Boxes are Disappearing and It's Beginning to Look Like Home

Our three pods of possessions arrived on a flatbed truck just short of two weeks after we left Maryland, allowing us enough time to get fed up with sleeping on an air mattress. The truck driver operated as accurately as a robot as he manipulated the fork lift like it was an extension of his body. While keeping an eye out for people and cars in the street, he quickly maneuvered the pods into their precise spots even though he couldn't see around them.

The unstoppable rain gods decided that since it poured with rain as Steve and the movers loaded our things into the truck, our move wouldn't be complete without them also unloading them in the bucketing rain. Two "young hunks" aka, the movers, arrived at 8am just as we were in the middle of an immense thunderstorm (dark menacing clouds, thunder and lightning along with sheets of rain) that lasted most of the morning. Guess the rain gods are happy now that they gave us a liberally soaked sendoff combined with an equally liberally soaked welcome. We haven't seen any rain since!

We are struggling to fit everything into a slightly smaller space and have almost succeeded, although there are still some boxes in the garage that we haven't opened yet. I'm very tempted to leave them unopened because if we don't miss "whatever" is in them within a few months, we obviously didn't need the mystery missing items. I am missing my Buddha head statue so I may have to open some boxes to find that, but that's about all that I think I'm missing. I love it when I ask Steve if he knows where something is, and he'll reply, "it's in a box somewhere".

Right now, our balcony furniture is sitting in the middle of our living room because the outside of our building is being "freshened up" by being painted. By coincidence, they are painting it a grey similar to our house we just left, so our balcony furniture matches the new paint. I moved chairs and tables in (Steve was in California) because I noticed workers were feverishly moving a spray paint machine back and forth outside the balcony. Painting the top half was a speedy process, but then they left with it only half done. I’m not sure when they are coming back to finish off the more detailed work since they’ve moved to the other side of the building the last few days. I'm undecided on whether I should move the furniture back out or leave it in the middle of our living room.

So far most of the exploration of our immediate area has been practical excursions such as trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond, Home Depot and HEB, our local grocery store. I'm especially excited about the grocery store as the entrance seems to be similar to Whole Foods with a huge produce section, almost all of which is locally grown. It also includes all sorts of products such as clothes, automotive products, electronics, etc., pretty much anything that you can want – or couldn't imagine that you would ever want. One of the things that I love is that you can weigh your produce as you select it and put your price label on the plastic bags. We used to buy our produce this way in the supermarché in France, and I could never understand why UK and American stores don't offer this feature.  You immediately know what your fruit or vegetables cost and it saves time at checkout.

An unexpected adventure took up a half day as we had to find a veterinary clinic much sooner than we anticipated. On awakening on Sunday, we realized that Sadie was sick, so we hurried off to a nearby emergency vet clinic to sit the whole morning in air conditioning that was turned to sub-zero temperatures. I'm sure there's probably a good reason for the frigid temperatures, but after 3 hours, we were both chilled to the bone. Sadie received a shot, and we were sent out into the San Antonio sunshine to thaw our bodies. The next morning, I searched the Internet for a local regular veterinary clinic so that I could take her in to meet yet another vet. In addition to being ill, she was beginning to feel victimized but I still got her into her carrier without too much of a fight. My battle was with the zippers on her carrier because I couldn't zip up the sides before she jumped out and hid under the bed. I had to drag her out while she was crying a very pitiful meow. Ali bolted for the nearest hiding place convinced that he was next! In the end, hopefully Sadie will be back to her feisty self in a few days.

Not all of our discoveries have been boring or related to getting us settled. We found a local Tex-Mex restaurant just around the corner that has fresh "to-die-for" guacamole and margaritas! Two visits later we are convinced that's our "go-to" happy hour place! We've also discovered an excellent Vietnamese restaurant which will be a pleasant respite from all the Tex-Mex food that is readily available.

My next project will be to get my car registered and then get my Texas driving license. This TX license will be my 8th one in different US states. I've also had one issued in Welsh while living in the UK and had (and still have) my European driving license. You would think taking all these driving tests would make me a better driver but according to my driving instructor in the UK, it hasn't stopped me from picking up bad habits – like driving too fast. She was convinced that I'd never pass my test. Fooled her – passed it first time!

"driving at the speed limit--hideous thought."
― Stephenie Meyer

I’ve included some of our moving pictures within this blog. You can see more of the before and after photos by cut and pasting the following link into your browser. Once you are in the photo album, click on the first photo and then click on slideshow at the top of your screen. The photos will be larger (for those of us who need that) and you can see the captions. When finished, press Esc.

https://picasaweb.google.com/102840684536112573599/MoveIn02?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCN65h5uDp-6WFA&feat=directlink