(no longer) fully booked

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I did a very difficult thing today.

I gave away books. Lots of books. Lots and lots of books.

I wish I’d thought to take pictures of the stacks and later bags upon bags of books that we culled out, bagged up and donated to the Arlington public library this afternoon. Standing at the loading dock, in the midst of 40 grocery bags full of books, we were quite a sight. I’m guessing we donated around 800 paperbacks and 200-300 hardcover books this afternoon–mostly mine, but a few bags of Jeff’s as well. And we still have more to bag up, as well as five bags of DVDs and VHS tapes to deliver.

There’s a branch of the Arlington library just up the street from us, but the library web site said that large donations were best delivered to the loading dock at the central branch. When we arrived, there was no one at the loading dock, so we parked the car and went inside. Tucked into a corner next to the small shop where donated books are for sale was a small collection bin (looking and shaped much like one of those roofed trashcans at amusement parks); however, 1) it would have taken us 20 trips to get all the books inside from the car to the bin, and 2) there simply wasn’t room in or even around the bin. We asked at the desk, and one of the staff there went to see if they could find someone in the back to help us. We walked back over to the collection bin to wait, and a few moments later a volunteer showed up and offered to meet us at the loading dock once we told him how many bags of books we had in the car.

When he looked in the back of the car (we’d put the back seat down, and had filled the entire hatch from behind our seats to the back window as well as putting more bags on the floor), he said “Ah, book hoarders. Exactly the kind of people we like.” It took three trips with trolleys to get all the books inside, and he noted that it looked like nearly a lifetime of books; I realized later that it’s probably just a (sizable, to be sure) percentage of about 25 years’ worth.

As we left, he gave us a receipt for the charitable donation, and I told him I’d be back again this week with the remainder of the books and with the tapes and DVDs. Jeff joked that they should put up a plaque naming their book shop after me.

My friends and family who know me best are almost stunned that I’ve been able to do this. And honestly I did get a teensy bit emotional after the deed was done, but mostly I feel liberated by this and the rest of the intensive housecleaning that’s taking place preparatory to our move (as with the shredding and tossing of years’ worth of bills, statements and receipts); on a more practical level, when you’re paying by the pound to move yourself across the country, the answer to the question “Is item x really worth paying someone amount y to move?” more and more often is “nope.” There are libraries in California, if I want to re-read any of my books, and with Netflix delivering DVDs to our door in a couple of days, there’s no real need to hang on to most of our videos, either.

something to sneeze at

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Perhaps the worst thing about the move so far is the effect that packing is having on my dust allergies. This weekend we’ve cleared out most of the bookcases and video/DVD racks, and have made a good start on the hall closet, and apparently we’re putting a lot of dust into the air in the process. My eyes have been itchy and watering, my nose has been running, and I’ve been sneezing off and on the past two days. If I weren’t feeling like we’re starting to make some noticeable progress, I’d be miserable.

When we got out of the condo today to deliver a carload of books to the local library (more about that later), I felt great; now that we’re back, though, I’m stuffy, sniffly, sneezy and headachy again.

“in the pine-sol scented air…”

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As Jeff has noted, when we relocate to the Bay Area next month we’ll be moving into the house in Daly City in which he lived until third grade. He hasn’t said much about it, so I knew nothing of it except its address. Before I met Jeff, all I knew of Daly City more generally was what I could see passing through from the SFO airport to downtown San Francisco, a mostly uninspiring suburban sight. In 2004, I went home with Jeff one weekend for his college reunion, and we stayed with his parents in their other Daly City home.

I have to confess that I’m not all that crazy about their current home, built in the 70s and in a neighborhood that, to my eye, feels newer and less interesting. Given that they’d moved from the other to live there, then, I was particularly worried I wouldn’t like the the one they’d left, the one in which we’d be living. But we really couldn’t have afforded to move to the Bay Area at all if we didn’t, given that housing is otherwise so difficult to come by in the first place and terribly expensive even when you do. So I was resigned to it, like it or not.

facing westWhen we were in Daly City again the weekend of May 6th, while out with his parents, we decided to drive to the house. As we got closer and closer, I found myself increasingly pleasantly surprised by the homes and neighborhoods we were starting to see. By the time we pulled into the street and up to the house, I already was hooked.

You see, I’m a huge fan of mid-century architecture and design (I’ve long been a collector of dishware and glassware from that period). And the Westlake section of Daly City, where our house is located, is a gorgeous haven of 1950s “little boxes” by Henry Doelger (“the manicured Westlake District… ‘still screams 1959 California,'” per an article in the New York Times); next to our sky blue Doelger tract home is a seafoam green one, our cute little houseand there are salmon and yellow and teal ones down the street. OK, so the house isn’t an Eichler, and not even the most interesting of the Doelger architectural styles, but it’s really quite charming. And it’s been very well-maintained. The original yellow tile of the kitchen and pink tile (including a pink tile floor installed on the bias) bathroom are nearly pristine. There’s a wonderful brick fireplace wall in the living room, and even the original thermostat is adorably period.

Moreover, these Doelger homes are remarkably well-built. I think I surprised Jeff’s father, an architect, with my questions and observations about the house’s structural and architectural details. Before seeing the house, I was worried about moving to earthquake country (and of course I’m still probably a little nervous about that, if not consciously so), but I’m no longer worried about the house in that respect. It’s really quite solid, and it’s been through some pretty big earthquakes already in its fifty years with no visible impact.

pinkyI love this house, and I can’t wait to start furnishing it with period (or repro) pieces, and setting the table with my 1950s Eva Zeisel and Ben Seibel dishware along with my Libby glasses.

And we have a patio, so I just might have to buy a grill and a tiki bar to put out there. I must go listen right now to Ellen Greene singing “Somewhere That’s Green”:

And I dream of a place
Where we could be together at last

A matchbox of our own
A fence of real chain link,
A grill out on the patio
Disposal in the sink
A washer and a dryer and an ironing machine
In a tract house that we share
Somewhere that’s green.

london day 2: a day (and night) at the theatre

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London day 2: Billy Elliot at Victoria Palace TheatreThursday we slept in, and then headed over to the Victoria Palace Theatre for a matinee performance of Billy Elliot the Musical. On the way, we grabbed a pasty outside Victoria Station and ate lunch on the sidewalk outside the theatre. I hadn’t seen the film, but knew the basic storyline; I found the musical really enchanting. The kid who played Billy (I’m not sure which one, as there are three who rotate performances; in London theatres, you don’t get Playbills; rather, you can buy a larger format souvenir program, but even these don’t include paper inserts noting the day’s cast or cast changes) was incredible, as was Haydn Gwynne as Mrs. Wilkinson, Billy’s dance teacher. Chris Lennon, portraying Billy’s older brother, Tony, was easy on the eyes, as was Isaac James, Billy’s older self, who performed a touching pas de deux with the younger Billy.

London day 2: Mary Poppins the MusicalAfter the show we returned to the hotel to drop off the program, and I was able to snag some interesting pictures of the oddly bare (everything else was in bloom) trees lining John Islip Street, before heading back out for the evening performance of Mary Poppins the Musical at the Prince Edward Theatre in Soho.

After the evening show, we walked around the Soho gayborhood, ending up at Balans for a late supper, where we were entertained by the fun and cheeky group at the table next to us, as well as by our handsome waiter.

it’s official

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UCSF Laurel Heights entranceI have an electronic copy of the offer letter, and a paper copy has been snail mailed; in the end the process didn’t take the extra time they thought it might. As of June 26, then, I’ll be the new web products manager for the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).

Here, from the job posting, are the duties of the position:

Incumbent will manage the development of new products for and expansion of the primary pages of UCSF’s official website, www.ucsf.edu; plan web development strategy and manage various content-rich projects; oversee evaluation and adoption of web applications; guide web communications unit toward adoption of best practices with an eye toward increasing traffic, analyzing impact of content, gathering audience data and raising the level of user satisfaction; advise on proper information architecture; manage a staff of three; collaborate with and create networks of web experts across campus to promote University-wide web policies and procedures…

UCSF Laurel HeightsIt’s an exciting opportunity and one with which I feel a real connection. UCSF is a really fascinating university consisting of highly rated schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and a graduate division, with no undergraduate college. It’s also a premiere biomedical research institution and, with its medical centers and affiliated hospitals, one of the primary health care providers in the region. With my background in health- and academic medicine-related organizations throughout my career, then–from my first job in Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychopharmacology through my years with the Association of American Medical Colleges and my stint with an e-health dotcom providing news and information to medical specialists, I keep circling back to medicine and healthcare in one way or another–when I saw this job opportunity, it felt like the perfect fit, and I’m pleased they seem to have agreed.

a shred of evidence

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As Jeff pointed out, this past weekend we indulged in an orgy of shredding, taking a first step into the daunting task before us–to move cross-country in the next six weeks, and all the affiliated activities that entails*, while working full-time the next four. Before we start packing in earnest, we first are culling and tossing the stuff we don’t plan to take; Saturday we spent hours going through old papers, bills, pay stubs, and the like. I had all my credit card and utility bills and bank statements from 1997, the year I moved into my condo: shredded. I had a bag of receipts and ATM statements: shredded. I also had every pay stub I’ve ever received since my first job post-college in 1984 (ok, those I didn’t yet shred, and they don’t really take up that much space, forming a stack measuring only about 9″x3″x6″). I haven’t even finished going through all of my old paper detritus, but already we filled probably twenty plastic grocery bags with shredder confetti.

I’ve filled two boxes with paperback books that I’ll give away, thrown out another box of obsolete computer software manuals, and amassed two large groupings of hardcover books I won’t take with us; one pile in the middle of the computer room is so large that Jeff says it “looks like a fort.” Meanwhile, he’s recycling stacks of magazines not all that much smaller.

I also tossed most of a large box of audiocassettes, keeping only a couple dozen of particularly sentimental interest–my high school graduation with my valedictory speech, my 12th-grade performance as Albert Peterson in my high school’s production of Bye, Bye Birdie, performances by the Harvard Glee Club, the mix tapes given to me by another Jeff (the first person with whom I fell truly, madly, deeply in love), about 16 years ago.

There’s so much to do, and the initial steps actually seem in many ways to make things appear worse, as stuff moves out of closets, drawers and storage to open spaces on tables and floors. We did make some progress, but the tasks ahead still seem almost overwhelming.

* [like researching, hiring and scheduling movers, scheduling a day off to help my sister and brother-in-law load and haul away most of the furniture that we’re giving away, scheduling the loading dock and freight elevator for the furniture haul-away and our move-out; buying and installing a new dishwasher, installing new carpet throughout, repainting the condo, cleaning the condo, having the heat pump serviced, minor plumbing repairs; changing or cancelling electricity, telephone, DSL, DirecTV, TiVo, magazine subscriptions and services; letting everyone know our change of address; finding a tenant and negotiating a lease; getting stuff from my safe deposit box, opening a new bank account, closing my existing account; packing hundreds and hundreds of books, DVDs, CDs; packing my huge collection of mid-century dishware and glassware; sorting, donating, and packing clothes; changing the homeowner’s insurance for the condo, getting renter’s insurance for the house in California; visiting family; getting the car serviced, buying a new cat carrier, updating auto insurance for California, registering the car in California and notifying Virginia that the car is leaving the state, driving cross-country, … And that’s just off the top of my head; everytime I turn around I think of something else that has to be done.]

puss in boot

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Well, actually he was on the back seat, and the car’s a hatchback so it doesn’t really have a boot, and besides we don’t live in England, but you get the point.

Today we did a brief–about twenty minutes–test run with Alex in the car. I drove while Jeff sat in the back seat with the carrier on the seat next to him, and I think that made a very positive difference. The experiment wasn’t as horrific as I thought it might be, and very much better than attempts to take him in the car on my own; on those occasions he’s gotten so violent inside his carrier that I feared he would hurt himself seriously. He did meow most of the time this afternoon, but at least he didn’t throw himself against the side of the carrier as he’s done in the past. And before we took the car back into the garage, we parked in front of the condo building to let him out of the carrier to explore the car for a few minutes, and he seemed relatively calm at that point.

So we’ll continue to do some test runs, and I’m thinking we might even try to take him with us to my Mom’s over Memorial Day weekend for a serious test, since that’s about a four-hour drive (but still only one-tenth the drive we’ll be making with him to California).

I think I may have been nearly as upset as Alex today; it breaks my heart to see him so anxious and in distress, especially when I know that we’re not trying to harm him in any way by taking him in the car. I was almost shaking when we got back home after today’s short trip.

london day 1: arrival

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London day 1: I spy, with my little eyeI had thought I might report regularly from London, but that turned out to be overly ambitious and impractical. I hadn’t taken my laptop, but just my PocketPC, and while I was able to connect to the hotel’s wifi with the latter, it’s just not a practical device for writing and posting to the blog. Moreover, our days were so full that by the time we’d return to the hotel each evening I generally was too tired to edit and upload photos or write.

It’s just as well we didn’t end up going in February, as that week turned out to be cold, wet and dark. This time, though, the weather was gorgeous and sunny; there was a brief light rain early one morning, but by 10:00 that day the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.

We flew Continental Airline’s BusinessFirst service, thanks to Jeff’s frequent flier miles. That’s really the way to go, allowing you to start your holiday already fairly refreshed, at least somewhat rested, and relatively well-fed. Leaving DCA Tuesday afternoon, and connecting in Newark to a 6:30 p.m. flight, we arrived at London Gatwick at 6:30 Wednesday morning, April 26. After going through customs, we hopped onto the Gatwick Express to Victoria Station, where we transferred to the tube one stop to Pimlico, then a five- to ten-minute walk to our award-winning hotel (where we had a great deal on the room of ₤602 for six nights, a real bargain for that area) , the City Inn Westminster on John Islip Street, just a couple of blocks from the Tate Britain and the Thames.

London day 1: iconic LondonArriving at the hotel around 8:30 a.m., we were told that they had no clean rooms available that early, so they held our luggage and we went walking around Westminster, over to the Thames and then north to Victoria Tower Garden, Parliament and the Big Ben clock tower, on up the Thames directly across from the London Eye, over to the Royal Horseguards, through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace and then back to the hotel. By lunchtime, then, we’d already had one spectacular, full morning of sightseeing.

Checking in, we discovered that Bank of America had protectively, though not so helpfully, placed a freeze on my credit card when the hotel called from London to verify my limit; the charge from London–even though I’d charged tickets for a London theatre just a few days earlier–apparently triggered an automatic freeze because of the overseas location of the vendor. My only other credit card on-hand was my Discover card, which isn’t used in Europe, but a phone call to Bank of America to verify my identity eventually got my card back in service for the hotel bill and the remainder of the trip.

After settling into the room and resting a bit, for dinner we headed to an Indian restaurant in Piccadilly Circus–Chowki–highly recommended by a colleague of mine. And what a great recommendation. Each month Chowki chooses three different regions of India or Pakistan, and offers relatively inexpensive (especially for London, and remarkable considering the quality of the food) “home-style” dishes from those regions; three-course prix fixe “region feasts” allow you to experience a full meal from a given region, all served in a beautiful, organically shaped white bone china thali. For April, the three regions were the North-West Frontier, Lucknow and Goa. Jeff selected the North-West Frontier and I went with Goa; my starter was “curls of squid tossed in a mouth watering carom seeds flavoured masala,” my entree was “queen prawns in spicy gravy with dried Goan red chilli, green chillies and peppercorns, tempered with garlic and curry leaves,” and the dessert from Goa was a “multilayered flavoured homemad cake.” It was all incredibly delicious.

Trafalgar Square at nightAfter dinner we walked around Piccadilly and Leicester, and down to Trafalgar Square; Nelson’s Column is undergoing restoration, so was entirely covered with scaffolding (though it actually looked rather cool encased in geometric, blue-lit planks). We took some pictures of the fountains and column at night, and then took the tube back to the hotel, where we quickly fell soundly asleep beneath our plump white duvet.

job update

Posted on by thom

My references were contacted on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we tentatively set a start date of June 26th for the new job, on the assumption that the formal offer would come by the end of this week. My plan, then, was to work through June 9, have a moving company pick up our stuff the following Monday, spend the rest of that week having the condo cleaned, repainted and recarpeted, and then drive out to California the week after, arriving just a couple of days before the 26th.

Today I found out that some red tape has delayed the formal offer a bit, probably until May 22nd, but unless that offer is significantly short of my expectations and prior discussions, I still hope to keep to that plan. My boss already knows that I was leaning towards the 9th as my end date at FSI, and even if I wait until the 22nd to give “official” notice, that still leaves three weeks until the 9th.

on the job front

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The details are still to be worked out, and the offer is contingent on my references checking out–the calls have been scheduled for today–but I was offered the job. Assuming the formal offer letter comes by the end of the week, and I accept, we’ll likely be heading to San Francisco around mid-June. My new boss-to-be agreed that June 1 was an unrealistic expectation on several counts, but my counter-proposal of July 10, after the Independence Day holiday week, also was rejected since he’ll be away at conferences for two weeks beginning the 7th. So the compromise position seems to be for me to start sometime the middle of June, and then come back to Arlington for a couple of weeks sometime in July to tie up loose ends with the move and the condo, if necessary.

I’ll post more information once the formal offer has been extended. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind; my first contact from the organization was via email on April 17. The phone interview was scheduled for Friday the 21st, at the end of which I was told they wanted me to come out for an in-person series of interviews. The London trip intervened, from April 25 through May 2 but as noted previously I had made plans to fly out to California almost immediately upon our return, and was there on May 4 for the interviews on May 5. About ten minutes after the panel interview ended at 12:30, I was offered the job.

I just got back from San Francisco late Sunday night, which is why I have yet to publish any entries about or photos from London or California. They’re coming, I promise.