The 12 Days of California

I haven't been in California for two weeks yet, but I have had plenty of interesting experiences! I forgot how hectic moving can be, and how hectic it can be setting up a new place that satisfies the expectations of two different people. We had our apartment configured in a way that worked for both of us, and had perfected a steady errand routine that was quick and easy. Now we're living in a cute, charming home that is lovely but not the same dimensions as our last place.

The kitchen is smaller here, and the cabinets and drawers are not adjustable because this is actually a nice house and not an apartment put together with particle board. Unfortunately that also means it doesn't fit things like our wire silverware drawer or our family size boxes of cereal. We do have some very large cabinets for our pots and pans, but our last place had a big peg board for those so we had more room in the cabinets for food. Here we have a small hallway leading to the back door where we have a counter for our small appliances on top and cabinets for food on the bottom. But that's really inconvenient for Cai, who would have to sit on the floor to see in the back of the cabinets. I tried to utilize higher spaces for his stuff and lower spaces for mine, but there just isn't enough cabinet space, period. So we're going to buy a kitchen hutch to place in the living room next to the kitchen door, and have the people from the property management department of Chapman University put in a set of hooks for us that they already had in storage.

Oh, and where the refrigerator is located, there is an island of counter space across from it, which is fine. But the door of the fridge swung out to the right, meaning it was almost impossible to get between the door and the island to get stuff out of the fridge! Thankfully Steve, who had driven the truck with our stuff cross-country, knew how to switch the hinges on the door so that it now swings to the left!

The bathrooms are also smaller than in our old place, and they don't have medicine cabinets (only very long mirrors behind the sinks). They have some storage underneath the tiny sink and a cabinet above the toilet that is not very big or deep. So we have our over-the-toilet shelving unit sitting in our bedroom outside the master bathroom door. We also bought a couple pieces of wood to add shelves to it in the open space. It is nice having two bathrooms though.

There are also a handful of light switches in almost every room, and I still play "guess the right one" to figure out which one turns on the light over our dining room table or the light above the shower. But you know you live in a fancy place when each bathroom has a light switch that appears to do nothing. It reminds me of that line in "If I Were A Rich Man" where he's talking about building a staircase "leading nowhere, just for show." :)

We're also buying another small bookshelf for the living room, because we didn't bring our other bookshelves. When we first saw pictures of the house it was fully furnished, so we put a few things in storage at Cai's mom's house. But when Cai came here in July for a week he discovered there was hardly anything here. When he talked to his boss, who had sent us the pictures, he said the furniture in those must have belonged to the previous occupants of the house. Um, okay. Good to know! Thankfully we mentioned how we wanted to buy some things for the house and he, or the university, has offered to help us out with that.

That is the one good thing about having the university as our landlord- they have responded the quickest to our requests. When Cai couldn't get the computer network up and running, the IT people came and helped him set it up. When the master shower had no hot water they came over and cleared the sediment out of the pipes. Unfortunately it still goes through a cold spell every 5 minutes or so, but I finally have it timed where I don't have shampoo in my hair when it happens. Now I just stand out of the water for 30 seconds or so and it returns to hot.

The building management people also took away the box TV we didn't need, fixed our washer and dryer so they don't bang around the room during a heavy load, and brought over the key for Cai's office, which is really nice (they redid the garage into a huge office space). He loves having this place as his office/man cave, not only because it's a lot bigger than the living room space he had before, but also because I bug him less, having to leave the house to do so. Plus he can see and hear me coming because of the sliding door to get into the place. :) It's also nice having a laundry room, although it cracks me up that it's behind the office and not attached to the house. It would never fly in New England to have your own laundry room detached from your home! Thankfully here we don't have to worry about putting on snow boots to wash the clothes.

There is one thing, however, that we cannot get changed. I was so excited when I found out we had a driveway. Finally, no fighting with the neighbors over their friends taking all the spots in our 6-spot lot! But when I first pulled into the driveway, I noticed it was fairly narrow and had a number of bushes on the left side of it against the house. And when I got out of the car I was immediately scratched by said bushes. But when we asked the building people if we could have them trimmed or removed, they said no. Buying us furniture, clearing out the pipes, replacing the vent for our dryer, setting up a home network, no problem. But trim a couple hedges? That's where they draw the line. Apparently because it used to be the chancellor's house they can't change anything about its appearance. So now I have to drop off Cai at the beginning of the driveway and ease the car in as close to the fence as possible so I can get out and not get attacked by the plant from Little Shop of Horrors.

I will say, though, we do have a cute fence surrounding the property so we have a lot more privacy than in our last place. And the shades for the windows puff out a bit so you can't see around them from the outside. And after putting a lock on the gate it would be difficult for anyone to get into the back yard, so I feel safer from that. Of course, everyone keeps telling me our neighborhood is pretty safe, and being so close to campus both the regular police and campus police patrol the area. Of course, that's also how we got our parking ticket!

Because I was being eaten by the bushes, we decided to park the car out front for a night. But the next morning Cai found a parking ticket on the windshield. Because we are so close to Chapman, our street is only permit parking. So even though we were parked in front of our own house, next to our driveway, we got a ticket because we didn't see the sign about permit parking. So we had to go to the police station and pay $50 bucks for two permits (we decided one for us and one for visitors just in case). We also wrote a letter to the department that manages the tickets to see if they will agree to waive the $54 ticket (fingers crossed).

The one thing I haven't done yet is switch over the plates from MA to CA, and I'm not sure if we have to do anything with our licenses. But we have an appointment with the DMV on Tuesday so that will all get straightened out. After that I'll be able to switch our car insurance as well. I'm hoping once I decide on a new bank (which I think will be a credit union) they'll be able to help me with rates. I'm also dealing with unemployment and trying to find a job- yay! For now I'm working random odesk freelancing jobs, and with most of the house ready I plan to start working on my book this week.

Add to all of that the headache of applying for state health care and I'm ready to just stay in bed all day watching cable. Of course, I will also say that this is the first time we've had cable in years, and it's included in the house deal (as are all of the utilities). So that's cool! But back to the health care- it took me almost two hours to apply for it. I wanted to speak to a person to avoid all that, so I tried one 800 number first. They said they were experiencing high call volume, and sent me to another number. But after calling that one I got the same message with a third number. And after calling that one they sent me to the state website. I was so annoyed! Then when I went to the website they sent me to another one, which sent me back to the state one! They're gonna give me a heart attack when I don't even have insurance yet. 

And as I was filling out the online form, it asked me about income. Since I hadn't gotten any severance yet I didn't put that in, but I tried to put in the amount I will be getting for unemployment once that goes through. It told me it wasn't a valid amount! No matter what I tried to put in it didn't work. After 3 tries it kicked me off the system, which was fine by me because I was ready to throw my laptop out the window. So when I went back in I simply put nothing for income. Thankfully once you do that it gives you a comment box, so I explained my situation with eventual severance and unemployment payments. Hopefully that's good enough! I also had to scan and upload paperwork proving my CA residency and income (that was interesting since I have none. I sent them my notice of termination from Gatehouse). Of course, when I went to do that the system was offline and I had to wait until the next day anyway. Thank goodness that whole mess is done!

My latest experience came when I went for an oil change, or what I thought would be just an oil change. The place was right down the street and had a good reputation. So I brought the car in at 8 a.m. (for those of you who know me well, you know I'm not exactly functional or pleasant that early in the morning). I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep and didn't have breakfast because I thought I'd be there for half an hour and then get to go home and back to sleep. Well, it wasn't until 10 a.m. that the mechanic came in and said the driver's side headlight was out. The front desk person looked it up online and said it would cost $246 just for the light. I told him I wasn't expecting to pay that much for the car that day and that I couldn't afford it (and also that I had it done for $150 back home!). Unfortunately the parts for a Maxima are expensive. Anyway, the owner came out and told me they had a light very similar to the one in the car and that he could Macgyver one to fit. So the total with the headlight and the oil change came to $121, and I said I could handle that. But even after that was all said and done, I didn't get out of there until after noon time because the car (being the first one there) was at the end of a very long and enclosed driveway. So they had to move around all these other cars that were in various states of disrepair just to get mine out! The one thing I did notice was that all of their customers (and I'm talking at least a dozen or so) were old white men. And many of them were just sitting around chatting with the owner about their car. I have a feeling the garage caters mostly to rich retired guys who have plenty of time and resources to either drop off their car or hang out and wait for it. I know I'm unemployed right now, but spending a whole day at a garage is not on my to-do list! The final price made it worth it, but next time I'll just drop it off and walk to some place to get breakfast!
But in all honesty, I am enjoying the free time I have to deal with all of these things, and I've gotten to spend more time with Cai. We both get to sleep in and start our day at a leisurely pace. Sometimes I'll walk with him through campus to get coffee or go to a new restaurant, since there are SO many close to the house. It's definitely a different atmosphere here and I'm starting to enjoy being outside more and trying new things. It's amazing how sedentary you can become when you settle into a routine. It's good to shake things up once in a while. :)  

Other random observations in CA:
- this is the Santa Ana River (I'm assuming at some point it'll rain here and there will be water in it)

- Mexican restaurants can be found on every corner, just like Starbucks

- same with sushi places, although it took a recommendation from a local to find a good one

- Valley girls who wear tight dresses at 9 in the morning just to get waffles (I have no idea if they were on a walk of shame or if they always dress that way)

- the CA rolling stop (no one comes to a full stop)

- driving fast (Now, I know that's not common just in CA, but here people will speed up only to have to slam on their brakes because they're on a side street and there are 4-way stops EVERYWHERE)

- getting out of the way of students walking around like drunk toddlers because they can't be bothered to look up from their phones and are only somewhat aware that there are other human beings in their vicinity

- the desire to find a shady spot over the desire to find a spot closest to a store (we finally got a sun shade!)

- learning routes is harder for me here, because everything is a grid (I'm used to MA, where directions aren't just left, right, right, left, right. They include things like, drive past the place and do a U-turn, or go down the long, windy road until you see a dirt road with a mailbox. Everything here looks the same and you can take 5 different routes to get to the same place so I have no mental map yet!)

- we are so close to Disneyland you can hear (but not see) the fireworks they have most nights of the week
- we're also close to the Angels stadium, although I missed when the Sox played there earlier this month

- we just met one of our neighbors, Heather, who lives across the street. I will have to get used to actually knowing the other people around us. I did make friends with a neighborhood cat who meows in response every time you talk to it.

- because we have a porch space, I was finally able to put out my turtle planter holder. Of course, because it's always in the shade I had to find a plant that doesn't require direct sunlight (yeah, that was not easy seeing as we live in friggin CA!). I had to settle for bamboo.

- I had my first, "Hey, you're from MA! How come you don't have an accent?" experience. The mechanic at the garage said he was surprised I pronounced my R's, so I had to explain I wasn't from eastern MA.

- we have come across a handful of people from the Northeast which was a surprise. The volunteer clerk at the police department said he went to high school in Needham, and was going back soon for a reunion. He was actually going to Worcester to see the Vietnam War memorial because his brother's name is on it. We also go to this coffee shop called The Ugly Mug (such a great name!) and the guy who owns it, Phil, is originally from New Hampshire. You can tell, too, because he has our same sarcastic sense of humor. One of his friends described him as a "teddy bear wrapped in barbed wire." :)