Settling in.

All of my stuff from Houston finally arrived last Thursday, so Will and I spent Saturday unpacking boxes and rearranging furniture.  I was a little worried my stuff wouldn’t fit (we have a studio and I somehow have a lot of stuff), but everything fits quite well and makes for a homey space.  We also have a generously sized storage room, made even more generous when Will and I dismantled a bizarre sex den/smoking corner in the back.  Previous tenant(s) constructed this elaborate set up with a room divider screen, mirrors, and Christmas lights.  We also found a mysterious futon cover that I promptly made Will dispose of. 

Sunday was a beautiful day.  We went to a driving range in the Presidio with our friends Evan and Hannah.  Will and I were definitely the less practiced half of the group, but by the end, we both felt that our swings had improved.  I could see myself getting into golf.

The East Coast got/is getting quite the snow event.  Family and friends in New England, stay safe and warm.  This is for you.

Holla at my Jumbos.

A California adventure.

Will and I both had Martin Luther King Day off from work, so we decided to drive down to LA to visit Ashley and Colin.  (You may remember Will and Ashley, frequently recurring characters in Claire Blabbing.  As both are also new residents of California, I imagine they will continue to appear in the Blob.)  The drive down on Friday was long—extra long because there was an accident that took us on a two-hour detour through the middle of nowhere.  Better to be in traffic than in the accident, as my mom would say.  Nevertheless, I was a grumpy passenger (sorry, Will).  We finally made it to Chez Ashley Colin and unwound with our gracious hosts on their porch with a few beers.

Ashley and Colin live on the top floor of a wonderful, quirky 100-year-old house perched on top of a hill.  The floor plan is really unusual—rather than have a hallway to circulate through, all the rooms are pushed together in this little maze.  Very funky.  Apparently the former downstairs tenant was a Korean mask artist/serious hoarder, and a few of his art pieces are scattered around the yard.  Colin said it was quite the excavation job to salvage the apartment after that guy moved out.

The weekend was mostly an exercise in eating wonderful food, drinking beer and margaritas, and lounging in beautiful weather.  Colin's friend's Facebook status summed up the weather pretty perfectly: "Janu-marry-me, Los Angeles?? <insert sun and palm tree emojis>"  We spent a lovely afternoon by the pool at Colin’s parents’ house in Pasadena.  Ashley proved that California cannot thwart her from making a Texas-worthy pulled pork feast.  (I have missed my personal chef :_______O <<that emoticon is crying and has no food).

On Sunday night, Ashley, Reiko, Will and I went to a comedy club.  We saw five different comics.  The first three were mostly funny, but the two after intermission completely lost me.  I consider myself a fairly intelligent person with a decent sense of humor, but I just did not get the fourth guy’s jokes.  Could someone please explain this one to me:

Q. Of all the historical events he was directly involved in, which makes Forrest Gump most proud?

A. 9/11.

……………….it’s probably really bad.

The dude also did not win me over with his grating, Gilbert Gottfriend-esque screaming and occasional phlegm hacking up.  (To be fair to Gilbert Gottfried, I feel obligated to say that I recently listened to an interview with him and he is actually hilarious.)

After coffee with Colin on Monday morning, Will and I set out on our journey back to San Francisco.  (I got my first In-n-Out burger—quite yummy.)

Sending many thanks and hugs hugs hugs to our perfect hosts—can’t wait for you to come visit San Francisco!

Welcome to San Francisco.

(Hello friends.  I have arrived.  All is well.  Three days in to my new job—so far, so good!)

You may have heard that San Francisco has a large homeless population.  Yes, there are lots of homeless people here, some say, but they’re so friendly!  With this in mind, here is the account of my welcome from the people of San Francisco.

Monday morning: As one of my new roommates (also named Clare, no “i”) and I walked down the hill toward the metro, a woman dressed in a Santa suit approached us.  She started walking with the pair of Cla(i)res and greeted us good morning in her own friendly way:

“It’s YOU.  Because of YOU ASSHOLES, I’M out here FERTILIZING.  You TRASH OUR CITY and DON’T PICK UP AFTER YOURSELVES.”

Top of the morning to you as well, madam.

Tuesday evening: In the middle of a crosswalk yesterday on the way home from work, a man walked up to me, spread his arms like Batman, and went “RAHHHHHHH.”

And I will leave you with the friendly piece of advice I got today on the way home from work:

“Don’t forget your vibrator, babe.”

Kids these days.

A “smooth” twenty-two-year-old dude, upon hearing my age: “What??  No!  But you look so good!”

Sorry, guy, I said TWENTY-six, not NINETY-six.

Anyways, if you have spent the last 24 hours fretting about my packing fate, fret no more.  You will be relieved and impressed to know that I have achieved a small miracle—I am packed and ready to go.  California, here I come.  Now it’s time for this old lady to go to bed.

The Blob

What is it about packing that makes my brain go, “Maybe you should write about how much you hate this”?  Misery while packing was a recurring theme of the Claire Blabbing blog (may it rest in peace).  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a new blog, because what better time is there to start a blog than when I am 65% packed for a cross-country move, occurring Saturday, with movers coming at 9am tomorrow?  There is no better time.  How else to capture the raw emotion of leaving Houston, this big, ugly, beautiful city I’ve grown to love, for San Francisco, unknown land of hippies and earthquakes?  What’s an anxiety-ridden Jersey girl to do?  The answer: not pack.  Sure, I will eventually get everything in boxes.  But it’s only 9:00.  The night is young.

While my packing aversion spurred me to write this first post, I have been considering a return to blogging for a while now.  I kept attempting to revive Claire Blabbing, but it just never felt right.  I am at peace with my decision to let it die.  New life, new blog.  I again will find myself in a foreign city with a somewhat inconvenient time difference from the East Coast (Beast Coast, as they say), so a blog feels like an efficient way to communicate.  As for the title Claire Blobbing, I used a similar approach to one I used for naming my childhood pet hermit crabs (Jaws, Claws, Jaws II, Claws II, etc).  I also drew inspiration from the mess that currently threatens my apartment and existence.  I suppose it may be time to tame the beast.

I may steal the tagline, though.