Home Sweet Apartment

We are in. Sorry to be so out of touch over the weekend, but things have been, as you may have guessed, a bit crazy.

The move went very smoothly. I had a great moving team from All My Sons. Three sweet funny guys who outdid themselves hauling all my crap up and down stairs all day. They were so cute I took their picture before we left the house.

I'm almost all unpacked. Grayson has waaaaay more stuff than he needs, and I think I may have to purge some of the junk toys that are just tossed in a box. But everything else is put away. Over the next few days I will get the pictures hung and then I'm all set up.

There were a couple of casualties. The computer power source died for some reason. Gray has taken it and ordered a new power supply. That's why I have not been online. Grayson is going through Spore Withdrawal, but Gray says hopefully the new power supply will come in today.

The TV is also on the fritz. Not sure if that's a symptom of having been bumped about too much in the move or a Cox cable issue, but my guess is that it's the tv, not the cable, which is too bad because I definitely can not afford a new TV.

The moving crew broke a leg off of Grayson's bureau, but my dad was able to build a replacement for it, and it is just fine.

The last casualty was Lenny. Grayson's goldfish. Gray brought the 10 gallon aquarium over and set it up for Lenny on our first day in the apartment as a sort of housewarming for Grayson, and we moved Lenny into it that evening. Guess we moved him too soon. He died the next day. Well, my mom and dad were at the apartment helping me hang some pictures, and my mom and I ran out to Walmart and picked up a replacement Lenny PDQ. Fortunately, Grayson did not notice any difference, so as far as he's concerned, Lenny made the move just fine.

Saturday we went to Petsmart and picked up another fish to keep "Lenny" company. One of those bug-eyed black goldfish. Grayson hamed him Popeye. Popeye seems to be thriving and he and Lenny get along "swimmingly."

The dogs moved in on Saturday. They are perhaps my greatest challenge. But I am determined to make it work. Walking them is no big deal, except that Flower pulls really hard on the leash and I'm afraid one of these days she'll pull me right down the stairs. She is also afraid of coming up the stairs, because they are open and she can see the ground below between them. The first few times she went up, Grayson and I had to come up on either side of her, coaxing her every step. And a couple of times she has simply stopped and refused to go any further. But every time we do it, she gets better at it, and I'm sure by the end of the week she'll be bounding up and down them with no problem. Kobi is also a little shaky about the stairs, and is hesitant about doing her bathroom business while on a leash. To say nothing of her tendency to circle my legs and wrap me up in the leash itself. I think I'm going to have to take Flower to dog school to break her pulling habit. Kobi will just have to get over her leash shyness.

She does this bizarre thing, though. There are, of course, a million dog smells all around the apartments. Kobi and Flower both are tinkling on everything to mark their territory, and Kobi seems determined to pass herself off as a much bigger dog than she actually is. When she finds a place she wants to mark, like the corner of the wall around the pool, she backs up to it, lifts herself up on her front legs, and pees on the wall. Her back legs are completely up in the air. I have got to get video of this. It's hysterical.

Grayson seems totally content. The move does not seem to bug him at all. He loves the fireplace, and the novelty of walking the dogs several times a day. He likes to lay out on the balcony in the sun in his jammies. He's a little bit stir crazy because of a lack of computer, but he's thrilled to have a tv in his own room. All in all, he seems happy with the whole arrangement.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the old house with Gray, cleaning. Grayson went down the street to play with Sam Powell. It was hard to be there with Gray. The house looked so empty and neglected. It was a complete mess after the move: dust and dog hair and trash everywhere. The rooms echoing and seeming diminished. It made me want to cry for all the hopes and dreams we had when we moved in there. Now it's just a place I want to get away from. I feel like I failed the house somehow. Or maybe it was bad luck from the beginning. Maybe we should never have moved there. I don't know. It was no fun being there Sunday afternoon, though.

I got a bunch of peppers and a couple of late tomatoes from the garden. It is still producing, in spite of my neglect. That, too, breaks my heart. I wonder how long it will be before everything stops hurting me and I will truly look only forward and not back. Right now I try very hard to be positive and look forward. But I'm fearful and worried. Worried I won't be able to keep the dogs in the apartment, fearful the house won't sell and we'll be bankrupt. Fearful I won't be able to make ends meet and I'll have to leave the job I love for one that pays more. I worry about the housing market and global recession. I worry about money. I worry about how to store all the stuff I haven't been able to fit in the apartment. I worry that Kobi is peeing on the carpet somewhere that I haven't noticed yet.

I worry that Gray will get a girlfriend and I'll die of heartbreak. I worry that I am not a great mom to Grayson right now because I am tired and sad and short tempered. I worry that I drink too much and don't eat right. I worry about the cigarette smoke smell in my new bedroom. I worry about silly stuff and big stuff and huge stuff. I worry that I am so tense I can hear the cartilege in my neck crunching when I turn my head. Seems like I shouldn't hear that sound. Is that normal? What is it exactly? Why is it doing that?

See? I worry about everything. I'm sure I'll relax in time. I should get back to my yoga classes, that would probably do me a world of good.