Girl Time and Moving Fears

It's a good thing I didn't go hog wild messing up the house last night, because the buyer's parents are in town, and he wants to bring them by tomorrow to show them this fantastic little house he's bought. So tomorrow I will get up early and run through the house-preparation routine as usual. It really doesn't bother me; Al is coming home from Philly tomorrow, too, and I wanted the house to look especially spiffy for him anyway.

I'm finding that despite my excitement about the move, and my longing to be with Al in Philly, that I have these moments of panic where I don't want to go. What if I don't like living so close to my family? What if I find out that my sister doesn't really have time for me anyway, and I just never knew it because it never came up before? What if the humidity gets to me like it did in Washington, DC? What if I miss the bougainvillea and the crepe myrtles and the annuals that never die so much it makes my heart ache for the big windows in the house in Mountain View that overlook the gardens we worked so hard on? How will I ever in good conscience leave Chumba (aka Luna, our neighbor's cat, whom we feed daily, and who spends more time hanging out with us than he does with her)? What if I get a craving for Sono Sushi (e-bi sa-lad e-bi sa-lad) and can't find anything comparable? These are the things that run through my head—and my heart—every week or so.

I was saying to my boss that really, with everybody on e-mail and IM now, and with friends already making arrangements to come visit us in Philly, it'll hardly be like we moved at all. And most of the time I really believe that. Things are different now than they were in 1996, when I moved out here; since then, all my friends and family have gotten e-mail at least, and some of them are online all the time. But every now and then I worry that I'll really miss some of my close friends, especially the ones I have the priviledge now of seeing every day.

Which reminds me, I don't think I ever mentioned what a wonderful, girly weekend I had last week. On Saturday Kristin, Valerie, Winsha, and I all had dim sum at my favorite dim sum place in the Inner Richmond, Ton Kiang. (I love it because [a] it's not just about the pork: they have way more varieties of shrimp dumplings than any other dim sum place I've ever been to, and [b] everything tastes SO DAMN GOOD.) Going with Winsha is fun, because despite her all-American-girl accent, she's fluent in Chinese—which means she can verify ingredients, etc. And for Valerie, who can't eat wheat, dim sum turned out to be a bonanza. (All those rice wrappers, you know.) Usually she gets gipped at mealtimes.

After stuffing ourselves full of dumplings, we drove over to San Francisco Center to find Kristin an evening dress to wear to an upcoming formal event. We went to Nordstrom, made a beeline for the sale rack in Savvy, and found a dress worth trying on. It fit, and it looked nice, so Kristin had the salesgirl hold it while we scoped out further possibilities. Mostly we picked through the sales racks in all the other departments, and I made a surprise purchase when I went in to the dressing room to try on a pair of black pants and saw a cool pair of jeans in my size hanging in there. When the pants didn't fit, I tried on the jeans; they did fit, so I bought them. Hope no one came back to that dressing room looking for a pair of size 10R stretch lowriders...

We then moved on to Accessories, and had great fun trying on a bunch of hats. I actually like hats ("And hats like you!" said Kristin), so I bought a rather expensive (but also rather practical) one, and considered a couple others that looked good on me. I couldn't see spending $104.50 (for the Dreamweaver green one) or $279 (for the fabulous black and cream one)—both on sale!—though, when I'm about to be unemployed. They'd be difficult to move anyway, especially since the green one was Four-Weddings-and-a-Funeral-size. Anyway, it was a fabulous way to spend the day, and I went home very happy (and Kristin went home with that dress).

On Sunday I spent the day with Jean, and we finally got to have tea at Lovejoy's. Jean had planned my bridal shower with an afternoon tea theme, and then ended up missing it because of a death in the family, so I'd been promising to make it up to her with tea for two at Lovejoy's ever since. Tea takes a while, though, and we'd never found the time until now. Luckily Jean had suggested that we go hiking after tea, because after dim sum and incredibly rich tea sandwiches and scones, I had an excess of calories to burn. We did a fairly-strenuous (mostly because of the heat, rather than the terrain) 4.5 mile loop around the Russian Ridge open space preserve in the Palo Alto hills, and I even got to wear my new hat! Actually, I'm incredibly thankful for that new hat, because I surely would have had a vicious sunburn on my nose, ears, and neck without it.

Between tea, hiking, and the walk to and from Jean's house to Lovejoy's, I figure we had at least 3 and a half hours of talking time—and it was excellent. So nice to catch up, compare notes, and discuss current events. All in all, a lovely weekend. I hope this weekend will be as good!

Posted by Lori in the cross-country move at 11:08 PM on August 22, 2003

Comments (2)

Matt Brown:

Congratulations Lori! Sounds like a great time for you even with the stresses. Best of luck in Philly.

Lori:

Thanks, Matt! Are you actually in New Zealand, as your e-mail address seems to indicate? If so, cool! :)

Comments

Congratulations Lori! Sounds like a great time for you even with the stresses. Best of luck in Philly.

Posted by: Matt Brown at August 26, 2003 9:16 AM

Thanks, Matt! Are you actually in New Zealand, as your e-mail address seems to indicate? If so, cool! :)

Posted by: Lori at August 26, 2003 6:06 PM

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