Skål!

Chris and I had a really productive weekend in terms of getting the house in shape, a breakthrough weekend, if you will. We got rugs, a TV/media center, a coffee table, a new bed frame, among other things. Of course, this involved renting a 10-foot moving truck and trekking out to the Ikea in Emeryville--not once, but twice. (We originally planned to only have "grown-up" furniture once we bought the condo, but, well, we bought a condo. So.)

To celebrate, I picked up two flavors of pickled herring (mustard and garlic) at Ikea's marketplace today on a whim. When we were vacationing in Barcelona this past July, the Swedish couple we were with, Pär and Lisa, prepared a traditional Swedish mid-summer festival meal: pickled herring, boiled new potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, bread, cheese, and many, many little bottles of aquavit. We were surprised to find that we actually enjoyed the herring, at least the non-traditional flavors. The traditional flavor is...strong, we'll say. Anyway, I replicated that meal tonight, in celebration of all the work we accomplished. Though, Ikea doesn't sell aquavit, so we substituted some vodka we had in the freezer. (And that vodka seems to be kicking in now, so apologies if I get a little loopy.) And I added broccoli to the mix, because it feels weird to eat just fish and potatoes.

Here's Chris and our Swedish-inspired spread:



Closeup on the fish (we added the lingonberry conserves just because I love it so):



Yum! The mustard-flavored herring is my favorite. Big thanks to Pär and Lisa for introducing us to their traditional meal! We'll be on the lookout for aquavit so we can do the meal right.

I'll have more picture soon, as we finish getting the house in order.

Do the (crazy headless) chicken dance!

Sorry for the radio silence over here. Between moving, unpacking, my sister moving to town, my parents staying with us for a weekend, Chris's birthday, Chris's birthday picnic, Mae's visit, and work, I've been like a crazy, headless chicken. The past two weeks have been exhausting and maddening, but I think things are finally settling down.

We have most of our boxes unpacked and we've found homes for all of our stuff. Surprisingly, unpacking has become a bit more difficult now that we're down to the small stuff. We're not quite sure where things should go, so we unpack them, set them down somewhere, and kind of move them around as we need to, until they find a fitting home. We still have some big furniture pieces to buy (couch, TV/media cabinet, bed frame), but the new house is definitely coming together. Not that it's tidy or neat, mind you. The place is still a jumbled mess; it's just a navigable jumbled mess now.

The cats seem to be adapting just fine. They're still figuring out their hidey-holes. Chris discovered Vin's just today. Background: a few days ago, AT&T sent a technician out to help us with our (lack of) DSL, so Chris came home early to meet him. By the time I got home, they'd already been down to the garage and out to the back of the house to check the wiring. After the tech left, I hunted around for Vin (Carlo had already won the tech's heart), but he was nowhere to be found. We looked everywhere, in a state of increasing panic: under couches and the bed, in closets and cabinets, and in boxes. Eventually, we started expanding our search, on the off-chance that Chris had left a door open (even though he was certain he hadn't): the back staircase, the garage, and finally, outdoors. At this point, I started to freak out, but when we finally came back upstairs, we were greeted by Vin, standing there in our hallway, blinking sleepily. At this point, we'd looked for him for a good 15 minutes. Generally, he comes when called, even if he's hiding, so I was ready to believe he wasn't in the house at all. We couldn't figure out where he'd been until today, when Chris discovered Vin sleeping in a nest of fur on one of the shelves in one of our bedroom closets. This closet doesn't have a hanging bar; instead, it has four or five L-shaped shelves. Vin, being the athletic jumper, figured out a way to climb from one shelf to another and made a bed of Chris's Stanford sweatshirt, which was folded up and sitting in the corner of the closet. The pile of fur gave away the fact that Vin's been using that nest for a while now. And since Chris is a big pushover when it comes to the cats, he let Vin sleep there. When Vin finally jumped down, Chris just replaced his sweatshirt with a cat bed, so Vin could continue to use his little hideout.

Like I said, Stella moved here last weekend. It's a big change, for both of us. She's leaving the nest for the first time (finally!) and I get to have my sister nearby. In fact, she's living only 2 blocks from our house, which is great. She's been over a bunch (to use the Internet connection, to watch TV, and oh yeah, hang out with us) which is both weird and awesome. We haven't lived in the same town since I was 18. There was a short period after I graduated college, but nothing but random vacations and weekends since then. I like having her here.

Yesterday, we threw Chris a birthday picnic in Golden Gate Park. Stella and I whipped up a bunch of food and schlepped it all out there. Vern, in her infinite wisdom, brought a kick ball, to everyone's delight. We ate, played kickball, played croquet, wrestled with dogs, and ate some more. Somehow, after two horrible days of rain and overcast skies, we got a gorgeously warm and sunny day for the picnic. Today was beautiful too, which made watching the Blue Angels swoop over the Bay even more enjoyable. We went to North Beach, to the house of some of our friends, for brunch and then watched the air show from their rooftop. Despite my misgivings about the military, I am a sucker for sailors and impressive aerial tricks.

So that brings us up to date. Hopefully, I'll be writing more frequently in the coming months.