We got a good early start yesterday and arrived here before one. The location and content of our housing this time are way, way better, which makes me extremely happy. I haven’t attempted walking to the Plaza yet—this morning we got quite a bit of walking in just wandering and getting lost on the compound. Being the sort of obsessive, momentum-driven person I am, we kind of went crazy yesterday after getting here. Even though we’d been up since 4:30 a.m., we went ahead and did a Trader Joe’s run, went to the Comcast office twice (long story) to get the internet stuff, and picked up our makeshift workspace stuff at Office Depot. We cleared a big space in the dining area and put up a 6-foot work table, and I assembled a desk chair, and now we both have enough space to spread out to work on books, papers, and whatever else. Then we took a break to cook our first dinner here (beans and hominy…seemed appropriate for the locale), and afterwards I set up the cable modem. It was all going too smoothly. Hardware is never a problem, but I hit the inevitable snag about halfway through installation of the software and then spent a good half an hour on the phone with Comcast. As you can see, it worked. By the time that was all over with we basically collapsed.
Just like last year, a bird woke me up at 5 a.m. and would not shut up. I gave in around six-ish and got up. While G. installed his bike headlight and tail-light, a cat jumped down onto our little porch. I couldn’t see a way for him to jump back out from ground level to the 5-foot fence (can cats jump 5 feet straight up?), so I picked him up and put him out the front door. He came right back to the porch. I had my coffee out there with him. He’s going to be trouble. He’s just the kind of cat I like—overly friendly, no boundaries, trying to drink out of my coffee cup, acting like he owns me already. He has a string collar and is obviously human-oriented, but he also has a torn ear that looks like it hasn’t had attention since it got torn. I can’t give him food because we’re only going to be here 8 weeks and I don’t want to start a whole thing with him. It’s tempting, though. Anyway, I moved the porch table so that he could jump onto that and then get over the fence, but after I came in he slept in our porch chair for awhile. When there’s someone in the apartment office on Monday I’ll check in to see if there’s a lost cat report, then I guess I’ll take it from there. I want to keep him. He’s an orange tabby who should have a name like Spencer or Fred.
On the agenda today: pick up a wireless router, buy a cell phone charger (I left mine at home – sigh), get a few more groceries and coffee filters that fit (G. showed me how to cut the bigger ones down to the right size so I had coffee this morning), and then…I don’t know what. There’s the scary/happy prospect of unscheduled time looming before me. Will I use it to work on my creative, spiritual, and physical improvement? Or will I squander it on TV and caramel corn? Keep tuning in to find out!
