11 March 1999: A new house!

You should pronounce today's title like Bob Barker on "The Price is Right" used to announce "a new car!" as a potential prize. And it's a two-bedroom apartment, not a house.

So here we are, we're all moved in. Actually we were all moved in 27 February. The 28th we cleaned the old place and did very little for the rest of the day. We've continued to buy organizing stuff though. And other stuff.

• A hamper with three compartments so the laundry's pre-sorted. We used to use the monitor box as a hamper. It lived at the end of the closet on top of other boxes. This move we've taken the radical step of not keeping the hardware boxes.
• An ugly plastic shelving unit at the back of the walk-in closet and another modular unit on one closet shelf for laundry, tools, ski boots, and suchlike.
• Two new study tables, neither of which threatens to collapse under the weight of our Mac, and a new desk chair. RDC's old desk met the big dumpster in the sky and my old desk, a $30 laminate assemblage from K-Mart, now stands at the end of the kitchen, in the dining room, and will hold a microwave when we buy one.
• Bathroom stuff, now that we have two. DMB mostly did this. RDC's and my bathrooms now obviously belong to two different people and I wonder how long it'll be before I feel like I'm invading his space if I ever shower in his. He has a shower curtain with giraffes on it, not surprising since DMB picked it out. It's manly though, not goofy. I was debating between a violet and a Winnie-ther-Pooh bathroom and I believe I've reached a happy medium.
• RDC needs drawer space still and boxes of cables, files, and pens line the floor alongside the desk.
• We still need another shelf for my closet for our jeans and sweaters.
• Oh yeah, and we bought a couch and a chair and an ottomon with the petty cash.

The walls are empty, conspicuously so in the living room. The previous living room and dining area were papered in bookcases and books, almost all of which now live in the study. Our cushy new couch and chair, the fireplace, and the media cabinet take up all the living room space now, but only to waist height, except Blake's cage. In the bedroom hang my posters of Picasso's Pan and Dove and van Gogh's The Starry Night, and over my desk hang my photographs and other totems. We might finally get our diplomas framed, also for the study, which doesn't solve the living room issue. The plan is to buy real art.

And Blake has a windowsill, which he's never had before. Percy had a windowsill in our tenement, but there wasn't one in the most recent apartment for Percy's short tenancy nor for Blake's occupancy. Now he's on the study windowsill with his playpen on a bookcase directly below, so he can eat and drink and destroy his toys and watch the world go by and scream at whatever it is that offends him. Unfortunately the view is partly of traffic, which he has yet to adjust to.

The scariest thing around is still a sneeze, though. Traffic, when properly yelled at, goes away--just ask Blake, he'll demonstrate. Car comes into view, he screams, it leaves: he controls the universe. I just sneezed though and he launched from his window sill, flew to me in the opposite corner, and fluttered to a stop on the other desk. He is able to fly just now, but he doesn't really know how. He dropped a lot of primaries in last month's early moult and as soon as they're all grown in, with his flight capacity thus increasing, snip! he'll become a hamster with stubs again. Parrot companion-humans are immoral, aren't we?

I have my right foot under me and my left foot on the chair, knee up. He's on my left knee now, his own left foot drawn up into his belly feathers, leaning around to preen his tail, losing his balance and putting down the foot--he's enchanting. It's snowing out and if the sneeze hadn't inspired him to leave the windowsill I would have fetched him presently anyway. It's too cold for extended stays.