Out Of One House And Into Another

We now have stuff in three different houses at the 
same time. What is wrong with this picture?

We are comfortably housed in a vacation rental for the next several days, anticipating the arrival of some family for Thanksgiving tomorrow. The dishes I hauled in my car from Pennsylvania are still at the house we've been living in for the past two months. So is a little bit of food. Our clothes and Darcy's books and animals and a LOT of food are in the vacation rental with us. 

But our sweet cat is in our new house, which we sort of, almost took possession of today. She's got her food and water bowls, her bed, the shirt off my back (literally), a scratching post, and a bunch of the stuff that we hauled from Pennsylvania in our cars. I worry that she's lonely, but Michael says she's a cat and she'll be fine. I hope he's right.

On Friday, all the rest of our stuff from PA will be delivered. We tried to pare down our stuff before this move (again) and I hope I will be less stunned by how much stuff comes off the truck. 

But mostly I hope that by the time we leave the vacation rental on Sunday, we can crawl into our very own beds for the first time in three months (for Darcy and me, anyway)!! I'm ready.

The House Search

When we were in St Louis, we drove by our old house on Liermann Ave. It was looking about as we left it, although with new basement windows, I think. The house wasn't perfect, but we enjoyed it.

Today, I started looking at houses in our new home. It was a bit of a reality check. I visited five houses and only one was a realistic option for us. I will be continuing to look.

Unfortunately, I'm also having to continue to look for a temporary living situation as well. We had hoped to extend in our current hotel for another few nights as it has a kitchen, but when we asked, we found that they already have booked it. So we're moving to bed number 15 tomorrow, but I booked it through Sunday because I'm having so much trouble finding a longer-term temporary house.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Fun In Baker? It Turns Out To Be Possible!

Please forgive the lack of photos; I didn't think to grab the camera for our temporary residence in Baker. I probably should have, given our activities last night.

I was on the phone with Amy, planning the menu for a fungus conference we're going to cater for in October. I mentioned that we were thinking of checking out the Baker Community Pool in the evening. Pool? Did somebody say pool? A little over an hour later, Amy and family were at our door, ready to swim. Michael had to work late, unfortunately, but the rest of us headed over to the pool, which lives across from the high school and share its parking lot.

There were more people working there than swimming, but for a buck each per adult, it was hard to beat the surprising cool water, diving board, and very shallow end that Darcy could stand up in. We swam, dove, and splashed for a while and then headed back to Baker House for a big veggie dinner and some dancing to the I Like Yaks song.

Two future social events are coming out of this as well. On Wednesday, with the other adult residents of the Granites away, we're going to watch a kids movie projected onto the side of a building. Movie still to be determined, but there will be lots of popcorn. On Saturday, I might go with Amy and Matthew when they head to Vegas to contradance. Yes, you read that right -- there is contradancing in Las Vegas! Woo-hooo! Who would have thought it possible?? If this Saturday doesn't work out, I'll probably try another week, as it's a twice-a-month dance. I miss contradancing.

In other news, I've finished Wuthering Heights and didn't love it. I didn't even like it, except for the last four or five chapters. Bleah. I've started The Color Purple. I know I saw the movie a long time ago, but I don't remember all that much of it, so the novel still has the capacity to surprise me and I'm not constantly comparing it to the film because I just don't have a clear picture of that. I like it. There are actually many miserable characters (either in misery or handing it out), as there were in Wuthering Heights, but it feels that there is hope for better (within the characters, not just in the narrative) in The Color Purple and that was absent in most of Wuthering Heights.

Water? Who Needs Water?

Apparently, we don't. And we're not on the need-to-know list for getting information about the status of our water supply, which is much more frustrating than just not having water. And that's saying something, because not having water for the past 36 hours and finding out that we won't have it until Monday at the earliest? That's pretty frustrating.

So. We. Are. Moving. To. Baker. Tomorrow. Again.

In case you were wondering, Baker hasn't gotten any better since my last post about the ridiculous temperatures. In Cima, tomorrow's high is supposed to be a glorious and delicious 81. In Baker, it is supposed to be 103.

Which would you prefer?

We're Home

That's pretty much the whole story. We have water. We have power. We have fish alive and well. It's good to be home.

Day Six In Baker

The insanity of Christmas carols at the Gordon celebration.

I got clever and called our house in Cima this morning. I got the answering machine: power is, indeed, restored. With any luck, it came on in time to save the fish. We haven't heard anything about our water, so I'm guessing the part did not arrive yesterday. Now that it's the weekend, I suspect we are sojourning in Baker at least until Monday, more likely Tuesday. Huzzah!

Playdough Is Much More Fun Than ...

... a house without water or electricity! Today, my aunt and uncle were visiting us. We had lunch in Baker and then toured one of the volcanic landscapes in the park. Darcy, Michael, and Nick descended all the way into the lava tube. Ellen and I watched from, let us say, the vestibule. We stopped at Kelso, of course, and then tried to tour Cima House on our way to dinner in Nipton.

No lights. No power. No filter and heater running in the fish tank. No heat in the house. Nothing. Ah, the joys of a house without power or water. After dinner, we parted ways with Nick and Ellen, who headed back to their hotel in Las Vegas, and we drove back to Baker. We got word almost immediately that it wasn't a power problem that had anything to do with the water work, so we called the electric company. According to their recorded message, our power went off at 1 and was turned back on at 8. We're keeping our fingers crossed that it's really true. We don't want two dead fish and a freezer full of defrosted food when we get our water back.

Of course, we haven't had an update on our water situation today. Michael's colleague who let us know about the power hadn't heard that the fix the other day didn't work, so he couldn't help us on that account. With any luck, we'll hear something tomorrow!