I haven't posted much since we've moved to Monterey, although I have been reading a lot more LJ than I have in months.

So far, we give Monterey two thumbs up. Each. mycranium1 said the other day that he sometimes worries he'll wake up and be back in LA.

Things that are awesome:

Our House
There's a condo for sale in this development, and thus we've learned what the market value is for it. Our rent is less than half what a mortgage payment would be. In other words, TOTAL STEAL.

We are in an end unit, which is only nominally attached to the two beside it. It is one story, two bedrooms, two baths, with a dining room and an entry room that is so large (with gigantic windows) that we decided to use it as the dining room and are using the official dining room as mycranium1's office. Oh, and did I mention the jacuzzi tub sized for two? (Three, if they're skinny.) Or the skylights? Or the garage with built-in workbench? Or the two decks? Or the view of the ocean? There are one or two teeny things we'd redo if this were ours, but it's largely ideal and awesome.

Monterey
We'd been warned by people who left here recently that:

1. It was boring
2. There weren't really any young, interesting people
3. There was no reasonably priced, good food
4. Or ethnic food
5. It would be very hard to find anything we wanted to shop for

So far, our experience has been very different from theirs.

1. There are so many festivals, so many interesting musical acts, and so forth that we're constantly busy
2. We hooked up with the local Burners our first week
3. We've found lots of places with good, low-priced food
4. Thai and Mexican food abound
5. Most of the stores we want are within four miles of our house, which makes it better than LA

To be fair to the folks who just left, the nearby mall just underwent a multi-million dollar facelift and brought in a lot of the stores we were looking for, and they put in a Big Box mall in Sand City (about three miles away) that takes care of the Target/OSH/Marshalls/Smart & Final end of the spectrum.

It never takes me more than 1/2 hour to get home from work, and that usually means I stopped at Trader Joe's on the way. After the past year and a half of LA-style commuting, this is AMAZING. I can't believe how much more time I have in my day, or how much more relaxed I feel.

Also, people seem much more likely to acknowledge us as human beings than they were in LA.

Things on the agenda: joining a local organic farmshare (there are many, most of which have been established for years), joining a gym, taking the PUBLIC BUS on a tour of nearby wineries. Public transit! Goes to wineries! And the bus stops 1/2 mile from our house. You gotta be kidding me. How awesome is that?

Our First House Guests
harlequinaide and shaix were our first two houseguests. They took us out to a fabulous dinner, and basically brought a whole lot of awesome guesti-ness to our place. Unfortunately, our guest room was still in its alpha release state at the time. It's now in beta, and we're looking for a couple of beta testers to come, check it out and determine any design or coding issues.

Mountain Lion
Yes, there have been mountain lion sightings in the area. In fact, one was by us, when we came to look at the place. I've been told by locals that I'm nowhere near as delicious as the local house pets or deer. We haven't seen the mountain lion again lately...and the deer that were hanging out behind our house have moved on to greener pastures (across the street, from what we've seen). So.

For us, Monterey so far is Made Of Awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next!

Oh, yeah, Catalog Watch.
One: Pottery Barn Bed and Bath.