lot of very different things are happening in a
very short time.
I’ve mentioned before our “Buffalo
friends”, whom we knew in San Diego. (The
background info: one of them was born and raised in Buffalo, but the whole
family has considered the place their home-away-from-home for a long time). They’ve been through a lot out in California – their
house was broken into, most of their friends (including us…) have moved
away, and now the state is so far in crisis that it looks like they are going
to make Arnold Schwarzenegger their governor (perhaps a topic for a different
day). They finally decided they
had enough, that they didn’t want to pay $2.19 a gallon for gas anymore or
$500 to register their car for a year, so they decided to sell their house and
move.
To Pittsburgh.
A mile down the road from us.
When they first started talking about doing this, I
thought they were insane. After
all, it took me six years to escape from California, and they thought they
were going to do it in a few months? But
so far, things are going great. They
sold their townhouse – for over $300,000, I might add – and have
tentatively bought a 3-bedroom 2-story in a great neighborhood – for under
$200K. He doesn’t have a guarantee of a job lined up yet, but is
in several serious discussions, so it looks like he might actually get to take
his pick. That doesn’t surprise
me, because I know he’s a hard worker, and even better, he’s a great
talker, something I most certainly am not.
So the three of them, as well as three cats, will
be flitting back and forth for a month or two, making house and school
arrangements, doing interviews, and basically turning their lives upside-down.
Since we’ve moved back to Pittsburgh in 2000, one
thing I’ve regretted is that I don’t have any true friends. Yes, the people I hung around with in high school still live
in the area, but I haven’t seen any of them in years. Ironically, I used to see them more when we lived in San
Diego than I do now that we’re less than an hour away from each other.
Well, all that’s about to change.
Our Buffalo friends are, and I think I’ve said
this before but it bears repeating, the most genuine people I’ve ever met.
They basically went out of their way to be friends with us, even when I
probably acted like I wasn’t all that interested (anyone who truly knows me
knows that it takes a long time to break through the walls I put up.
That is, unless you read this journal….)
Heh, now I guess they’re REALLY going out of
their way – 2,500 miles or so, actually….
We really can’t claim all the credit for their
move, though. They have family in
Buffalo, in nearby West Virginia, and in Boston, so Pittsburgh ends up being a
fortuitously convenient location. I
think they’re going to love it here. From
actually having a backyard, to the much better schools, to being able to root
for the Steelers instead of the sorry
Chargers, they’re going to fit right in.
Maybe because of all of this, I’ve turned over a
new leaf. Three months before New
Year’s, even. I’ve started
watching what I eat, doing a kind of quasi-Weight Watchers thing.
(By the way, the site I’m using, www.fitday.com,
is a great online nutrition tracker, and it’s FREE!) I even went outside and got some exercise last night, playing
ball with the neighborhood kids. I’m
not even sure what kind of “ball” it was – it was some sort of hybrid of
dodgeball, volleyball, basketball, and soccer – but it was a blast.
And that’s not all of the changes occurring,
either – but for that, you’re going to have to keep reading. And maybe this time, I’ll even keep writing, too….
