Moving is a Royal Pain in the ...

But we survived. The move itself wasn’t so bad. We had pro movers who worked fast, were very strong, and really cute. They were nice enough to fix the broken wheel on our gigantic tv which makes repositioning it so much easier. When they were done with the move, they met all the kitties and cooed at them (which is every mom’s dream). The hardest part about moving was having the 40+ hour job and a small car. We made nightly trips to the place with as much stuff as we could fit in our Corolla. We were lucky to have about 1 week overlap so we were able to get a lot of stuff setup, like the kitchen. And having a garage made it easy to just dump a bunch of boxes in the garage and keep the house clear for the movers.

After the movers left and we let the kitties out of the laundry room, we went out for lunch. When we came back, Monkey was sprawled on the couch and she looked quite pleased to see us. She started meowing and rolling on the ground and playing with her tail. We were happy but surprised with the new Monkey. A few minutes later we noticed that none of the other kitties, the boys, had come to greet us. So we started calling out to them. Nothing. We opened a little can of food. Nothing. We spent about 10 minutes looking and finally found Major under one of the beds. But Sluggo and Noodles were still missing. Meanwhile, Monkey is following us around, being very talkative and loving. I’m starting to get worried, thinking that maybe the movers came back to steal the kittens. I know it’s stupid, but there aren’t a lot of places to hide. The kittens ended up being in the box springs of the guest bed. We finally found them when we shined a flashlight under the bed and saw a couple of lumps hanging under the box frame. When the boys started coming out a few hours later, Monkey returned to her bitchy self and started growling and hissing at everyone and everything.

The days after the move have been hectic and will continue to be so we’ll have a lot of boxes around for a while. Hopefully we’ll get them cleared by the time my brother-in-law comes to visit later this month. We probably should have spent the weekend unpacking as much as possible but instead I coached soccer, had to work, we set up the husband's new home gym (it’s pretty sweet), enjoyed our HBO on demand (we started John Adams and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and we went to a soccer BBQ.

For lunch on Sunday we went to an Indian restaurant/cafeteria that I had been to when I first moved to Mountain View and was staying at a hotel in the neighborhood. I remembered it being very good and full of Indian people (always a good sign at an Indian restaurant). The restaurant was the kind of place where you walk up to the counter, order and pay, take your seat, and then your food is delivered. The menu was a text list of a lot of words I had not seen before so I just went for the Sunday special (vegetable Biryani) and the husband ordered something that sounded familiar. When our food arrived, my dish turned out to be a vegetable and rice mixture with a yogurt and onion sauce. It was very good. The husband's dish was a couple of round dumplings (maybe corn) with 4 sauces for dipping. A few minutes later:

Waiter: Mango lassi.
Me: We didn’t order a lassi.
Waiter: Yes you did.
Me: No we diddn’t.
Waiter: Yes you did.

The waiter then put the lassi on our table and walked away. It was a good lassi. A few minutes later, another waiter arrived with a huge crispy crepe that was almost 2 feet long. I said "great!" and took the plate from him. I wasn't going to argue this time. The crepe was good but very spicy. Everything was very good so we would definitely go back. I wonder if we could duplicate the experience by ordering the same stuff.

We’ve only been at our new place a couple of days and here’s what I think so far:

Pros
It’s a house! It is a duplex but it’s a house nonetheless.
It’s a real neighborhood – people are always walking, jogging, pushing strollers.
We have a garage to put all our crap in. And any other crap we might buy.
The kitchen. It’s bigger than our old kitchen.
It’s all on 1 floor. I enjoyed having stairs, but it will be easier to clean without the stairs. Plus, in a place where real estate is premium, it’s nice to not have any lost space around the stairs.
The laundry room/kittenarium. It’s nice to have a separate room, far away, where we can put the litter box.
My bike ride to work will now be on a hike/bike trail.

Cons
Cars. There are very few cars on our street, but the ones that drive by we can hear. Both the kitties and I stopped what we were doing the first time we realized a car was driving by (we all ran under the bed). At our old place we were on a really busy avenue, but we were at the very back so we never heard anything (except the constant ambulances at the retirement community next door) and we had an empty lot behind us.
Our neighbors are really close to us. All our windows seem to face their windows so we can easily look into each other’s houses, especially at night. And there’s a huge window at torso level in the shower (the glass is frosted but it’s hard to vent the bathroom when you are showering).
We are further away from my work and just a little bit closer to the husband’s work. Not everything is still in a 1.5 mile radius from where we used to live – Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, my work, the gym, Costco.

Pictures will be coming as soon as we get our computer set up, which unfortunately is pretty far down the list.