Our First Week in RB

awaiting sunset
Originally uploaded by radioflyer007

Well, we've just completed our first week in RB and all I can say (with lots of elaboration) is that it has been quite a busy, frustrating, fun, frustrating, scary, frustrating experience.

GETTING LOST
I've officially done it. I've successfully all by myself thoroughly got myself lost in LA. I was supposed to take one of the freeways west and ended up taking it east - it was late at night, I had the kids' music cranked up and Lolli's sweet-but-oftentimes-annoying-questions-and-incessant-chatter distracting me from a quick split that required an even quicker response. I took the wrong fork. What should have resulted in a quick left and left to get back on the west bound side resulted in a scary traumatic experience that had me wondering if the kids and I would get back to RB safely (Air Boss was driving his father's car and had taken the correct freeway). The surface roads were dark (it was almost 10 PM) and people were loitering in the streets next to their pimped up rides. I was frightfully aware that I was still driving with my MA plates on the car. The westbound freeway entrance was closed so I had to rely on Garmin to detour me to the next closest westbound entrance. Next one - closed. The one after that - closed. What is going on?! I didn't even know what city I was in. I ended up taking the freeway EAST, driving a few exits the opposite direction I wanted so that I could make my two lefts to get back on the westbound side. It was white-knuckle driving the whole way home (over an hour later). It was at that point that I hated LA and all the stupid freeways. I wanted to be back in Boston where I knew 95 and 90 like the back of my hand.

OVERFLOWING TOILET
So this latest fiasco just happened today - right before Air Boss's sister and brother-in-law (hailing from SJ) were arriving to spend the night at our place. Air Boss was gone to do the airport run. The kids were napping (thank goodness b/c I don't know how I would have managed to do what I needed to do with them running around) . . .
. . . The upstairs toilet overflowed. It was so quick, the entire bathroom floor was covered in water in a matter of TWO SECONDS. Just outside the door was newly installed wall-to-wall carpet. The bath mats were already soaked and I had thrown our bath towels on the floor in the hopes of keeping the water from escaping out the door. I tried kicking the water back in. I even shut the door (yeah, somehow in the panic, I had forgotten about the little 1/2" gap above the threshold). I was in a state of panic. I build a dam with the soaked towels and ran out the door and called the landlady. No answer. By the time I left a message and ran back, the water had stopped flowing and the carpet was spared by half an inch! Cleaning up the mess was a little challenging since I had no mop. Our first house guests were to arrive in less than an hour! Well, the floor is dry, the toilet still needs to be looked at an our house guests have deferred to staying with Air Boss's parents for the evening.

So that tops our first week here in RB. We finally saw the beach and a peek at the sunset. We're still waiting for internet and cable and our new local number. I'm beginning to feel the lonelies and unhappies creep in. I miss my home, my backyard, my "space", my desk, my family, my friends. I have a feeling this second week in RB will seem a lot longer than this first one.