Hashing it over

One thing that John and I keep saying we will do in our new relocated life (starting a little more than two weeks from now) is care less about things that simply don't matter. When a car races out of a driveway in front of us just to continue down a winding San Francisco street at ten miles an hour, we'll snarl our displeasure at the driver (probably also on her phone) and then begrudgingly agree: such minor annoyances won't even register once we're serenely ensconced in our low-key desert world. Right, let's see about that.

So it's hard to believe that I won't still be set off by idiotic branding fails like this one, which nags me every time I pass this restaurant in the shopping center across from my suburban office building. "Hashes & Brews" -- why not just "Hash & Brew"? Of course they offer more than one choice of hash and more than one type of beer. But being so literal gets you nothing. "Hash & Brew" not only flows smoothly off the tongue, without all those sibilant "esses" sloshing around, it also ties in with the social component of a commercial gathering place -- where you can "hash over" news and gossip, and "brew" everything from an opinion to a love affair. How is that not better?

Okay, I'll go back to bubble wrapping glassware now. 

You Can't Give It Away

As soon as you take that first picture off the wall, it's official -- you're moving. Even if the moving van isn't scheduled for weeks, you've set it all in motion: the boxes stacking up in the middle of rooms, the rolls of bubble wrap, the packing tape that always somehow reseals itself no matter how carefully you try to prevent it from sticking so it's impossible to see where the end went. It all becomes a sort of Judgement Day, as you look around and assess which of your possessions, some of which have been following faithfully from house to house for decades, will finally not make the cut to your newest abode.

Of course once you've decided what items to eliminate, how do you get rid of them? Earlier this year I held a huge sidewalk sale in front of the building. Garage sales are a San Francisco tradition, or at least used to be, and for years I had found my most prized possessions among their jumbled offerings -- a 1903 Sears Roebuck trunk, a Mexican wedding mask, a small lumpen ceramic statue that I was told represented Adam, but with no Eve to go with him. This time I watched as the city's techie Millennials actively crossed the street so they wouldn't have to encounter or contemplate my discards; god forbid they should find anything interesting that wasn't new and had been treasured by someone else. There were no takers for the $400 Belgian coffee maker or John's pricey Japanese ceramics, and I ended up giving away armloads of Navajo rugs and crockery to a nice waitress who had just moved to town. The 75 elaborate crosses and crucifi I'd been collecting for years went ignored by most of the Catholic churches I contacted, then finally were gratefully accepted by Most Holy Redeemer, the gay church in the Castro -- they seemed particularly intrigued by the huge cross constructed by some zonked-out hippies in the 70s. Its most prominent feature was a large taxidermied rabbit head.

Then there's all the posting on Nextdoor. People might express interest in the items, all listed for free, like the beautiful Scandinavian desk shown above. But follow-through isn't anyone's strong suit these days, and I know many of these items will find themselves abandoned in the fog, instead of coming with us to the sunny desert plain. 

Westward ho!

Who are you calling a ho?

Actually, it's southward ho -- over 500 miles, in fact. When John and I flew down to the desert in early March to look at houses, we really intended to just look -- simply get some idea of the neighborhoods we should consider and decide what styles appeal to both of us. All we really knew was that we both loved the Coachella Valley and wanted to eventually retire there. Our realtor showed us lots of houses, many that were obvious quick flips with chintzy-looking fixtures and tepid dipping pools like warm bidets. One house smelled so strongly of cat pee I had to bolt into the yard, where I encountered a tortoise the size of a ride-on toy. It was munching on a head of lettuce like an old man whose lunch has been interrupted.

As we turned up our respective noses at each location -- houses with crazy statuary in the yards, houses in neighborhoods where mariachi music blared from parked pickups, houses someone outfitted with chrome rafters festooned with LED lights -- our realtor saw what she had on her hands and suggested she show us a place a bit outside the town, in a gated community.

"A gated community?" I asked, responding to the trigger term. "What are we now, Republicans?"

But as often happens, we saw the house and knew it was for us. For one thing, we're so used to San Francisco prices that it was a revelation that we could afford a pristine, nearly 3,000-square-foot house with a landscaped yard and a deep, beautiful pool. Not to mention a laundry room, so no more dragging laundry up and down six flights (78 stairs!). In fact it's all on one level, because we're both 62 and this is where we'll spend our golden years together. Which one's Blanche, and which one's Dorothy?

The next three weeks were a blur of DocuSign forms and money movement, and then escrow closed like a curtain coming down on our Northern California lives. 

So yes, we're fleeing the crime, the filth, the homelessness and the ridiculous expense of San Francisco. The monthly cost of the rent-controlled apartment I took ten years ago will probably climb from $2,277 to around $6,000. I'll miss our 180-degree view of the city and the bay, but not the wind howling in the chimneys all summer. This blog will chronicle our adjustment to our new desert life. Come for the stories, stay for the cheesecake.