dave’s not here

So the week that we left for that trip to Paris and London – remember that? That was weeks ago, in another universe – we did something you don’t normally do right before you waltz out of town for a week. We put an offer on a house down here in Connecticut. Which was accepted, two days before we flew to Paris. We spent a hurried couple of days dealing with the bank, authorizing them inspect our every (financial) nook and cranny.

After we returned from Paris/London on July 21st, we headed down to New Jersey to hang with Kevin’s family for a few days.

I went for a run on the Ocean City boardwalk. There were so many other runners out that it triggered my secret inner competitiveness and I noticed my three mile time was a few minutes faster. Hm.

I had to borrow my sister-in-law’s swimsuit because I’d let my own decompose in a froth of rotted spandex. Oops. Yep, Kevin’s got a cane – the cartilage in his knee has wandered off and left no forwarding address.

A niece, a step-niece, a sister-in-law, and me, clowning around on the boardwalk.

And then we got back from New Jersey, and all my coworkers at the aerial park were like “who are you?” as hey, I’d been gone for a couple of weeks, which in a seasonal job is approximately a decade.

 

All is well at the park. It’s been that time of the summer when whatever fun stuff you meant to do, you’d better hop to it before school starts: on the days I’ve worked there, it’s been PACKED. That’s the main platform, above, and the ladder to the start of the blue course (the second most difficult).

The house we’re buying is a new type for me – it’s a split-level, built in 1965. I think it’s going to fit us pretty well – it’s got an open floor plan, which we prefer. Two decks and a teensy Romeo-and-Juliet balcony over one of the decks. Some tongue-in-groove ceilings here and there. A well-established landscaping plan. And an overall sweet vibe. Given its history and design, it has a certain whimsical Brady Bunch charm – check out this fake rock wall in the entrance hallway:

 

Yeah, that’s going away as soon as we determine which size sledgehammer to buy.

There’s also an alarming amount of wall-to-wall in the upstairs, and some wallpaper, that needs to be taken care of, but I have plan for that that involves flying my best friend out here from Idaho to be my personal slave for a week. She’s psyched. That must be why her voicemail is full and she’s not answering my texts, but I’m not worried. Heh heh.

We close on the house either this Friday, or next Friday. (The latter, but possibly the former.) Regardless, the moving truck shows up on the 24th.

One of the decks.

I’ve already packed up most of my clothes, all of the books we brought down here from Vermont (we still have, I dunno, 25 boxes of books up in Vermont?), and all of the random tchotchkes. I swear, I need to stop collecting rocks and shells. I’m starting in on the kitchen this week. The cats aren’t sure what to make of this. It’s all good.

A week after we move, I’ve got a half marathon to do back up in my old stomping grounds, in Swanzey, New Hampshire. Training for that is going OK.

We’re psyched to be buying a house. The mortgage/taxes/insurance will net out to less than what we’ve been paying in rent, for one thing. For another thing, it’s just better to be Master of Your Domain, and not subject to random surprise visits from the landlord. We’re still committed to dave, our property in Vermont (and namesake of this blog), but hey, we’ll be here for a while, so let’s roll up our sleeves and commit to cherishing a bit of it on our own terms.

I’ll miss the neighborhood ladies who contemplate me as I stagger up the hill past them on my runs:

And I might miss, AGAIN, that moment when the jack-in-the-pulpit berries go red.

As of August 3rd, they were still as green as can be.

There’s been some excellent chicory action lately.

 

We have our own batch of brown-eyed susans in the yard here that I’ve grossly neglected. I’ll want to be sure the new place has some of these.

And for those of you who don’t get the reference in this post’s title (that would be you, Mom), I refer you to the Cheech and Chong classic: