She’s in Her New House, but It’s Still Not a Home

Do you have electricity? Do you have a toilet seat? Can you open the sliding window in your bedroom? Stay right where you are. Do not move to another house.

Do you have a telephone? Call everyone you know and enjoy.

Have you a patch of lawn and a few green plants? Talk to your plants.

Do you know where your other pink shoe is or even your purse? Good for you. Do you know where your toothbrushes are? Go brush your teeth and appreciate.

Do you know where your dog is because you have a fenced yard with a gate? Go pet your dog. I know where Peaches is but at the cost of 24-hour vigilance.

We are officially in our house in Laguna de la Paz in La Quinta.

After four weeks with my patient and hospitable friend, Jean Erck, and two days and nights with my son, Tim, and his wife, Geri, we moved into the house. The movers started four days ago to move the two garages full of stuff from where it had been sitting for almost five weeks.

The moving crew was Latino--amiable, gracious men led by their employer, a man named Frank who went to Notre Dame. The only small deterrent to a silk-smooth move was that none of the gentlemen spoke English except Frank, who was frequently somewhere else.

I, to my shame, after an entire life spent in Southern California, speak no Spanish. I used to be able to speak French haltingly, but the only thing I remember is how to warn a small female child that the street car is coming and that is very hard to work into a conversation, even if those around you are speaking French. And when all of those around you are speaking Spanish, it doesn’t make for great communication.

As the crew could not read English, all of the careful marking of the boxes all of my dear friends had done before we left Pasadena might as well have been Urdu. I stood at the back of the truck and looked at every box as they dug it out and gave the Spanish names of rooms I could remember, “cocina . . . sala . “

By the time we were on the third truckful, I was hoarse, and a great deal of kitchen stuff was in my bedroom. During the course of a long afternoon, the gentlemen dropped an oak filing cabinet, which broke off all the casters and made a wound in the side of the file. Fortunately, I didn’t roll that filing cabinet very often, and if I push it between two other filing cabinets, you can’t see where the piece is missing. Frank says he’ll think of something. I know he will because I have faith in Notre Dame men.

I have electricity now and Thomas Alva Edison himself could not have been more thrilled when he saw the light flicker on and stay on. The telephone company says that “the rope” has to be pulled through before I can have a telephone. Did you know they worked on ropes? Me neither.

I am told that I will have television by Thanksgiving. Actually, I don’t care much, but I will miss the evening news and an occasional football game and public television. Actually, I don’t care if I ever see a sitcom full of ill-mannered adolescents ever again, so that’s all right.

Now, if I can find someone to hook up the washer and dryer, things will be improved. I now have shower doors and hot water, so as I chase Peaches through the avenues of unfinished houses, I will be clean and crisp.

My daughter-in-law and Tim worked for two days putting up beds and emptying boxes. Geri took vacation days to help me.

The sky is a soft turquoise and this morning at Tim’s the sunrise was coral and gold. The air is like a kiss from an almost forgotten love and I have met some delightful people who have enchanted gardens and beautiful flowers.

Oh, go ahead, move.