Moving house, hot weather and playing games...

So (if you read) my last post mentioned that we were going to be moving house. And I was really excited about it. This is still 100% true, it's just that we are now doing it significantly sooner than we had thought. We have always quite liked our landlord. We've never met her in person, but her son-in-law reluctantly deals with things for her and he's funny and not overly bothered about anything and tends to say 'yes' to whatever we want to do and ask her later, which has worked in our (cat-based) favour. So we didn't worry at all about giving her 30 days notice that we were moving out (as required by our lease.) This is where the chaos kicks in- turns out she thought this wasn't long enough, and was really unhappy about it. In my general experience, unhappy landlords = less security deposit back, and we had paid an additional pet deposit that we suspected would be held on to for less good reason than the main deposit.

She then set up lots of appointments to have the apartment viewed at the WORST possible times- once she gave us (and her poor son-in-law who was doing the viewing) 15 minutes notice- I had to RUN back from the village in 90 degree heat- there was literally sweat dripping off my nose. The next time she arranged it for 9am on a Sunday. We are NOT morning people. Especially holiday-weekend morning people. Thankfully, both the people who viewed the place on Sunday wanted it, so she was happy again. But she wanted us out sooner. Turns out her main objection to our original move-out plans wasn't so much the lack of notice but rather the fact she was missing the start of term for UCLA. She likes to rent to graduate students and they need somewhere to live before uni starts. This is absolutely not unreasonable, and if she'd just told us that, could have saved a LOT of hassle. Long story short, she emailed us and asked us how quickly we could be out. So next Friday we collect the keys to our new place and the next Monday we hand over the keys to the current one- all cleaned and fancy looking ready for the carpet fitters to come and make it better than it is now. 

It's all fine really, but poor husband has been seriously stressed out trying to deal with it all- phone calls with University housing asking to change dates, weird email chains with landlords etc. It's been rough, but by a week on Monday, it'll all be worth it. I hope. We've still not actually seen the new place...

In other news, it is really effing hot. The temperature has been hovering around the 90 degree mark for the last week, (that's about 32 degrees in British weather) and today it is apparently 98 degrees (37C) and I am too damn hot. I am mostly crediting this as a pregnancy thing, as generally I love hot weather. It doesn't bother me at all. I like being outside in it, and feeling the sun slightly blister my skin. This is not our first September in Southern California. I relished the heat last year. This year I am sweaty and damp and not sleeping and unhappy. Our air-conditioning, which we have only used a handful of times before now, is running constantly. There is more than one fan running all day in our bedroom- one of them is just pointed directly at me ALL NIGHT. It is a constant battle to stay at a temperature where I can function, and I've effectively just stopped going out during the day. I really want to go shopping and go to the fabric shop and maybe even go and get a coffee and I haven't done any of these things since it's too damn hot outside and it'll make me feel ill. The good news is it's only supposed to last til Monday, then the temp will go back down to the mid-80s, (about 29C) which is infinitely more pleasant 

Since most of this blog post has been me complaining about things (sorry) I'll move on to something all the more hilarious. Last night was our first ante-natal class. We walked into the hospital (which is LUSH, by the way, One of the nicest buildings I've been in since we got here) and headed to Conference Room 3, where a bunch of preggos were sitting with tired looking men in a semi-circle round the room, and an older lady with white hair was sitting at the front. This all looked exactly as I expected it to in my mind's eye. I looked the same amount of pregnant as everyone else in the room, which was a relief as I was worried I was too organised and had booked it too early (although one lady is due before the last class- hope it doesn't come early...) It was straight after dinner, which meant I had to leave the room approximately every 15 minutes to pee, which no one minded thankfully, but I was left wondering where all these other ladies got their staggering bladder capacity, as I seemed to be the only one. 

When I was out at the bathroom (for the second time) she started the introductions. She started with the partners, apparently. This meant my husband was up first. I have no idea what he said (this really bothers me, but I cannot figure out why since how much can he embarrass me saying his name and Kick's due date, really?) but I came in half-way through and he was looking at the instructor blankly as she asked him about 'the games he played'. Eventually he kind of said he didn't talk to the baby directly through my stomach, and she said 'she'll know your voice anyway' and I was thoroughly confused but we moved on. It turned out she was asking the partners what games they played with the baby. The baby that is still in my stomach. All of them answered in a slightly confused manner that they didn't play any games with the baby with varying degrees of humour . Personal favourites included "well, peek-a-boo, obviously" and "Does it count as a game that every time my wife tells me to feel her stomach because the baby is kicking, it stops? Because we play THAT game every night" 

We reached the end of the semi-circle, pausing to explain that the last couple were not a couple at all, but rather two student nurses sitting in on the session (explains why the girl was in skinny jeans and not, y'know, pregnant.) Then the instructor just moved on. No reference to what 'games' the should be playing, or why or anything. Just moved on. Then it was my turn to start for the lay-dees, as the Southern instructor said, and I said my favourite thing about being pregnant was that people always let you skip the queue for the toilets. Everyone else proceeded to tell stories about how much they love feeling their babies kick, and I felt like a total tool. Never mind, at least I'm being true to myself...