Finally into our apartment in Napa now, although everything is still in boxes and we’re still figuring out where everything is. We took a quick tour yesterday – it was beautiful, perfect summer weather at 5 PM, and although there were a lot of “rental space available” signs in the downtown retail areas, it’s still a lovely small town that reminds me a bit of La Connor in Washington, where we used to go to the Tulip Festival.
We did all the neccessary, important things: went to the grocery store, got our library card, went to check out Copperfields Books. Copperfields carries a good selection of literary magazines and regular magazines, as well as the Buffy comic, and a decent selection of newer literary fiction. (I’m hoping they will agree to carry Crab Creek Review as well, soon!) I ended up buying, in the discount section, “Survival of the Sickest” – a terrific account by a biologist of the connection between evolutionary biology and illness – and a fiction book called “Blind Submission” about working in publishing, as well as a stack of magazines and various other things…I was very tempted by hedgehog erasers but managed to not buy them this time. We drove by the Oxbow market and did a little drive around all the relevant streets to get our bearings. We have not yet explored the neighboring towns: Sonoma, St. Helena, Yountville, etc…but we’ve only been here a little over 24 hours so you’ll have to give us some time!
The not-so-fun-parts-of-moving: I almost wept in frustration this morning trying to get ahold of a doctor (Internal Medicine) who was actually taking patients. No success yet. I forget how hard that part of moving was! So, if you know any good doctors in Napa, now is the time to share!
Anyway, we are safe and sound, a little discombobulated, but otherwise happy and excited about our new Napa adventure. It is beautiful, the air smells so clean – after living in San Diego a year, I’d forgotten how good clean air smells, like green and flowers – and the people so far seem fairly friendly. I also have my own room for an office, so as soon as I get that set up, I expect to be doing more writing and submitting – as well as having better concentration for my online teaching work at National. I’m a thesis advisor this quarter, which I’m looking forward to, as well as teaching the “advanced poetry workshop,” which is really a combination of workshop and regular literature class, since they have to read books and write essays on them. I’ve also sent out some e-mails to see if any of the local magazines are interested in a new food/culture/arts writer. I hope so!