Category: Family & Home

Weekend in Paso Robles, visiting family at brother’s new house. Hot and dry, surrounded by pastures and orchards. People have real acreage and elbow room, in exchange for lots of dust, foxtails in the socks, and eight miles to nearest store. Sushi feast with family at golden hour. None of them had seen Miles since he was three months old. Now he sits on dad’s motorcycle (not running) and smiles wide. Hooked up chintzy FM transmitter to iPod and listened to David Sedaris stories much of the trip. Coast highway home, it’s been a long time. Over the past 20 years I’ve negotiated this, the most beautiful highway in the nation, in a ’66 VW bus, ’82 Honda kook car, ’78 convertible bug, family station wagon, various motorcycles, our capable Camry. Stopped at Nepenthe for hummus and endless Pacific view in warm air of early summer. The last weekend out before big push of packing, moving in to new place, the start of the DIY projects cycle.

Had our home inspection this morning. Four hours poring over every little detail with a fine-tooth comb. Like wearing X-ray Specs, seeing the place from an angle you never see at an open house — couldn’t believe how much there is to look for that you don’t know to look for if you never looked for it before. How are these gutters mounted? Where does this mystery pipe lead? How are the steps supported? Any sprinklers clogged? Does the hood over the stove actually blow smoke? And so on… Didn’t know toilet tank lids have dates stamped inside — usually the best way to date a house (one of ours stamped ’42, the other ’47 — probably the original owner had to wait for the war to end to install a 2nd bath).

Hands and knees and into the crawlspace to check the foundation, slither on belly, head full of spiderwebs to see foundation etc.

Short story: No showstoppers, but enough projects revealed themselves to last a year of weekend DIY.

… and … soooo …. Amy and I won the bid (six offers) and bought a house! (the El Cerrito one). We’re homeowners. In debt for life. Legitimate grown-ups. Excited and nervous. Hell of a day. More later.

Back in the house hunt full swing, spending every Sunday traipsing up and down the East Bay, mostly getting dismayed but holding out hope. Today found two places that turned our cranks, though in very different ways.

House A is in Berkeley. We had mostly given up on being able to afford Berkeley, though we put a big premium on living “close in” to shops and good living. Fantastic neighborhood. 10 minutes hanging out with the neighbors and already feel like their friends. House is a little red farmhouse. Inside it’s a blank slate, ready to become whatever we make of it. Strangely configured, but all potential. The downside (there’s always a downside) is that it’s small. Smaller than what we’re renting. That’s a hard pill to swallow. We would have to simplify, get creative.

House B is in El Cerrito. 1950s ranch style. Turnkey, ready to move into. Has a good vibe and is open and spacious. Lots of room to spread out, grow into. Neighborhood feels safe. 5 minutes from Wildcat Canyon for great hiking. Downside: It’s out in June and Ward Cleaver land. The nearest shops are a Jack in the Box, a party supply store, auto row, and a strip mall. Nothing worth walking to. The street it’s on is busier. Biking to work would be harder.

Swallow the red pill, and see how deep the rabbit hole goes…

We love them both, but in very different ways. So we’re going to bid on both — a process that has to be undertaken carefully (there’s always the remote danger one could win both bids). Crossing fingers but not too tightly… but we’re SO ready for this endless process to move on to the next phaser… It’s been 18 months since we started looking, though we skipped the 6 months around Miles’ birth.

Check who’s figured out how to stand up all on his own…

Miles has a Po doll. Tonight he pulled Po onto the living room floor face down and got up on its back. Dug a knee in between Po’s shoulderblades. Grabbed ahold of Po’s circular red antenna and yanked backwards, pulling Po’s head up off the floor. Half-nelson hammerlock, WWF action writ miniature, but totally innocent like.

In the past three months, Miles has flown to Nebraska to meet cousins, became a living Valentine’s day card, had his first experience in a swimming pool, began eating solid food, hammed it as a pinup cutie, pulled kitty fur, got some teefs, and learned to crawl. Pix.

One of Miles and Daddy’s favorite games – Daddy makes a tower out of stacking cups with a plastic ball he calls the neutron ball, then Miles knocks it over. Now that Miles can crawl, this is even more fun, as it becomes a race to see whether Daddy can get the tower built faster than Miles can arrive on the scene.

(Click)

Shooting this sequence with one hand while building the tower with the other was… a gas. I’m not going to show the variant of the game where we knock over the tower with a toy airplane. ;)

For about a week Miles has been up on his hands and knees rocking back and forth, and spinning around in place doing “The Lazy Susan.” Then yesterday, all of a sudden, he kind of swung his legs underneath him sideways, rolled toward one shoulder, up again, knee forward, rolled again, then up, hands lunge forward, kind of a strange melange of body moves that synergistically, somehow, resulted in him moving slowly forward. In 20 minutes he made it from the living room all the way to the kitchen to tap mommy’s leg and say “hey.” He was so proud, beaming like the moon.

Can’t quite call it crawling, but it’s definitely locomotion!

Miles is on the brink of crawling. Up on his hands and knees rocking back and forth, falling forward falling back. And this morning he started spinning around, using his belly button as an axis. He does a full revolution and then looks up to see if we saw him do it, giant grin on his face. I told him he has “mad turntable skills.” Amy’s sister Lisa says he’s “doing the Lazy Susan.”

Rather than CNN or Fox News, we are watching Teletubbies this morning.

Have a nice war.