My New Apartment

That was just a joke. In the photo I'm actually sitting in the downstairs closet in the kitchen under the stairs after Brenda pulled out all the jackets and odds and ends, vacuumed and spread baking soda. It's now filled with the jackets I'm keeping and boxes I've already packed to bring to my new apartment once I find it (books, photo albums, the fish plates, cookbooks). Brenda was here for 2 full days (3 nights) and accomplished an amazing amount of work on the house. She is a powerhouse! We went through most of my clothes, she emptied 3 full closets, moved boxes up and down the stairs, made a run to the recycle place with the back of the Prius full of padded envelopes. We also laughed a lot, spent a drunken evening across the street with my hard-drinking neighbors, went for 2 sunset walks, had a lovely lunch along the Bay, picked up my divorce papers and traded war stories. It was wonderful and I wish she could have stayed longer. Kate arrives tomorrow from Texas for 4 days. She's already put together a portfolio with a different section for each city I'll be looking in including various pockets, she's downloaded google maps and plotted out where promising apartments are, etc. We're going to spend Friday working on the house along with Wayne and calling apartments to make appointments and then Saturday and Sunday we'll go apartment hunting. On Monday Francine comes down from San Francisco for a joyful reunion (I'm going to try out some of the Louis Roederer champagne I've got stored) and also to help us, and then she'll drop Kate off at the airport on her way back to the city. Meanwhile Wayne has been here almost every day clearing out the garage, taking boxes to the recycle and shredding places, helping me get ready for our biweekly recycle garbage pickup, organizing everything. He's been invaluable. I couldn't do this without him. I've decided on a liquidator and we've set the date for the estate sale (the weekend of August 7). I'm calling my landlady in the next day or two to let her know we're leaving.


Elson is not making it very easy for me. I won't go into details here, but things have been pretty stressful and my emotions go up and down on a daily basis. People are becoming concerned about my weight (98.5 pounds last time I weighed myself) and so I've scheduled an appointment for a check-up. I am proceeding with the divorce. Unfortunately, it probably won't be finalized before the end of the year, but I've got too much on my plate right now and can't concentrate on too many things at once. I haven't been able to do my monkey bars very much the last week because of visitors and other welcome interruptions, but I notice the difference in my state of mind and my clarity when I don't do them. I also haven't been going to exercise class, which I miss, but I can't fit that into my present schedule.

So that's it for now. I'll post more after Kate leaves.