I got DSL a while ago, back when it first came out in my area. This was prior to all the known problems – months of wait to get it installed; poor connections; etc. Two weeks and I had a nice young technician at my door who turned my phone outlet into a double jack, handed me a network card and supervised as I installed it into my own computer, and did a few quick configuration steps on my computer to make it play nicely with the DSL modem. Half an hour he was there, and when he left, I was connected – blissfully happy with my speedy new connection and unwilling to ever go back to dial-up again.

Everything went along swimmingly since then and probably would have continued just as smoothly, except I made a big mistake. I decided to move.

You wouldn’t think this would be such a big deal. You’d think (poor naive soul), that it’d be a simple matter to transfer the DSL from one phone number to the next. In fact, the newer DSL is even nicer than the old. Instead of splitting one phone jack, they told us, the whole house would now be wired. We could pick up our computer and move it around and we’d be connected everywhere. All they had to do was turn it on and we’d be set, right?

Except that back when I got DSL, they were still giving away static IP addresses. And because we set up our own little local area network with our very own router and firewall, we sort of needed to *keep* that static IP address. In fact, when I went through the rather lengthy hassle of setting up the new phone lines and the DSL transfer, I insisted that we get to keep it, and I actually got, in writing, their agreement to do so. A grandfathered clause, as it were. Not a problem, they said. Piece of cake, they said. I should have known better though. Getting transferred in circles simply trying to get them to figure out that I wanted to transfer my DSL (with or without a static IP address) was painful enough. I should have realized what was to come.

I won’t bore you with all the nitpicky details of what I had to go through to actually get them to do what they agreed to. Let’s just boil it down to this. Three days. A total of about eight hours on the phone. Circular transfers between DSL and regular phone service; between DSL ordering and DSL support; between lots of people who didn’t know what to do with me and kept foisting me off on yet another person who didn’t know what to do with me. It all finally culminated in three (yes, three) technicians showing up at my house this afternoon to do the highly complicated (yeah, right) task of replacing my external DSL modem so that I *finally* got connected.

It also ended in me figuring out that apparently, in order to get *anything* accomplished with Pacbell and their DSL partners, being nice doesn’t work. Biting the head off of the next tech support person one is transferred to on the phone (after going around in circles for the better part of an hour) makes them actually listen to you. It also, I think, makes them put little notes on your account that you don’t like to be put on hold (heh heh) and tend to be a bit volatile, but at least it worked.

I finally did discover that the source of all my happy DSL-connection nightmare fun was, quite simply, the transfer of the static IP. You see, they just don’t *do* this anymore, so no one knew quite how to handle my request. I guess they figured that if they shuffled me around long enough I would just go away, or give up and take the dynamic IP set-up.

Ha. They guessed wrong.

An email showed up in my inbox this evening from Pacbell. They noted I’d recently used their tech support service and they hope I’d be willing to offer some feedback on the service I received.

I’m letting this one sit for a while. I’m not so sure they really want my feedback right now. I have a sneaky feeling they wouldn’t know what hit them.

There are stars, so many stars. We can see them from the windows. It’s something we’d noticed long ago, coming out here late at night with flashlights trying to see what progress had been done on the house. And now, inside, they are still there. Such a small thing; such a large and beautiful sky.

I am wondering why I thought stairs were a good idea. We are both sore and exhausted. Granted the movers did most of it – lugging every box and stick of furniture into their truck and then carrying all the heavy stuff up the stairs or wherever it went. But still, we each had our own cars full of things too fragile or unpacked for the movers to carry. Computers. The antique glass lamp. Baskets of laundry.

We came last night – filled cars with all of the clothes from our closets, and boxes of food from the pantry and brought them over. Just a few little things to give the house our stamp – make it more ours.

The cats mill about in confusion. They spent the day in the bedroom at the old house, locked behind a door but still able to hear the noises of the move. They cried nonstop on the drive over when we went to fetch them this evening, and all but two are still huddled inside cat trees and carriers and bathroom cabinets still, unsure of this new place to which they have been brought but still needing constant reassurance that we, at least, are here, and there is something good and familiar.

We have so little furniture. This house is so big and empty. The stairwell echos. There are new and different noises.

There are birds in the neighbors’ trees, and the sound of the wind through the leaves is soft.

And there are stars.

Minor setback. They won’t release the gas inspection report until the house is finalized. They won’t put in the order to install the gas meter til the inspection report is released. They need 24 hours to assign someone to come out and do the installation. We can move in, but there will be no gas hookup. Electricity but no hot water and we won’t be able to use the stove. Oh yeah, and heat. No heat either.

So…keep your fingers crossed that it’s a mild weekend for weather in the Sacramento valley, folks. I have a feeling the nights are going to be pretty bad otherwise. I’ll admit this is for purely selfish reasons that I ask this. If it’s cold, the cats will come onto the bed, and since they leave Richard alone, guess who’ll be mummified in cat fur.

Ah well.

Zero hour approaches and we’re ready. Almost. We’re at the point in packing when it’s all miscellaneous stuff – not quite enough for a box of its own, but still needing to be packed, so it gets thrown into a box with other stuff, labeled something generic like ‘paperwork’, and then we’ll spend the next few weeks searching through boxes trying to remember just *which* miscellaneous-labeled box we stashed this thing whose importance will be inversely proportional to the difficulty we’ll have in finding it.

The cats know something is up now, but so far they’re relatively calm. After all, in their eyes, anything that involves empty boxes and scads of packing paper through which to slide can only be a good thing. I have a sneaky feeling that this perception will change when they all get locked into a room with no furniture tomorrow, but for now its kinder to let them have their delusions of normalcy. Goddess knows we lost ours far too long ago.

Only three days and the pressure is mounting. There’s still so much to pack and so many things to do. My cold is lingering, settling into my sinuses so that by the end of the day my head is pounding from the pressure. We’ve chosen a mover and need to call PG&E to set up the gas meter. There is still the nagging issue of whether the garage door opener will actually work. I keep opening closets and cupboards and finding more things to pack, or stuff that should have been left for Salvation Army when they came earlier. The night before the move when we should be doing last minute packing, I’ve got to be at church because long before we knew we were going to move that day, I agreed to play an oboe descant for one of the songs for the Maundy Thursday service (and no, I don’t know what Maundy means either).

We went to dinner last night in our soon-to-be-home town and discussed church politics with the waitress, who also happens to be the choir accompaniest. It was an eerily adult feeling. We drove home with shared thought that by this time next week that trip home would be a lot shorter.

There’s nothing left to buy for the house; that is, no more decisions that have to be made before it can close. We’ve plenty more to buy once we’re in, but nothing of the earth-shattering status that results in quests like this past weekend, where we were reduced to wandering umpteen home and hardware stores searching blearily for just the right towel bar and toilet paper holder. It’s an odd feeling to no longer have questions to answer. Now we’re the ones with the questions. Will the inspections pass? Will they get it done? Will anything happen to prevent us from moving in?

The piles of boxes in the garage are growing, marked with the room each one should go to in the new house. The cats don’t seem to be too fazed yet. They’re having fun diving through piles of packing paper (special blessings to those who saved their dishpacks and nice packing paper for me, piled in their garages for months) and lurking in and around the empty or half-full boxes. I watch them and try to remind myself that I wanted this; have looked forward to it; have dreamed of it.

Three days and then it’s over. Finally over. We just have to make it that far.

I’ve been sick the past few days. Sore throat, stuff nose, and absolutely no energy. I was feeling so draggy that I stayed home from work yesterday and today, knowing I could still dial in on the conference calls and thereby not miss anything. Not, mind you, that there’s much to miss this week anyway. We’re still in thumb-twiddle mode, waiting for the powers-that-be on this project to make decisions on what we can work on, and when we can start again.

Granted this has worked out well in my favor. It means I can actually be sick without worrying over what I’m going to have to spend extra time making up when I get back. It means I’ve also had time to make all the phone calls necessary to arrange for the move. And being home meant that I could have movers come over to do estimates for how much they’ll charge to take all our stuff, stash it in a big truck, drive it 20 miles, and then unload it (a lot, by the way. It will cost a lot. Ouch).

I’ve had a low-grade fever – probably the reason I’ve been so exhausted – and all I want to do is to curl up and take a nap. The problem is that my mind is racing too fast and I can’t sleep. Last night I lay awake all night, trying desperately to make my brain shut up. I curled up on the sofa, hoping that the lurking in the quietest place in the house might do the trick, but no luck. I lay there trying to think of absolutely nothing, and meanwhile my uncooperative brain jumped merrily from topic to topic. Remember that odd little doctor from the play Arsenic and Old Lace, and while we’re on that subject, let’s recap the little old ladies singing at their basement funerals, shall we? Counting sheep? No, no, let’s count boxes instead – how many more do you think we need for books and then there’s all the rest of the stuff. Where are we going to put the third cat tree? Against that wall in the living room, but then that leaves an orphan bookshelf, unless that goes…no..maybe…hmm. How long did the neighborhood rules say we can live there without having the front yard landscaped and do we get special compensation for moving in in spring when every gardener in the surrounding three counties is triple booked?

Of course, insomnia at least means I’m not jerking awake from my current stress dream-of-choice – the one where we’re barreling down the freeway and all the cars in front slam on their brakes but we’re not stopping and I wake up seconds before we slam into them.

But still, if I could just get some sleep, I’d feel better. There’s too much to do and not enough time to do it. And I’m so tired. So very very tired.

Did the insulation guys finish the attic? Where are we going to put the cat food and water bowls?

Make it stop. Please, just let me not think. Just for one night.

Sob.

Two weeks now. Only two more weeks til we will be in our new home, and still so many little stumbling blocks in the way., and so much to pack.

The marble for the downstairs fireplace had to be installed prior to installing the flooring, and it was two days late. We ended up needing more of it than we’d thought, even after getting an extra. Somehow we got the extra piece and it all worked out.

The contractor told us it was a simple task to put in a gas stove if we wanted, so when we went to choose appliances, we picked a gas stove – one with heavy burners suitable and all manner of other extra details. Then a call from the contractor – he’d thought we were going to have an electric range and it wasn’t the time to put in the gas line; it was the timing of the change. This needed to be done after the heater was in, and the countertops were scheduled prior to that, and this could push us back an extra week. Richard and I talked about it, hashing out our options. I even went so far as to go to the appliance store to pick out an electric replacement, even though I’d gotten my heart set on the gas model. Then a call to the contractor who said ‘sleep on it. Let’s see what we come up with in the morning.’ And sure enough, it all worked out.

We want the DSL installed by the time we move in so I spent over an hour on the phone being transferred back and forth between the DSL department and the regular phone company. I needed to have the phone activated first. No, all this was was a DSL transfer and why was I talking to the regular phone people – I needed to talk to the DSL people. After the third transfer I refused to keep going in that particular circle, and instead insisted that they explain exactly what needed to be done and that *they* work it out amongst themselves. Luckily, they were wonderfully cooperative, once I got a bit stubborn, and we worked out a lengthy process by which we can have our precious DSL installed by move-in day. As a bonus, one of the reps figured out that we’re three times closer to the main hub in the new house, which translates to a faster connection.

In the middle of all of this happy house stres…I mean, fun, my mom and I managed to get together and hash out not only a decorating scheme for the reception (resulting from a lucky glance at the ceiling of a neighboring craft store and their floral display), but also the favors for the guests, the flowers for the bridesmaids, and we actually ordered the cake. Plus there are the primitive stirrings of some vague attempts at being actually artistic in my un-color-coordinated brain, and I think I may know what I want to do for *my* bouquet. Finally.

A while ago, Richard and I did a Really Bad Thing for people about to buy a house. We ordered computer desks. Granted, these were not your ordinary run-of-the-mill computer desks. These things weighed approximately four tons each came with built in lights and cooling fans for the towers and multiple sliding surfaces and would probably volunteer to scrub the floor for you during their off hours. But regardless, it is generally a Bad Idea to buy furniture when you don’t even have the house to put it in yet.

Lately we’ve been regretting this decision (although in response to our weakness in ordering those desks, we’ve forbidden ourselves from entering that particular furniture store again – it’s too dangerous). And it hasn’t helped that our contractor planted the idea that maybe we could speak to the carpenter who’s doing all our kitchen and bathroom cabinetry about doing up the computer room too. We were given the name and number of someone who had the carpenter do *her* office, and sure enough, when we went to go look, it was gorgeous. And much more lovely than the desks, amazing and multi-functional as those desks were. The clincher was the fact that the office she had cost just about what one of these desks would cost us. Oof.

It’s not as simple as saving money and getting just what we want though. When we first started building this house, we figured we’d use the larger back bedroom for the office. But then it occurred to us that that room would get more sun and would be a lot warmer with all that computer equipment and so we switched to the front room, which, although smaller, would be much cooler and had the added benefit of a comfy window seat. Hence, when setting up all the electrical and phone outlets, we wired the heck out of the front bedroom and left the back one alone. However, now both contractor and carpenter are suggesting we reconsider this decision, since we could do lots more stuff with the back room. Arrgh! The contractor says that the fewer electrical outlets won’t be an issue and since we’re putting in a ceiling fan, the heat shouldn’t be so much of a problem, but still… Whichever bedroom remains computer-free also gets closed off and becomes cat-free. So the electrical outlet I had placed in that closet for the automatic litter boxes will remain unused and I’ll have to string an extension cord. But then there’s the issue of space…sigh.

I think the stress of everything is getting to me though (the house, the wedding planning, and the situation at work). Last night I dreamt that they just built all the cabinets and shelves and installed it and never told us til it was too late, and then when I asked how much it was going to be, he told me $51,000.

Gotta love my brain’s peculiarity of only allowing me to remember the bad dreams. Sigh.

I babble about house plans a lot here but I haven’t touched much on the wedding plans lately. It’s not that we’re not doing anything – it’s just that the house has been a little prominent in my worry-sites. Heh.

So let’s go through all the happy fun and excitement we’ve been having, shall we?

The Clothes: The seamstress is wonderful – comes with a sharp and wicked sense of humor (she’s a gamer so she fits in quite well with our crowd) and a now-four month old baby my mother adores because it gives her lots of grandma-practice during fittings. The outfits themselves are looking marvelous, with the possible exception of my mom’s dress, because apparently the burgundy fabric she choose for the main part of the outer skirt has a teensy weensy problem of bleeding dye everywhere – dye which causes allergic reactions like swelling of the eyes, sneezing, and hives on the part of our seamstress. This is not normally considered a good thing.

The Photographer: We found a photographer we both liked (my mom and I) a few months ago. Not only is the price quite reasonable, but the samples we saw were well done, plus this lady was enthusiastic enough about the theme to volunteer to actually wear a Renaissance-style costume to the wedding while she works. We thought all was just fine until my mom got a call from the studio saying that the woman we’d picked couldn’t do it and someone else would do it instead. No explanation of why – just that there would be a switch.

My mom started calling, pestering them especially when she couldn’t get a straight answer. Seems that the woman we talked to and liked is fairly low on the totem pole and someone with higher seniority saw the package we’d purchased, thought it sounded like fun, and decided she’d rather do it instead. So she simply crossed off the first woman’s name and penciled her own in.

Unfortunately for her, they didn’t count on dealing with my Mom, who is not the type to just sit back meekly and nod. The happy ending to this story is that we’ve still got the woman *we* liked, and the studio has hopefully learned a little lesson about screwing with the customer. Or maybe not, but hey, it’s a nice thought.

The Invitations: About a month ago we ordered invitations after sitting on the floor of a cramped little print shop going through books and books of styles. My mom, having been through this whole wedding thing twice before (for my sisters) insisted we order early so there’d be time for any mistakes to be rectified. Turns out this was a good thing because the lady from the print shop has called three or four times now in the past few weeks. First the invitations were delayed, and then after she (the print shop lady) kept pestering the printers themselves, she found out that they hadn’t even *printed* them yet and they were supposed to be available for us to pick up one week ago!

We’re going to tackle the cake and the flowers this weekend. Should be interesting to see what can go wrong with *them*…

To the mother of two small boys,

This gift may seem a bit odd to you – after all, I’m not sure you’ve ever been the journaling type. But bear with me here.

You’ve got two little boys now and a world of magical and fascinating things unfolding for you and your husband and your children. You take pictures and you preserve those memories, but there are other memories that cannot be captured in a snapshot; memories that are harder to hold on to.

I’m giving you this journal because, years later, you can read back and relive those feelings and emotions that go with the pictures you take. There are happy moments you’ll want to treasure, but the not-so-happy ones are just as important to record and keep. Frustrations can sometimes be a bit more bearable if you write them down.

Write as if no one will ever read but you. Even though your sons may read it, years and years from now when they are grown, write for just you anyway. Write even though you know you’ll read it later and disagree with what you put down on paper, or feel silly about the way you felt. Write in silence, or at the kitchen table listening to your boys play. Write outside in the morning to birdsong. Write by a window with the rain pouring down. Write when you have something to say, and especially when you don’t think you do. You’ll be surprised.

Happy birthday, and happy journaling.

We got our taxes done – finally. We had someone else prepare them because after I attempted to do my own taxes last year and got extremely different numbers each of the three times I calculated, I gave up and swore I’d never do my own again. The minute you sink into the wonderful world of dividends, exercising stock options, and money market accounts, the 1040-EZ form runs screaming, and the 1040-A follows closely behind. Sigh.

I owe the government again this year – enough to make me wince visibly (it’s not pleasant to face a nasty tax bill the same month you’re about to enter full house-mortgage-land), but at least when the nice tax prep man itemized all my deductions, the amount was a bit better. Not much, but some. And when it comes to taxes, I’ll take what I can get.

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Joining the ranks of things around the house that are falling apart because they know we’re this close to moving, the toilet in the master bedroom decided it had had it. Near as we can figure, what with peering into the tank (and some wise person installed a bathroom counter directly over the tank so you kind of have to lift the lid and peer sideways and rely on dunking one arm into the water in a rather awkward position and trying to half-feel, half-squint at the problem), that the little lever that attaches chain to handle has broken. I’m sure it’s fixable – they make packages of toilet paraphanilia at hardware stores – but at this stage of the game, there is so little incentive to even bother! We’re just starting to accumulate a nice little list for the landlord when we move out. I’m sure he’s going to appreciate it. Really he will.

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In house-building news, we had to finalize our picks for the kitchen and bathroom floors. This necessitated going to the local dealer of carpet-and-other-stuff-you-walk-on, and flipping through books and racks of vinyl samples. The selection of unattractive kitchen and bathroom flooring in every shade of beige known to man (and then some) was staggering, but having been through the ugly, speckle-infested countertop selection, and the paint chip joy of selecting the right white, I think we were more than prepared. In the end, we found our choices and are quite happy with them. Whether we will be quite so happy when they are on the floor and we are actually comparing them to the rest of the house remains to be seen, but I’m being optimistic here.

While the guy at the store was writing up our order, we got to amuse ourselves by trying to find the ugliest carpet sample in the display room. It was a close race, as there were entire binders full of those hideous spotty or geometricly-afflicted carpets one finds in business offices, and for a bit there our fiercest contender was a square of blue with a pattern of white guaranteed to induce nausea if stared at too closely. But in the end, this had to take second place. The winner, hands down, was the salmon-pink selection (bright salmon pink, too) speckled with multi-colored spots in shades of orange and red. The effect was sort of what one might find should one’s cat toss her (barely digested) cookies onto a carpet which had once been a sickly yellow but onto which someone spilled an entire bottle of Pepto-Bismal.

The scariest thing about these lovely gems is not that someone thought them up. It’s that someone, somewhere, probably has an entire room (perhaps a house, but that thought is just too painful to comprehend) of this stuff. On purpose!