We're in the new place, but yikes! The boxes! You discover when you've furnished one house and bring those furnishings to a new one, that they don't quite work. They're the wrong size, style, or color. So there's been a lot of furniture placement that keeps getting changed. (And we have to empty those damned boxes.) Ironically, the stager (the service that temporarily furnishes a house for sale so it looks fabulous and makes you want to buy it) did a beautiful job with some interesting solutions to our Berkeley house that I wish we'd thought of. Almost makes me want to hire someone to come and furnish our new home, but the fear that we'd have to jettison some favorite armchair or other quickly puts that out of mind! (Maybe if they also agreed to unpack the boxes?)

One thing that I now have had two experiences with - and will always marvel at - is piano movers. They are masters at managing weight by using physics to augment braun. In the end, your piano is happily intact, and so are the movers! I'd like to offer a major shout out to Matteo at First Hand Piano Movers and his team. The three of them calmly moved my 750-pound Baldwin parlor grand down sixteen stairs, and then up ten more, and didn't mind my watching the magical dance of communication and coordination. They moved another piano before mine, and were on their way to move one more!

It's nice to be back in Napa; having lived in the Napa Valley for the 26 or so years before our Berkeley tenure, it's comforting and familiar. On Saturday, Kent and I rode our bikes to the Farmer's Market, our first sojourn away from packing-box-central, and promptly ran into my frequent dance-gigging pal, Rebecca King. It made me SO happy! Yesterday, Kent needed to attend a wine bottling, and it only took him ten minutes to get there! And it's warm enough to be able to sit outside on our deck for dinner. I'm liking this - even with all the damned boxes!

Mystery of the week: someone sent us a Piñatagram. A Piñatagram is a cute little piñata (whose little butt is filled with candy) that you apparently can have delivered as a gift. Ours arrived with a note to the effect of "Happy new house!" - but with no attribution; I don't know who to thank. I've ruled out immediate family members, who are intrigued by the idea but not claiming it as theirs. Was it was you?

SETTLING IN WITH BOXES!