Rocking the Temporary Life

Move #2 of 4 is done and I'm as settled as I'm going to be in a temporary apartment in San Francisco. There's a reason I devoted a whole chapter of my book to temporary living. If you've never done it, you might not think it's a big deal. But let me assure you, temporary living during a move is the weirdest transition state in which you'll ever be. You are living someone else's lifestyle with someone else's stuff. The only good thing about temporary living is that it's temporary.

"Well, at least we'll get a feel for what it would be like to live here," my husband said. Which does us no good whatsoever, because we will probably never live in a microscopic apartment with modern knick-knacks, hotel soap, lamps with no apparent on-off switch, and only one frying pan.

Here's what else I have for my temporary apartment life:

* A bunch of cardboard boxes and packing materials that I don't know what to do with. This apartment is too tiny to shove them anywhere. I don't know any of my neighbors or I'd try to pass them off on someone who is moving out and needs them. Also I don't know enough about the trash disposal rules and regs or where the security cameras are to know how easy it would be to abandon them in a hallway  in Building 2. To recycle them probably involves cutting and folding that is beyond my interest right now.

* A set of wine glasses and a bottle of wine that the relo welcoming committee left for us, along with some artichoke spread and crackers. The only reason we didn't wolf that down on sight last night is that we were too exhausted to find the corkscrew and we didn't have enough upper-body strength to open a jar. That won't last another night, I assure you.

* Photos of us in frames that my husband's new employer so sweetly had set up here before we arrived. It was a gesture so nice that when I walked in the door, after a grueling day of travel, and saw a picture of  us with our Florida friends on the beach, I about burst into tears. Sentimentality is a dangerous thing to a woman who is moving.

* One of those nicer-hotel beds with 16 pillows and layers of duvets, blankets and sheet-like things. It took me 45 minutes to make the bed this morning and it still didn't look like it did when we walked in, which is just like the Pottery Barn beds. Mine looked like the Princess and the Pea when she was 6 and was practicing cleaning up her own room.

What I don't have is:

* My magnifying make-up mirror. So in the next up-to-6-months, if you see a photo of me with a big black hair growing out of my chin, please private-message me. Thanks. (If you could give me a rough location of where it is, I can probably take care of it - I do have tweezers.) If you see unsightly facial hair after I get my mirror back, you will kindly keep your opinions to yourself.

* Any measuring cups or measuring spoons.

* An umbrella.

* Any hand cream or body lotion whatsoever. I could dry up and blow like a crispy old leaf right down King Street right now.

I'm making the best of the situation and am doing some matchmaking. For instance, the wine glasses look to be roughly 1 cup, so I measure the dog's food in fine glassware with a stem. The dog is suitably impressed with herself over this.  It's going to be an interesting couple of months.

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If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.