Big Weekend

Here comes the cavalry...and the pike men, and the arquebusiers, etc. I've been sewing all week for this thing. Tomorrow I bake bread. Monday we begin the big moving thing in earnest: life is crazy sometimes!

The Big Muck-out

We've gone in "thirdsies" with two neighbors on a 40 cubic yard dumpster. It's been here since about 0830 this morning and it's about 1/2 full already. When we inherited this place from Gordo's folks we also inherited 60+ years of accumulated stuff stored in half-baked "additions" (read: lean-tos) around the main house. Over the years leaky roofing, rats, cats & squirrels have taken their toll on the piles of mostly cardboard boxes and odd objects. When we first moved in we filled THREE 40 cu yd dumpsters one after another, now we're getting to the rest of it. Moving is a pain, but it's also a blessing in that it forces you to do "junk triage".
Since it never rains but it pours, everything is happening at once this week. Dumpster time, finishing the last of the paperwork on the new house, and prepping for the school of the soldier this weekend...and Gordo's grandson is visiting. He's a great kid and it's a good thing this visit is happening because I don't know when we'll see him and his mommy next after we move.

The Easter-ness of "Star Wars"

Here's an Easter Sunday cartoon from Bill Amend ("Foxtrot"). I was almost as nerdy as Jason at that age. I'm slightly less nerdy now.

Happy Easter!

He did it all for us and sits on the throne...

Got questions?

It's Official

We have the house...and pasture, and barn, etc. I'm so tired I haven't had the energy to do the mass emailing to notify friends & family, but we are still very excited! Now we just have to work out the little detail of when we can actually move in. The "take possession" date went from "three days after closing" to "fourteen days after closing" at some mysterious point during the contract signing process. Two weeks? Um, do we just drive around in a holding pattern?! Our agent has spoken to the current owners and it turns out it will be much less time than that, and in the meanwhile we'll be able to turn the horses out there and have the moving company deposit our worldly goods in the giant garage. It still means we'll be camped out at my folks' place with five cats and three chickens...but we'll see what really happens. We're going to try to get an extension on our occupancy down here (it's not like somebody's waiting to move in, this place is going to be radically remodeled...if you know what I mean). The man just went out for more boxes. It's really finally happening and I'm actually starting to allow myself to feel the excitement.

On another note, our lunchtime and evening entertainment lately has been to work our way through the BBC mini I, Claudius. It's really well done and hardly dated at all. Patrick Stewart with hair! A young John Rhys-Davies! John Hurt...with the same gravelly, husky voice he has now (I think he's a cyborg, he never seems to change...)! If you have a really crazy or dysfunctional family (or step family or in-laws or whatever), this is a good mini to watch. It will make you feel just peachy about your own situation. If it's just the same old same old, seek police protection immediately! Grandma Livia is the original Battle Axe Potempkin Uber Dragonlady...and it just gets worse from there. Any doubt that inbreeding and lead pipes (& cooking pots) are a bad idea will be erased permanently. Any doubt as to why classical fashions for women have re-surfaced over the centuries will also be erased: they make a girl look goooooood! (I'll take Connie Neilson's entire wardrobe from "Gladiator", thank you.)

Dining Out (about 500 years out, actually)

Last Saturday, after shopping and bopping until dropping at the Rakkasah Belly Dance Festival, we attended the annual "Emperor's Birthday" of the Renaissance Military Society. I was tired but it was nice to sit down with some friends to a yummy 16th century meal and chat about the upcoming soldier school, among other things.

Two Gordon's (there's one behind the mug) and a Neb.

Happy Snapshot Memory

We're doing the big muck out/pack-up in preparation for our move north, and today I found this photograph in a box I was sorting. It's just such a cute snapshot I though I'd share it. It was taken at the Halloween party thrown by production during the location work on "The Patriot" back in '99. The pretty blonde girl worked for the Art Department head (she painted the tin soldiers and made a lot of other nice props for the film), the "rodeo cowboys" are two of Gordon's Green Dragoons, Gordo is the Delaware Indian, and I'm the squinting Afghani girl. I can't remember who snapped the pic (I think another one of the Cavalry guys...). This was the last really big show we worked on (I worked for the Armorer and never want to clean another flintlock musket again...); so many "horse opera" type films are being shot outside of the US now for financial and other reasons, it's really a shame.

Roller Coaster

We still haven't heard whether our offer has been accepted. I can't remember the last time I wanted something this badly. This means I'll really appreciate it if it comes through. Things are accelerating pretty quickly despite this ticking clock in my head over the pending acceptance. Having to be out of here in 44 days is kind of crazy-making, but, as Zaphod Beeblebrox once said, "I find it contracts the mind wonderfully."

Unfortunately it also means we'll be moved up north before Lizzie's wedding instead of afterward, which was not the initial plan (life got in the way), but it's no big deal to fly down instead of drive over (and means more Alaska Airlines miles!). What with this plus all of the other goofiness (good, bad & indifferent) going on in our lives, we certainly don't miss having cable TV. Life is dramatic all by itself.

Time Dilation

It's a deal. Less than 24 hours after listing the property we've accepted the offer, which is a good solid one. The money is in escrow (a few weeks ago I didn't even know what that even meant), and we're ready to make a formal offer on the place in WA. I think I know what alien abductees must feel like after a close encounter: where did that time go? We were NOT expecting things to move quite this quickly...

Update (22:54): Our offer is presented in the morning. We'll know sometime tomorrow whether we get the place. Yes, we are on tenterhooks.

Whiplash

Well, we bit the bullet and listed our house/property yesterday. The shingle went up today.

Five hours later our agent called and said we had a cash offer, full price. Needless to say, we're a bit stunned! We'll sleep on it and call her back in the AM. Holy cow...

Now we just have to make a formal offer on that place in WA!

and the winner is...

Back in Stockton...for the time being

I think we may have found "The Place" to buy up in WA. No place is going to be perfect, but this one is pretty close...maybe 90%. The house could be a tad bigger, the neighbors could be further away...but by and large it's really a great find! The big barn with stalls and paddocks and a HUGE pasture is the real selling point. It's all about the critters...

In other news, while I was "up there" several weird things happened within minutes of each other on Saturday night, the 12th. First, giant flaming meteorites! Then, power outages all around Seattle! Then, a nice little earthquake (3.3)! What next? Raining toads? I missed it all because I was safely ensconced at the Poulsbo Community Center Theater watching the High School production of "Hello, Dolly!" It's a good thing I love those songs, because if I hadn't known them already I would have wondered what they were singing/saying half the time. Diction? Projection? What're those?

BTW: Mt. Rainier did NOT erupt (party pooper, I guess), although I did notice when I flew in to Seattle on Friday that Mt. St. Helens was showing evidence of her little tantrum last week. We had a really spectacular view of most of the WA/OR volcanoes and other assorted mountains. Two guys in the seats behind me were arguing about which one was St. Helens. Not very observant, those two. I don't know, when faced with a whole assortment of snowy, conical peaks, I would guess that the stumpy, messy-looking one would likely be the one that exploded. I finally turned around and said, "It's the sooty one."

Volcano Alert...Again!

Today at around 5:30 PM Mt. St. Helens decided to get all huffy and send huge plumes of ash skyward in a dazzling display. This news was particularly interesting to me as I spent most of last night dreaming about the eruption of neighboring volcano Mt. Rainier (the next one north of St. Helens). It's always something...

Volcano Cam Links

Four Seasons in a Graveyard

Before you think I've gone all gothic, please visit Afterlife, an amazing web gallery by Jonathan Clark. This is the most interesting digital photography I've seen yet. The photos stand alone, but then he's added some very subtle animations to some of them that really take photography to the next level in a beautiful and moving way.

Media Bias...No, Really!

In case you haven't figured out that the general media are heavily biased in one direction and another, and that major "news" outlets offer nothing of the kind, check out this little nugget of goofiness from Jeffrey Overstreet up in Seattle (our fair city).

To up the ante, sort of, here's another sterling example (sorry, no permalink, but it should be on top for awhile) of why people with more than two brain cells to rub together eschew broadcast news in general. Why do they even call news anchors "reporters" anymore? Talk about stretching reality...