Well, there's at least one form of transportation in the house...

My bike arrived today! It was "mostly assembled"... I just had to attach the handlebars and pedals, and run the wire down to the front brake. Alas, they ship shiny new bikes with semi-inflated tires. Thus, no riding right away.

We don't actually own a bike pump, but in our neighborhood meanderings we discovered that there's an REI maybe 6 or 7 blocks away. They're open till 8 on Saturdays, so maybe after supper we'll walk up and see what they have in stock.

The helmet, of course, hasn't arrived yet, because that's the way our lives go these days. So, even once I get the tires properly inflated, I'll have to stick to riding it up and down our out-of-the-way lightly trafficked street to test the brakes and such, no going out on roads outside the apartment complex until I have a brain bucket. Helmets aren't required for people over 18 in CA, but they're certainly a darned fine idea (see: Roethlisberger, B.)

Today, the most gray and dismal day of our brief tenure in Berkeley, was of course the day of the complex's annual Ice Cream Social. Free ice cream a block or so away? Sign me up! We each went and collected our free scoop... I had vanilla, Mike went with mango sorbet. We didn't really meet anyone... I think we were the only couple there without children, so we stood by and observed as the other residents largely rode herd on their offspring. I've developed a "smile and wave" relationship with a number of the people that I see on the sidewalks regularly, and that's the extent of our social networking thus far. We had high hopes for the Ice Creaminess, but our plans went asunder as many people were herding children and it was too chilly to stand around outside too much.

Still no stuff. We're presuming that the mover will be here tomorrow afternoon as we haven't heard otherwise. Of course, customer service lines are closed on weekends, so we can't really call and whine until Monday if they don't show.

Movie Day

It was gray and a tad chilly today, so we thought we'd engage in some indoor activity. Off to the movies we went, with the flick du jour being "A Scanner Darkly", based on the tale by Phillip K. Dick. In a word: cool. The film is done in Rotascope... if you've seen a Charles Schwab commercial lately, with the animation-over-live-actor bit, that's the stuff. It was really really well done. Dark and brooding with the occasional giggle, just as you expect from Dick. Woody Harrelson was terrific.

Mike informs me that long-time fans of PKD (such as Mike...) are referred to as Dickheads. Great, I married a Dickhead. :p

Still no stuff, nor any sign of stuff.

An update

Mike and I are about to tear our hair out.

The car was supposed to be here Tuesday or Wednesday. Wednesday morning I called the company and learned that our car was in El Paso, TX, on a truck just leaving for Fontana, CA. We'll have it maybe Friday, maybe Monday. I did inform the customer service guy that El Paso != Berkeley, and that I was promised the car in 7-10 days from pickup. Now, having worked with sales guys before, I know they tend to promise more than they can deliver and that the poor jamoke in customer service gets to eat the complaints when things fall through. However, I would have appreciated their tracking website being updated with realistic delivery times so I know what to expect.

Meanwhile, on the "rest of our stuff" front, the delivery has been pushed to Sunday afternoon. We're looking forward to having our own bed. Aerobeds are comfy for a night or two, and I'd certainly recommend them as a guest-bed solution. However, sleeping on one for two weeks straight is a bit hard on the back.

On an up note, our new sofa and love seat were delivered today. We found ones that we liked in a little hole-in-the-wall warehouse'o'furniture near here, but didn't like the color they had on hand. The guy showed us a book of swatches of easily 20 colors and patterns to choose from, and said that custom-ordering one in a different fabric was no extra charge but would take 2-3 weeks. In remarkable contrast to everything else we've been waiting on, this order was delivered *before* we expected it, in just about 10 days. So, Sofa Warehouse on San Pablo in Berkeley gets two thumbs up from Mike and I.

I've scoped out the route from here to campus (2.5 miles), and have decided that I'll ride the bus when the weather is inclement, and get a bike for tooling around on when the weather is decent. I've ordered a Dekra Women's Cruiser with D-drive . D-drive is their chainless technology... it seems like a pretty cool bike. The only real downside I see is that it only has 3 gears. However, I'm going to be riding on mostly flat city streets, with a slight hill leading up into campus, so 3 speeds should be sufficient for my needs.

We're still in hurry up and wait mode, which is starting to get old. Soon enough we'll have our stuff and feel like we actually live here, rather than being on some strange camping trip involving an empty apartment and an inflatabed.

Getting settled...

Mike and I have arrived in Berkeley, well, Albany to be exact. We're living in UC's Family Student Housing, which is in the first 'burb north of Berkeley proper.

So far, it's a lot of hurry up and wait. The delivery of the car and the arrival of the moving van both seem to be tending towards the end of their delivery time frames. It's looking like we should have a car again tomorrow or Thursday, and our stuff on Friday or Saturday.

Our apartment, as a result, is presently decorated in the "minimalist" style. We have an inflatabed, a dining room table and chairs, and a computer desk and chair for Mike. That's the extent of the furniture. As far as household goods, we bought one pot and one pan, both cheap, to get us through till our stuff gets here. We've been eating off paper plates with plastic utensils for over a week and have had to be cautious with the grocery shopping to ensure that the things we buy can actually be cooked and consumed on our meager possessions at this time.

On an up note, when we do want something else to eat, there's plenty to choose from. We've found a dozen or more restaurants in walking distance and lots more than will be a short drive or bus ride away. We have yet to find somewhere that we didn't like. As expected, there's plenty of good Mexican around here... we found a mom-and-pop place up the street where a burrito the size of your head can be had for only a few dollars. We had West African food a few days ago, and Indian for lunch today. We caught a bus down to Jack London Square in Oakland yesterday and ate at Yoshi's Sushi and Jazz Bar. It was lunchtime, so there was no live band (and also no cover charge, and lower food prices...)

We got the light end of the heat wave that's plagued the US of late... It hit 90 here the other day, which bested the previous record high by several degrees. However, the heat wave seems to have subsided and we're settling back in to the usual Bay summer of 75 and sunny. Mike is thrilled by the pleasant weather and I've had to forewarn him that winter will be chilly and rainy, with fall and spring also somewhat damp. He's still commenting that usually we would have to go on vacation to get to weather like this.

Our primary source of entertainment for the last week has been one lonely laptop that Mike thankfully decided to haul on the plane with him. Today there was much joy as my shiny new MacBook arrived. Thus we're both able to be online at once and I can actually get in contact with the world again without feeling bad that I'm tearing Mike away from whatever he's doing.


That's the story of our lives for the past week and a half. We're happy to have arrived in California and will be even happier when our car and belongings arrive as well.