{"id":2305,"date":"1978-09-07T00:01:38","date_gmt":"1978-09-07T07:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/?p=2305"},"modified":"2022-11-27T10:06:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-27T18:06:57","slug":"1978-september-7-card-from-marcy-to-gh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/1978\/09\/07\/1978-september-7-card-from-marcy-to-gh\/","title":{"rendered":"1978, September 7: Card from Marcy to G&H"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Between the previous letter and this one, we moved to Palo Alto. I\u2019ve now updated the map of places we lived<\/a>; this is the 13th place I had lived. I was 10 and a half, so we were still averaging a little more than one move a year over the course of my life; but the moves were slowing down\u2014we had been in the Cotati house for just about exactly three years, and we would be in this Palo Alto one for a couple years too. \u2026And all of the places I had lived were inside a roughly hundred-mile-radius circle centered around Napa.<\/p>\r\n

This one was written on a notecard with three photos of flowers on the front.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

Hi!<\/p>\r\n

Here we are, out of breath & taking on more & more, but finally here, among the crickets & the roaches, tree-lined streets, xxx<\/strike> big back yards and PTAs of Surbubia, USA. Started out to call you tonite but it gets so late so fast - here it is:<\/p>\r\n

Address and phone number redacted by Jed.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Peter\u2019s work phone is<\/p>\r\n

Phone number redacted by Jed.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

when he\u2019s not off at 2-hour executive lunches at the Velvet Turtle, or 10-day classes in LA (Sept x<\/strike> 12-22) or someplace (Chicago, St Louis, & Washington DC loom on the tentative horizons of IBM-land) (classes)<\/p>\r\n

School starts tomoro. Jed\u2019s teacher looks a trifle dull (not as bad as last year) and Joaquin\u2019s is lovely-a man, for a change, hurray.<\/p>\r\n

Our house-mates are truly lovely, he\u2019s involved in solar energy, she works in a flower nursery, and their little girl is as sweet as can be (she\u2019s 7) and it sure makes it affordable, and fills the spaces. We\u2019d really rattle in this huge house. It\u2019s really dark (redwood ceilings with beams) & linoleum over concrete floors, so we\u2019re hunting rugs & lamps at garage sales.<\/p>\r\n

Soon to be able to repay that $300 from x<\/strike> several years ago.<\/p>\r\n

I may yet get to Japan this year, 1st 2 weeks in October.<\/p>\r\n

\"Small<\/a>
Small drawing of a fish.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

All our love, and blessings upon your fishes. Small drawing of a fish.<\/span><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

Notes<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n
suburbia<\/dt>\r\n
It hadn\u2019t occurred to me until I read this line to think of our previous residences as being not suburban. Santa Rosa was fairly rural, but I feel like some of the other places we had lived were pretty suburban. \u2026But maybe Marcy didn\u2019t mean to imply that this was the first time we\u2019d lived in suburbia.<\/dd>\r\n
Velvet Turtle<\/dt>\r\n
\u201cVelvet Turtle<\/a> was a chain of fine-dining restaurants founded by Wally Botello based in Menlo Park, California, that at its height had 20 locations in California, plus a location in Washington state, and Arizona.\u201d<\/dd>\r\n
my teacher<\/dt>\r\n
My 4th-grade teacher in Cotati had been Mrs. Logsdon; I don\u2019t remember her as being particularly awful, but I don\u2019t have especially positive memories of her either.<\/dd>\r\n
My 5th-grade teacher in Palo Alto was Mrs. Peters, whom I liked, possibly in part because she clearly liked me. I didn\u2019t think of her as dull. Marcy grew to like her more later, too; see next later.<\/dd>\r\n
Jay\u2019s teacher<\/dt>\r\n
I have no idea why \u201churray\u201d for his teacher being a man.<\/dd>\r\n
housemates and \u201chuge house\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
According to Zillow, that house is now a three-bedroom house. It might have been four bedrooms when we lived there? Or maybe three plus some kind of enclosed space that was used as a room? I vaguely think Peter and Marcy shared a room, Jay and I shared a room, and the family we were subletting to (a bit more about them in the next letter) used the other one to two rooms.<\/dd>\r\n
I\u2019m surprised to see Marcy call that house huge. It now has about 3\/4 the square footage of my current house (I don\u2019t know if it was larger back then); my current house is definitely big for one person, but I don\u2019t think it would feel huge for a family of four, and definitely wouldn\u2019t feel huge if there were seven people living here.<\/dd>\r\n
The house was an Eichler<\/a> (built in the 1950s), which I vaguely think Peter and Marcy considered to be a positive thing; but ever since college, pretty much every time I\u2019ve heard the word Eichler<\/i> it\u2019s been in conjunction with the phrase fire trap<\/i>. Possibly due to the flammable wood paneling on the walls? Anyway, I\u2019ve been told that Eichlers have a reputation for burning to the ground in three minutes.<\/dd>\r\n
\u2026One other thing about the house: It was in a neighborhood known as \u201cthe circles,\u201d a set of connected (and in some cases concentric) circular streets. I hadn\u2019t seen a map of the streets, so the first time I walked around the block I was very confused.<\/dd>\r\n
Japan<\/dt>\r\n
She did end up going to Japan; a bit more on that in the next letter.<\/dd>\r\n
\u201cblessings upon your fishes\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
I assume this was just general silliness.<\/dd>\r\n<\/dl>\r\n\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marcy lets G&H know that we\u2019re settling in to our new house in Palo Alto. \u201cOur house-mates are truly lovely, he\u2019s involved in solar energy, she works in a flower nursery, and their little girl is as sweet as can be (she\u2019s 7) and it sure makes it affordable, and fills the spaces. We\u2019d really rattle in this huge house.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-marcy","category-palo-alto"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2305"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2369,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305\/revisions\/2369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}