From California Will Come Chaos

Oh, dog-loving father-in-law. I hope you're prepared for the havoc the pug will wreak upon your calm, retired life when we pass through the Midwest this summer.


I'll make sure she comes hungry.

The Mocha That Wasn't

I've had a bit of a migraine problem as of late. In the past year, the headaches of my youth returned. Luckily, the debilitating pain didn't accompany each migraine, but I was getting frequent auras that would have me blinded for 30 minutes at a time. It's best compared to looking at a bright light and not being able to see for a moment after, only it lasts the length of a sitcom. Or I get psychedelic squiggles through my line of sight. Or I'll feel the motion of a ceiling fan over my head even though there isn't one.

I couldn't nail down the trigger for my migraines, but when I cut down on my morning coffee, they decreased dramatically. Until they didn't, and came back with a vengeance. After seeing my doctor several times, I finally nailed down the cause: good old-fashioned stress. Now that I've gotten that under control, I've been sporadically returning to coffee as a treat.

When Jenn came out to visit, she ran to the corner convenience store to get us a morning coffee. It has a full espresso bar inside, and they'll make you whatever kind of coffee treat you'd like. She made the comment that if she lived so close to this amenity, it would be a problem. It hadn't been a problem for me because I'd stopped the coffee intake, but there she went, putting thoughts in my head.

A couple of weeks ago I made it my Friday treat to stop in and get a mocha. Then yesterday I was really craving one again. I put it off and put it off, waiting for the craving to subside, but it didn't. So off I went, walking to the corner. I was almost drooling as the barista made my beverage...and it wasn't until she was about to hand it to me that she sees my debit card and says, "Machine's down...I can't take cards." She points me to the ATM. Dismayed but not fully dissuaded, I went over to get cash. And then saw it would be a $3 ATM fee. Add that to the fee Bank of America would charge me, and it was adding up to a $9 cup of coffee. Slow tear. Fast tear.

I apologized for the coffee fake-out. But there was no way I was paying that much for a coffee. Sister's saving for a down payment in New Jersey.

The Hotness

In case your air conditioner ever breaks (God forbid, you'd have my utmost sympathy), below are a few signs that will signal to you that your misery is at all comparable to mine.

Signs Your Living Quarters Are Too Hot
1) Your pug has wild eyes and looks like she may expire at any moment.

2) You must lock both yourself and your pug up in the bathroom where it is a few degrees cooler so that you both can survive.

3) You make a sandwich and your bread feels like it just came out of the oven.

4) You take a shower and your shampoo is actually hot coming out of the bottle.

5) You lock the pug in the bathroom and go to the library for the entire day Sunday.


Of course, it's freezing as I sit here at the library. I had to put on my sweatshirt.

Marti Goes Golfing

After months (maybe years) of trying to get Marti back to playing fetch, I've learned that the only ingredients that matter in the fetch recipe are the ball and Marti's mood that day. She'll usually run after the ball, but will rarely, if ever, bring it back. The dog psychologist in me tells me that it all goes back to her playing fetch with Chuck and Lucy, which was more of her actually chasing them and then barking at them while they got the ball. I think she's convinced that she'll never get to it fast enough, so why bother?

It wouldn't be that big of a deal that she doesn't want to play fetch if I a) didn't remember the hours I used to try to wear her out with fetch as a wee pup and b) if she hadn't gotten a little chubby as of late.

That's right. Marti is now on Weight Watchers.

She really doesn't look too chunky when she's up walking around, but when she lies down, there's a bit of a pug pudge going on. And when I took her to the vet and she'd hit 27 pounds, and the vet told me she could "stand to lose a couple," I knew something had to be done. So I've dialed back the food intake a bit, and we've been taking long walks at noon that have been great for both of us.

I also increased my efforts trying to get her to play fetch and I finally found something that worked. One day when I tried a brand-new tennis ball someone had left at the park, it was like Marti had rediscovered her inner puppy. She played fetch for 30 minutes straight, while I stood there with my jaw on the gross dog park ground. And when I play with the special squishy tennis ball that she's stripped naked, she'll play forever too. And apparently now that's she's taken up fetch again, golf balls aren't off limits either. She not only ran after this golf ball with gusto, but ripped into its cracked casing with the fervor of a teething puppy (see picture below).

As for her weight loss, after two weeks of checking on the digital at home, she still hovered between 26 and 27 pounds, which I took to mean she hadn't really budged. But lo and behold, when I took her to the vet a couple of days ago, she weighed in at 25.8 pounds! I was beyond proud. All of our exhausting efforts are paying off. She's still got a few pounds to go, but I'm hoping that she will eventually get it off and become a lifetime Weight Watchers member.

Potty Patrol

It's been months since I've seen poor old Silvia, so I can only assume she's finally escaped the assisted living facility and gone to the sweet by and by. But there's a new Silvia in town, and she goes by the name of Shirley.

I met Shirley recently when I was out with Marti, letting her sniff around in the mulch and the bushes by the patio of the assisted living facility. Marti is typically content to putter around for much longer than I prefer before she really gets down to business. So we're dilly-dallying around and Marti is playing with seed pods in the mulch and out of nowhere I hear:

"PICK UP YOUR DOG SHIT!"

It took me so by surprise that I didn't even know how to respond. I turned around to Shirley in her wheelchair, and said, for lack of a better defense, "But she hasn't even gone yet!"

So she repeated herself. Just to make it clear that dog poo wouldn't be tolerated. This time I said, "Don't worry, I always do!" Her reply? With utter disdain, she says accusingly, "With what??"

To which I waved at her with my black poo-pickup-bag covered hand. I was trying to be lighthearted through the accusations, but I was a little defensive, which is understandable because I live in a neighborhood where these signs once appeared:


Shirley's got her difficult side, for sure, and I know she puts the nurses through the wringer. I've heard her tapping on the windows from the patio to get their attention, saying "HELLOOO!?!" over and over again. I also hear her demands for coffee, and she doesn't exactly say please and thank you. But we've actually spoken since our first encounter, and she can be quite friendly when she's lucid. She sees me and asks Marti's name and whether she's had any puppies. On her good days, we're friendly. But I'm fairly certain I heard her curse at me again the other day. I'm pretty sure that somewhere deep inside her troubled mind she must remember a dog that used to take large dumps on her lawn.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Big changes are in store for the W household yet again. Since I last posted, life has gotten a lot crazier and hectic. But now we have big decisions made and a new direction: East.

The plan all along had been for Alan to start interviewing over the fall, get a couple of job offers and figure out our next step. Unfortunately, the economy put a bit of a crimp in those plans. Not nearly as many companies came to do on-campus interviews, no one was biting, and it was looking grim. I kept telling him it would all work out; I pulled out every cliche in the book to keep his head up. I didn't want him getting too depressed about getting 25 years of education and then being ready for a real job just as the economy tanks harder than it has since the Great Depression.

At long last, Alan gets a call to get his academic life on paper and in presentation format so that he can interview with a company in New Jersey, as well as their location in Boston. Finally, movement.

Interviews in the science community are totally different than any interview you or I will ever see. It's not just a howdy-doody how-do-you do type of deal. It's two 100-hour weeks getting an hour-long presentation on your life's work together to present to your potential future employer and some of your future co-workers. It's three days of all-day interviews, plus dinners at night. My mouth gets dry just thinking about doing eight hours of interviews. I guess when you've prepared for 25 years for a job, it only makes sense that the interview would be a sort of final exam.

Regardless, Alan gets his presentation together and stresses us both out in the process. I know what a monumental task it is for him to put together these presentations, but I must say, he can memorize the crap out of some big sciencey words.

He goes on his interview, does a bang-up job, and alas! GETS JOB OFFERS. For both locations! Hooray! This is the best scenario; we're back on our plan. He was super pumped about Boston and seriously, Boston versus New Jersey? Is it even a question? We are absolutely moving to Boston. I'm ready to go, sight unseen.

But doesn't God do funny things?

In the weird, slow, science hiring process, Alan gets a second, less formal interview. Overlap of the job in Boston requires him to go back to New Jersey to speak with some of the folks there, and I plan to fly out and meet him in Boston for his schmooze-fest there. When he meets me in our room in Boston, he's singing a different tune. He's re-thinking New Jersey.

Um, no. You're not. We're moving to Boston. I wrap my mind around the possibility of not moving to Boston. NO. My brain refuses to cooperate. Even in the bitter Boston cold, IT'S A DONE DEAL.

Then we go on an area tour with a realtor.

Now, don't get me wrong. Boston is beautiful. It's everything you'd imagine Boston to be. Beautiful brick, old buildings. It's got a great vibe. But neighborhood after neighborhood, street upon street, among visions of condo living and sharing yards with five units, tandem parking spaces—or to avoid all of those things, hour commutes to work—I started feeling claustrophobic. I'm not an urban girl. I'm not just not an urban girl, I'm a KANSAS girl. I need yard. I need space. I NEED TO BREATHE.

We decide to extend our trip and drive around Boston more to see what we can see on our own and then drive down to New Jersey to see the area. (I also have it in my head that NJ is north of Massachusetts and every time we talked about it I'd say, "Let's drive up to NJ." Oh, geography.)

So after crossing more states off on my states-to-see list during the drive, we arrive in New Jersey. OH MY GOD, I'M EVEN LESS IMPRESSED WITH NEW JERSEY. Industry. Highway. Grossness.

Thankfully, the company knew what it was doing when it booked us our hotel in New Jersey. We arrive in the most adorable town of Westfield, with a cute little downtown and lots of little shops and restaurants. The realtor shows us town after town, all with accessible grocery stores (for some reason that's insanely important to me), and house after house, all with yards, all with more than two bedrooms. And all of these towns within 15 minutes of Alan's work. AND, we were able to hop on a train and in 35 minutes be in New York City.

Sounds like a done deal, right? For whatever reason, we struggled so much with the decision. For each positive, there was an almost equal and opposite negative. Neither place was screaming our name. We went round and round, made pros and cons lists, talked until we were blue in the face. We slept on it, night after night. We flipped coins. We flipped coasters. We cried. Well, I cried. We decided on New Jersey twice. Then a coin flip landed Boston. And we kept thinking. I kept waiting for one of us to have an epiphany...for one of us to have that "ah ha!" moment where we'd know. But it didn't happen until the morning before we had to decide.

After a talk with my mom and my first moment of true clarity, I wrote Alan an email that I'd made my decision. He wrote back wanting to know what it was. After all of that, I refused to tell him via email. He called awhile later. He'd made a decision too. I silently prayed that we made the same decision because I had no idea what we'd do if we hadn't. Actually, I know what I would have done: Had a mental breakdown.

Luckily, we arrived, separately and together, at the same conclusion. New Jersey made too much sense. Short commute. House. Yard. More pugs. Less chaos. All the chaos we could ever want a short train ride away.

Now that we've made the decision, we haven't looked back once. Now we just have to have all guests arrive at night and close our eyes when driving near the airport.

P.S. Northern California has to be the most beautiful place to live, period.

Absentee Blogger

Why I'm not finding time to (personal) blog: A typical day for me.

7:30 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. Roll out of bed. (Yes, this is what time I get up. Sue me. I used to get to work by 7:00 a.m. and work until 6 or later anyway, so I figure I might as well sleep in if I'm going to work late regardless.)

8:01 a.m. Hit my office.

12:00 Think about taking a lunch. But don't.

5:00 Take Marti to the dog park.

5:30 Back to work.

6:30-8:30ish Work out. Start on dinner. Eat dinner. Clean up after dinner.

8:30-12:00 Spend some time with Alan. Take Marti out. Try to fit in laundry, other chores and oh, yes, that other JOB I'm doing.

Oh, and weekends? Fuggedaboutit. They consist of maybe grocery shopping, a dinner out, catching up from things I couldn't do during the week, and most of all, Other Job. So yeah, I'm a little stressed. A lot busy. Ok, a lot stressed. But something's gotta give eventually right? I'm hoping it's the day job.

Until then, Marti has taken to wearing earplugs to block out the noise of my screams.