April 5, 1997

One Whole Week

It's not going to feel like home until I can remember where I put stuff.

We have completed Week One in the New House. This week was one of the most stressful weeks I've ever had and certainly the most stressful week Darin and I have ever had together. I always associate screaming with anger and hate, so it's good for me to realize you can be frustrated beyond belief by the situation or the person (or the person and the situation) and still get past it. We're still together and we've put more stuff away, which lessens the probability of screaming all around. Slowly but surely the place is opening up.

I'm most annoyed by the fact that so much of our stuff is either going in the boxes we've designated "Goodwill" or in giant trash bags. We must have paid a couple of hundred dollars (at least) to haul all this crap down here, only to sort it piece by piece and say, "What the hell do we want this for?"

Until the kitchen gets sorted out (yay! the kitchen floor is almost entirely neat! now just to get to work on the dining room! yay!), we still have to eat out, which is good, because we get to know some of the restaurants around here. Using the LA Times restaurant guide and LA Yahoo, we've begun compiling a list of places to try around here. Last night, we tried Versailles, a Cuban place over in Encino. Large, loud, and pretty cheap. The food was good but I can still taste the garlic today; Darin joked that Versailles is a place for the married, not the dating. The flan was good but a little too stiff -- the best LA flan place so far is still the Gaucho Grill.

Then we went to see Waiting for Guffman, a comedy directed by Christopher Guest and written by Guest and Eugene Levy. A pretty funny mock-umentary about a small town putting on a musical. The music is by the guys from Spinal Tap. Definitely an enjoyable flick.

The preview that interested us most was Grosse Point Blank, a romantic comedy about a hit man (John Cusack, usually enjoyable) who comes home to his tenth anniversary high school reunion. Hijinks ensue.