It’s been 10 years since I’ve taken an aerobic class and I choose “Urban Rebounding”.  After 15 minutes of push-ups (cheating from the knee), barbells, free weights and a scramble to put them all away in 30 seconds, “Don’t Cha” by the Pussycat Dolls summons me up on the mini trampoline for some 20 minutes of serious moving, sweating and kicking until I almost drop. But I don’t. Warned by one of Bally’s skeptical trainers that I MIGHT be up to it, it turns out I rebound just fine.

It’s the shoveling and sledding the following weekend that end up taking me down.  Sore from head to toe. It’s all part of the adjustment to this new life.

It’s a new chapter!

The family photos are up. Humidifiers are humming in the bedrooms. A free desk from a neighbor is laid out in multiple pieces in the den.  Our youngest has a pre-school and some other programs to attend. Our oldest is getting used to school. I know where the good produce is. And I’m not getting lost as much. I even know where many of the prohibited left, right and u-turns are.

And yet, in some ways, it all feels foreign. Suddenly I have neighbors.  We live in a house of our own for the first time, not an apartment.  In California the neighbors were literally and physically at a comfortable distance. Here it’s the “Cheers” bar kind of neighborhood. Where everybody knows your name. Though the verdict is out on whether or not they’re glad we came.

There are nice neighbors who arrange play dates and open a window into their lives. Helpful neighbors who can break a doorknob that I accidentally locked from the other side. Neighbors who say hello and make small talk at the sledding hill. Neighbors who have opinions.

There’s a bus stop gaggle. Mostly friendly. Informative. Welcoming. The kids are the main thing that links us, though we’re all in our 30s/40s. They come together in the bitter cold at 820, nod, smile, discuss the weather, vacations to Disney World, ski-school, laser-tag birthday parties, basketball, the upcoming science fair and talent show, the latest sickness, lost lunchboxes, babysitters, anniversary plans, custody arrangements.

In the past we’ve lived in a hood of retirees, a diverse- in -age -and -income beach community, a friendly Hezbollah and expat enclave, a recovering war battered Olympic city, a Viennese suburb, and a danger zone in the desert. This is definitely different.

While we did live in the area 10 years ago (albeit in an upper northwest DC apartment with a concierge), that was when we were newly married young professionals with no kids, zipping around mostly on the metro, not trolling the pike in a station wagon.

So this is the context from which my blog originates these days. Maybe it should be renamed “The View from the Porch”.  (???) There will be a host of issues to discuss in the coming months— including hyper-competitiveness in the schools, the kindergarten question, over-scheduling, the co-existence of affluence and rising poverty, what’s become of the Democrats, the benefits of green space, judgmental moms, aging, innovations in school lunches, and urban revitalization (yeah! We live somewhere in walking distance of downtown and the library!).  And of course the usual fun travel posts and plenty of new photos.

Now that we’ve moved into a new house and resettled all our furniture, I find myself looking at our extra living room and wondering if I can find something to fill it, in addition to our bookcase filled with treasured books. Having nearly exhausted our resources on this move, I turned to the “free” section of Craigslist to see if anyone in the DC metro area had something to enhance the space.  What were people giving away these days, I wondered, as they endeavored to shed past incarnations of their lives?  What could they do without? As merely browsing turned into a late-night near obsession of clicking and considering, I came across some mildly amusing and some hard-to-be-believed entries. I do realise that if it’s free, I shouldn’t be too critical, and that one man’s trash could be another woman’s treasure. Anyway—here are a couple of my recent favorite ads as they appeared… and none of which interest me. (*the only one that included a photo was the Village People ad)

TWO BOBBLE HEADS

Spider Man and Scooby Doo. Excellent condition. Was kept on a shelf in son’s room. Now he is too big. Must pick up.

FREE FURNATURE

Had some people cancel on me so I’m just gonna put it all on the curb on a first come, first serve basis. I’ll be putting it out over the next hour so come on by now if you want. Please don’t knock though, if it’s gone it’s gone.

Pine couch and loveseat- cushions are varying degrees of torn but the frames are okay.
Deep shelf thing- about 30″x30″x30″
Old chunky pine coffee table- not in good shape, would be okay for garage or workshop.
Kitchen table- probably the nicest of the bunch, light colored fake wood, roughly 3×5
Grey corner couch, a little ratty and torn but useable
Brown easy chair- in okay shape
Blue bucket seat thing
Maybe some more small things.

No pictures, no reservations, good luck!

A HUGE BUNCH OF DC/DVD WALLET STYLE CASES

Need to get rid of a bunch of CD/DVD wallet style cases. For F-R-E-E!
Something like this (but no mesh)
There are at least 50 of them.. maybe a lot more (80 or 90?). No quite sure.
Need to pickup this evening!

VILLAGE PEOPLE RECORD

I have a Village People record album. I don’t know if it plays but looks like it should. Please email for address and I can leave it on the porch.

In the spirit of this blog which is supposed to be about travel as well as insight, I am posting some pictures of the New Year in Annapolis that were taken on January 2. Temps were in the 20s and the state’s seaside capitol was pleasant to look at.  We looked for something warm and inviting as we dashed out of our comfortable car into the freezing wind. And we found it in The Federal House—one of a line of cozy looking taverns/cafes/bars/restaurants in historic downtown Annapolis by the City Dock on Market Space street.  The building has been around since 1830. http://www.federalhouserestaurant.com/

We tasted the crab soup, onion soup, vegetarian chili and shrimp and corn chowder. All washed down with hot cider.  It was ALL GOOD as my brother Josh would say.

I’ve undergone a major wardrobe shift since we moved from Southern California to Maryland last month—most notably in scarves and footwear.  Every morning when I get dressed I put one on—before I even pour myself a coffee.  Keeps the chill out.  I’ll choose the long fleece, or a black turtle-style, or the pretty new purple gnarled, or the voluminous blue pashmina, or most often the grey balaclava I wore to bed nearly every night of the dark icy Afghan winter of 2005.

I’ve also uncovered big wooly sweaters, oversized coats, and a once-fitted red thermal union suit that had been hibernating with the scarves in a storage pod for three years at a warehouse in San Diego.  Suffering from the baking heat no doubt.  And now these items have been washed of the musty smells, dry-cleaned and pressed into service.

I am layering and layering and layering to keep warm these days as the temperature doesn’t get much over 30. And it isn’t pretty.  Showing up at my daughter’s bus stop looking like the Unabomber. My fashion sense has gone out the window. I’m just covering myself in whatever warm things I can find in those boxes. No matter if my frame has shrunk since I last wore these wintry clothes. ..Afghanistan (2004-2005). Bosnia (2000-2003).

After arriving here without boots and making do with sneakers for the past two snowfalls, I finally have some rain/snow boots—shiny brown Ellie ones made by Kamik in Canada.  Good solid boots trying to look pretty. ( Like me approaching middle age?)

I HAD been told before we moved that “it doesn’t really snow in the DC area anymore.”  I thought I could possibly get away with just buying a pair of sensible leather Clarks, but they are no match for this ice either. In California I’d basically been living year-round in strappy platforms and flat sandals, peep-toes, a pair of clogs (for when it rained) and sneakers (but only for the gym).

But a week after we arrived, Maryland had its 5^th biggest snowfall or whatever in state history. 18 inches fell fast and furious. I had to walk outside in my sneakers that morning. Luckily our girls were able to wear their cute pink Target snow boots that I bought before the move out of concern they be prepared “just in case”.

Me. I slid and stumbled around in the snow drifts covering the sidewalk as they engaged in snowball fights and snowman building and made instant friends with the neighborhood kids. But just as it was getting especially cold, we got invited into someone’s house. Impromptu the way kids do it—“come to my house and play.”  The very nice mom opened the door and wasn’t expecting us. She was clothed in a traditional apron “from her mother in Finland”. There was cider and gingerbread cookies on offer  and fruit stews and things cooking on the stove. Their Christmas tree was up and they were celebrating an early Christmas, and the kids were playing with the new Wii.  Had I found Mayberry?

To complete the picture, the park with a hill across the street was full of happy families sledding. But we didn’t have sleds. So we folded down some cardboard moving boxes and headed across the street. Those things didn’t budge an inch in the thick powder.  People must have been thinking,  “Those crazy Californians.”  A freezing woman/visiting aunt from Fresno offered us the use of her niece’s sled. Our daughters and her niece took turns. After a few minutes my feet started to ice over from the 5 inch deep slush I’d stepped in just before crossing the little iron bridge over the creek at the bottom of the hill.

My husband took care of shoveling the driveway and the sidewalks of our corner house for that snowfall. My sad running shoes left me woefully unprepared, so I was off the hook.  And it seems his winter boots, which must have cooked too long in our storage unit, also caved under the pressure. They cracked wide open.

I spent the next couple weeks looking in local malls for snow boots that fit, and didn’t find any. I finally ordered some online but they didn’t come until yet another snowfall had come and gone. Our second snowfall had snuck up on me while my husband was at work, so it was my turn to shovel. It was only a few inches this time and my sneakers didn’t do such a bad job, except for slipping on the ice a couple times.  One of our neighbors guffawed – “the joys of living in the corner house” because there was so much area to cover.

Now I have my boots and of course all my scarves and other winter woolens and I’m ready for the “wintry mix” they are predicting for tomorrow night. Wintry mix is something the weather people can safely forecast if they are not sure if there’s going to be snow or rain or sleet or freezing rain or a mix of everything.

To me it sounds like a cocktail as in –“It’s been a long day. I’ll be having the wintry mix”.  (with my scarf on of course)

The wooden chest is stuffed full of photo albums. There are even more photo albums hidden under boxed up books. There are photos in folders and envelopes. There are yet -to-and-likely-never-to-be-printed photos on ancient zip discs, new external drives, and laptops. There are still more photos in un-hung frames.  What is their purpose exactly?  Well now I know why. Last week my brothers spent Christmas eve day going through a forgotten box in our mom’s attic full of prints that never made it into albums.  I saw myself being spoon fed breakfast by an attractive and likely nervous twenty-something couple (mom and dad), posing for numerous first days of school, on day-hikes with my brothers, opening presents from Santa, getting peed on by a toad, standing on the sidewalk with my best friend, graduating from high school, chatting with my (now-deceased )beloved piano teacher, and wearing clothes I don’t remember and would like to forget with hairdos to match.  And I smiled and laughed. Remembered a few details from those days and even mourned those days.  And that’s why I guess I’m keeping all the photos in MY house.

A blur of boxes shipped and stacked, opened and rummaged through, organized and reorganized, piled and scattered.   As our new old house comes alive, as lamps are placed and Christmas lights hastily strung across empty bookcases and under a mini fake tree,  as CDs, VHS tapes and DVDs are dusted and alphabetized, as furniture takes a seat facing the TV, as books begin to emerge from the darkness of three years of storage, as toys and dolls are tossed into colorful open containers and little fingers help little cars run their wheels across the hardwoods, as kitchen implements stretch out and get to work on garlic and fish and potatoes, and wine is poured into rinsed out wine glasses —   the pictures remain in the corner, wrapped in paper, waiting to go up on the walls.  This is the next step.

So, in this summer/fall heat I’ve been drinking a lot of something called Vitamin Water.  I don’t usually read the text that goes along with it before I drink it, just the title and ingredients.

Last night’s choice was called “essential” with Vitamin C and Calcium.  But this time, as I went to throw the bottle into the recycling bin, I decided to read the little message on it for some reason. I mean, someone with a job actually bothered to write this stuff so why not read it.

This is what it said—“ah, orange juice commercials. funny stuff.  mom cheerfully prepares some huge breakfast while the rest of her family sleeps. sure, this could happen. but every morning? please. maybe if mom were heavily medicated, in which case, we wouldn’t condone operating a stove or any electrical appliance.  for those of us who don’t live in an orange juice commercial, there’s still a way to get your morning nutrition. this product has lots of vitamin c, so you can get your day started right, minus the whole stepford mom thing.”

… Tomorrow begins the second week of first grade and pre-school and tonight we’re just wrapping up a long weekend. Tomorrow morning everyone in the house will be up at 7am against their will. Mom (me) will drag herself into the shower around 645, throw something on from the chair, and then carry two sleeping children, one at a time, into the kitchen and deposit them in their seats. Quickly pour some orange juice, put out the cereal, make the bag lunch, throw on some makeup, let out the stubborn dog, and plead with the children to put their clothes on for school.  And remind them again that they should have gone to bed when they were told last night or they wouldn’t be so grumpy.

I know that I’m not alone in this experience. And that gives me comfort. Maybe I can find a job writing insightful messages for the Vitamin Water people.