And the beat goes on.......

Woke up this morning in our deflated air mattress (Michael, Butters our Pug and Sammy our cat) at 4am. Had to get ready it is going to be a busy busy day again. Honestly, I have been out of work (at my job) for a week and have been working longer hours getting this all set up! 8am and the flooring guys come, so we had to move the one stick of furniture we purchased here so we had somewhere to sit (a couch) onto the deck so that the first floor, floors could be sanded and stained. I feel like I am on the set of Close Encounters of the Third kind it is so loud and makes the whole house shake! Yup 8am!! Poor Butters has pooped all over the master bedroom (we put him there for safety so he is on the third floor while they are working on the first floor). He never poops in the house! Poor thing was that scared. Michael ran up to take a nap with him and calm him down a bit. Then came the Comcast guy to install our internet, cable and phone (finally Verizon take that! We don't have to use your rip off internet tether any longer!). While the floors are being done and the Comcast guy is here, the garbage people call to come pick up for the first time. We also had another furnace/boiler issue we had to address so the James and James oil guy came and of course....the cars are arriving from CA (yup all of this at eight o'clock in the morning!). It is now 1:09 in the afternoon, Michael and I were able to drive to Claremont,New Hampshire to return the rental car we have been using since we arrived a week ago. Yeah Ding Dong the Mini Van is gone!! We had to get a new wireless router, the three year old one I had was not going to 'cut the mustard' in this GINORMOUS house. Matt the Comcast guy set it all up...real trooper. Despite my issues with Comcast in the past I have to say Matt redeemed them in my book...for now. We had a great time yesterday, we went grocery shopping at the Manadnock co-op in Keene, NH. It is a bit like an upscale Whole Foods...can you believe that! So we are going along buying all our natural organic foodstuffs and I see a bottle of Peanut Butter and I reach over and grab it. It says "Vermont Peanut Butter" on the label so I throw it in the basket. I get home and Lo and Behold.....(there really is a God), not only did I grab a bottle of Peanut Butter which is all natural and made with USA peanuts, yadda yadda....it has DARK CHOCOLATE mixed in!!!!! OMF'ing G!!! yes Peanut Butter with Chocolate in it!!! YUUUUMMMYYY!!!! I cut up some local Macintosh apples and drizzled this nectar of the GODS all over them and finally...all was good with the world! The other funny thing that happened yesterday was that I had to use the restroom so I go and do that which needs to be done and I get up and all of a sudden I hear a 'jingle', and then another 'jingle'. I pull back the shower curtain and there she was with big 'Doe like' eyes looking up at me...Sammy the cat. I was so embarrassed, and then realized it was my cat and she was in the shower why am I embarrassed?? I guess it is just the lack of privacy living in a house, while people are coming in and out working on it. It is no longer your 'Fortress of Solitude'. Even the cat had to find a place of respite, a place to hide. Things are so very different here, really I feel like I am in a different world. Things that used to matter no longer do and seem silly and unnecessary. I have only seen one BMW and two Mercedes (all old and one of the Mercedes was a station wagon). Michael's Audi TT seems a bit surreal and out of place. Practical things for practical people...what a concept! Maybe we aren't so crazy after all. And the beat goes on.....

Definitely not there yet!

Woke up at 5:30 in the morning to a not so firm blow up bed! We've moved into the Attic which is going to serve as our master bedroom. Yesterday was another very very long day. The immediate roofing work was done (thank you Ken). Jamie and Betsy made it down to the first floor after having cleaned the Attic and the second floor. Looks like all we have now is the basement. We are so lucky they really are wonderful and have been so great. Such hard work and dedication...the house really needed a thorough scrubbing. More trips to the hardware store, Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. We bought a couch so now there is a piece of furniture in the house while we wait for all of our things to arrive from California. Moving really is stressful and takes a lot out of you. Interesting rules when you live on the border with another state which is so very different than the one you reside in. Apparently, New Hampshire has no sales or income tax but if you are a Vermont resident things apply in certain cases. For instance, the couch, since we had it delivered to Vermont we had to pay taxes if we would have hired a truck and picked it up ourselves it would have been tax free. There are cars for sale in New Hampshire at great prices, but if you have to register it in Vermont you either pay the taxes there, or you get billed the taxes when you go to DMV to register the car. You can work in New Hampshire, but will still have to file taxes (and get taxed) in Vermont. So you see, it is true you really can't escape Death and Taxes. I have been so busy and my time has been taken up so much in coordinating, organizing, working with contractors in a mad dash to beat the clock because Winter is coming that I find myself just 'conking out' physically at different points in the day. At least it is Saturday. Work on the floors starts on Monday at 8AM. The builder can't start till after Thanksgiving. The major roofing is done for now and we can 'breathe'. I have been wanting to walk through the house with a video camera to capture everything prior to the work being done and I have just not had enough time. We are still on California time so the 'jet lag' has been an issue in that it makes you tired an throws off your eating habits. Butters refuses to go upstairs....we have to carry him. I think we have been watching Paranormal State too much, one of the items on our list is to get Sage so that we can 'cleanse the house'...Thank you Theresa Caputo!! The basement is what is left now for Jamie and Betsy to clean. It is going to feel very odd not having them in the house, hearing their laughter and just hanging out with them. We really were blessed to have found them they are GOOD PEOPLE! It really is refreshing. Of the four of us, Sammy our cat who we thought would be freaked out after the move, has been the most calm and relaxed out of all of us. She moved in, found her spot and has been 'queen of the manor'. She is for all intents and purposes...home. I am trying to 'soak this all in' and enjoy it. This will become my normalcy all to quickly and I really want to 'savor' the moment just as Proust enjoyed that darned Madeleine.

Three Days a Vermontian....Are we there yet?

Three days a Vermontian.....what a feat! LOL it is really cold....the funny thing is that it is not!!! According to our die hard Vermonter friends "You ain't seen nothing yet"! It has been in the mid twenties at night which to a born and raised Californian is ..... REALLY COLD! So far we have done the requisite Target shopping for bare essentials (e.g., Coffee, toilet paper, paper towels...you guessed it). The people here have been great, real 'salt of the earth', what you see is what you get no nonsense with a dash of 'how can I help you' thrown in for good measure and it has been very refreshing! We hired a cleaning service and they have been so warm and kind (Jamie and Betsy we LOVE YOU). Very helpful navigating through 'small town life' where everyone knows everyone, or is related! I don't know what we would do without them! Yesterday was one necessity of modern life after another lined up at the front door....the Roofer, the couple working on our floors, the cleaners, the wood burning stove guy, etc. Very exhausting and soon to be very expensive day! It was all worth it! It's our house! Yeah!!! We did it. That little corner of land we can call ours and to quote the New Hampshire license plates I see all the time (we are right on the border with NH) "Live Free or Die"! What a truly American sentiment, one you recall from history lessons but one lost when you grow up in CA where your history is very different than that of New England. We have had some challenges, like the Dish people not setting up the TV and internet the way they were supposed to, we ended up having to go back to Comcast....UUUGH. Oh well, at least they will be here in a couple of days and get us set up. Right now we have to run our internet connections through Verizon...who I was on h phone with at 2 AM explaining to them how I did not cancel our unlimited data plan like they seem to think I did and are convinced but can't 'back it up'. LOL the question from them was "Why would we cancel it without your consent"....my response "So you can get rid of the 'grandfathered unlimited data users' and not have to offer such a good deal and overwhelm your system....the response being silence. We have the builders coming today with what I am sure are going to be a lot of additional surprises!!!

My first day in my new home state, Vermont

It is 12:43 AM and my partner and I are in a blow up bed with our Pug Butters,and our cat Sammy in our new home in Bellows Falls Vermont. We arrived a few hours ago after two plane rides and an hour and a half in a rented mini van (LOL yes, a mini van). It is thirty degrees outside right now as opposed to the mid sixty degrees we have permanently left behind in California this morning (and winter hasn't even begun in our new home). Some of my friends think I am crazy and maybe they are right, we are crazy...but then again maybe we are not! What at first started out as a simple attempt at investing a little money in some land with timber or a small vacation cabin has turned into a major lifestyle change and an entirely new and awesome (in the true sense and meaning of the word) adventure. Growing up in California's sunshine and cultural and financial diversity was a great experience. It made me the person I am today. However, things have changed as they are bound to. Change being one of the few things in life which is constant and to be expected. The Bay Area where I grew up in the seventies and eighties just isn't the same anymore, and I just don't like what it has become. Herb Caen's "Baghdad by the Bay" has more of Sadam Hussein's Baghdad than the romantic notions Herb Caen associated with it (now I am showing my true colors, I wonder how many current day San Franciscans know what I am talking about or who Herb Caen was). The city I grew up in lives only in my head now. The small town city where you could walk up to Mayor Dianne Feinstein's door and knock, or look up Anne Rice in the phone book and call her to chat about her novel Interview with a Vampire and have her take your call does not exist. It too is gone with the wind. It has been replaced by a facsimile of what. it once was. Full of successful entrepreneurs, the hub of modern technology it is now a factory of educated, ambitious, motivated thirty somethings and millenials riding a carousel of career advancement each stretching their fingers to get the brass ring. Art, music and culture still thrive but what was once a city of poets and artists working for the Muse inside has become one in which the Muse has been replaced. Inspiration no longer being the motivator having been exchanged for ambition, entitlement, and the need for recognition. Recognition not for the art, recognition for the Ego. This world brings with it the coldness of the lack of civility. People do not say hi nor do they greet each other. Neighbors don't know each other and sadly don't want to. Saying hello to someone on the street is a chore not something which flows naturally from human kindness. A city once known for tolerance and doing the right thing still has it but the difference is that the source was once governed by conscience as opposed to "political correctness" or the fear of what someone else might think. For example, in the seventies at a four way stop sign, there would he a delay as the drivers waved to the others conceding their right to proceed out of politeness now someone will take out not only a car but a pedestrian and a biker as they run either a stop sign or a red light...this happens daily! So long story short, in an effort to change my life and reclaim some of the things I liked such as civility and a respect of others and the ability to knock on my mayor's door if I had a question without metal defectors, being frisked or ending up in jail I looked for a little corner in my American world where as a Gay man I could live such a life. I found Bellows Falls and decided to make it my home! The purpose of this blog is to capture my experiences, my trials and my tribulations while trying to build a home for me, my partner, and our pets in this beautiful state we now call home, Vermont.