The kindness of friends
We were early touching down at the Madison airport, and for a wonder the baggage folks had our stuff on the carousel before we could even get there. (We were in the back of the plane, but it wasn’t that big a plane!)
The friends who had good-naturedly agreed to waste half a Saturday picking us up arrived shortly thereafter, and we performed feats of geometric virtuosity in sqwunching into a single car three large suitcases, one picnic bag (chosen because it came with enough plates and cutlery to make do with for a few days), a backpack, a battered Land’s End bag, an eMac (theirs), four humans, and two pissed-off cats in carriers.
We found our building without difficulty, found the key that our landlord had kindly hidden for us, hauled all the stuff in (including the eMac, which is being lent to us until our stuff gets here; see post title), turned the Goths loose, and let our friends get on with their Saturday.
Then we just gawked. The new place? Is beautiful. It’s a bit more than half the ground floor of a 1930s-vintage two-story house. It’s got windows galore, huge windows, so it’s light and bright and airy. It’s got a working fireplace, though I don’t anticipate using it as such. (”Hey, dear! We can have crossed swords over the mantelpiece!” I quipped on seeing it.) What was billed as an eat-in kitchen actually is one—and there’s actually room to cook in it; this is no galley we’re talking about here!
The new place is not perfect. The kitchen counters are 1950s blue formica. There is no air-conditioning, which means I am looking into thermal curtains for the many windows lest the place become an oven in August. The hallway to the bathroom and second bedroom is so narrow that the second bedroom probably can’t be used as a bedroom because we can’t get the biggest of our clothes bureaus into it. This leaves the smaller bedroom, which is rather small, and also a bit drafty because it’s clearly a later and rather shoddier add-on. We’re thinking the solution may be to use the small bedroom as our bedroom (I like to be cool at night, so the draftiness isn’t a huge drawback—and we’ve a space heater if need be) and put a couple of the bureaus just outside it… in what is nominally the dining room, but we just don’t do formal dining, so it may actually become the office.
That room is painted in what can only be described as Wisconsin Blaze Orange. David says he likes it. I’m dubious, and when I get to the hardware store later today (we are a block and a half from an honest-to-goodness hardware store! joy!), I am going to be looking into a sedate dark red or something of that nature. At least for two or three of the walls!
But every drawback here can be lived with, and the whole is still utterly charming. We’re in a real neighborhood, not an apartment or condo complex. We’re a quick block from the lakeshore, a block from several buslines, two short blocks from groceries (both Oriental and conventional), a comfortable walk to campus or to the zoo, and a longish but manageable walk downtown.
The Goths are acting squirrelly. Dream has decided that Didi is his enemy, so she’s taken to hiding under whatever can be hidden under, usually blankets. They’ve both been traumatized by trying to jump onto the shelves-on-brackets in our bedroom, the problem being that the shelves are not screwed, glued, or otherwise affixed to the brackets, so a large cat landing on one tips it not genteelly at all off onto the floor. (This is another thing that will be fixed with a trip to the hardware store today.) They’re not eating especially well either. Nothing for it but to let them settle down.
Right after dark, another friend of ours came by to drop off a spare futon, which is leaps and bounds better than trying to sleep on the floor! Said friend then took us downtown for dinner, and would not let me pick up the check.
I have amazing friends. I have a good new home with a decent landlord. I could try to be happier, but I’m really not sure how I’d manage it.