Tags and plates

My neighbor's vintage hearse

This week I went to the Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles office, and registered my car in the State, and also transferred my drivers license from California to Louisiana.

I also went through the peculiar ritual of having what is called a "brake tag inspection." This involves pulling up behind a gas station and having an attendant mark off on a checklist as you turn your wipers on and off, check your turn signals, honk your horn and pump your brakes. For $25 cash, you get a decal for your windshield. Unlike in California, the state of Louisiana is not concerned about any emissions from your vehicle.

I am now a resident of Louisiana. I have registered to vote (as a Democrat) in the state of  Louisiana.

Each step seems to be a milestone. It's not really, I guess, but it sure FEELS like it!

Flight over Los Angeles

Image from wikicommons

The week before we moved out of our Topanga house, we took a quick trip up to the Bay Area, to visit our son at Berkeley.

The plane coming home flew south along the coast then it turned inland, flying over Los Angeles.  It was late afternoon, and it was crystal-clear and bright. I looked out the window at the city, taking in the details. Everything looked as crisp and as sharp as a satellite photo.

There's UCLA. Century City, windows glinting in the sun. The Hollywood sign, right there! There's Griffith Observatory. There's Dodger Stadium. There's the downtown library, and the Eastern Columbia Building, its aqua tiles gleaming. I was so moved by the view of the city that I couldn't even think to take a photo.

Just over the Los Angeles River the plane banked around and headed back to the coast, descending over the 405 freeway to the runway.

It was like the pilot had given me a parting gift, an overview of my city. Farewell to Los Angeles - for now.

Arrival day

It's six thirty on the morning and I'm lying in bed listening to the thump and thunder of freight trains shifting on the tracks between Chartres Street and the Mississippi River just a block from our little rental house. 

There's s mockingbird singing outside my window, too. 

Making a new friend

Last night we took a walk around the neighborhood. We had dinner at the local barbecue joint on Royal Street. Pretty good pulled pork and smoked brisket. Everyone in the place was white and elaborately tattooed except for a table of four New Orleans police officers.

I had a nice French rose with my pork, slaw and beans. It cost $5.50. After, we strolled down Royal to Poland Avenue  to the wine bar and I had another glass of rose, this one from Majorca, and it was $10. Still cheaper than Los Angeles prices, but you can see how things are going in the neighborhood. 

Here, too, everyone was white, and there were man-buns in addition to the tattoos. No cops, though; the food here isn't so hearty. 

We listened for a while to some New Age music by a trio featuring a Senegalese cora, and then jet lag began to overtake us. 

Tired and exhausted, we walked back the few blocks to the house, marveling at the brilliance of the sunset.

This is going to be a good place to call home.

See ya later, alligator!

Goodbye to our house. This is the alligator that is part of our entry gate. Our friend, artist Rick Oginz, created it for us when he was our next door neighbor. Rick and his family moved on, and now so are we.

We did the final cleaning during a very unseasonable Los Angeles thunderstorm. It felt melancholy, but right.

Now we're in a hotel by the airport. We just put my car onto a transport to New Orleans. I just picked up Jack from the boarding  kennel, and he'll spend the night in the hotel. Tomorrow at 6:00 am we take him to Delta Cargo in his travel kennel, then board the same flight he's on.

UPDATE: Here's brave Jack's kennel at LAX Cargo, on the forklift.

It's really happening

The view we're leaving behind

Controlled chaos - that's what it feels like. At 8:30 this morning, a five man crew from 1-2-3 Moving and Storage arrived, and the house became a hive of activity.

Furniture is padded and wrapped with plastic. One young man spent four hours in the kitchen carefully wrapping and packing all the dishes, kitchenware and utensils. Another young man - the youngest and probably most junior crew member - was assigned to ferrying the scores of already-packed boxes to a loading station in front of the house. Things have been dismantled, packaged, labelled and stowed.

There's a lot of furniture we can't or don't want to keep, and we gave the buyers of our home the right of first refusal to it.  Among the pieces they are keeping are our huge rustic pine table and the barstools for our kitchen island - things we likely won't need in a future apartment. This, plus our ruthless winnowing down of our belongings, will reduce the number of storage pods we need from an estimated five down to three - a good savings.

After a lunch break, the guys returned to start loading everything in the truck.

Our steep Topanga driveway was too difficult to navigate, so everything has to be carried, dollied, and hauled up to the street - the most arduous part of the job. This also came during the hottest part of the day.

It's a good thing we had five beers in the fridge for when the work was done!

These guys are great; friendly, hardworking, and respectful of our home and our belongings. We're lucky to have found them.

Boxing Day

The days are passing very swiftly now. In two days, the moving and storage company comes to pack up our stuff.  We have been boxing stuff up ourselves, though, because this isn't a move like our last move (almost twenty years ago).

For this move, we are separating everything we own into four piles: Store. Donate. Discard. Move to New Orleans.

Our rental house in New Orleans is fully furnished, so very little is coming with us - just clothes, treasures, and important books and papers. That means that we will pay to store whatever we keep - it's a compelling argument to downsize.

It's odd to examine the bits and pieces of crap we've surrounded ourselves with for nearly twenty years. That rusty baking sheet? The paper towel holder? Tupperware?

Sparkle!

Olive trees on the hillside

Last night, as for many July 4th evenings, we celebrated the holiday high on hilltop in Malibu, with a view of the Southern California Coast stretching from Broad Beach to the Palo Verde Peninsula.

We sat beneath pepper trees, feasting on delicious food, including our hostess's famous dessert, Pavlova, a treat from her native New Zealand.

The remains of the Pavlova

From our viewpoint, we could see three fireworks shows - a show at Broad Beach, one at Malibu Colony, and one directly before us, off the eastern edge of Point Dume. These are "private" fireworks shows, commissioned by the wealthy celebrities that live in those places. We felt we had a front row seat!

There was just a touch of fog along the coast, a haze in the air that dampened the sounds of the fireworks. The party included several small girls who shrieked and ooohed and aahhhhed with every starburst.

We've been celebrating the 4th here for at least ten years. Our hosts' son was our son's classmate and best friend in 5th grade, and it was bittersweet to reminisce with them, as our days in Los Angeles wind down.

Counting down

Wow, it's really happening!

In a couple weeks, the movers are coming to pack up our belongings and move them into storage. So soon, we'll be out of the house we've lived in for almost 19 years.

We're still going through everything and determining what to actually keep and what to discard. We have to divide the things we keep into two categories - keep in storage, or take with us to New Orleans.

The stuff we're getting rid of - some of it is trash, but much of it is good stuff that we just don't want enough to want to pay to store it. So we're exploring ideas of donating, selling, and giving things away.

Looking at my work calendar, I have just eight more days at work. We've already offered my job to someone within our organization, so on Monday I'll start training her. After that, she's leaving on a previously-approved vacation, so by the time she returns I'll be gone.

After the house is emptied, we'll have cleaners come in, and we have a couple of days for any emergency issues. Then we fly out to New Orleans.

Jack, of course, is coming with us, and part of the many logistical issues we have to handle is getting him on the plane. We have a travel kennel, and we've been giving him his morning treats inside the kennel, closing the door and letting him spend a few minutes inside. So far, he's pretty comfortable with it.

I had a whole "bucket list" of things I wanted to do in Los Angeles before leaving, but it feels like time is just racing along! Oh well. I'll be back someday.

This blog will, of course, continue! Stay tuned.

Sixty days

We're in a twelve-day contingency with the buyers of our house - they get twelve days for inspections, etc. Since they knew about our house's biggest flaws before they made their offer, I'm pretty sure nothing we signed to in the disclosure document will scare them off.

But whatever happens with the house, it's a done deal that I am leaving my job in 60 days and going to New Orleans. That's right - July 23 is my last day at work. It seems like a long time, but I know it will go fast.

I'm taking a little breather, then I'll get focused on packing up our stuff again, this time for moving and storage and figuring out what to take to New Orleans.

What a trip!