Scene: Isaac is jumping on the bed, while I am laying there trying to convince him to put his pajamas on.

Isaac: Did you hear that?

Me: (sigh) Yes.

Isaac: I tooted.

Me: I know.

Isaac: Can you smell it? I can smell it. I can smell it a lot.

Turns out searching for houses in the Monterey area is less glamorous than one might expect. What’s that you say? You didn’t think it would be glamorous? Oh, you’re so crazy.

One of the funny little quirks about the Monterey Coast is that everyone names their houses. They have quaint little signs out front proclaiming - Ocean Breeze, Bayview, Cookie’s Corner, Bird’s Landing, etc.  In light of this, I named each of the rentals we viewed. Mostly just for comic pleasure.

So, last week I went rental hunting. The first house we walked into smelled like cats. It was empty but apparently the owner didn’t like leaving it that way, so she slept on a mattress in one of the bedrooms. A mattress on a floor covered in cat hair. Next to the “bed” was a bowl of cat food and a water bowl. I’m not sure how she thought she was protecting the house by staying there at night…. Maybe her cat was a trained attack cat. Or maybe there was no cat and she just had a craving for fancy feast and preferred to lap up water from a bowl. Frankly after seeing the house - neither would’ve surprised me.

So the first rental was trash. Kitty trash. The worst part of Kitty Trash - it was only $2200 a month! For a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house covered in cat hair! What a bargain.

Feeling a little defeated we moved on to house #2. I will call this house Noonie (for all of you SNL fans out there you will understand this reference) Noonie was the anti-thesis of Kitty Trash. Noonie was beautiful and modern and sleek. It was a total steal at $2000 a month. However, the two story deck with NO RAIL and the spacious 1,000 square feet made it a little less than suitable for a family of four. The single bathroom had a small pedestal sink with no counter top. No counter people - where will I spread all of my MAC makeup? On to house #3….

House number #3 lacked all of Noonie’s charm but made up for it in space. #3 was the largest house we saw all day, coming in a 1,800 square feet. It had hardwood floors throughout which is a bonus. It had, wait for it….two bathrooms!!! OMG! It had a safe, fenced backyard and it was situated nicely on a cul-de-sac. It had some really funky features though that I must elaborate on. First was the oven - seriously it was no bigger than an Easy Bake oven. Remember those? The little Fisher Price oven that heated up to 50 degrees so that little girls can get a head start on their domestic careers at age 7? Well the oven in this house was that size. No regular size cookie sheet will ever fit in that oven…and let’s be honest people if you can’t bake cookies in your oven, what good is it?  The house also had a “swedish fireplace” in the master bedroom.

For those of you unfamiliar with this little cozy addition, it is a fireplace that hangs from the ceiling in a little bubble just above the floor. It looks like a decision made in the late 1960’s that was, um, lost in translation over the decades. I know you want to install one in your house right now! Between the Easy Bake oven and the swedish fireplace, I called this house the Easy Swede. Yeah baby!

Alright, so house #4 was okay. It was cheap, clean and decently sized. The front room was too small for our stuff but the backyard made up for the rest of the house. It was large and clean and fenced. Perfect for little boys. As I stepped back inside, officially torn on which house I would take…the landlord offered this little bit of info: “So, when you’re indoors you barely hear the airplanes overhead from the airport.” And, were done. Henceforth, this house earned the name, Airport Noise.

Okay, on to house #5. This house was in Pacific Grove. I walked in and almost turned around and walked right back out but I didn’t want to be too rude. It was 3 bedrooms and 3 baths - which is great, however it looked as though nothing, including the rust colored carpet, had been updated since 1962. It had wood siding inside, making it dark and dingy. It had two sets of stairs - both unable to be blocked off so Joshie doesn’t plummet to his death. The backyard was a little akin to a concrete alley way, complete with electrical wires hanging down within arms reach of a toddler. This house was so bad I just couldn’t wait to get out - so we shall call it Nightmare. As in, living in this house would be one.

So, between Kitty Trash, Noonie, Easy Swede, Airport Noise and Nightmare the choice was clear. While I really wanted to be uber chic and live in Noonie, my only real choice was the Easy Swede. So, I drove over the agency and offered my left arm and one kidney to move in to the Easy Swede.

The good news is (besides the fact that I am right handed and I really only need one kidney….get it?) that the house is clean and it will fit all of our stuff. I guess Thanksgiving will have to be held elsewhere, because I am pretty sure a turkey isn’t fitting in that oven. However, my general cooking philosophy is if it can’t be microwaved or barbecued then it isn’t really necessary.

All in all, I am thrilled to be moving to Carmel with my boys. Feel free to come and visit us at the Easy Swede, we should be moved in by late June.

Just remember when you visit…bring cookies.

You want to hear a funny joke? I know you do….

How do you know your life is too stressful?

You get a bottle of vodka for Mother’s Day!

Oh wait, that isn’t a joke. It actually happened. Cheers!

It occurred to me today, as I was reading a comment on my site, that I am going home. The place of my childhood that I wrote about longingly here , appears to be my children’s new hometown as well.

Sometimes life surprises us in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Like finding out I had a genetic mutation that led to miscarriages and then 1 year later giving birth to a perfect baby boy.  Or meeting the man of my dreams at silly waitressing job that I hated. This move goes down as a pivotal point in my life, whereby I am both awed and frightened. That, I think, is the best of the human experience.

Lessons learned in the past few days:

1. If you put your house on the market, don’t be surprised if someone wants to buy it.

2. Too many sugar-free life savers leads to, well, stomach issues.

3. When you spend a certain amount of money in one day, your credit card company might think someone has stolen your card and they might call your house. They might also frighten your husband.

4. When you return a certain amount of goods purchased on said credit card because you’re a jackass who spent too much money in one day, the people behind the counter might think you have a problem. (you in fact do have a problem called “emo-shopping” it’s real, look it up)

5. A double wide trailer in Monterey costs $699,000. This means the kids will have to get used to a single wide….or the back of the car.

6. When tendering your resignation at work, make sure not to give 8 WEEKS NOTICE. You may spend 7 of them sitting awkwardly in your office, feeling a bit useless and writing on your blog.

7. Did I mention that selling your house often leads to MOVING? Who would have thought?

8. Jessica Simpson is one sadistic B. I am wearing a pair of her shoes right now and my feet are preparing a revolt from my body. May have something to do with the fact that 3 toes on each foot are numb.

9. Don’t sign up for a major race in San Francisco in the same few months that you will be moving 2 children, your giant couches and all of your other “s”. You might not have the time to train appropriately.

10. When applying for jobs in a new county, learn to have thicker skin. Not everyone is going to think you are the “bees knees”. That kind of foolery took you 7 years to accomplish at your current place of employment.

Yeah, the house sold. Wow.

Well, maybe I should change the content and tag line of this blog to be about a “soon to be unemployed mother of two who is moving to the most expensive area of the country and trying not to loose her mind.”

Catchy, right?

Monterey here we come!

Yesterday the Hubb’s and I went to Monterey with a long list of things to accomplish. The most important of which was to find him some transitional housing. He starts work on the 19th of this month and I don’t anticipate the family being able to move until July/August. So, he needed a 2 month sublet.

I’ll admit I was a little leery of this process. As many of you know, Monterey is somewhat of a college town and there are a lot of co-eds looking for roommates. Somehow I just couldn’t stomach the idea of my husband living with a 20 year old hottie whilst I was at home working full time and taking care of our children. Can’t you just hear the phone calls:

Him: Hey honey, Trixie and I are going out for pizza and beer! What are you doing?

Me (exasperated): Um, cleaning up smashed peas off of the floor from dinner.

Him: Bummer, well after dinner we are going to the beach so I will probably be home too late to call.

This wasn’t working for me.

So, obviously I was hesitant as we approached this process. I will spoil the ending by saying that he found a PERFECT place to live yesterday and it is with a girl. I know, I know. Not to fear, she is wonderful and fully trustworthy so all is well.

However, the best part of this whole story is the middle. The middle is where we meet Geri the Gypsy…

Kevin and I pull up to this huge house in a beautiful new neighborhood in Seaside and we are pretty sure that he should live here. It is super close to his work, the neighborhood is really nice and it is affordable. We walk up to the door and knock. As she opens the door the “jingling” meets me first. She has earrings on that are like wind chimes and with every tiny movement the wind section of an orchestra plays wildly. Next up is the accent, completely indeterminable. Is that German? Polish? Hell, is it Norwegian? Do I even know what a Norwegian accent sounds like? Nonetheless the accent is priceless as every word she says is backed up by the musical occurring on her neck.

Alright, earrings and accent aside, Geri is very friendly and invites us in. Kevin is already wanting to run for the hills but I sense a really good blog post so I scramble through the front door hoping for some good material and….oh did I get it. As Geri gestures for us to take off our shoes before entering, I am struck by the scarcity of the house, very little furniture but a lot of Asian inspired nick nacks (think Buddha statues). As I look a little closer at Geri I realize she is wearing a really bad wig. All of her “hair” is piled on top her head and it is multi-colored. Nothing is natural about the way this wig hovers about her head like a plane approaching the strip. Next I  notice that a magnitude 7.0 earthquake of purple eyeshadow has struck her deep set brown eyes. The make-up is remniscient of a MAC counter application gone awry. Terribly awry. 

Geri invites us up to the room that Kevin would be inhabiting. As I follow the jingling upstairs I am trying so hard to remember every detail because it so unbelievable.

She has fashioned a divider wall around the bathroom and bedroom so it gives the appearance of privacy from the rest of the house. As we enter the bedroom it is obvious that someone else is currently living there. She says that “Mohinder is away right now.” I inquire as to why Mohinder is vacating the premise and how long he had lived there. She stares at her feet for a moment and then says that he gave his two week notice two weeks after moving in. Curious. Geri explains that Mohinder’s religion does not permit animals inside the home and her cats are indoors at night, making this arrangement a deal breaker. Hmmm….I wonder if Mohinder would tell the same story?

Geri then shows Kevin the refrigerator in the closet and offers to buy him a microwave to accompany it. She says she can put it in the bathroom on the counter if he prefers. I try very hard to hold myself together at this moment. Knowing Kevin’s germ phobia, the thought of him heating up his “hot pocket” in the bathroom after a shower is very comical to me.  I can see the disgust curl at the corners of Kevin’s mouth and inwardly I am dying to laugh out loud at this thought. Geri explains that this room does not come with “kitchen privileges”, hence the microwave in the bathroom. Do I even want to know what is in her kitchen that it cannot be shared?

Geri asks how many nights Kevin will be staying for durring the week. He says only three because he wants to spend as much time with his family as possible. Then she looks at me and says “well, if I had someone to come home to that looked like you I would be in a hurry as well.”

WOW. Nervous laughter, “well thank you” I say and look down. She says, “No really, you are just gorgeous.” Silence falls between the three of us like a blanket. I can hear crickets. Now the tables have turned and Kevin is looking at me with glee in his eyes, knowing that this has just become as weird for me as it is for him.

So Geri then proceeds to tell Kevin that he must check out the bed. It has a two inch temperpediac topper! And she can buy new sheets! Mind you, Mohinder’s sheets and clothes are piled on top of the bed. Kevin can’t think of a reason quick enough as to why he can not in fact sit on the bed, so he does. Once again we are both trying not to loose it at this point. Then Geri wants me to sit on the bed. I start looking for camera’s and wondering if craiglist had mixed up the ad sections. Should this have been listed under “looking for weird sexual encounter involving 60 year old gypsy?”

After the bed sitting incident we move quickly out of the room as I make small talk with Geri. What does she do? Is she married? Why the Asian themed decor? The answers are priceless. She is into feng shui and  she was reincarnated from a previous life in Asia (well, she exclaims in the unknown accent, “we all were but that is a different story, right?” Right.) She is married to Steve, whose name she later recalls as “Al”. Later she isn’t even married to Al (aka Steve) but he is her partner. Also she is a media buyer and she does different kinds of “therapies.” I couldn’t bring myself to ask a follow up question on that one.

As she talks and I take all of this in, I am struck for the first time by what she is wearing. I never realized how revealing her top is because I never made it past the wind section and eyeshadow earthquake. She is easily and 42 FF and all of 5 feet tall. She has on a flowery hippie type skirt and has a purple low cut shirt tucked into the skirt. She has an ankle bracelet that is competing wildly for attention against the earrings. She is priceless.

Kevin is, at this point, in a hurry to get out of this episode of “strange roomate encounters.” We say that we will be in touch and we exit gracefully. As we get in the car we are both struck by the oddity of the situation we were just in.

The best part about the whole thing was that we witnessed it together. Neither of us would have ever been able to explain it quite like it was to the other. Believe me, 20 years from now all I will have to say to Kevin is, “hey remember Geri?” and he will know exactly what I am talking about.