Farewell, Maria -- We'll Miss You

It's been almost a month since we moved into our cozy little hotel room and, sadly, our stay is coming to an end: We finally found an apartment. Some might hate the transiency of it all, or feel that a hotel room could not possibly ever feel like home, but I beg to differ. Hell, if my husband's company had offered to pay for a longer stay, I would have happily prolonged our search. The bed is big and so comfy, they put out a basket of the best cookies at the front desk in the evenings, and then there's Maria, of course. Maria always makes sure I've got enough coffee, microwave popcorn, and kitchen paper towels. I love kitchen paper towels; I find them incredibly extravagant--not that I go crazy and abuse my unlimited access to the paper towels in an environmentally unfriendly manner, of course.

In any case, my husband's company gave us exactly a month to find a place. Thus, in the end, we were kind of forced to settle. The place we're moving into is way WAAAAAY too expensive. It's one storey above a busy eight-lane thoroughfare. And...there are these weird clouds of flies that permanently hang out in the lobby. My husband mocks me for objecting to the flies. They're just flies, he says. Okay, no, they are not "just flies." Flies are ordinarily drawn to garbage and things like that, right? But these flies--these massive dark thunderclouds of flies--just hover in the air, in a very scene-out-of-a-Stephen-King-novel-made-into-an-HBO-made-for-television-movie kind of way. Seriously. It's ominous and plain freaky. What do they want?

All that aside, really I should be very grateful that we found anything at all. Palo Alto shop people might be nice about dogs but the apartments people are not. And, hey, after the dog pee at Macy's incident, I can't say I blame them for not wanting all the potential hassles.

Also, I had forgotten how crazy Americans are about the whole "credit history" thing. Which is unfortunate--since my husband and I don't have any! We actually had our apartment application rejected initially. Totally humiliating experience. One second, the leasing agent was all but clasping me to her pillowy bosom, crying, "Welcome home!" (seriously), and the next, I was getting ear frostbite after an extremely chilly phone call informing me that our credit check had come back with unsatisfactory results. Duh, woman, we just moved here from Japan.

Not to get into the nitty-gritties, but eventually, we were rescued by a real estate company that will act as a guarantor of sorts--for a small fee, of course. Which we very gratefully agreed to pay. Makes me wonder though how other foreigners deal. AT-&-Bloody-T refused to give me a stinkin' phone line because I didn't have a social security number or a driver's license--one or the other; no substitutes. And Verizon demanded a $400 deposit from my husband for cell phone service, after another of those pesky credit checks came back with not much to show. I'm telling you, I was practically holding my breath when I called the electricity company, wondering if they'd actually grant us impudent aliens a little light in our new home. Thankfully, they were nice, so at least I won't have to head over to Wal-mart for candles.

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Somewhat Unreal

Sorry, sorry. Everyone now thinks I'm in San Francisco because of my last post and and then my lack of follow-up for weeks. Remember that evil editing project that was sucking the life out of me right before the move? Hmm, maybe I was being too life-sucked to even blog about it. Well, it was taking up my time and it has continued to take up my time, since I got here. Which is why I haven't been as free to blog and, oh, say, search for a place to live as I should have been.

Anyhow, we're not in San Francisco, but close. Well, 45-minutes-ish close. Palo Alto? You know, Stanford University, Google, Silicon Valley, etc. So, we've been here almost three weeks now and will probably be here for three years, at least. Then back to Japan.

Perhaps it's because I'm living in a hotel. Or because I'm coming from a place that is so radically different, but Palo Alto feels...unreal. Not in a good or bad way. It's just... Take the weather: flawless blue skies and blinding sunshine, all day, every day, until about 8pm at night, when the sun finally begins a very languid descent. And it doesn't change ever, we've been told, except for like a month of scattered clouds and drizzles in December. Unreal. Also, with this kind of weather, you'd think the place would be nothing but scorched earth (I, myself, am in fear that a few more months of walking under this unrelenting sun and I'm going to bear a striking resemblance to Clint Eastwood). But no, everywhere you look, there are the lushest, sweetest-green lawns you could imagine. You know the movie "Toys" with Robin Williams? Sometimes this place reminds me of the outdoor scenes for that movie (remember the giant toy elephant perched in the grass, blowing soap bubbles out of its trunk?).

Right now, we're searching for a home, but we haven't had much luck. As I mentioned, we've been staying at a hotel, one that accepts dogs, and life is pretty luxurious at the moment: heated pool (if you don't mind that it's permanently roiling with wee noisy munchkins on summer vacation and, combined with that, is permanently heated to a disturbingly warm temperature), free breakfast, and a very nice lady named Maria who cleans our room. We like Maria, my husband especially. He's always pointing out to me Maria's exemplary cleaning habits: "Look at the way Maria organizes the shampoo and conditioner bottles," he says, eyes glowing with approval. And, "Ahh, it's so nice to come back to a clean house. I wish we could live here forever." I try to point out how exhausted poor Maria looks some days, but that part doesn't seem to register with him. Maria has one other problem: She's scared of Edward. It doesn't help that he squeals and struggles in my arms like a rabid pig to get to Maria so that he can get some lovin', but, essentially, I have to keep Edward out of the room while she's cleaning. Unfortunately, Maria always comes at the hottest time of the afternoon, and so a walk is impossible. Edward and I have thus taken to hanging out in the deserted hotel dining area, me working at my laptop, Edward stretched out under the table while furtively lapping up crumbs embedded in the carpet.

This is another unreal thing about Palo Alto: You can take your dog just about anywhere. We recently visited the Stanford Shopping Center with Edward in tow, and were peering through the window of the Pottery Barn, when another couple cooly strolled inside with their dog. Another time, a security guard actually asked me to come into the store when he spotted Edward and me waiting outside for my husband.

How nice, right? But then...

Recently, still smiling at the sight of a bull terrier trotting through Macy's with its owner, I walked over to a counter and stepped right in a huge, sloshy puddle--though it was more like a small lake; no, a sea; the Parting of the Yellow Sea is what it quite literally felt like--of said bull terrier's pee. Needless to say, it was totally gross. And so I now fully understand the pros and cons of a pet-friendly society.

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Welcome to California

Well, we made it to and through San Francisco International Airport, Edward and I. My husband headed out separately, commanded by the head of the US division of his company to go to New York, say hello, grovel a bit for this grand opportunity bestowed upon him, and then turn around and come back to California. It's an old-fashioned kinda company.

The part I was most worried about--flying with Edward--turned out to be a breeze. Because it was a nine-hour trip from Tokyo, I didn't want the little guy in cargo but I stressed a bit about the idea of him being stuck in his carrier bag for all that time. Thankfully, he's small and quiet, and I don't think the flight crew even noticed he was tucked under the seat in front of me...so, I made quite a few bathroom trips, lugging a rather large "totebag" with me each time. I wonder if I looked a tad suspicious to my fellow travellers. Ah well, at least Edward got to stretch his legs every few hours in the little airplane lavatory. It was quite funny, just seeing him there.

Going through US customs with Edward was also ridiculously easy. They asked me if I had any dog food, I said I did, they took it away from me, and then they told me I could go. I was like, "Don't you even want to see my dog? Or his health certificate?" And they were like, "No. Hey, say congratulations to Bob, here. He just got a promotion." Congratulations, Bob.

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