The quarter century mark

[dragonlady7]

And all I got was comment spam...

Actually my mom sent me a Norwegian-English dictionary, the bilingual edition of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf (which i've wanted for years now, possibly three or four years actually, and have never bought myself), and the Dinosaur BBQ Cookbook (my very own copy!). All per my request. Mrs. K. gave me a hardbound edition of Eats, Shoots And Leaves which is amusing me endlessly. She is a sweet woman and I hope she'll have more reason to like me while I'm not underfoot.

I wrote a long and angst-filled bit about the fact that I'm over a quarter into my life expectancy last night, but it's on the Newton and we have no network over at Hartford yet. (That's the new house-- named for the street it's on, as we generally tend to name our living quarters.) So that'll go up at some point in the future, and will be full of angst, you can believe it.

We did get to spend our first night in the house last night, which was awesome. I had missed my bed, and Dave had missed his. What totally rules about a double bed when you're used to a twin is that you can keep all kinds of crap in the bed and still have room to sleep. I don't have a bedside table yet, so I just stuck the alarm clock next to the pillow and it was fine there all night. (Downside? Alarm clock doesn't have a back light. I had to wait until it was light outside to know what time it was.)

We had to sit at home and wait all day until the gas man came to turn the gas back on, but he showed up at 8:30 before Dave and I were out of bed yet. Whoops. "Morning," he said as I answered the door wrapped in a sheet. "How are you?"
"Uh," I answered, "um, not awake."
But we now have gas, electric, AND a dial tone, and DSL is on the way once they've determined whether our phone number works with their service. (It should. We're going through the only independent DSL company in Western NY (the others all being AOL or Verizon and therefore crappy), a company called Info-Blvd that's based in Hornell, of all places-- the geographic center of WNY, I'd say, but precious little else but some underrated vineyards.)
Independent DSL is 1/3 cheaper here than in Westchester-- surprising? No.

Anyhow. The move is about half complete. My car is not behaving at all. I have not yet written about it but I will yet. We do not have a computer over at the house but it is so comfy already. It's going to rule, living there. I might even end up with one and a half kitchens, if I can get things sorted out. (Can you get an extension cord for a 220 outlet? I doubt it.) We even have spare keys.
And, amusingly enough, the previous tenants left a 20-gallon hexagonal (tall) aquarium and its stand by the curb. We ran out and picked it up, and have had it sitting out on the driveway full of water to check for leaks all day. It doesn't leak.
So, looks like we're gonna have us a fishtank of cool fishies, instead of just little betta bowls. Not that the little betta bowls aren't cool. We moved Fishie over last night (he's staying in the brandy glass so his name is probably getting changed to Alexander, and one of the two new fish will go into the martini glass and either be called Cosmo or Gibson) and he's currently being belligerent on top of the fridge. He's always belligerent, though.
I finally (!) got some nail polish remover and un-blued my nails, though, and Fishie misses them. He thought they were a woman. Now he's stopped blowing bubble nests. I may have to keep my nails painted, just for him. Poor fellow.
At least until we get a female to put in a bowl next to his.

Well... I was going to talk about my birthday, but I haven't really gotten around to it. Dave gave me birthday-lovies (head scritchies! I love head scritchies! If you've never been head-scritchied, you're not living. If you don't know what one is, think of how you pet a dog's head, and extrapolate. There's a reason why they like that) and in general it was a lovely morning. The kitchen is a disaster area, but we're working on it.

We're going to have a party Labor Day Weekend, I think. That's when the Buffalo Chicken Wing Festival is, which is a good reason for people to come into town anyway, and we figure that we'll party one of the nights of that weekend just to kind of break in the house a little bit. (And celebrate the ongoing fact of my birthday, I think.)

Hmm... I have little else to say now. I will not be checking email or livejournaling much in the next few days, but I may pop in from time to time. You know how moving is. You get tired and moody and even when you could get to the computer, you just don't want to. At least, me.
But Dave's being lovely (after some brief mutual temper-tantruming yesterday) and the house is just the sweetest little house. I am going to have a blast living there. I have some photos but can't transfer them.
Oh-- my birthday present from Dave-- he's going to either pay for repairs to my old digital camera (which has been busted since mid-spring) or buy me a new one, or go halfsies on a really nice new one depending on the price. So, I am researching digital cameras at the moment. I will write more about that in a bit.

Comments

[eggplantia5.livejournal.com]

hey happy birthday.

and yes, i know how moving is. i am so glad i don't have to worry about that for another 28 years.

and yes, i love that i can have 10 books on my queen size bed and still have tons of space to sleep comfortably. although it's really really loud when i roll over too much at night and knock them all to the floor.

so yeah, happy birthday!

this is from kat

[(Anonymous)]

Ah ha! Now I know why you aren't awake (although it could also have been the time). I hadn't realized you'd move in before you were done moving it, though it makes complete sense now that I exercise my one brain cell to think about it.
Anyways, I'm very sorry I didn't email you to say happy birthday. I figured I'm see you on IM. Alas. I've greatly enjoyed being 25 (insurance goes down, though not noticeably, and so does the cost for some car rentals, although again that's not something you'd encounter regularly...)
The way I figure it, 25 is the first year of really being an adult. There's nothing left to "get" in terms of laws and restrictions and so on, all your education is done (except maybe graduate school, but that sort of works with the adults theme) and no one would now bat an eye if you chose to get married, have children, buy a house, etc.
The next quarter-century is all our own. I mean, look at the past 25 years: you had the toddler-phase, when you could do nothing on your own. Then the childhood-phase, where everything from bedtime to clothes to what would be served for dinner was not in your firm control. After that, teens...when you realize how much you could do, if only you were on your own. Then you go to college, but you still have to attend class, study, do papers, work frantically to earn money to pay for school/lodging/car/etc.
Then you get out and it's still kind of a struggle, and often the family doesn't really realize you're an adult, yet.
But now, it's all over. It's only going to get better for the next 25 years. We'll make our own families, get jobs we hopefully enjoy, live where we are hopefully happiest, and in general create a real honest-to-goodness just-what-we-want lives.
I am psyched, I'm telling you. This is going to be the best of all the quarter-centuries we get.
Of course, this does push us closer to that third quarter-century, where things probably go down hill, but at that point we will probably be looking forward to the kids leaving the house and thinking that it's going to be all gravy from here, what with retiring and all in the list of possibilities.
So I hope you enjoy your (day after your) birthday!

[reverend-dave.livejournal.com]

Can you get an extension cord for a 220 outlet?

Possibly, but not at your local K-Mart or equivalent. Try to find a Lowe's or a Home Depot.