everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Category: Home

  • Mothballs!

    Mothballs!

    This photo is from a couple of weeks ago when we were still in the rental but it shows how we all feel these days – exhausted! It’s been a heroic few weeks as we unpacked boxes and slapped things into shape. Izumi did most of the work while the rest of us got distracted by long lost photos and toys that had been packed away for the past two months.

    We’ve ripped up the ratty, cat-smelling carpet in the “plus” room downstairs, smoothed and leveled out the concrete slab and put down a new wood floor. It totally brightens up the room and makes it a much nicer space for the kids to play in.

    We took Tyler over for his first day at his new school. We thought we were looking all smart in our newly unpacked clothes for our meeting with his new teacher but didn’t notice it until we got out of the car – all four of us reeked of mothballs. Ms. Fong-Wedgewood politely didn’t mention it but she must have wondered if we were boxed up along with all our stuff as well.

    Tyler’s school is in the same district so the curriculum matched perfectly and he was able to pick up without losing a beat. He loves his new teacher and already has made a few friends. It’s great to see that he can fit in so easily, if there’s one thing at which he is a natural, it’s making new friends.

  • Boxes and Bubble Wrap

    It’s been a whirlwind few days with the movers, unpacking, transferring license plates to California, getting a CA driver’s license, switching Tyler over to the local school, hooking up cable & internet, and meeting the new neighbors in between. We’re still digging ourselves out from boxes and bubble wrap so I haven’t had a chance to post.

    We did find someone that can take all the packing material off our hands because she is moving to Texas. When we told her that we had “wardrobe boxes” (tall boxes with a hanger rod in them so you can hang your suits and dresses) she squealed with delight. One man’s trash. . .

    One great thing about having a blogger sister is that she’s good at documenting things that, at the moment seem too overwhelming to even think about documenting. She was there on our first day of unpacking and squeezed off a few choice shots of the occasion.

  • Sad is a rainbow

    Sad is a rainbow

    We traded in Flash our 4-year old Honda Odyssey, for a new Mazda MPV which is smaller and easier to drive around and park in our new, more urban neighborhood. Tyler was heartbroken to say goodbye to the Honda which has been our faithful chariot on drives from NJ to Tennessee, Boston and back. It was a great van, comfortable for the long haul but just too wide to zip around the streets of San Francisco and Oakland.

    This morning we doused the wheels of the Mazda with a bit of sake from a bottle we bought to sprinkle on the four corners of our house when we move in (Tuesday!) and celebrated with a drive over to Berkeley.

    Tyler later made a comment that “Sad is a rainbow” in which he was describing the shape of a sad face. I took a deeper meaning away from it, there are many shades of sadness and there’s always a brighter side of looking at every sad occasion.

  • Shopping Cart Lady

    One thing about moving from a small, rural town to a semi-urban community is that you run across those with other lifestyles more often. Today Izumi was at the shopping center with Tyler and there was a homeless women shuffling by with all her belongings in a shopping cart. Tyler, not being shy, kindly informed the woman that the shopping cart actually belonged to a store and wasn’t her’s to take.

    Fearing a a nasty rebuke, Izumi called Tyler over to the car so they could get on their way. Instead, there was a short conversation and Tyler came back smiling. The woman had complimented his boots.

  • Paperwork

    We signed our loan papers for the new house today. The stack of forms we needed to sign was at least and inch thick! All sorts of forms including one we had to sign that was proof that our signature was our signature. (Lack of a signature means. . . I guess. . . it’s not your signature?) Two hours later and we were that much closer to moving in!

  • Fenton’s Creamery

    Went back to visit an old college haunt with the Karp’s this weekend. Fenton’s on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland has been an institution and well worth the trip over from Berkeley. It looked newer than I remembered and was told the whole thing was redone after a fire in 2001. We ordered the Banana Special which is described below on their menu:

    Banana Special – Watch Out! Tourists may takes photos of you with this Fentons tradition! HUGE scoops, we mean HUGE scoops, of Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry ice cream cradled by a whole ripe banana. Topped with pineapple, strawberry and chocolate fudge. Topped off with almonds, whipped cream and cherry. $9.95

  • everwas.com

    As I was listening to the radio the other day and the Talking Head’s song Once in a Lifetime came on and the phrase “same as it ever was” hit me as highly relevant. Part of being middle-aged (I’m now 38) is that things take on a vague familiarity. We moved back to San Francisco and the places I visit are at once new and at the same time recognizable from when I lived here before. I look at life through the eyes of my children and I see the things that they see, I feel their joy (and frustrations). I can imagine what my parents felt when they were raising a family and trying to pass on wisdom to their children.

    I begin to appreciate the rhythm and circle of life. Same – as – it- ever – was. Indeed.

    I registered the domain so you can also reach clankennedy via everwas.com which is easier to remember and gives a little context to my running narrative here; one more person’s commentary on the at once mundane but beautiful cycle of life.

  • Reunion Brunch

    The other great thing that happened this weekend is that we hooked up with some old friends from our Tokyo days for brunch at the Carnelian Room on top of the Bank of America building in downtown San Francisco. It was great to catch up with everyone but it’s hard to believe that we’ve all got kids. I had to do a double count before reserving a table for eleven!

    The kids were much happier to when we finished and were away from the poached eggs & truffles and able to scream with great abandon in the parking garage.

  • Home at Last!

    Almost two months to the day of searching and we finally got the house of our dreams. We are now going to be residents of the Island of Alameda!

    We must have reviewed at least 50 houses and were in bidding wars on three of them. I was beginning to get blase about the whole process, with all the offers & counter-offers, and it was getting to be kind of enjoyable. Such a game! Our realtor came to meet us while we were eating dinner with Mie & Dav so we could sign our latest counter-offer. Dav mentioned that the last time he went to dinner with someone who was sitting on an offer, they won. He must have some kind of real estate karma thing that rubbed off on us – thanks Dav!

    I’m glad it’s over. We were cooling our jets in Berkeley on the latest round of bidding when our realtor called and said, “So, are you ready to move in?” We immediately whooped it up and sang “we got a house. . . .we’ve. . . got. . . a. . .house” all the way back to the apartment.