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We finally made it!

I am utterly exhausted. Some highlights of our move include:

The moving company's truck breaking down in LA, causing the pickup of our furniture to be delayed 48 hours. It was supposed to go on Thursday afternoon, allowing us to leave Friday morning. It ended up leaving on Saturday afternoon, after we had already left. My sister, Katie, who is truly my favorite right now, supervised the movers for us while the rest of my family left San Diego at 4:30 on Friday afternoon.

Our first part of the drive from San Diego to Stockton ended up taking just over 11 hours, not the 7 hours and 15 minutes Mapquest gave us. We arrived in Stockton at 3am, fed all the pets (2 dogs, 3 cats, one bird) and slept for 2 hours before setting off again.

The second day's driving was long and boring for the most part (hello, Central California) until we reached Mt. Shasta in Northern California. We drove into Southern Oregon admiring the incredible views from the twisty mountain roads. We stopped at the most beautiful rest stop in the world (giant trees, creek bubbling happily, etc.) before continuing onto Eugene.

Eugene was beautiful, however, I couldn't enjoy much of it as The Jeffrey was crazed from being in the car for 10 hours. He attempted to eat a bicyclist in the park, so we headed back to the room (after being warned by the desk clerk that any noise from the dogs would result in our immediate eviction without refund). I didn't see much of Eugene after that. I was too busy hovering over both dogs, concerned that the celebrating of the champion Little League team next door would set him off. I can say good things about McMinnamin's Restaurant. The fish and chips are excellent. I cannot currently, however, locate the link for the restaurant. That will have to wait until later.

We finally arrived home (after a brief detour to my in-law's house to pick up a bed and eat lunch ) at 5pm yesterday. The pets all settled in, with the exception of Merlin the cat. He has been hiding under the bed since leaving the kitty crate. We met our next-door neighbor and set up the bed. Before going to sleep we wandered the house, marveling at the fact that it is all ours. Coming down the very steep, very narrow staircase I missed a step and sprained my ankle. I declined the ER and wrapped up my ankle with an ice gel pack I happened to pack in our car. I'm hobbling around today, but should be able to negotiate the Seattle sight seeing trip tomorrow and Thursday allright, just a bit slower than usual. I cannot drive our manual transmission Beetle.

Katie and her fiance fly in this afternoon (it was supposed to be this morning but their flight was delayed). We're on our way to pick up a few necessary supplies at Target and Home Depot while our laundry does its thing at the in-law's house. Cleaning the scary bathroom is next on the to-do list.

We took many pictures on the drive and I'll post them as soon as all our furniture shows up ("probably this week, but we have up to 15 days to deliver," said the driver). The house is echoing like a giant cavern right now.

No time to blog, packing, always packing...

The computer is going into a box shortly.

Almost everything is packed.

The weather is not cooperating.

The movers will be here Friday morning between 8 and 10.

Hopefully we'll be on the road by one.

Lovely Stockton is our first stop on the trip to Tacoma.

New Cat Shaped Family Member

Meet the newest member of our family:

He doesn't have a name yet.

Some dogs are not so excited about the new kitty.

Especially since The Jeffrey is the new kitty's favorite toy.

But he is starting to come around.

Signed, sealed, and almost delivered...

We signed all of the documents for our house this evening with a notary public. Only one hour, not too bad. The money has been wired. The paperwork will be overnighted to our escrow company tomorrow.

Our real estate agent will be checking tomorrow on the repairs the seller agreed to.

We close on Monday if all goes according to plan.

In other news--I may have to look into becoming a notary public. $200 and hour?!?

I'm Shocked!

Not really.

Rove's words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did—and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper's lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify.

I'm so impressed that he managed to destroy her career without ever mentioning her name.

President Bush stated at one time:

There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. If there's leaks out of my administration, I want to know who it is, and if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.

That phrase, "...taken care of." I'm interested to see exactly what that means. My guess is still that Rove, with the backing of the President, will weasel out of any real responsibility.

London Terrorist Attacks

My thoughts and prayers are with the people of London and the rest of the UK.

Forclosure Makes Home Buying Easy!

Got a call from the real estate agent last week, asking if we would be interested in an early close on our new Tacoma house. The seller is apparently a bit closer to being foreclosed upon than he would like to be and wants to get rid of the property ASAP. It was decided that in order to close a week early, he would need to provide an additional $500 as incentive to cover additional taxes, etc. that would be incurred.

He declined.

Then, suddenly, he changed his mind and wants to pony up the additional cash for us to sign early.

I just finished my conversation with the insurance company and it appears that we will be signing Friday or Monday. Now all we need is that cashiers check for $25,000.

We will own a house by this time next week!

I find this fascinating

According to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a federal crime to reveal the identity of a covert agent. Anyone convicted of doing so could be sentenced to as many as 10 years in prison and up to a $50,000 fine, depending upon how the source obtained the information.

Now I guess we'll get to see if Karl Rove is above the law.

Update: For a continuing discussion of this issue in comment format, check out Pearly Gates.

Take my picture by the pool, 'cause I'm the next big thing!

Your Summer Anthem is Beverly Hills by Weezer Where I come from isn't all that great My automobile is a piece of crap My fashion sense is a little whack And my friends are just as screwy as me Your weird, wacky summer will be better than any summer in the Hamptons!