Moving Day

Darin turned to me as the movers were doing the final setup/unpacking phase (at 9:30p.m., after having arrived at 8:30a.m., so your guess is as good as mine as to how long "a phase" lasts) and said:

We are not moving for a long time. In fact, we are never moving to another city. If you suddenly discover that you are not a good writer, don't tell me. You're staying in the entertainment business so that we can stay in this house a long, long time.

On a positive note, we've met several of our neighbors today -- as they jogged by or pushed baby strollers or walked their dogs or biked they said, "Hi." Darin told me that this is a common greeting of "friendly people" and I should not fear it. Now, of course, after 13 hours of moving hilarity, I think Darin would be startled by anyone saying, "Hi."

We're both getting authoritative and testy with the movers -- "No, you will do this first, not that, and stop arguing with me." One of us is fairly understandable, but both of us? Unheard of. We've gone from playing good cop/bad cop to bad cop/worse cop.

Darin's mom came over with some of her cousins to see the house. I wasn't very polite. I was about to kill someone when they were here (at all of about 5:30p.m. -- ah, those were the days, when the light at the end of the tunnel was not yet the oncoming train). By the time his mom and her relatives arrived, I had written the following story on my computer:

Act I: INT. HOUSE - DAY. Darin and Diane take a hatchet to all of their worldly possessions.

Act II: EXT. HOUSE - NIGHT. Darin and Diane grin as the flames spread to nearby houses.

Act III: INT. COURTROOM - DAY. The judge explains to the court that no one could possibly ever convict.

Well, Darin thought it was funny.

Clearly I've lost my mind: my Mom called me at a weak moment and I said, Sure, come visit! Come for a week!

She's going to take us to Lawry's Prime Rib. This is better than her first suggestion: Mezzaluna.

Fernando came over today and kept us company during the worst of it. His tasks mainly included being cheerful in the face of adversity and keeping sharp objects away from us. He was extremely excited by my offer to let him redo the color schemes for the various bedrooms (since we'll have to redo them...someday).

The best part of having Fernando here was watching his reaction to the master bedroom suite downstairs: Wow. Actually, everyone's had that reaction. And it is pretty cool; I think it's what sold Darin on the place. I, as you may remember, needed a little more coaxing, although I definitely remember thinking, This is cool. The whole downstairs is totally new and designed by a Swedish architect, so it has an open-air feeling. One gigantic open space, with the bedroom mostly walled off. Extremely tall ceilings. And everything is in light wood. It's great.

Another great thing about this house is the water pressure. There's a ton of water that gushes out through these pipes, and I'd best remember that if I ever try to use the bidet. (Yes, there's a bidet.)

Darin is reading this entry over my shoulder. He asks if I know that one thought does not follow the next logically. In response, I ask him about the going price for ahi in Romania.

Darin wants me to mention his cousin Evelyn, with whom his mom stayed for the first two nights of this trip. Evelyn is Darin's mother's mother's cousin. Evelyn is probably in her late 70s and is a pretty spunky lass. We talked about recent movies (The English Patient, boring boring boring; Sling Blade, very cool) and all these Hollywood parties she's gone to courtesy of her brother-in-law, who always buys a table at charity events. She says she's gone to several of these and now celebrities come up to her and say, "Hey, how're you doing," like they're old pals.

Evelyn seemed genuinely excited that I'm in "the Business," something I'm not always sure of myself.

Darin warned me that his mother's side of the family was bigger than his father's, which always seemed implausible to me because a)his mother was an only child and b)we've always gotten together with his father's side of the family for holidays, and there are a lot of them. However, a short time in Los Angeles is all that it has taken to rid me of this misconception: his mother's side of the family is larger, and apparently they all live here.

No, seriously: she does have a lot of relatives, and she does something I'm not accustomed to: she puts a lot of effort into keeping in touch with them. The idea of having distant relatives that I visit and correpond with on a regular basis is completely foreign to me, considering I cannot even name every single one of my cousins, even the American ones. I'm not the close-knit family type, but I guess that will have to change. And I guess there's nothing like genocide and a global diaspora to really cement those familial ties.

It's 11p.m. I think they're finishing with unpacking the boxes downstairs in the master bedroom, which means there's only the living room to go. Whee ha.