Rough landing

They didn't make it easy to go, those friends of ours. Tugged at our heart strings they did, with this send-off video, and many an accompanying hug and farewell from those friends, from family, from neighbors, from co-workers even. And California itself those last few weeks, the green and the gold, the bridge and the ocean, how can you leave such beauty behind? By buying a plane ticket and then alternating between panic and drunkenness until the moment that plane takes off. At least that's how we did it.

Well, almost. There was certainly a good deal of panic. Every day for many, many weeks, it was the same: awake at 5, fret for an hour or so, then leap out of bed only to be reminded there's no way to fry an egg and hardly a cup to pour oatmeal into, only the first of the day's hurdles. So start leaping: over boxes, over piles, over mounds of earth and rock (link to a future post, a story in itself), over bridges, over contracts and papers and emails. Then, at some point, most days, things turned: a friend stops by to help, or one realizes it's only a shot or two before that bottle can be recycled, and somehow work is done and drunkenness begun. Sleep and repeat.

I got through it all by envisioning that moment right after takeoff when I would recline and fall asleep, floating away to a land where there would be no boxes to pack, where I could live in peace and quiet rather than next to a construction site. But the universe, with a sense of humor somewhat less mature than Gideon's, arranged things otherwise. For starters, this scene at SFO:

Stepladders near a jetliner's engine can only mean great delay, and certainly these did. Then there's this:

Those are keys left behind by nine years of renters, nor were these the only keys, nor keys the only detritus. Pillows and electrical converters and cups and mayonnaise...turns out our packing isn't done, it's only time for round 2. Ha ha, what a jolly sense of humor the universe has! And did I mention we're splitting the apartment downstairs with the neighbors below and they, unlike us, aren't waiting a minute to get going on the rebuild? Topping things off I have the worst poison oak of my life and the Netherlands is suffering from drought so severe there's real concern about fires in the tiny Dutch forests.

So it's been a bit of a rough landing, but drought means the weather's very nice and once you clear out the clutter our apartment turns out to be in great shape (and, with the expansion, actually larger than our house in the US). We've got bikes and library cards, and are borrowing a neighbor's wifi--KPN can't get around to turning ours on for a full fortnight, please don't get me started. I expect we'll have our residence cards next week and, immediately thereafter, new mobile numbers. We're legal to work and to live and tomorrow we go to the garden house to immerse ourselves in friendship and the Nieuwe Meer. In short, we're doing great and are happy to be here.