I am relieved to tell you that Tom and I have finally found a place to live in Portland. I am amazed to tell you that this is the view from the front window:

Thanks to a gallery connection of Tom's, we lucked into an affordable second-floor apartment on the Eastern Promenade. The apartment has one gorgeous room, a couple of perfectly fine rooms, and a terrible tiny kitchen. But it has space for a version of our stuff, and space for a few visitors, and space for Ruckus, and once I spent a year cooking in a kitchen that didn't even have a sink so this kitchen is 100 percent better than that one.

Amusingly, the most beautiful room in the apartment is our bedroom. It has a fireplace, and a view of the sea, and a deck with room for chairs and flowers, and a window seat. I said to Tom that we will have to be like Colette and entertain in our boudoir. It would not be fair to keep visitors out of that room.

I know we can't limit ourselves to three rooms forever, but already the prospect of living in a place this beautiful makes us feel as if we're going on vacation for a year. I suppose after twenty years in the ugly town it's okay to take a break and pretend that we're the kind of people who are accustomed to living in Victorian houses by the sea. My north-country Puritan conscience thinks otherwise, but I'm working to squelch him.