Back from the Dead

Saturday, April 05, 2008

I have been MIA for a long time. Moving took some adjustment time for us all. Isabella had the hardest time with leaving day care and moving to a strange new city. I got seriously sick before my trip to Europe and infected everyone else. While I was out and we were preparing the big move, Eva flew out here for a month to help out. She was a tremendous help, but unfortunately she got the bug and was a trooper for taking care of Isabella and herself. Glad to report everyone is getting back to normal.

Isabella has a new nanny, Shelley. They are getting to know each other and seem to have fun together. I had a few weeks to work out my commute and I think I now have it down. I leave the house at 6:45am and drive to Union Station. The drive is a short 8 miles, but takes 20-30 minutes depending on LA traffic on the 101 freeway. I aboard the 7:20am Amtrak to Irvine. I love the train, especially Amtrak. The seats recline and each have a tray for your computer with an outlet. AWESOME! It's clean and never full. I get into Irvine at 8:25am and I jump in my "beater", a 2001 Volvo S40 with 86,000 miles - lucky me, it's not such a bad car at all. And I finally arrive at Oakley around 8:50am. So door to door it does take 2 hours each way, but it's the quickest 2 hours ever. I work on the train every morning. I finally got my wireless card and so I can stay connected. The train is my office away from the office.

We're already going to sell our little beater car though. My sister, Ann, just bought a new car and needs to sell hers so Ed jumped right at it and bought it. So now my beater will be a 2001 convertible Mustang with only 44,000 miles. Sweet. Now we have a convertible to take joy rides in when we go to the coast and just in time for summer.

The house...well...there's very little progress there. However, I'm very excited about our new bedroom furniture. We finally bought new bedroom furniture. I feel like a grown up now. Before our new bed, we slept on Ed's (pre-Lydia) Ikea furniture. Check out our new bed frame.


We still get a lot of tourist that stop in front of our house to take pictures. I'm only assuming that Jesse made it on the star maps. We haven't done any painting yet, but definitely will soon. We just found out that America Ferrera (Ugly Betty) will be moving in soon to a house 5 houses down. Speaking of stars, last weekend we took my parents out to dinner in West Hollywood at Cafe Med. Isabella was getting antsy so I walked her around the restaurant. As we past the hostess table, in walks Quentin Tarantino. He was with a woman and was as animated as he appears in front of the camera, talking with his arms flailing.

So much going on, I hardly can catch my breath. Everyone here is trying to adjust to all this newness. It's kind of strange to live in LA. I do miss the smell of the ocean and the small intimate streets that don't make you cringe when you drive on them. I've gotten used to the small windy roads that lead to our house, but most of our visitors remind us of how scary it is.

I leave for China on a business trip tomorrow, but when I come back I will post more blogs with pictures...if I can find my camera. Half of our stuff is still in boxes. I am in no rush to unpack. I really have nothing to unpack into yet. So bear with us.

Peace.