Back in action

Well we're finally moved in down in Long Beach -- most of the boxes are put away and the great many of you whom we haven't called or written lately will hear from us soon.

Our new place is very nice, 1000% quieter than our Hollywood abode. Long Beach is kind of a funny place; there is obviously a lot of urban renewal and gentrification going on, and there is a lot of beautiful new stuff in the downtown area, around the aquarium and seafront -- but there is still, not far off from that, a kind of knackered seaport town lurking beneath. And some things you would expect from a new, sparkling downtown -- like a nearby Borders or Home Depot -- don't seem to be here; you have to drive 5 miles or so to find such a place, so it's rather like a suburb.

In other words, it's a really nice place, but it has patches that are really not so nice. Kind of like LA. BUT, one has the sense here that there is some kind of community, some kind of "there" there that you don't get in LA. LA seems to me to be a very disconnected string of quasi-suburbs. Long Beach has a little of that, in microcosm, but there is more of a sense that you are living in a town, somewhere with its own sense of place.

One thing we have here is our immediate proximity to the sea, something I have long desired. It's really something to watch the massive container ships, stacked up like flights over O'Hare, snake their way into the harbor across the bay, where enormous cranes stand ready to load and unload them. You only get a real sense of how fast these massive ships are moving when you watch them with a point of reference on shore.

In the afternoons I have been taking Jack on a walk along the long, long, Long Beach bike and pedestrian path which runs along the oceanfront. The sea water is a distressingly polluted-looking shade of brown and I can't sea wading into it, as so many people seem to have no problem doing. But the beach itself is cool. Down south of us a bit is a very nice little stretch of shops and restaurants in downtown, and further along about 3 miles away in Belmont Shore is a classic shore-town main street sort of avenue, lovely to walk on and filled with friendly, neighborly folks. Further along is Naples Island, which G and I drove briefly around on. Oh my, do I ever want to live here. It's an island encircled by a canal, and people's back decks open right out onto the canal, where their boats are parked. I'll tell you, I have always longed for a boat but living here really has my jones running in high gear.

There is still so much to see, do and get used to here.... the Aquarium of the Pacific, the Queen Mary, numerous historic sites and gardens. AND, we're only about ten minutes from Disneyland!

The apartment itself is very nice. No A/C but thanks to the incredibly balmy mid-70s seaside climate there is literally no need. A nice breeze blows right through, especially when our front door, which opens onto the courtyard, is open -- we have a screen door, which we love. A small deck and a grill and we're all set. There isn't that much more room than our old place -- definitely larger by a good amount, but mostly it's about having the second room for Jack (and Genevieve's desk). The kitchen was recently redone with marble countertops and new appliances so I am in hog heaven there.

Our move, getting here, was brutal though. I do not recommend trying to move with a 2-month-old. Jack was great but he is still at an age at which he needs pretty constant attention. I mean there are breaks, but he has never been one of these mythical "sleeps for 20 hours" newborns. And of course he needed to be fed every two hours like clockwork, and G had to work and was exhausted, so getting our stuff packed and ready to rock was a real drag and took forever, because usually only one person could be packing at a time. It was absolutely miserable.

Then we took a quick trip down here to drop off some items and walking to the car I took one of those giant spills, where you trip and try to recover, one big step, two big steps, and then you go down anyway. Well, in my case, my entire massive weight landed on my thick, hard wallet lying in my hip pocket, which drove it deep into the muscle tissue of my thigh. I came up limping and hardly able to lift my leg more than an inch off the ground without severe agony limiting my movement. So the lion's share of the move I had to handle limping around and having to lift my leg up off the ground with my hands (whenever I screw up a leg or foot and have to limp around like this, I am filled with amazament at my dad, who hasn't had proper use of his legs in decades, and his ability to get -- hell, out of the house, much less to his two jobs all those years).

Fortunately I had arranged laborers to load and unload our U-Haul truck. I drove down to Long Beach the night before our move so I could pick it up in the morning. To my horror the only truck they had for me was a 26 foot manual transmission that seemed to have been built around the time U-Haul was founded. The steering wheel was two feet across at least and the pedals required me to lift my long legs up a good foot off the ground to depress them and make the vehicle move. Now, you can imagine the horror that swept through my veins as I first pulled out into traffic with this behemoth and forced my body to overcome the shrieking pain reflex as I tried to lift my injured leg to apply the brake. I have never felt more certain that my death, or a fellow driver's, was imminent. Then I had to drive this thing through 30 miles of bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic, stopping and starting the whole way. The worst was the 710-to-I-5 entrance ramp, which was at an angle and required me to creep the vehicle forward inches at a time while. I was literally almost crying in pain from riding the clutch, the break and the gas all at the same time while clinging to the steering wheel while the cab of the trukc was perched at a precarious 45-degree angle. Horrifying. I mean, the only more terrifying driving I have done was screaming down the Rocky Mountains barely in control of a 15-foot Budget rental turkc conatingin all our possessions on the move out west. Both experiences were pants-poopingly scary.

Anyway. We finally got everything moved. In between tending to Jack G and I slowly got our crap unpacked. We've managed to explore town a little bit, take in a local ball game and see some sights but we're only now starting to feel even remotely settled in, and able to take a deep breath and adjust to life here for the next 18 months at least. I'm looking forward to exploring and updating you all on life here.

Meanwhile, in the real world, how about that fucking Karl Rove?