've been away for
a while, haven’t I?
I have a lot of catching up to do, and instead of trying to put everything
in chronological order from the day we left – a task I’ve already begun
and aborted once – I’m going to just attempt a stream-of-consciousness
thing to try to describe my thoughts and feelings since The Move.
(The catching up is the inspiration for today’s title. I was going
to do some kind of pun on catch up/ketchup, and then I remembered a strange
line from this week’s episode of “Becker” where Linda, the ditzy one, says,
“Oh – you said ketchup? I thought you said metchup!!”)
We’ve been in Pittsburgh for about four weeks now. We’ve grown
accustomed to our surroundings pretty quickly – or re-accustomed,
as the case may be. We’re living in a different area than where we
grew up, but it’s still close enough that I was vaguely familiar with it
all, even before we got here.
We’ve bought a house. We spent the entire first weekend here looking,
and just when we were about to give up, the last place we visited on Sunday
night was the one we fell in love with. It’s a beautiful two-story
house, with four bedrooms and a gameroom and a beautiful deck on the back,
and cathedral ceilings and a nice stove and dishwasher and washer and dryer
and two car garage – and it’s all for less than what we would have paid
in California for a two-bedroom single-story condo. We still have
about a week and a half until we move in. We’ve been in a nice temporary
apartment, which is great of my company to do for us, but it’s just not
ours. The bed is as hard as a granite slate, and there’s this spotlight
that shines into the bedroom – and I really miss my PC and all of
my CD’s.
We spent Thanksgiving with both our families, for the first time since
1994. It was certainly nice not to have to find a restaurant that
serves turkey dinners. For my family, Thanksgiving dinner is almost
a religious experience – heck, I guess it is a religious experience.
I think I’ve described the whole feast here before, so I won’t again, but
it suffices to say that it was all as good as I remember it.
It hasn’t even been a month yet, and I can hardly remember ever living
in San Diego. Sure, the people and places are supplanted in my brain,
and I can still picture the streets and our apartment and my old office,
but it doesn’t feel like I was ever there – more like a dream, or a vision,
or a visit from a spirit. “An undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard,
a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.” (Charles Dickens,
A Christmas Carol)
The Little One is growing like a weed – soon he’ll be applying for his
driver’s license. (Not really, though this is a reminder to self
– my wife and I need to get Pennsylvania licenses soon.) He’s at
the age – four to five months – that everyone says is the absolute cutest.
He smiles and laughs all the time, and his latest trick is to blow raspberries
at people – i.e., “PPPPPPTHHHBT!” He’s not quite able to sit up yet
– still a little bit too floppy – but he looks around all the time, especially
when he sees pretty lights (he’s especially enamored with Christmas trees
and neon) or hears voices (he’s especially enamored with Mommy).
My new job is a blast. I’m still getting used to their way of
doing things – I have to basically deprogram myself from the way we did
things at my previous job (a.k.a. “The Wrong Way”). The environment
here really feels like college – everybody is learning new stuff all the
time, and doing a lot of hard work, but it still manages to be a fun atmosphere.
