The Giant mechanic had a giant truck.
Whilst our major hurdles had apparently subsided, the next few weeks were not equally, but nor were they insignificantly fraught. My next-door neighbour, a professional mechanic for the Giant Bikes Enduro Team (whom I subsequently Googled and digitally stalked for this information), was having a yard sale as we moved further trinkets and necessities into the house. He claimed no one had lived in our house for a while, and as the week progressed we began to suffer the consequences of that claim.
The oven didn’t work. Or at least it didn’t seem to, but a setting labeled ‘broil’ had convinced me that I did not understand how it worked. The microwave made a metal-on-metal grinding noise whilst in use and the fridge light was obstructively hanging by a wire in the middle of its useable area. That also made a fair racket. Consistently. The thermostat was so complicated that even after downloading and reading it’s manual (I’m a manual reader), I could not elevate the temperature of the house above uncomfortably cold.
Later in the week the week the dishwasher backed up and flooded the sink, which had the waste disposal unit fitted along with its motors and blades, and the waste disposal unit in itself terrified me on several levels. This was followed by all the toilets blocking up, one of which contained a particularly nasty scatter bomb from Stan, who’s main diet of chips and apple sauce was producing some ungodly packages, one of which was now destined to float and ferment for days to come.
All in all it took about 3 weeks before we had a functioning house. We even had to have a locksmith come and replace all the patio door locks, which were clearly open when we viewed the house. What happened to the locks? Why had all the keys suddenly gone missing? The property manager, Tricia, did her best to fix the myriad of problems and avoid answering any questions about the house’s history, which, even at the time of writing is still unanswered. The plumbers came in to exorcise Stan’s demons, and replaced the oven, microwave and dishwasher and Michael came round to re-attach the door frame which Georgie, with all her 9 year old might had managed to rip off after Libby had engaged the chain from the other side. It was debatable that as a security measure it was fit for purpose in the first place.
I installed myself with an area. Not a room, like what I’m used to, but an area. At first it was in the kitchen, but that was too busy so I moved to the corner of the living room. I had a little desk with my laptop, an amplifier, some speakers and a mini audio mixer I’d smuggled out. I built my bike, put my skis and snowboards together having had to dismantle everything for transit. I even bought myself a midi keyboard off the internet so I could play the piano.
This panorama makes a flattering impression of the area I have occupied, but as you can see I have expanded it into quite a comfortable ‘work zone’ now. It’s a shame I’m not allowed to work.
So I tried, at least for a while to get into it. The kids were happy at school, which was one potential problem averted. Stan was a bit of a concern as in the UK he should be starting his primary education, but in the US this procedure didn’t occur until the following school year, so he was with us, 24/7. We hadn’t planned on that being the case. We decided to try and start the basics with him as best we could (ironic I know, considering my profession) and that Simone, the only one of us eligible to work here, should concentrate on getting some money to alleviate the pressure created by the thousands and thousands of dollars we had spent getting just this far. And we settled into something that resembled a routine.
Filmed on the last day of the 2018 season on Oct 7th in Mt Bachelor bike park, about half an hours drive West of Bend.
I intend to wax lyrical about the joys of living in Bend in a future blog, but with the excitement of discovering a new outdoor playground, came the same stresses and anxieties that I imagine plague all of our lives, and when I look back upon my first couple of month’s here in Oregon, I tend to remember those stresses and anxieties above the fun I was having. They seemed more prevalent. Not that these things consume our everyday lives, I think that’s called depression, but instead the time just after going to bed, but before falling asleep: that, for some reason is the time we decide to think about all of our many problems. I’ve since considered that the fewer genuine problems you have, the more you worry about life’s insignificancies. I often wondered whether that was why my father had started a legal battle with his next door neighbour over the branches of a tree, and on whose land they dangled. I thought that was perhaps because he had little else to worry about. I’d have loved that to be my major worry. Instead I was fretting about money: changing the flight tickets, which were booked for our return in 2 months time, how much was that going to cost? Would we be able to honour the 11 month contract we had just signed in blood for our house rental? Would my insurance cover the $2200 we had just lost? (spoiler: no) What happens if one of us is hurt or falls ill, we have no medical insurance? What happens when our tourist visas run out 2 months time? I’m writing this in retrospect and now that I know the answer to most of these questions, I have concluded that these were all indeed serious issues, and I was fucking right to be worried.