Reading: Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

Moving: nada

House: bought some furniture

1 June 2000: Adjusting

Living in a house with plenty of windows is going to take some getting used to. Daylight, of course, is a big treat, but there's the instant after turning off the shower when I open the door of the stall--two blasts of cold and colder--and reach across for a towel.

Wednesday night we slept in the bed in the bedroom for the first time (previously we'd been in the living room) and had Blake with us. He woke up well before the sun rose at 5:2X; he woke with the birdsong of dawn. Last night we wose up and left him in the dining room and he didn't peep until I got out of the shower. Damn screecher.

Living in the house has thus far meant less liberty for Blake. Some of that is self-imposed: he's leery of the same bookcases he's known all his life (okay, he's never seen them empty before, but still) and outright refuses to explore the kitchen windowsill or the hall closet, both of which I thought would be favorite spots for him. So he's either on a shoulder or atop his cage.

And breakfast! We've always known that all cereals are flayrah for Blake; over the past few months I've succumbed to his irresistible begging and allowed him to eat out of my bowl. He's just so cute, climbing down my bathrobe sleeve from my shoulder to my wrist, as I assemble bowl and flakes and flaxseed and cranberries and soy milk, bobbing his head and encouraging me not to waste time but to feed him that Right Now. Now, though, I want to eat my breakfast outside, on the porch if it's a warm morning or on the patio if it's cool. Outside means he's in his cage. Eating an assortment of flakes from his dish is not nearly as fun as choosing his own pieces from my bowl, taking a bite, discarding it with a flick of his head, flinging unacceptable flakes to the four winds (all of which behaviors are why I prefer him to eat in his cage).

Poor thing.

For the past several mornings I have been unsympathetic of his plight because breakfast has been the only time he'd give me the time of day. He's been a Daddy's Boy most of the week.

Last night we discovered what the problem has been: no computer! RDC set up his home office in the dining room Tuesday but I have been slower about setting up mine. When we got home last night, I decided it was time to set up Fiver.

*Should I name the computer Blackberry instead, since he was the cleverest? Fiver was more intuitive.

Kevin and Jenn and RDC had all ribbed me the night before about how easy it is to set up a Mac. Well. I did wind up calling RDC. I couldn't figure out where to plug the monitor into the computer. And why? Because I have a compatible monitor, not a Mac one, and it takes an adapter. I left off the printer, which I never use, and the scanner, which I use very seldom, for now, until I get shelves to the right of the desk. RDC launched Netscape and there I was, connected through the airport.

US West installed our second phone line today but could only do it in the dining room, not in RDC's study. So the airport--a goofy name--will perch in the dining room where the port is or in the living room on the built-in shelves with a wire subtly sneaking around the arch.

So I got online last night for the first time in over a week. I cleaned up a lot of email and wrangled a few notes to myself into entries. Maybe I'll post tonight.

I had left Blake upstairs with RDC, since the bananahead seems petrified of the basement as a whole and the stairs particularly. Later he came down to say something or other and Blake, on his shoulder, begged for me. Ha. My buddy stayed with me the rest of the night until bedtime. So even if my house remains unpacked, unweeded, and unpainted, I guess I'll still write entries, because apparently only by working at a computer am I granted any Blakey-love.

Our plans for last night were to buy bedroom furniture and look for lighting and bedding. When I got home from work, RDC told me his coworker Terri was going to stop by on her way from the airport. He's pleased with Dot Com altogether and with his coworkers especially, so I was happy to meet her. RDC had told Kevin Wednesday that one of his coworkers knows Kevin's mother, and Kevin said any master gardener in state probably knows his mom. When Terri, in turn, asked how we knew Kevin, I said that actually I knew Kevin's wife better and didn't really answer the question.

After the tour, Terri asked us to join her for drinks or supper with her cousin, and so we three joined Sarah at the Painted Bench. It was great fun to talk with the two of them because they grew up together and therefore have that sentence-finishing, gesture-mirroring way of knowing each other.

A few times Wednesday night when the other three geeked out, I felt like Lisa Simpson at the new, smart girl's house, where the new girl's family encourages her to be bright instead of stifling and mocking her as Lisa's family do. The father is unimpressed with Lisa, who is unused to not being the brainiest person in the room, and he hands Lisa a rubber ball: "Here's a ball. Why don't you bounce it?" However that really goes, it's become HAO's and my catchphrase for when RDC becomes unintelligible.

I had some occasion to relate that to Terri and Sarah, who were much amused. Later in the meal after a confusion of homophones, I offered another self-deprecating story: the other day at work coworker Vermont said he had to go to Las Vegas, NM (there is one in New Mexico) for the day. Someone asked if he could fly straight to Las Vegas or would have to drive up from Santa Fe, and Vermont said, "Oh yeah, 19 cedar."

Was this some sort of frequent-flier password, like Bravo Charlie Utah Niner Niner? I whispered to Coolboss: "What's 19 cedar mean?" She gave me a look. "It's a prop."

Thankfully, here I did not go mentally tangenting off into theatre, ever farther from the obvious meaning, but realized "propeller plane with 19 seats." A 19-seater, ahh!

As I told Terri and Sarah, my whole department laughed at me (deservedly so, and I with them), but afterward, gesturing with hands cupped to hold something as delicate as a nestling, I wanted just to play with my ball.

We talked about hard wood floors and Sarah told of how she was liberated from the "Eeek! A drop of water!" attitude I currently have. She had a Christmas party and everyone ended up Riverdancing--badly, of course, as drunken non-Irish-dancers must--and the hilarity was worth whatever it did to her floors. An excellent attitude, I thought; RDC needed Riverdance explained to him. His brain really doesn't waste any space on stuff like that.

Naturally this led to another story: a brand new MA student arrived (doesn't "arrove" sound so much better?) at an introductory party held by a faculty member. She had met no one there before (except her father and undergraduate sister, whom she thought fit to bring along). She had brought along some tapes of Irish dancing music and thought it perfectly appropriate to browbeat her untried peers and professors into some Irish dancing lessons in the living room or--since the professor for some reason didn't want all her furniture shifted to the sides of the room--in the driveway, in the middle of suburbia with people watering their grass and walking dogs all around.

Actually I kind of admired her gall, because I'm not exactly a goddess of proper etiquette and protocol myself. But she needed to learn to harness it somewhat or channel it elsewhere, as do I.

I guess it made a funnier story with the acting out and the gestures. Oh well.

Oh no, I remember, this is the point of the story: at some point during the year, RDC chanced to remark in her hearing something about the stress he was under preparing for his comps. Immediately this woman waxed empathetic, because she had just been certified as an Irish dance instructor and so completely understood how much stress he was under.

The whole body of literature in English, with its historical, cultural, and critical context, your comprehensive knowledge of which will dictate the path of your future academic career, versus amateur certification for a hobby. What a ninny.

Oh, and this night when Terri and RDC became unintelligibly geeky, Sarah and I, at opposite corners of the table, engaged in an equally animated though entirely mimed conversation. We are, with our rubber balls, very easily amused.

Afterward, RDC and I placed our order at Restoration Hardware for a bed, a chest of drawers, and a nightstand. Gulp. And then we came tamely home. No lighting, no bedding, no runner for the kitchen floor (so I'll be yipping "Eek! a drop of water" for another few days). But I got online, which meant Blake loves me.