Today was a busy, roller-coaster kind of a day, with some wonderful parts and some horrendous parts (I will leave it to you, dear reader, to pick which was which). I got up a little after six-thirty; I was actually awakened about forty-five minutes before that by some sort of strange, wild caterwauling from what I assume was some sort of feral animal near my house, but I managed to go back to sleep despite my bedroom's eastern exposure. I suppose that a feral animal is better than a feral crazy person any day, which is what would have been more likely to wake me up in the city of sin. I managed to find appropriate clothes, locate all my shower requirements, and get myself cleaned up for the day in time to make the drive up to Berkeley for the monthly meeting of the San Francisco-area RWA chapter.
While going to a meeting was probably the last thing I should have done in terms of my moving productivity, I'm really glad I went; I sat with a couple of women whom I met and liked at the retreat last month, and was really impressed by the high turnout and the quality of the guest speaker (Barry Eisler, who writes thrillers -- he was talking about injecting suspense into your work, and I'm eager to read his latest book, which he gave out to everyone during the meeting). So, I'm looking forward to going again, and hopefully seeing some of these women at the romance conference this summer. The meeting is only once a month, and unfortunately I'll miss the next one due to my trip to Tokyo, but I intend to be settled and more able to do things by the time the August meeting rolls around.
I left the meeting with the intention of making a quick stop at West Elm before going to the city of sin to clean the old apartment, but John quite fortuitously called and, after discovering that I was in the area, came over to Emeryville for lunch. He and Jess needed half an hour or so to get ready and come over, so I browsed my heart out; unfortunately the shower curtain that I wanted to buy at West Elm was not available in the store, but I did score a lovely warm yellow cream and sugar set on sale at Pottery Barn, which is a gorgeous shade that nearly matches my Dijon-yellow Le Creuset casserole dishes. They arrived just in time to rescue me from folly -- I strolled into Williams Sonoma and discovered that the Kitchenaid stand mixer that I've had my eye on for years was on sale, in store only, from $350 down to $200 in honor of Mother's Day. This made it v., v. tempting, since it would be hard to find one brand new for less than that. Ultimately, though, I decided to pass; I don't know if I can justify it based on how much I would use it, I haven't sorted out my cabinet situation yet, and even if I do have the counter space, there's no guarantee I would have it in the next place. But, the victory of my common sense tastes like ashes; I've coveted that mixer for years, but now I'm committing to coveting for another few weeks/months/years. Sigh.
Anyway, John, Jess and I had lunch at Buckhorn Grill, which I've never been to, but which serves amazing sandwiches (both of the ones we had involved large quantities of tri-tip). It was good to see them and continue to wage my propaganda campaign to convince them that they should stay in the area. After lunch, we walked over to Cold Stone because Jess wanted ice cream, but the store smelled like hundreds of gallons of rotting milk, so we evacuated and parted ways sans ice cream. Even though I'll be gone for 2.5 weeks, I'll still see them at Adit's wedding -- I'm basically using this wedding as a chance to see people in bulk before I leave straightaway for my business trip. Add some alcohol, and it should be amazing.
I spent the rest of the day cleaning the apartment; the job ended up taking me 5-6 hours, and I still need to wet-mop the kitchen floor before the landlord comes to inspect it on Tuesday. But, everything else is done, the refrigerated condiments are safe in their new home, and now it's just a matter of a final mopping at the old place and unpacking a hundred boxes at the new place. I was supremely helped in this effort by Vidya, who came over to pick up a child's weight in lentils; we went around the corner to El Castillito for an early dinner, and then she helped take out some trash and recycling too before taking her leave. Thanks Chandlord!
After the cleaning extravaganza, I made it home by eight p.m., but I realized after moving some stuff around that I really needed a break. So, I read a romance novel that I downloaded a couple of months ago (it's the debut of the woman who won the Golden Heart the year ahead of me). It was pretty good; I liked her dialogue, although there were places where I would have liked a bit more emotion. Overall, it was a worthwhile way to spend a relaxing evening at home -- and on my couch, which I think is the loveliest couch in the world, and which I'm so glad to have back.
Unfortunately, I really need to sleep now; I have a crushing number of errands to run tomorrow, and I want to keep making progress on the packing. Goodnight!
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