV shows or movies, even fast forwarding through the boring parts. Who knew? Needless to say, I was unable to figure out how to stop fast forwarding the movie once I started it, so I turned it off and went to bed (well, air mattress – but that’s another story), but it’s nice to know it’s there. I might even read the instruction booklet once I’m finished with this week’s People.

The new home phone has talking caller ID, with a disembodied computer voice announcing who’s calling. I can’t make it stop, despite turning off the option on both handsets.

Last night, I attempted to cook in my new kitchen for the first time. The kitchen is very cute, with its breakfast nook and morning sunshine, but there are approximately three square inches of counter space that are not hiding coyly under the oversized cupboards. Let’s just say it was a challenge and led to at least one bottle of wine. Actually, the whole move has led to quite a few bottles of wine, so if you’ve noticed an increase in wine stock prices, you’ll know why. I’ve always been a believer in improving the local economy.

Once preparations were complete and the swearing had faded from the evening air, I went to turn on the quite splendid gas stove. I’m used to just turning a knob, but this one has a touch screen. I looked over the options for a while, and finally decided on “bake”, then the arrow key to get the temperature I wanted. When it was hot, it beeped loudly. It took me a little while to figure out how to turn it off, too.

Fortunately, there’s no dishwasher.

I don’t check my blog stats very often. I don’t care if one person or one hundred people read it every day. I know that friends and family read it to find out what I’m up to, since I’m terrible at email and phoning, and that’s good enough for me.

But today, I had a look and of the 100 last visits, 99 were from various locations in the UK. Weirder than that, they were either “unknown”, meaning it’s someone’s bookmark, or a search on various search engines for “Suzy Says”.

What is up with that?

I quickly reviewed my last entries and they’re all about moving or Thanksgiving, no UK content that I’m aware of. I’m finding it all a little creepy, to tell you the truth. No warnings from Paul Revere or anyone else that the British were coming, or what they could possibly want from me.

Weird.

Anderson Valley on a misty November morning

It turns out that traffic was the least of my T-Day travel worries.

Note to self: taking kittens on a road trip is not a good idea. Audrey pooed with horror on the way up, so I pulled over and tossed the towel from her carrier at a gas station in Oakland, where a guy asked me for money for brown sugar, on account of his mother was coming all the way from Louisiana for Thanksgiving and he was making a ham. I gave him a dollar to leave me alone while I wrestled with the gas pump, and surprisingly, noticed him asking someone else for brown sugar money while I was filling up the car. Either hams need a lot of brown sugar, or “brown sugar” means something else, like crack or Ripple.

Same deal on the way back, except she also barfed, making my roadside clean-up somewhere on 128 oh so fun. June, on the other hand, was perfect. Did I mention Audrey’s non stop meowing “Are we there yet?” for four hours?

On the bright side, traffic was minimal, and I didn’t even experience the traditional Santa Rosa Slowdown. My little sister’s little house in the big woods was full of friends, family and food. One of our friends had brought along her father, known as Tubby to one and all, despite not being particularly tubby. Things I learned about Tubby over Thanksgiving dinner:

• Time in padded cell: 9 days – just “woke up there” one day;
• Time in jail cell: 288 days – instead of paying a $9,000 fine;
• Best weekend: seeing Willie Nelson in 1974, with the best coke, white lightning and hookers he’d ever had, and he is quite experienced in all;
• Favorite job: safety worker at NASCAR, putting out fires and pulling drivers from wrecks (9 years); and
• Lifetime ambition: to go to the Northwest Territories and kill one of everything they got.

After the huge dinner and 9 thousand glasses of wine, repaired with Tubby and other guests to a neighbor’s house, which is vacant due to her current sojourn in prison. Possibly she is Tubby’s soulmate. Slept, if you can call it that, on the floor since there was no room at my sister’s house. Tubby’s snoring preferable to Tubby’s talking.

The next day, I called the movers and was told that my stuff wouldn’t get here until December 3 at the earliest. Why, you ask, when it was picked up Nov. 15? Because the geographically challenged idiots at the moving company sent the driver to Cincinnati, then Kentucky, and now he’s on his way to…Boston. I burst into tears. Decided to borrow an air mattress and blankets and just camp out in the house I’ve been paying rent on since Nov. 10. I guess all moves have their problems. I just wish they weren’t mine.

Or the modern version: “Into the car and into the traffic”. I caught this while stuck on 580 yesterday and wondered if the guy was getting a jump on Thanksgiving, or was just thankful in general.

I’d better go and brave the T-Day traffic myself if I want to get any turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! May you be enjoying the day with those you love most.

Glenn’s Hot Dogs: Since 1947

Today I went over to the new house to imagine where the furniture will go if/when it gets here. The moving company cheerfully informed me that it will now be between the 28th and the 30th, so that means I’ll have been paying rent for almost three weeks for an empty house by the time it gets here. Oh so Suzy. Let’s hope it shows up before December, and that it all shows up, preferably unbroken, even though I’ll have to have a giant yard sale or trashathon to get rid of the many things that won’t fit the new house.

I did take photos and have posted them on Facebook, because it’s oh so easy and I’m oh so lazy. I promise I will post them here too, after suitable sizing, etc., but not until after Thanksgiving, because I’m going up to my brother and sister’s tomorrow, traffic permitting. I spent last Thanksgiving in a hotel, and I figured if I did it again this year it was getting to be a bad habit, and God knows I already have enough of those.

After admiring the house, I went to the grocery store to deposit my paycheck and get some wine for Thanksgiving (rule number one of being a good guest is to arrive with wine, especially when it’s the holidays and the house is packed with friends and relations). There were no envelopes at the ATM, but a sign assured me I could just put the check in naked, and I decided to believe it.

The check slid into the bowels of the machine, and after a short wait, even to Me, the screen informed me of the number and amount of the check and added that it had been approved. Wow. It then asked me whether I wanted a receipt with the check scanned on it, or just the regular receipt. I was very impressed by this. Of course, I barely know how to use an iPod, so others may not find this as amazing as I did, but I still think it’s cool.

With the proceeds of my check, I invested in six bottles of six dollar wine (Clos Du Bois and Ravenswood, on sale) and lunch at Glenn’s Hot Dogs. Being Northern California, there were many non-traditional options, such as turkey burgers, veggie burgers, and, in my case, smoked chicken apple sausage with fancy mustard. I sat at the counter in the bright sun and was thankful to be home again.

Fog coming in over the mountains

It’s a sunny Sunday in San Ramon. You may wonder where it is, and although I’m here, writing outside the Guest Laundry at the hotel, I don’t really know, either. It’s technically in the Bay Area, yet many highways (6?) from SFO. It’s sort of like when I went to see the Islanders somewhere on the Island and still don’t know where it is.

It doesn’t really matter, though, since I’m in Limbo and this may well be where Limbo is located. It wouldn’t surprise me.

I’m awaiting my laundry and my furniture, pretty much in that order. Faithful readers will not be surprised to read that I have had a certain amount of trouble with the Guest Laundry facilities, including stubbing my sandal-clad foot, hitting head on overhead washing machine, and being on the third set of quarters for the dryer, which is apparently even lazier than I am on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

At least I can sit outside while I’m waiting. It’s probably safer here.

The laundry should win the race, despite having a much later start. The many thousand pounds of my personal possessions were packed onto a truck on Wednesday. The Illustrated Man who headed up the operation assured me that they would be decanted at the warehouse, then escorted onto a giant moving truck for the main journey the following day. Supposedly, the driver could tell me that day how long it would take for my things and stuff to arrive at my bijou Oakland residence.

The driver, however, had other plans. Not only did he not appear the next morning, he didn’t appear at all the next day. When I finally tracked down the guy at the moving office and he finally tracked down the driver, he informed me that my things wouldn’t even be put on the big truck until Tuesday. Tuesday! Almost a week after the promised date! He told me this while I was on one of the many highways between San Ramon and Oakland, and I was too surprised to say much of anything, not that there’s anything I can really say or do under the circumstances. Except wait. And hope this isn’t a bad omen.

Hi, how are you? You look great! Have you been working out, ’cause you look great. Really great. You know what’s the best exercise ever? No, not shopping – it’s packing! That’s right! So cardio, with the box filling and hauling, and so stretchy, with all the bending and lifting! It’s an all-in-one workout, I’m telling you. Why don’t you come on over and pack with me? You’ll love it! More fun than a Thighmaster and Stairmaster combined. Wait, come back! Come back…

I don’t blame you for running away. I’d run away myself I could extricate myself from the sea of boxes and chaos. It looks like the inside of my head around here. For some reason, no matter how many boxes you fill with things and stuff, there is an endless supply of non-packed things and stuff lying around mocking you. You’d think that boxing things up would create order, but not around here.

Maybe I’m doing it wrong.

There’s a strong possibility of this, because another discovery I have made about packing is that it’s perilously close to housework. You can tell because it’s boring, endless, and ruinous to a girl’s manicure, all things any right-thinking person avoids like the evening news or nude photos of George Bush (either one). My sentence is up in less than a week: the movers arrive next Wednesday, whether I’m ready or not. Can she do it? Stay tuned!

Where I am…

…Where I’m going.

Next week!

I really wish I could see this exhibit at Sotheby’s, honoring the style and elegance of the legendary Grace Kelly.

Almost as much as I wish I could have attended Ellen Barkin’s jewelry auction around this time last year – and buy a couple of things. Like the diamond briolette necklace. Or the strand of emerald beads. Or the long diamond tassel earrings. Or the JAR diamond thread ring…

Apparently Ms. Barkin decided to unload the sparkle after her billionaire husband, Revlon chief Ron Perelman, summarily ditched her (with security guards in attendance, no less). If I were her, I would have kept every last carat. After all, diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

But she did make $20 million on the auction. So maybe she’s laughing all the way to the bank – or the jewelry store.

Nothing but the sparkliest for my kittens.

Discovering that Dennis was, in fact, Audrey in disguise gave me the perfect excuse to buy pink sparkly mice. Having already traumatized her by treating her like a boy for the first three months of her life, thus possibly sowing the seeds for a future serial killer* (though being a girl and cute definitely lower the odds), I didn’t want to push the gender confusion thing further with sparkly pink mice.

In general, the toys you buy kittens are less attractive to them than the things they find around the house. I believe human kittens are the same way: give them a dream toy and they’ll toss it aside and play with the wrapping paper for hours with ostentatious glee. My neighbor gave them a fancy sort of kitten “learn & play” thing, and they scorned it in favor of a toilet paper roll.

The fancy toy is gathering dust in the corner, feeling justifiably neglected and unloved. I’ll probably end up paying for its therapist.

They do love the sparkle mouse, though, and it has the advantage of not looking enough like a real one to make me scream if I come across it unawares.

Audrey loves the little diamond hoops I wear every day. They are her favorite toy on earth. Her method is to ooze sweetly onto my lap, as if she’s just there to cuddle, and when she’s lulled me into a false sense of security, start batting at the earrings. Variation: she merrily chews on them while purring in my ear. There is nothing ticklier! Or a pricier teething ring, for that matter.

June, on the other hand, doesn’t waste her valuable time on the small stuff. This morning, she came trotting into the kitchen with something in her mouth. There was something swinging around, but it was too shiny to be either a regulation mouse or a sparkle mouse.

It was my 85 year old diamond watch.

Note to Self: keep all diamonds out of paws’ reach. Who knew jewelry needed to be kitten proofed?

*Though a serial killer of real, not sparkly, mice would be welcome and appreciated.

PostSecret just gave me something new to worry about.

Maybe Amsterdam’s handbag museum could accommodate the Fabulous Suzy Collection?

Dennis and Phil say good-bye.

My neighbor, she of the glorious morning glories, brought Phil* over to say good-bye to his brother and sister. Phil was the runt of the seven kitten litter, but you’d never know it now. He’s strong and handsome and very nearly the same size as his siblings, so he’s ready to go his new home.

His new home is an old home, well over a century old, with a sunroom and a garden – the perfect place for a young cat. The owner is a classical musician, so there is a harpsichord and a grand piano. But more important than all these things, there is someone who loves Phil.

It’s been an incredible joy and privilege to watch these kittens grow up. I have to admit that I got teary-eyed watching my neighbor and Phil vanish from the sun of the courtyard into the darkness of the passageway. Good thing I have Phil’s brother and sister to cheer me up.

*Apparently, this is short for Philbert. The other kittens were named Otis, Phoebe, Adelaide (Adele for short – the guy who adopted her hastened to assure me that the name was his girlfriend’s choice, not his), my Dennis and June, and Mr. Mittenz. You will probably not be surprised to learn that the guy who named Mr. Mittenz is in his early 20’s, or that Mr. Mittenz has white paws.