The moving van is coming on Tuesday morning to load up our furniture and all the boxes of stuff Anna has been packing. We’re not sure what day it will arrive in Oakland, but it might be a day or two before Thanksgiving. I’ll be staying in Moline until the third week of December. Anna is driving to Lawrence to pick up my sister Karla and the two of them will drive to Oakland next week. Needless to say, things are a bit hectic around her, and, of course, a little emotional. As much as we’re looking forward to our next adventure, it’s no fun to pack up and leave a home where we’ve lived happily for the last 7 years.

We drank a couple of beers last night at Bent River in downtown Moline. I’ll miss the Jalapeño beer they make. Their Dry Hopped Ale is pretty darned good, too. I remember drinking beer at Bent River with some guys from Augustana when we first moved to town. I think it was a Wednesday afternoon ritual. The bar used to have old church pews for seating, and they had a popcorn machine in the corner. Popcorn and a Jalapeño ale was a fantastic combination.

The boys

The lovely Zina painted a picture of our boys. Justin must have been moving around a lot because he’s on both sides of Nate. It will be great to be closer to these guys in the near future. And I’m hoping I can talk Zina into painting a picture of Anna.

I’ve put a couple of photos of a few of Zina’s other paintings on our flickr account. Check them out when you have a chance. She’s a pretty brilliant painter.

Tarantella

Back when Anna and I first knew each other she was working at Children’s Fairyland in Lakeside Park. We were living in the same apartment building as our good friend Lewis Mahlmann who was the chief puppeteer at Fairyland. Occasionally he asked us to record the voice track for a puppet show. It was a lot of fun. Anna used to work the puppets with Lewis during the show.

On other occasions we participated in programming on the park’s festival stage. This photo was taken when we were rehearsing to perform a Tarantella for one of those shows. It seems like it was just yesterday! The years have not been as kind to me as they have to Anna. (She looks pretty much the same.)

Our new apartment is just a short walk from Fairyland. I suspect we might find an excuse to wander over some day and take a peek. Fairyland pre-dates Disneyland by a few years. Rumor has it that Walt Disney visited Fairyland while he was in the planning stages for his Magic Kingdom, and that there were some features of the small, storybook based attractions in Fairyland that inspired his designs for the Disneyland. If you’ve never been to Fairyland it’s worth an afternoon. Be sure to catch a puppet show!

Mustard

At Anna’s bon voyage party last week we engaged in a little discussion about one of the culinary bright spots in the Quad Cities: Boetje’s mustard. Boetje’s mustard is revered by the locals, and at a party in the Quad Cities one criticizes this golden paste at one’s peril. I made the mistake of showing a slight discontent when the only mustard available at the party was Boetje’s. My brother, Jon (whom I love with a deep affection, well beyond the kind of filial obligation one shows one’s kin), chuckled and told one of the party guests that “Mark doesn’t think Boetje’s is that great.”

I had told Jon a few days earlier that there are some other mustards I prefer to Boetje’s. I know his response was meant in jest, but he gave me grief for criticizing the local favorite. I must go on record, right now, and say: Boetje’s mustard is a very tasty mustard. It’s pretty much a straight up mustard, too. No fancy ingredients or additional flavor layers — all it contains is water, vinegar, mustard seed, sugar and salt. If I’m choosing between Boetje’s and French’s, there’s really no question that Boetje’s is a superior product. Even when choosing between Boetje’s and a Dijon mustard like Grey Poupon, Boetje’s often gets the nod. There are times, though, when a more complex mustard is called for. And at those times I find myself yearning for one of the mustards we tasted when visiting the Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, a while back. On our way to Madison for a weekend honeymoon last fall, Anna and I stopped in at the Museum and tasted mustard for about an hour. Among my favorites were the whole grain mustards in which the mustard seeds are not crushed at all. Eating a bite of such a mustard is a little like tasting caviar. The flavor is released as you crush the seeds in your mouth. Try a little whole grain mustard on a slice of dried italian salami. Heaven on your tongue! If you ever find yourself driving on Highway 151 from Dubuque, Iowa, to Madison, Wisconsin, you absolutely must get off the road at Mt. Horeb and sample some mustard.

One reason I’m looking forward to moving back to Oakland is the fine farmers’ market that’s just a few blocks from our new apartment. Mustard is a culinary staple, and I’m looking forward to tasting some locally made mustards. According to local lore, mustard was first introduced in California by Father Junipero Serra. Thanks be to him for bringing this prolific and tasty weed to the Golden State!

Leaf Suckers

Leaf management is an annual ritual here in Illinois. Today the Moline leaf trucks were working our neighborhood. Moline banned leaf burning this year so the guys with the big vacuums that suck up the leaves have been working extra hard. The vacuum attachment on the trailer behind the truck grinds up the leaves so that they decompose faster, and they have been taking them out to Wesley Acres, one of the community supported agriculture businesses in the area. Wesley uses the leaf compost to help keep down the weeds.

The Midwest has a much wetter climate than the West. In fact the separating line dividing the moister East from the arid West runs north and south on the continent just a little west of the Mississippi. All the rain and snow we get contributes to the growth of hardwood, deciduous forests. Those forests produce mountains of leaves each year, and in the part of town where we live there are some pretty thick stands of old trees. There were about half a dozen neighbors out raking this morning, moving the leaf piles out to the curb where the trucks could do their sucking.

A few days ago one of neighbors had raked a pretty big pile in the middle of their front yard and the father was jumping in the pile with his two little children. They looked like they were between 2 and 5 years old. Ahhh, the simple pleasures.

Boxes

Anna has been packing up. The house is starting to look pretty bare. We think the truck will be here during the first week of December to pick up all our stuff and head west. In the years since we moved here we’ve actually gotten rid of some stuff, so it seems like the move might cost us about half what it cost to get here. That’s a relief.

Packing the truck in Moline is going to be a breeze. We have plenty of space in front of the house and traffic is pretty light. Unloading in Oakland is going to be a challenge. Perkins street is busy — it’s pretty hard to find a place to park a car, let alone a moving van. In some ways the challenge of loading/unloading the truck is emblematic of the big changes we expect to experience in our transition back to the city. Traffic here in the Quad Cities is pretty much a non-issue. When we left the Bay Area seven years ago traffic was one of the main things that we were glad to be leaving behind. I suspect the traffic is still pretty bad, but we are thinking about ways we can avoid getting swept up into that particular storm.

Our new apartment has parking for one car and minimal storage space. The living space of the apartment is quite comfortable, but moving from a house with a basement where we can store all our extra stuff is still a challenge. We’re hoping to thin down the possessions even further. City living, especially in an apartment, means being very thoughtful about what items earn their way into one’s household. I decided to clean out my closets this afternoon and I was able to reduce my wardrobe by half. What a liberating feeling.

Today is the beginning of Anna’s last week in Moline. Things are going to be changing pretty rapidly for us now.

photo.jpg

This photo was taken about a week and a half ago. The leaves are all gone now, and we can see the house behind us, through the woods. We also lost one of our trees. Our next door neighbor has been piling his grass clippings at the back of his yard for the last 10 years or so and they have formed a little dam. When we get heavy rain there’s a shallow pond at the back of his yard. (The left edge of this photo.) In the past two years we’ve had two of our big oak trees lay down because of rotted roots. It’s really sad. The only good thing, really, is that some of the smaller trees back in in that edge of the forest may now get a bit more sun and might grow taller.

The oak trees in Oakland are nothing like these trees. Four of our trees here are the big white oak variety. The California live oaks that dot the Oakland landscape are very different. I have a new appreciation for trees now that we’ve gotten to know the grove we’ve lived with here in Moline. I’m looking forward to getting in touch with the trees in and around Lake Merritt. And the trees up in the hills behind Montclair.

We had a party at Jon and Sonja’s house tonight. Anna will be leaving Moline next weekend and it was our last chance for a social gathering with a group of friends that have made our time here in the midwest most pleasant. Mike and Susan, Dave and Katie, Richard and Janice, Dave and Wynne, Adam and Tamara, Marggy and David, Ellen, Val, Ruth and Van, Jon and Sonja, and Anna and I spent a nice evening around the fire in the backyard. We drank a lot of wine, ate a nice meal and generally enjoyed a November evening that was about as perfect as one might hope a November evening could be.

Anna is heading out next week and she’ll be transporting three bottles of wine that Marggy and David gave us. Three midwestern wines. We decided we would take them to California rather than drink them here—it will be more fun to sip them on the front terrace of our apartment and reminisce about our midwestern adventure in our new Oakland digs. We’ll report on the wines in a future post. Stay tuned.

As we were sitting in the back yard it was clear that one major difference between our experience here and what we have to look forward to in Oakland is the nature of home and place. We have a 1/2 acre yard, Richard and Janice (next door) probably have close to an acre and Jon and Sonja’s lot is also about 1/2 an acre. Our three yards are closely connected so it’s like living in a small park. We’re surrounded by large, old trees.

Contrast that with living in a multi-unit apartment in downtown Oakland. Our kitchen window looks out at the side of our neighbor’s building. There is a big tree growing in front of our building, but most of the landscape surrounding us is cement and asphalt. It’s a short walk to Lakeside Park, so we will not be totally alienated from nature, but we’ll need to make an intentional effort to get our feet onto some soil and be surrounded by trees. I am really looking forward to getting back up to Joaquin Miller Park. It’s a bit of a jaunt on the bike, but the riding trails and woods are pretty wonderful.

Tucker

It’s been very quiet around here today. Tucker moved out yesterday afternoon. Our friends Vicki and Jim came by and took him to have a test weekend at their farm with their two dogs, Toby and Rambone.

If all goes well, he’ll stay with them and his new home will be in the country. He has been a real good friend to us. Moving from a house with a big yard into a second floor apartment in downtown Oakland means saying goodbye to more than just our people friends. We’ll miss the scruffy little pup.

Those of you who know Tucker know he’s a very outgoing and friendly dog. Sometimes he was a little insistent and really wanted to have his way. Anna and I also saw the obsessive compulsive side of him. When we told him we were going for a walk he’d run to the back door and touch his nose to his leash which was hanging on a hook. He’d then turn in a circle, three times and finally sit and look up at you with a very expectant face. He’s a pretty funny little pooch and we’re missing him already.

One thing we won’t have in Oakland is much in the way of snow. This little flurry in Moline took us by surprise on October 10. You can see that the leaves on the trees were still green.

Since that day, just about a month ago we’ve seen all the leaves on the trees turn red, yellow, and orange and now most of the branches are bare. It’s been a relatively short leaf management season, and a little early, too, compared to past years. Raking, mowing, and piling leaves is a job that seems pretty daunting the first time you take it on. We’ve gotten better at it over the years. This year for the first time Moline has banned leaf burning, so we are moving leaves to the edge of the lawn for the big leaf sucking trucks to vacuum up. I know it’s environmentally devastating, and the health impact is pretty severe for a lot of people, but I actually kind of liked the smell of burning leaves. If the smoke didn’t get too thick, it put a kind of sour ting in the air that really smells like autumn.

Coming soon: a journal of our journey back to Oakland. We’ve been living on the Illinois side of the Mississippi river for the past seven years and started to get an itch to get back to the pacific coast. More about our move…