Triumph!

I warned you, did I not, that this might occasionally turn into a blog about my domestic accomplishments?  And since I hate cleaning, can't sew, and I'm not gardening at the moment, that mostly means baking*.

It's been a quiet week around here, with most of my energy going towards cleaning, laundry, and, during the latter half of the week, hosting my in-laws, who helped us unpack the rest of the boxes.  Hooray!  Now all that's left to do is go through a few boxes of files, hang artwork (we'll get through that when my parents come to visit in a couple of weeks), and buy another bookshelf or two, since we have no place to put CDs, DVDs, or cookbooks.

We were so successful getting through all the boxes that on Saturday we had time for a "real" breakfast, and I was anxious to try out my latest acquisition: a bag of White Lily Self-Rising Flour.  Now, I've been a baker for years.  I love making bread, and I'm pretty good at it.  Dinner rolls, pita, Irish Soda Bread, you name it, I can churn out a decent version.

Except biscuits. Mine weren't bad**, but I LOVE biscuits, and it's always galled me that I had to go to Cracker Barrel for a really good one.  Being a disciple of the great Alton Brown, I looked up his biscuit recipe.  And then followed the advice of his grandmother and used the one on the White Lily bag.

Finally.

The combination of using the right flour***, leaving the fat in the right size pieces instead of totally incorporating it, and finally getting the technique of mixing the fat and the flour together with my fingers instead of using the food processor really improved the biscuits.  They're not perfect yet, but they weren't tough, and they rose WAY higher than they ever have before.  Thus, I bow to the superiority of soft southern flour****.

There will be more baking this week, but probably cinnamon-raisin bread or something like that, since one of our new neighbors sent her children over with a plate of oatmeal cookies the other night.  Alas, it wasn't a plate I need to return, but I'll be bringing over a loaf anyway.  Good excuse to go over and say hi.

So, there's your moment of domesticity.  More observations and explorations will return next week, or whenever it cools down enough to leave the house.  The temperature over the last few days has been in the 100s, which is not conducive to exploring.  Or breathing.


* For a real baking blog, try breadbasketcase.  But not if you're hungry^.

     ^ Oh, dear, I shouldn't have gone there.  Now I'm going to have to make these this weekend.  Dangit.

** Just a little tough, and flat, and pale, and... not like Cracker Barrel.

*** For just a wee bit more information on why different flours are, well, different, read this.

**** For this application, anyway.  I shall stick to King Arthur Bread Flour for most of my bread-baking needs, unless the recipe calls for AP flour, or whole wheat flour, or semolina, or rye, or...  This is why I have 8+ varieties of flour in the house right now.  It's a disease.

So far, so good

Well, we've been here about a week, and I'm still drowning in boxes and paperwork, but it's easing off a bit.  So far, the culture shock has been coming in tiny little packages, rather than big ones.  A few examples:

• Kudzu terrifies me.  It looks so quiet and green and innocuous, until you see a big patch of it by the side of the highway and realize that there probably used to be a house and 3 cars* in that space.  Like, yesterday.
• Considering that our realtor calls this area "the buckle of the Bible Belt," there seem to be an awful lot of strip clubs here.  Am I the only person around here who thinks that's ironic?
• Driving north on our way to Asheville last weekend, we saw a store called "The Urban Survival Store."  Their sign said, "Are You Prepared?"  Sadly, all I could think of was a zombie invasion, which is probably not what they had in mind**.
• Alas, they allow smoking in (some) restaurants here.  It was a bit of a nasty shock when we headed out to dinner the other night.  I haven't been asked, "Smoking or Non?" in years, and was hoping never to hear it again.
• Alas the second, they don't sell alcohol on Sundays here, even in restaurants.  That was also a surprise.  Granted, if we go all the way into Spartanburg, or out to Greenville, we can have a glass of wine with dinner, but it means planning our weekends more carefully than we used to***.
• We found our first "palmetto bug" in the bathroom.  The Cajun assures me that everyone has them, and they're not a sign of filth and squalor the way they are up north****, but they still give me the heebie-jeebies.

YES.

In the meantime, I've got my kitchen unpacked and functioning, we both have new South Carolina driver's licenses, and I found Vernor's ginger ale at the grocery store.  Things are looking good!


* And maybe a couple of kids and a dog.  That stuff moves fast.

** Well, sadly for them, anyway.  I thought it was hysterical.  They probably didn't have in mind that they would make me laugh so hard.  My apologies.  It's a very serious topic, and I won't (giggle) do it (snort) again.

*** I swear, we're not lushes, but a nice glass of red wine does improve a steak no end.

**** "Palmetto Bug" sounds so pretty, doesn't it?  They.  Are.  Roaches.  Big-ass ones^​.

     ^​ Shudder.

The Language Issue

Of course, one of the primary concerns of any Northerner descending upon on the South is going to be, "Am I going to understand anything anybody says?"  I'm no stranger to southern accents; The Cajun doesn't have one for some reason, but many of his family members do, and they're perfectly intelligible.

My first trip South* was with him, during Spring Break our junior year of college, and he warned me as we entered Alabama that I might have some comprehension problems.  HA!, I said, I'd already adapted to a variety of English and German/Austrian accents, how difficult could it be?  And then we visited a Quincy's Steakhouse in Tuscaloosa, and I knew I was in for it.  The waitress came by to take our order, and I heard her say, "And would you like a rose with that?"  I stared, blankly, until The Cajun came to my rescue, saying, "Yes, we'd love some," and she went on her merry way.  It was then explained to me that she was offering us ROLLS (I swear, I heard no "L" in that word), and he's been laughing at me about it ever since.  Fortunately, I've adapted pretty well, and have very few problems, even in rural Alabama, now.

The Carolinas are different.

Twice in the last two days, we have encountered people who are clearly speaking some version of English, but a version that I absolutely cannot comprehend.  When I protested that I certainly shouldn't have a problem with any type of southern accent by now, I was informed that this is a mountain accent.  Clearly a different kettle of fish, because in each case, I could only catch about one word in three.

Can I get a Rosetta Stone package for this?


* Other than a couple of jaunts to Florida with my parents.  Florida does not count as South.

A Change of Plans

We're here in Spartanburg.  Our new refrigerator, washer, and dryer are here in Spartanburg.  Our furniture... is late.  On Thursday, we got a call from our relocation coordinator that the moving crew leader (the aforementioned lovely man with the Larry-the-Cable-Guy accent) was in the hospital and wouldn't be able to deliver our stuff on Friday.  Which is really a pity, not so much because of our stuff, but because we like the guy and we're concerned*.  So, rather than spend the day moping around an empty house or doing errands, we decided to have some fun and head up the road to Asheville!

Since we've told people that we were moving down here, at least 3 of our friends immediately said, "Oh, you'll be so close to Asheville.  You have to go there as soon as you can!"  And since our friends generally have excellent taste**, we thought we'd take their advice.  Naturally, they were right.

Random artwork on the streets

It's an hour's drive through the mountains, and I really wish it hadn't been so foggy/drizzly/wet, because there was clearly a series of fabulous views out there that we couldn't see.  We didn't spend long there, either, just 4-5 hours, but we definitely liked what we saw, and will be going back very soon.  The buildings are interesting and pretty, there are a ton of tempting restaurants, and I'm not usually much of a shopper, but there are some great shops here.

This, for example, is a bookstore.  And an espresso bar.  And a champagne bar.  Really.

Having arrived without much of a plan, we found parking and spent the day wandering the streets, sticking our heads into galleries and jewelry shops, and stopping for lunch at one of the local brewpubs.  Alas, exhaustion set in fairly quickly (sleeping on an air mattress for a week will do that to you), so we headed home sooner than planned to rest up for the arrival of our stuff the next day.  There will be more detailed trip reports the next time we go back.


* An update: he's fine.  Our new driver knows him well and said he'll be up and around with no problems in just a few days.  Relief.

** And not just in friends.

In Transit

I am exhausted.  Physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted.  Having done all of this less than a year ago, I should have remembered how draining moving is.

Scratch one off the bucket list. We've made our pilgrimage.

Fortunately, we're able to take our sweet time about heading southward.  A day at my parents' in Connecticut was lovely, with lunch at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America, not the sinister, scary one) and a beautiful drive up the Hudson, despite the rain.  Then a day at our old, vacant, for-sale house in Lancaster, which is nice because we love the area and miss our old haunts*, but depressing because we adored that house and nobody wants to buy it**.

Happy Place #1

Right now, we're up in State College, PA, so The Cajun can have a business meeting.  We're also buying up Penn State gear, visiting more old haunts***, eating vast quantities of ice cream, and, best of all, a surprise dinner with our friends @Cybermudgeon and @Colleenky, who arrived back just in time.  I love this town; it's so nice to be here in the summer when there's hardly anybody here****.

Happy Place #2

We'll be back in Lancaster for one more night, and then it's time to fill up the gas tank, get out my new Terry Pratchett audiobook (Unseen Academicals, if you're curious), and drive all the way to Spartanburg.  I have mixed feelings about driving all that way by myself (we're in separate cars) - it's a long way and I want to get it over with, but I've heard it's a beautiful drive through the mountains.  Either way, we'll be home soon!

* Iron Hill, primarily.  Go there now.

** We got spoiled; our first house sold in less than a month.  Different times...

*** Here and here, specifically.

**** That's the academic librarian in me talking.  The semester is when we tread water and try to keep up.  Summer is when we get stuff done.  And get good parking spaces.

Back to Business

So, as this blog is supposed to be about relocating and acclimatizing to a new area and culture, I suppose I should, y'know, talk about that.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been to Charleston, SC, several times for conferences and weddings, and really, really like it, but I'd never been Upstate before our house-hunting trip two weeks ago.  Thus far, I have some general first impressions, about the whole area, and Greenville in particular*.

In general, the area seems to be...

• HOT.  It was over 100° F while we were there, although even the locals admitted that it was a bit on the warm side and a little unusual for that early in the summer**.
• It's really, really pretty.  We could see the mountains as we flew in.  Even the airport is pretty.
• People are nice.  Really nice.  And friendly***.
• There are lots of God billboards.  Oh, we have a few of those "Let's meet at my house before the game. -- God" signs around Boston and Philadelphia, but I'm talking about the hand-painted Hell and Damnation ones.  There were many of them, frequently in a field, sometimes surrounded by bored-looking cows.  I've lived in a number of different religious climates, from the heavily Amish/Mennonite area of Lancaster, PA, to the "absolutely everything" atmosphere of Cambridge, but there were very few Baptists in my hometown (and no Southern Baptists, to my knowledge), and I'm kind of fascinated by these superchurches that look like they're bigger than your average casino.
• Cheap real estate.  Particularly after having done some desultory house-hunting in the Boston area (nice things were waaaaay out of our price range), the houses in South Carolina are mind-bogglingly inexpensive.  On the down-side, they don't seem to have basements.  So, while we're moving into a house that is, at first glance, way too big for the two of us, one of the bedrooms will be designated the "basement."
• Chick-fil-A.  They're everywhere****.

In addition to the waterfall, Greenville has a cool bridge.

While we were down there, we spent a day or two wandering downtown Greenville, and can confidently predict that we'll be there regularly.  It's really green and leafy, with lots of trees planted up and down Main Street^, which made the heat more bearable.  Also, it's got a ton of very promising-looking restaurants; we've already had a great experience at a Belgian place on Washington (Trappe Door), and a gelato shop just a few doors down.  Also, there's a park with a beautiful waterfall right in the middle of the city, and a minor-league baseball park^^ just a little further along.  And lots and lots of parking.  So far, first impressions are darn good, and we're feeling a bit impatient about getting down there to explore.


Now, to make it down there in one piece and with all of our stuff (and sanity) intact!


* We didn't spend enough time in downtown Spartanburg for me to form any opinions yet, but it won't take long, since that's where we'll be much of the time.

** Not that Boston and Pennsylvania don't get hot (heck, it's over 90° F in Boston right now), but we arrived back in Boston to 61° and rain.  Kind of a shock.

*** As a Northeasterner, this is also a bit of a shock.  Not that people in New England aren't nice, but they're not so overtly friendly, and they take quite a bit longer to get to know you.  As I believe Anthony Bourdain once remarked when visiting the south, all this friendliness and helpfulness inspires feelings of distrust and worry in us until we get used to it.

**** This a good thing.  I rarely eat fast food, but I do get an awful craving for a chicken biscuit periodically, and it always seems to be on a Sunday (sigh).

^ I love trees.  I grew up in the woods, and actually chose the college I attended (partially) because the campus had so many beautiful trees, so Greenville's Main Street appeals.

^^ The Greenville Drive are actually a farm team for the Boston Red Sox, so I can still wear my pink Red Sox hat.  Yay!

A wee vent.

Just once.  ONCE.  I would like to move without having to go to the Emergency Room first.  Four years ago, The Cajun sliced his finger badly enough to need stitches*, two days before the movers arrived.  Last year, one month before we moved up to Boston, he had appendicitis and needed surgery.  And this week, just 48 hours before the packers arrived, he woke up in the middle of the night with heart palpitations and spent two days in the hospital.  Fortunately, none of these incidents turned out to be serious, but... really.  Enough**.

This was my dining room this morning.

In the mean time, all of my worldly possessions are being put into boxes by four nice young men, led by a lovely gentleman who sounds a bit like Larry the Cable Guy.  They will cart it all away tomorrow, leaving us to wend our way Southward, and if we're lucky they'll give it all back a week from now.  And then all the things that took them a day to pack will take me 3+ months to unpack***, something which makes me rather sad.


* Noted: a finger is not a clove of garlic.  Do not treat them the same way.  It took us all night to clean the blood off the walls and the refrigerator.

** Honestly, I love the man more than life itself, and he is (usually) a model husband in every other way, but occasionally his timing leaves something to be desired.  And, yes, I am incredibly relieved that he's all right.  It was a very rough couple of days.

*** With assistance from my in-laws and my parents.  Have I mentioned that they're wonderful?

On the other hand, it's been known to snow.

As hinted earlier, there are a few things that we will not miss quite so much about living in Cambridge and Boston.  These are them:

• An entire Shaquille O'Neal's worth of snow.  We had so much snow last winter that the Boston Globe started measuring it in comparison to professional basketball players.  If any of my friends had told me that we would have 14-18 inches of snow EVERY Wednesday between the end of December and the middle of February, I'd have had second thoughts about moving here.  'Course, we had 4 feet of snow within 4 days back in Lancaster, too, but at least I could see over the drifts.  And we could park our car in a garage.  We've been promised that Upstate South Carolina does have 4 seasons, but that snow tends to come in 3-4 bouts of a couple of inches each.  I can handle that with my eyes closed*.

Fortunately, this is not my car.

• Driving.  Everything you've ever heard about Boston drivers is true.  Every horrible stereotype and terrible story about navigating rotaries or some damn fool running a red light hardly scratches the surface of how dreadful the driving is.  Add to that some very oddly laid-out streets and mind-boggling traffic, and it's no wonder that it takes 30 minutes to go 2 miles.  Which is why I became so fond of public transportation (see yesterday).
• This is a beautiful city.  A beautiful, EXPENSIVE city.  I've liked living here, but I don't like paying the rent on our townhouse, particularly when we'll be paying half as much for a much bigger, much lovelier, entire house with an attached garage and a yard in Spartanburg. 
• And while this is a very nice townhouse, this is also the first time in 10 years that we've had to share walls, floors, or ceilings with other people, and I haven't always enjoyed it.  The walls here are pretty good, but the little lady upstairs is either much more massive than she appears, or she owns a tap-dancing elephant who's a night owl.
• Remember those terrific, liberal, free-thinking neighbors I mentioned yesterday?  Some of 'em are also snotty, pretentious, entitled creeps**.  Not many, but enough that I won't miss the Whole Foods parking lot.

This isn't pretentious, just odd.  We went to Harvard Square for lunch one day, and a parade broke out.

• The Cajun HATEDHATEDHATED his job.  HATED***.  With good reason.  This is the main reason we're moving.  'Nuff said.
• Brick sidewalks.  "Really?  They're so pretty and quaint and historical-looking!  What could you possibly have against brick sidewalks?"  They are historical-looking because they're 250 years old, and 250-year-old sidewalks are a &$@*# to walk on in high heels.  Hey, I didn't say all of these were going to be earth-shaking or world-changing, just things I could live without.  And I like wearing heels.

So.  Farewell, Boston.  It's been lovely, but we're ready for... something else.

 * And if Spartanburg has 4 feet of snow next winter with blizzard conditions, it'll probably be our fault.

** Yes, I've lived enough places to know that there are snotty, pretentious, entitled creeps all over the globe.  Let us just say that the percentage is sliiiiiightly higher in Cambridge.

*** Seriously.  Did not like.

Oh, Boston, we hardly knew ye...

 Having had a bit of time now to reflect upon our stay in Boston, I present:

An average Spring Day in Boston Common

Things I shall miss about Boston*:

• Proximity to family and friends.  This will be the toughest thing to give up.  My parents are currently an easy 3-hour drive away, and two of my best friends from high school and a cousin are in the immediate area.  Having the extra time with them this year has been wonderful, but I guess it's my in-laws' turn...  (new nephew, here we come!)
• The MBTA.  Having grown up without access to any kind of public transportation, I really appreciate it when I've got it, and Boston does it fairly well.  I will sincerely miss the Red Line.  The Green Line, not so much, although it did get me to the art museum.
• THE FOOD.  Oh, Lordy, the food.  Being a 7-minute walk to Formaggio Kitchen (CHEESE!!!) has been rather detrimental to my waistline, and then Jose's Mexican is just up the block, and Gran Gusto is right across the street, and then there's all of Harvard Square just a 30-minute walk away, and Boston is right across the river...  This is a wonderful eating (and drinking) city, and our favorites are too numerous to list here.  Do yourself a favor, though; if you're ever in East Cambridge, go get yourself ice cream at Toscanini's, no matter what the weather is like.
• Independent bookstores.  I try not to buy too many books**, but having the Porter Square Bookstore and the Harvard Bookstore so close has been wonderful.  I'm also glad that we're leaving just before the Globe Corner Bookstore ends its reign; it closes next week, and I shall cry when it does.

Temptation runs strong here.

• The Boston area has so much cool history***, and they know how to celebrate it.  So much to learn, and so little time...
• So much stuff to do and see, too.  We made a concerted effort to get out nearly every weekend and do something fun, and we just barely scratched the surface.  The MFA, the Aquarium, the Science Museum, the Boston Common, the Duck Tours, the Freedom Trail...  Being a tourist in your own town is fun!  Get out there and enjoy it!

This was our Duck.  There was quite a bit of quacking involved.

• Not being the only Democrat on the block.  This is not a place I intend to discuss my political or religious views, but I tend to describe myself as fairly... liberal****.  Our Cambridge neighbors, however, make me look like Ronald Reagan.  On the other hand, when we lived in Lancaster, I was one of the few registered Democrats in our voting precinct, and the dear little old ladies at our polling place looked at me with pity and wonder in their eyes when it came time for the primaries.  I'm not sure what to expect in upstate South Carolina, other than that it will be different.
• I walk everywhere here.  The post office, one grocery store, the dry cleaner, and two branches of the public library are very close, so I've been doing most of my errands on foot, regardless of weather.  I'll miss that, though the driving experience should be more pleasant in Spartanburg^.

Yes, there's another side to the story.  Give me a minute or two.


*This is not to say that South Carolina will lack these things, just that we have enjoyed them up here.

** Not that you could tell from the state of my bookshelves.  Many librarians have what is known as a Book Problem, and I am one of them.  And I'd say I can stop any time I want to, but that would be a lie.

*** Yes, I'm well aware that the Carolinas probably have some history of their own, I'm just not familiar with it.  Hey, it's another topic to read about!

**** In the same sense that the Pope might be described as a trifle on the Catholic side.

^ About which, see next entry.

Welcome! Bienvenue! Wilkommen!

My first blog post! Welcome to my spot in cyberspace, my place to empty my brain, and work through my thoughts.

This is not intended to be a daily journal*, nor a deeply personal record of anything in particular. Rather, this is where I'll be examining the process of adapting to a new environment and changing the way I look at things and (probably) people.

I am a Yankee. I've spent the majority of my childhood in Connecticut, and the majority of my adulthood in Pennsylvania, with brief sojourns in England, Austria, Ohio, and Boston. I have never lived south of the Mason-Dixon Line**, and, to be quite honest, the American South is a foreign place to me. Sure, I've spent time there (The Cajun is actually an Alabama boy) visiting family and going to conferences, but it never occurred to me that we'd live anywhere except the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic.

Until now. The Cajun has a great new job opportunity in upstate South Carolina, so we're leaving Boston after far too brief a period and moving to Spartanburg. I've been down there once (last week, for a house-hunting trip), so I'm not really sure what to expect. So far, I know the scenery is beautiful, the people are nice, and the real estate is cheap, but there will be differences. And I'm looking forward to finding out what they are.

So this is the place where I'll explore South Carolina and see if I turn into a good southern girl or not. And if it turns out that there really aren't any major differences, well, you'll be treated to the occasional examination of bread-baking or book reviews or my latest needlework project.

Enjoy.

*I don't do daily journals. They always turn into total grump-fests, and those aren't fun to read. I'm treating this as a travel journal, which I do fairly decently, if we're someplace worth writing about^ .

     ^ My apologies for all the footnotes† . I'm rather a devotee of Robin McKinley's books and blog, and her footnoting habits can be... contagious.

          † Too late.

** We came close once, though. When we lived in Lancaster, PA, we could be south of the Mason-Dixon Line in 18 minutes. I found it really odd that the South could be so far north.