Hello...and Welcome!!

Hi, this is my first ever post on my new blog. Thanks for visiting. I've got a lot of copy/pasting to do to get this thing up and running, so bear with me while we're under construction. :) Check back soon for new posts and whatnot! Just make sure you're in a comfortable chair, these things get windy!

California Love

I remember reading in the bathroom reader that 90% of the time, the first stall in a public restroom (meaning the one closest to the door) is the stall that is least often used (they also state that 80% of statistics are made up on the spot, so make of that what you will), and therefore usually the cleanest.  I’ve used a lot of public bathrooms in a lot of different states and cities, and I’ve found this little tid-bit of information to be mostly true.  Yes, from time to time the first stall is the bearer of a turd left behind or a dribble of urine on the seat, but for the most part there are very few surprises, and the first stall is almost always open.  

So Simon and I have decided to put a ring on it.  On both of us, actually.  And no, we’re not engaged and there’s no wedding in sight.  Marriage to us is two people making a serious commitment to each other, and we don’t really feel the need to declare that commitment before the government and/or the church.  So there you go.  People have thrown out the term “promise rings” for individuals who wear rings on their left ring fingers who are not “officially” married, as if it’s something negative and reserved only for lovesick teenagers.  Isn’t a wedding ring basically a promise ring?  A token of a promise to love, honor, cherish, etc, all the days of his/her life?  And perhaps it’s more than that...it’s a declaration of tolerance for one’s shopping habits, acceptance of hoodie obsessions and spider fascinations.  It’s the embracing of gassy dogs and bearded, gun-toting, overall clad, right wing in-laws.  It’s the attempts at spending holidays with two different families who live 5 hours apart, and the car rides to get there.  It’s traveling across the country together with 3 dogs and a trailer, and never turning the radio on because there’s always something to talk about.  It’s the knowledge of a favorite movie, a favorite song, and a favorite food.  It’s sitting next to each other for hours at a time to watch 6 episodes Modern Family.  It’s about being a good sport about winter activities, and exercising against one’s will just so the other won’t have to do it alone.  It’s a promise to stick together during good times and bad, long car rides and short ones, garlic breath and bad gas.  I guess that’s what marriage is to us.  And just to be clear, we don’t begrudge people who get married in churches or in front of a judge, it’s just not important for us.  We don’t have the rings yet, but we have them picked out.  Call us hippies if you must, but the rings are made from recycled silver and fair-traded gemstones.  That’s something that was important to both of us as a couple.  We got our ring fingers measured yesterday, and it was kind of surreal.  As we were leaving the jewelry department (we got measured at Macy’s rather than Tiffany & Co so we wouldn’t feel obligated to make an effort to look interested in anything they had to offer), I grabbed Simon’s hand and giggled and said (rather loudly, of course, since I only have one volume most of the time), “We’re getting married!!” 

Being in California where it’s sunny 99% of the time, there are a lot of motorcyclists here...all kinds, from sport bikes to crotch rockets to cruisers.  And you know, I usually reserve a decent amount of disdain for people who ride crotch rockets, but not here.  Crotch rocket riders out here just blend in with everyone else...they’re not tearing around corners as fast they can go, they don’t pop wheelies and they don’t gun their engines to see how quickly they can make it from one red light to the next.  I barely even notice them.  Like everyone else in Palo Alto, they just do their thing and don’t draw attention to themselves.  I will have to say though, when we’re sitting in traffic and a motorcycle flies by whilst riding the white lines (that’s legal here...or maybe it’s not enforced to not do it), it always catches me by surprise.  There are enough bad drivers out here that I wouldn’t trust them enough to scoot between them while going 60 miles an hour.

Which brings me to the drivers.  Oy.  There are some terrible drivers here.  Simon penned it perfectly when he said that drivers out here can’t just drive.  They have to be doing something else while driving.  9 times out of 10 (statistic made up on the spot) when someone is driving like an idiot, they’re either on their phone (illegal in California) or they are looking down at something in their laps, most likely a phone.  We passed a guy the other day who was holding onto the steering wheel with his left hand, holding his phone like a platter in the right hand (weird) and was reaching across his body with his left hand to shift gears.  Yes, he was driving a manual with one hand, and not with the hand closest to the stick.  Now, I had a one-armed teacher in high school that drove a stick shift...why, I have no idea, but he at least had an excuse to be driving with one hand (he also used to balance a cup of coffee on his stump, but those are stories for another time).  These idiots out here?  No excuse.  Just tonight we saw a guy driving with a paperback novel in one hand, and he would open the book to read at each red light.  Really?  How much of the story can one really absorb while looking up every 2 seconds to check to see if the light has changed?  And then not put the book down when he began driving again.  I can’t think of any book that would be that good of a read to rationalize that sort of behavior.  And I almost have to wonder...do bad drivers know that they're bad drivers?  I think I'm a decent driver, but do the people with whom I share the road think I'm a good driver?  A good buddy of mine has an elderly grandmother who maintains that she is a good driver because she never gets in accidents.  He says the only reason she feels this way is because she never looks in her rearview mirror to observe the mayhem left in her wake.  This is a woman who will swerve into oncoming traffic after getting the car washed to avoid a puddle.  I don’t know if it was being in Minnesota recently or what, but I’ve been much more honky than usual since returning from my trip home.  I honked twice yesterday and once today, and that was with restraint.  I could probably honk at idiot drivers every time I leave the house if I wanted to, and that includes while on foot.  Perhaps I should take some lessons from the one-handed drivers out here and drive with one hand on the wheel, and one hand firmly on the horn.

So there’s this photo website that I’ve been using in the last few months, and it’s a site with the intention of having pictures of every place on earth posted by people that have actually been there.  Being a newcomer to the vast world of photography, I was really intimidated by some of the photos on this site.  Obviously, all photographers start out somewhere, and even professional level photographers have pictures in the archives that are a little under exposed and a little out of focus.  What I liked about this site is that it posts the details of the photo itself...the shutter speed used, the aperture settings, the light sensitivity, even the type of camera that the images where shot with.  So I posted a few pictures on there, mostly from my travels from the last couple years.  What’s a little confusing to me about this site is that there’s a rating system for the photos, and users can look at other people’s pictures and give the photo either a thumbs up or a thumbs down.  I get the thumbs up.  I don’t get the thumbs down.  Well, that’s not true...I get that there are photos out there that people aren’t going to like for whatever reason, but I feel that on a site that has some sort of artistic feel to it, a thumbs down is counter-productive to creativity.  If the person giving the thumbs down had to give a reason why they were giving the thumbs down, then that would at least be constructive.  Case in point, I posted a picture that I took while on the beach when I was in the Bahamas.  The photo is of a Bahamian beer sitting in the sand, with a few beach bodies and the light blue ocean fading away into the background.  At last check this photo had a rating of -10.  Why, I can’t tell you, since users aren’t required to document their disdain.  Oh, and the rating only gives a cumulative score, which means that I probably had more than 10 thumbs down, because the photo itself initially had a positive rating, but there’s no way to see how many positives it had before taking a nose drive into the red zone.  Was the composition of the photo bad?  Was the subject matter offensive?  Were there some “landscape purists” out there that took offense to me including a beer can in my photo?  Did people feel that it was an unfair portrait of Bahamian culture?  I may never know.  Another photo that I posted was of a sailboat marina in San Francisco, also with a -10 rating.  Honestly, what is so offensive about sailboats?  After  these negative ratings on my own photos, I took to the site to see if there were any other photos that had negative ratings, because surely, mine couldn’t be the only ones.  I found one other photo with a negative rating.  One.  Granted, I didn’t sift through the thousands of photos on the site, but talk about discouraging.

You know, I was thinking the other day about how much I hate poop.  And I know, I talk about poop all the time and I have a vast library of poop stories, but in reality, I really don’t like it.  I loathe it, in fact.  Every day when I take the dogs out and I have to pick up their turds, I’m disgusted.  Simon is still perplexed how after over 10 years of dog ownership, I can still exclaim “this poop stinks!” every time I clean up after them.  As if I was expecting a different result or something.  My pugs literally just got done with a diarrhea episode that lated for 3 weeks.  I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered euthanasia as an end to the problem.  And I hate pooping.  Sure, nothing feels better than an extended sitting session when you’re uncomfortable, but the whole process from beginning to end is just gross.  And I would like to take issue with the obvious design flaw that placed our most intimate body parts right in the thick of our most disgusting ones.  Seriously.  Did it all have to go right there?  It’s as if all the orifices had to be grouped together or something.  When I’m at work and have to clean up someone’s poo, it’s not as big of a deal.  It’s part of the job, much like a waitress refilling your water glass at a restaurant.  It’s expected of me, I deal with it, and I move on (granted, some blow-outs are way more gross than others).  But poop in my personal space, I just don’t like that at all.

Yesterday as Simon and I were returning home from work, we parked in front of our neighbor’s apartment, and I pointed out to Simon that the man in there was not wearing a shirt.  Simon was quick to chime in, “and also no pants.”  Sure enough, there he was in only his underwear, feeding his kids breakfast.  Ah, the perils of a ground floor apartment.  And this man’s blinds are always open.  Apparently the risks of being seen in one’s skivvies do not outweigh the benefits of being free to wander around one’s apartment in one’s skivvies.

For our trip home to Minnesota over Labor Day weekend, we boarded the dogs at a private residence rather than a kennel, which is what we usually end up doing.  It was quite the process.  First I had to have a conversation with the woman running the operation so she could get a feel for me as a person.  Then we had to have a “meet-and-greet” at her house so she could get a feel for the dogs.  After passing those two things, we had to have a full day of doggie day-care so she could get a feel for how they would behave when I, their favorite person, am not around.  Against all odds, they were accepted.  I really had no worries about Lady, since she just goes with the flow and keeps to herself, but the pugs are another matter.  Brie is getting up there in years, can’t see very well, and is very defensive.  Cooper feels the need to control whatever situation he’s in and will attack any dog who gets in his way, regardless of size.  I saw him knock over a malamute at the dog park once, not necessarily by the strength of the launch, but I think mostly by the element of surprise.  There is no reason that a 100 pound dog would expect a 20 pound smash-faced borderline retarded pug to morph into torpedo mode and launch himself with all his might.  I certainly wasn’t expecting that.  So I had misgivings about how they would behave around a couple of strangers and a house full of dogs they didn’t know.  Turns out they did all right.  Until the last day when Brie was starting fights.  Apparently she had had enough of the butt sniffing and whatnot.  Really, I don’t understand how dogs can sniff butts so often and for so long.  Mine still sniff each other’s butts and they’ve been living together for years.  Isn’t there a “been there, done that” thing that should kick in after a while?  But no, there’s a daily sniffing, usually multiple times.  So where I was going with this whole train of thought...at the end of the boarding, the man who assists with the boarding said that he would be more than happy to take Lady off our hands if it were ever our intention to get rid of her.  I basically told him to get in line.  Everyone wants Lady.  I’ve had multiple people tell me that if things ever don’t work out with her, they’ll take her in a heartbeat.  She’s sweet, she’s quiet, she’s smart, and she’s extremely loyal.  No one ever wants the pugs.  I was told that they had to sleep in the kitchen while they were being boarded because they snore too much.  Welcome to my life.

I don’t know if it’s just my personality, or if I just encounter things that I feel should be changed, but I feel this intrinsic need to always be fixing things.  I use that an excuse for why I dated such messed up men for so long.  One in particular who told me after dating for a month that he wanted to marry me...I told him to 1) get a job, 2) get a checking account, and 3) get a credit card before I would even consider such a silly idea.  I didn’t feel that these were outlandish things to ask of a 24 year-old man.  Unfortunately I had to let him go after 6 months because he had accomplished exactly none of those things.  He preferred to be paid in cash from the family business whenever he felt like it, and to sit on my couch and eat all my food while I was at work, which resulted in an empty pantry and a boyfriend who was 30 pounds heavier at break-up than he was when we met.  Did I ever try to straighten him out though.  I really gave it my best shot, and in the end decided that some things just can’t be fixed, and it’s really not my place to fix them to begin with.  I couldn’t see the logic in spending not only the rest of my life, but another day with someone who just couldn’t take responsibility for himself.  So here I am at a hospital that has staffing policies that I just don’t agree with (i.e., they need to be “fixed”).  And this isn’t the first hospital...I’ve made a stink at several different hospitals...usually with little or no outcome, but a stink was at least made.  After voicing concerns early in this particular assignment, one email to the manager and a meeting with said manager, very little has changed.  I recently received a mass email from one of the assistant managers about how our unit has the highest patient fall rate in the entire hospital.  I was offended and insulted and immediately responded once again with my staffing concerns.  As if we were standing by and letting the patients fall.  As if we were ignoring them.  Honestly, I’m tired of hearing about it, and I’m tired of taking the implied blame for it.  When a hospital unit is under-staffed, what do they think is going to happen?  Good patient outcomes?  I think not.  I sometimes wonder why I even bother.  As a travel nurse, it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.  On one hand, I feel as though I can voice my concerns without fear of repercussion, mostly because I’m a temp and I don’t have to worry about long-term negative outcomes because my time in one place is limited.  The idea of getting fired doesn’t scare me; I’ll just get a job somewhere else.  And really, if I’m going to get fired for raising legit concerns about patient safety, then maybe that’s a place I don’t want to work in the first place.  In the same vein, I feel as though being a temp puts me at a disadvantage for being taken seriously.  Travel nurses who voice concerns are often branded as “difficult” or “complainers.”  I know some travel nurses have the thought that it’s best to just weather the storm, don’t make waves, you can deal with anything for 13 weeks, and move on when the contract is up.  I wish I could do that, but I just can’t.  A job isn’t just a job for me.  I care about the patients, and I care about my coworkers.  I care about my work environment, because limited time or not, I still have to work there.  I don’t like being taken advantage of any more than the permanent staff does.  Some of my nurse friends and I joke about going all Patch Adams and making our own hospital...hahaha!  And I know that there are so many factors that influence the way a hospital is staffed, factors that I’m not even aware of.  I know that medical units (which I work on most frequently) tend to actually lose money for hospitals (lack of insurance, high volume of medicare/medicaid) and therefore have smaller budgets than other units that generate revenue.  I don’t know why the other units can’t just share the wealth, we are one hospital system, after all.  I only see it from one side.  And it’s because of this limited view that I don’t have any answers for how to solve the problems, I just have the means to complain about them.

So it turns out Ol‘ Pink (my cell phone) isn’t dead after all.  It just needed a new battery.  It’s alive!!  I know I said in an earlier blog that I would make the transition to the iphone when my current phone no longer worked, and I was almost there.  I really was.  And then my cousin’s boyfriend alerted me to the fact that my phone’s issue didn’t appear to be mechanical, that it sounded as though it just needed a new battery.  Why didn’t I think of that?  I should consider myself lucky for having gotten 5 years out of the original battery, and maybe 5 years of good battery life was the reason I didn’t even think of it when things started going wonky.  For $6 and free shipping I got myself a new battery off ebay and Ol‘ Pink is up and running once again.  I do want the iphone, and I’m sure within a year I’ll have one.  I’m just putting it off as long as I possibly can.  It seems silly, kind of like how I put off getting a GPS for so long, and now I can’t imagine going to a new city without it.  I just don’t want to become one of those people who and play with the phone all the time.

Which brings me a huge beef (there’s always at least one).  Simon and I recently went to an outdoor concert in a fabulous venue in Berkeley.  I love outdoor concerts.  So we’re watching the show, and I couldn’t help but notice all the little glowing cell phone screens everywhere.  The woman seated directly in front of us was actually playing some sort of scrabble game on her phone throughout the show.  The man she was with frequently leaned over to watch.  Okay, so is someone playing scrabble on a 4 inch screen really all that interesting, and is it really more interesting than a concert being played by talented musicians?  And if this is how they spend their time at a concert, what do they do when there is really nothing to do?  Probably the same thing.  I just don’t get it.  Other people’s behavior with their smart phones has been the biggest deterrent to getting one myself, because I don’t want to turn into one of them.  I know that smart phones keep the world at your fingertips 24 hours a day, but is 24 hours a day really necessary?  And then I wonder why I even care...someone playing on their phone throughout an entire concert doesn’t affect or harm me in any way, so really, what’s my big beef?  I guess I just think it’s sad.  It’s sad that people can’t take a couple hours of their time away from their phones to sit and just listen to some good music.  And mostly, I think it’s rude.  People that play with their cell phones in the company of others are basically saying that the people on the other end of the phone are more important than their current company.  It’s like the internet is providing social ADHD.  Multi-tasking and social networking have completely ruined the idea of doing one thing at a time.  I hope none of you are reading this while driving...or while doing any other activity that might involve machinery, another person or animal, etc. 

Anyway, that’s enough nagging/ranting/complaining/announcing from me for one sitting.  Brie has gas (again) and I need to move away from her.  Ick.  If she were wearing pants, I would seriously question if she had pooped them.     

The Golden State indeed

So, I’ve come to understand that there are a few unrealized goals in my life.  Recurring unrealized goals.  Two in particular that just keep coming ‘round to whack me in either the gut or the wallet.  The two goals in question: I will stop eating Doritos (fail) and I will stop shopping (fail).  With the Doritos I suffer from temporary lapses in judgement, which is better than it used to be.  I can go weeks without them and not miss a beat.  And then I fall off the wagon and eat half a bag in one sitting.  But I’ve been worse.  And let’s be honest.  Stop shopping?  That’s pretty much impossible.  Without shopping I would not be able to eat.  However, if I were to stop shopping at places that provided no food-stuffs whatsoever, that would probably help.  Over the years, the “I will stop shopping” goal has been modified countless number of times, including (but not limited to): I will stop shopping for things I can’t eat (fail), I will start shopping less (depends on your concept of less, but ultimately, fail), I will stop online shopping (fail), I will stop going to the mall (I’m actually really, really good at this one and would consider it a success, but only because online shopping has taken its place), I will stop online shopping (repeat goal, repeat fail), I will not buy any more shoes (fail), I will not buy any more dresses (mostly fail...since my roommate Ellen is no longer around and I live in a cooler climate, the drive to get dresses has significantly diminished, if not disappeared entirely...however, I will be moving back to Florida again for 6 months where it is warm, I will be living with Ellen again, and the drive to wear dresses will predictably increase).  And on it goes.  So today, with all of you as my witnesses, I’m going to try to stop shopping again.  And here is the catalyst: I’ve been living in California for over 2 months now.  I have been working the entire time and have received 5 paychecks, the most recent of which is today.  I have put money in my savings account exactly one time, and have otherwise been basically living paycheck to paycheck.  This is not good.  This is very poor, in fact, considering that I’m making almost as much money as I was in Florida, and while in Florida, I was able to bring my savings account from nearly zero to five figures in only 4 months.  And all of that was in the thick of living with Ellen and buying dresses and going to Target a minimum of twice of week for random things that I didn’t need.  I thought that being out here with just Simon would make me spend less, not more, especially since the Targets out here leave quite a bit to be desired.  Couple things to contribute...California is much more expensive than Florida.  It doesn’t matter what we do, where we go, or what we buy, we pay more here.  Depending on where we’re buying, the tax on said items is anywhere from 8.5 to almost 10 percent.  So there’s that.  We’re taking two big trips while we’re out here which require plane tickets, car rental, dog boarding, and any expenses we have while we’re traveling.  I cover all of the dog boarding myself since they’re my dogs.  I don’t expect Simon to help me pay for them.  So there’s that.  And outside of those expenses, the rest of it is just me.  I happened upon this clothing store called Lululemon, and I’m in love with everything they make.  Unfortunately everything they make is ridiculously expensive.  New goal: No more shopping at Lululemon...with one exception (of course).  If the Sing, Floss, Travel Jacket comes out in any color other than black, I will buy it.  Hands down, this hoodie rocks my world.  It is the best hoodie ever made (in my opinion), and I would not feel bad owning more than one.  Well, I already have two, so I should say I would not feel bad owning more than two.  I’m holding out for red, but they don’t seem to make red, so I guess I’ll be waiting a while.  Which is all right.  Good, got that out of the way.  More goals: No more shoes.  No more dresses.  No more dog toys (they have enough).  No more fancy dog treats (they don’t appreciate them and most of those treats give the pugs diarrhea...dealing with that right now, in fact).  No more grocery shopping for perishables until we eat what we have (I‘m kind of a grocery nut...I get these ideas of all these things I want to make, buy the supplies, and then go out to eat instead because I’m too lazy to cook).  Decrease going out to eat.  That ought to be a good start.

Interestingly enough, I’ve been able to narrow down these shopping behaviors of mine to a psychology, of sorts.  I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a hoarder, and I don’t think the term collector quite applies.  What I do (and what I’ve been doing) is preparing.  For what, I don‘t know, but I don’t want to ever be caught unprepared.  If that means having a pantry stocked with 8 different kinds of pastas and a closet full of multiple pairs of jeans that are the same style and color, just to be sure that when the time arrives for me to be decked out in a pair of my favorite jeans whilst preparing any manner of pasta, I’ll be ready.  I get attached to things too.  I’m very picky about what I wear and what I eat and I am resistant to change.  I have a sense of unrest knowing that all the things that I like the most will someday cease to exist, meaning (obviously) that I should buy as much of them as possible while they’re here.  It’s knowing when I have enough that’s the problem.  It’s also the logistics of having enough (or any at all) that is also a complication.  If for some reason my favorite jeans are randomly destroyed, it gives me comfort to know that I have a back-up pair (or two).  The thought of the time and effort required in trying to find a new favorite pair of jeans is exhausting in its own right.  So yes, I latch on to things.  Is it healthy?  Probably not.  Is it logical?  In a way, I guess.  Can I help it?  I don’t know if I can help it, but I think being aware of it is the first step.  It’s taken me a long time and multiple trips to Goodwill (donating countless items of clothing all in the same style but in varying colors) to get to this point.  My girlfriends absolutely love my yearly closet purges because chances are good they’ll get a pair of pants or a pair of shoes that have never been worn, sometimes with the tags still attached.  Simon has been very good for me in this regard.  He lives on so little, and it’s inspiring and challenging to me to try to do the same.  Frequently moving across the country has also given me a reason to pull back on the shopping in multiples.  I physically cannot take it all with me, and therefore am forced to limit my favorites to a select few.  It’s all part of the process.  We all have our vices.  I should consider myself lucky that one of my biggest vices is having too much stuff...it could be worse.

In that same vein, I have come to the conclusion that I will no longer strive to keep up with the Jones’s of the fashion world.  I will leave all that to my less fashion-impaired friends.  For one, dressing in the latest trends is a lot of work.  It requires forethought (which I can’t be bothered with), it requires effort (those high-heeled boots aren’t going to break themselves in), it requires a certain amount of expense since the trends are always changing (although with constant change, the trends eventually come full circle, meaning every now and then, I’m in perfect style), it requires confidence (which I don’t have), and it requires a certain amount of discomfort (fashionable clothing is not as comfortable as a broken-in pair of jeans.  I refuse to sacrifice comfort for fashion).  Last summer almost all the high heels I had been collecting over the years got the boot.  All those blouses in my closet that restrict my movement in the slightest will be next.  The sun dresses, the jeans, the t-shirts, and the hoodies get to stay.  I’ve been wearing the same style since high school, what’s the point in fighting it now?  Being comfortable in what I’m wearing gives me confidence, and therefore I don’t spend the entire night wondering if I look all right in the latest fashion experiment.  I have more time to take part in what’s going around me.  I guess if I spend the rest of my life in comfy jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, I’m okay with that.  And that right there is why it’s so important that I have multiples of my favorite things!  Hahaha!!  :)

In an effort to combat our waistlines, Simon and I share meals when we go out to eat.  It’s something that we’ve always done, and I feel like it’s a big part of the reason why neither of us put on that “new relationship” weight when we first started dating.  Neither of us are very big eaters, and we’ve found that splitting a meal is more than enough food for the two of us (in most situations...we always get our own 5 Guys burgers).  It’s kind of funny the way it usually plays out.  Traditionally, the guy is the bigger eater.  And with Simon and I, that’s the case as well.  However, when we go out to eat, I’m always the one that orders the big meal with all the trimmings, and Simon orders the cup of soup.  Waiters are always baffled by this, always pausing after Simon orders his soup, waiting for him to order the rest of his meal.  When he just sits there and looks at them, they usually get flustered and respond, “that’s it?  That’s all you’re going to have?”  And when he says yes, they wander away as if insulted.  We make quite the pair...me ordering the big meal with all the stipulations and questions (no Cilantro, dressing on the side, is that sandwich warm, can I have tots instead of fries, are the crab cakes chunky, etc), Simon with his little cup of soup.  Sometimes I just order for the both of us while Simon sits there serenely and doesn’t say a word.  We get even stranger looks when we order that way.  They probably think he’s been browbeat to death by his big-eating ball-and-chain.  Part of the reason we order that way is because I’m picky about what I eat, and Simon is content to eat anything.  Rather than having him order and forget to ask that the meal come without cilantro, thereby leaving me to refuse to eat, it’s just easier for me to nitpick the order and look like the pig at the table.   

A former school-mate of mine recently passed away from a rare form of stomach cancer.  While I didn’t know him well, I knew him enough to be completely shocked by the whole thing.  He was only 34, three years older than me.  It’s incredibly sad and incredibly scary at the same time.  How much time does anyone really have?  I remember when I was a new nurse and all my patients were older than me.  They were all sick with one thing or another, but they were all older than me so I was “safe” from what ailed them.  Fast-forward 10 years and now I’m not younger than all my patients.  I’m older than some of them, in fact.  It’s true that illness can strike a person at any time and without reason, but there are certain diseases that follow a fairly predictable pattern.  I feel like I’m getting into the early age of the patterns, and it’s only going to get worse.  Not that I lose sleep over it (okay, maybe sometimes) but it gives me pause.  Am I doing everything I can to keep myself as healthy as possible?  Well, given my penchant for Doritos, I kind of have to say no.  I do try, but am I doing enough?  Does it even matter?  Is there any point to even worrying about it?  In light of all this, I’ve realized that it’s more important to be happy and to do the things you want to do, spend time with those you want to spend time with.  I get that there are financial and familial and work obligations, but what are we working for if not to have a little spending money and a little time to enjoy ourselves?  Take the early retirement, take the decreased work-week, take the weekend flight to visit friends and family out of town.  We only live once, and I’m not banking on an after-life to finally do all the fun stuff.  

The other day I added Gillian Michaels’ 30-day shred to my shopping cart on Amazon.  I haven’t purchased it yet, it’s just sitting there for consideration.  I know a few people that do it and really like it, and more importantly, have seen results.  I’m kind of excited to try it.  Simon is skeptical.  He’s done the video with his sister and he knows that it’s difficult.  Given my lack of athletic prowess, I told him that I could make it through at least the first 15 minutes.  He said the workout is only 20 minutes long, so 15 minutes would be impressive.  So I shortened my predicted length to 10 minutes.  I do not push, I do not endure...when the going gets tough, I just quit.  I have no problem with quitting.  This is why I don’t run marathons, or 10K, or even 5K.  This is why I don’t stick with an exercise regimen.  This is why I don’t have toned arms or a flat stomach.  Because I quit.  I like to go for long walks, and I like to paddle board.  I like to do circuit training, but I don’t have the equipment and I rarely take the time to do it.  I am a quitter.  I need to quit quitting.

On one of my first days at my new job here in California, someone asked me if I knew who Steve Jobs was.  I said that I did.  They then asked me if I knew what he looked like.  I did not.  I was then told that I should become familiar with what he looks like, because he lives right here in Palo Alto and that I will definitely be seeing him around.  So I Googled Steve Jobs.  Ah yes, a non-descript balding, bespectacled, middle-aged man in a black mock-neck turtleneck.  He ought to be easy to pick out in a crowd.  And if I did see him, what would I say to him, if anything?  I’m sure he would definitely not be interested in hearing about how much I love my MacBook, and the journey I’ve taken in switching from a PC to a Mac.  Odds are good I’ve probably already bumped elbows with him down on University Ave and didn’t even know it.  He doesn’t seem like the type to travel with an entourage.  And I’m so unobservant to begin with that I would probably have to have someone point him out to me.  That’s what’s so crazy about living out here.  I probably pass people on a daily basis that have contributed in some way to my life as I know it.  Whether it be the internet sites that I visit on a daily basis, or the computer I use to do it.  I’m surrounded by intelligent, creative people every single day, but they don’t draw attention to themselves.  They’re just doing their thing.  In their jeans and hooded sweatshirts.  I should probably just stay out here.  I already have the wardrobe, and as long as I don’t talk too much to give away my non-tech abilities, I’ll fit right in. 

A random observation from all the places that I’ve lived: there are Steelers fans everywhere.  Doesn’t matter where I go, there they are.  I can say with confidence that I have not noticed any other sports team with a following as widespread as the Steelers.  I have no explanation for it, nor do I find fault with it.  I just find it interesting.

So there’s this farmer’s market here in Palo Alto that is just delightful.  One of the best farmer’s markets I’ve ever been to.  In particular, there is this little Indian stand that serves traditional Indian food to the market-goers.  And I’m obsessed.  The chicken tikka masala is awesome.  Combined with some rice and wrapped in a fresh piece of naan, it’s the best.  So knowing that my time here is finite and that I will someday not be able to have this particular chicken tikka masala, I have it in my head that I need to learn how to make it myself (this all goes back to that thing about surrounding myself with my favorite things).  My friend Dave forewarned me that the reason Indian food is more expensive than you’d think isn’t because of the ingredients, it’s because you’re paying for the experience of the secret recipe, and that Indian people are the only ones who know how to make good Indian food.  He had tried and failed for 2 years to produce the perfect chicken tikka masala recipe, so I suppose he would know.  I am still undeterred at this point.  My first attempt at chicken tikka masala was a complete and utter failure.  Simon, to his credit, managed to eat almost all of it before finally giving up and tossing the rest away.  I ate two bites of it and would have nothing more to do with it.  I got my particular recipe off of an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay on the Food Network.  If you’re not familiar with the show, Bobby is a famous chef and goes around the country challenging other chef’s go-to recipes.  I elected to go with the recipe of his challenger.  It did not end well.  So I took to the internet to find a recipe that seemed similar to the stuff at the farmer’s market.  Apparently there is no “standard” recipe for chicken tikka masala, and the only constant ingredient from recipe to recipe happened to be chicken, some form of tomato, and some form of cream/yogurt.  I’m not quite ready to give up.  I think I know what direction I have to go, and that’s to start out with a tomato cream sauce and add spice as I go.  That’s the plan.      

It’s hard to get a good haircut these days.  Based on some positive reviews of a salon near my apartment, I recently subjected myself to a haircut.  And let me tell you, 6 months of growing out a too-short haircut was completely negated in 20 minutes by a little Asian woman and a pair of scissors.  It was horrific.  I even brought in a picture of the hairstyle that I wanted, which was not all that different from what I already had, but a little bit shorter and with a few more layers.  Instead my naturally thick, voluminous hair was reduced to a style reminiscent of a swimming cap with a tail.  I kid you not.  For a while there, it actually looked like a mullet.  What little bits of my hair that are left can almost be pulled into a ponytail that has the same diameter as my index finger.  I have skinny fingers.  After the haircut she made the comment, “You have a lot of hair!”  It took a lot of restraint for me not to say, “You mean I USED to have a lot of hair!”  I don‘t know where everything went wrong.  Was it the language barrier?  Did the woman even look at the picture I brought?  When I said I didn’t want bangs, did that translate to her as me wanting bangs?  It’s a week post-shearing and I’ve made my peace with the bangs, although I wish there were less of them.  The rest of my head...well...that’s a bit of a wash, and there’s nothing to be done about it at present.  Just grow it out for another 6 months and hope that the next cut doesn’t end so disastrously.    

I was talking to Simon recently about how people are wary of my dogs because they think the pugs are growling all the time.  I said I thought it was weird that people thought that, because I feel that there is definitely a difference between grunting and growling, and I feel like even if you’re not overly familiar with dogs, the difference should be apparent.  What he pointed out to me is that most dogs don’t grunt.  In fact, there are very few dogs that grunt on a regular basis, and to someone that’s not familiar with dogs, a grunt is not a bark or a whine, so therefore it must be a growl.  I had never thought of it that way.  As I sit here and type this and hear the pugs snoring and grunting away on their dog bed behind me, I guess it would be weird to hear all that noise coming from a dog when you don’t expect it.

And that’s it.  

    

                  

News from the West Coast

So the adjustment period here in Palo Alto is ongoing.  I’m starting to realize that the yellow lights here in traffic are very short.  Probably because the speed limits here are usually 25 mph.  That’s right, 25 mph.  People don’t usually go that slow, but they do tend to stay right around 30 mph, which definitely took some getting used to after being in Florida where everyone drives upwards of 50 and the yellow lights seem to last a minute.  And even with the long yellow lights, there were always about 3-4 cars that ran the red.  There are signs posted at a lot of the intersections in Palo Alto describing the sorts of fines a person will get for running red lights.  Usually right around $300 or so.  Needless to say, I really don’t see all that many people running red lights.  Except for me, because I think I have more time with the yellow than I actually do.  I ran two red lights in one outing the other day.  Hopefully no tickets show up in the mail.  Another adjustment has been the layout of Palo Alto.  It’s mostly like a grid, but it’s situated at an angle, so all the streets run NW, SE, etc.  It’s been really hard to get my bearings.  I’m starting to remember where things are, but as far as whether they are north, south, or otherwise from me, I usually have no idea.  It’s easier to just point.  Sometimes I’ll say north when I really mean east, but Simon’s starting to get my backwards speaking, so he knows what I mean.

There are a lot of intelligent people out here in Palo Alto.  Just the other day Simon and I were sitting in a coffee shop, and we heard the barista talking to a patron, saying that Google is going to get in trouble with some anti-trust something or other.  And I thought to myself, “what’s anti-trust mean?”  Sounds bad, whatever it is.  She then goes on to say, “It’s like Microsoft 1999 all over again.”  What in the world happened at Microsoft in 1999?  People out here are just on a whole ‘nother level, and they’re difficult to spot because they look like everyone else.  I guess that’s probably how it is with smart people though, they don’t really stand out when they’re just out and about...until you hear them talk.

I have recently determined that the only cuisine that has not yet been tainted by that evil weed cilantro is mediterranean food.  If I stick with mediterranean, I think I’ll be all right.  Everything else I have to ask, and I hate asking because people always look at me like I’m nuts.  I don’t get it.  If someone says they don’t like tomatoes, I don’t look at them like they’re crazy (I do make fun of my brother for not liking onions, but that’s because he’s my brother, and it’s not a taste thing with him, it’s a texture thing, which is weird).  Simon says it’s because most people don’t even know they’re eating cilantro, so they think it’s a really obscure taste to isolate and despise.  Most people probably just think it’s parsley.

Simon and I have been exclusively riding the bikes and the scooter around town here.  The last time I took the Jeep out was to buy dog food, which would be almost impossible to transport on a two-wheeled vehicle.  My confidence on the scooter is getting much, much better.  I only took the scooter out one time while we were in Florida, and that one outing was enough to convince me that I will never scoot in Florida again.  My confidence is one setback, the Florida drivers are another.  It’s not good to ride around in a constant panic, absolutely certain that someone it going to run me over.  But here in Palo Alto the drivers are much more observant and considerate.  And they’re not pushing 90 years old and can see over the steering wheel.  I’m getting better with the biking.  So far there have been no issues outside of my confidence issues.  There are so many bikers here, and there are bike lanes everywhere.  It helps too that the speed limits are so slow, so when you’re riding in traffic, people aren’t blowing by you at 50 mph.  Considering that Palo Alto is so bike friendly, I’m irritated by the number of people that ride bike on the sidewalk.  Simon had trained this dirty habit out of me a while ago, and now I’m annoyed by it.  In Florida, yes, I will ride bike on the sidewalk because riding in traffic would certainly get me killed.  But here, where there are wide bike lanes and sensors at traffic lights to detect if a person is on a bicycle waiting to cross the intersection, there is no excuse for bikers to be on the sidewalk.  And if they do insist on riding on the sidewalk, then perhaps they should invest in a dinger of some sort.  I got buzzed on the sidewalk by a girl on a bike just the other day as I was walking home from somewhere (the bike lane was a mere 3 feet to my immediate left).  I seriously wanted to pop her on her helmet and berate her for being inconsiderate.  First of all, I sometimes flap my arms when I walk, particularly if I’m telling a story, especially one where I am excited or incredulous.  I will not be held responsible for punching a bicyclist when am mid-story if they are on the sidewalk.  And is it so hard to shout out a courtesy “on your left” if you’re going to pass a pedestrian on the sidewalk?  Or at the very least ride in the boulevard until they’re past me?  Pretty sure mountain bike tires can handle a little grass.  Just sayin.’

So now that Simon and I are living in a one-bedroom apartment, we’re adjusting to life in a smaller space.  Particularly in sharing one bathroom.  It’s inevitable that when one of us needs to use the bathroom, the other one is already in there...most likely taking a poop.  Why is it that the pooper is always the one in the bathroom?  I feel like I am very infrequently the pooper waiting outside the bathroom.

We’re also paying for internet for the first time in years.  I haven’t paid for it since 2006 when I worked in Arizona.  I don’t know when the last time it was that Simon paid for internet...possibly never since he’s never owned a computer.  It’s nice to not have to steal, and this definitely cuts back on our expenses at the Starbucks across the street.  And yes, we did try to tally it up to see if going to Starbucks multiple times a week would be cheaper than buying internet.  It wasn’t.

The noise level in the complex is a bit more than we’re used to, but we’re used to living around the elderly, who are mostly quiet and tend to call the cops on the noisy people.  Our apartment faces the pool, and we hear all manner of screaming at all hours of the day.  I don’t understand the screaming.  And it’s not just children that are screaming, there are adults that get in their fair share of screaming, yelling, squealing, and loud grunting.  Sometimes even roaring.  What is going on out there?  Sometimes it sounds like we’re under attack.  Add into that the daily 5am chorus of crows and squirrels, and it makes for a fair amount of noise.  Simon wants to get a slingshot to shoot at the crows.  They’re not the pleasant sounding fishing crows that we used to hear in Florida, who sound like they’re always saying “uh oh,” but the awful maniacal cawing ones that you hear in Minnesota when they’re flocking around harassing some other bird.  We also live across the way from an aspiring flautist, clarinetist, and trumpeter.  I don’t think it’s all the same child.  They’re not too bad.  We just heard a flute rendition of the song “Dynamite.”  I throw my hands up in the air sometimes...

There are also a fair amount of dogs at our complex, but I rarely see or hear them.  Our neighbor has a giant chocolate lab, and he’s pretty much the only dog we ever hear barking.  And Simon noticed something that I probably never would have noticed in my entire life.  He is aware of the fact that dogs react to the jingle of other dogs‘ collars.  I always thought it was somewhat neurotic that he used to rubber band my dogs‘ dog tags so they wouldn’t jingle.  I thought he just couldn’t stand the noise, which is partially true, but he also does it so that other dogs won’t hear my dogs wandering around.  At first I thought he was crazy, but then I started to notice the way my dogs react to hearing other dogs jingle.  It usually causes an otherwise calm situation to escalate into mayhem.  How strange that I never figured that out.

Taxes are really high here.  Palo Alto sales tax is 9.25%.  Gag!  Given my affinity for online shopping, it might almost be cheaper to get free shipping and no tax to my parents’ house and have them flat rate me my stuff, rather than pay the sales tax to have it shipped here.  Not that I’ll actually do that, but it has crossed my mind.  In talking with residents here, everything is expensive.    

Everywhere we live, I usually find some sort of fashion obsession. In Vermont it was Frye boots, JCrew, and the Gap.  In Winston-Salem it was skirts from Hollister and tank tops from Target.  In LaCrosse it was Express.  In Florida it was dresses from Target.  In Colorado it was Keen shoes.  You get the idea.  Here in Palo Alto, it’s Lululemon, which is yoga-inspired athletic wear.  Now, anyone reading this knows that I’m in no way athletic.  In fact, I biked up a gradual hill yesterday and thought I was going to barf all over my bike.  Simon explained to me that what we had just biked does in no way represent a real hill, but I still thought I was going to barf just the same.  So yes, I am not athletic.  But athletic clothing is comfortable.  And Lululemon athletic clothing is also aesthetically pleasing and flattering to the female form.  So that’s my obsession out here.  Unfortunately (aside from the Frye boots) it’s also a very expensive obsession.  I have my cousin Keri to blame for it, since she bought me my first Lululemon jacket, which I absolutely love and wear everyday.  The thing I love most about their jackets and long-sleeved shirts is that they have thumbholes in the cuffs to keep the sleeves down.  I’m now obsessed with thumbholes.  That sounds dirty.  I don’t mean it to be.  I really do like having the thumbholes to keep my sleeves down.  It keeps my arms warm, which is nice here because it gets cold at night, and sometimes during the day.

So we have come to realize that with all the trouble we went to to find an apartment that would accommodate our paddle boards, it appears that we might not be able to use them at all while we’re here.  For one, the Pacific is really cold.  We will probably need wetsuits, which are not cheap.  The idea of getting a used one is disturbing to me because I’ve heard that people pee in their wetsuits to keep warm.  I don‘t want a wetsuit that someone else has peed in.  And I doubt anyone is going to own up to peeing in their wetsuit when they’re trying to sell it.  So there’s that.  Then there are the rip currents.  Don’t really want any part in that because I can’t swim very well.  I think the Pacific in general is a lot more rough than the Atlantic too.  I have no desire to learn how to surf my paddle board.  Simon said that he would give it a try, and he’s welcome to.  I will be watching safely from shore.  I don’t know if we can paddle board in the San Francisco Bay or not.  It doesn’t seem like it, and I remember hearing a long time ago that there are great white sharks in the San Francisco Bay.  Again, that might not be true, but am I willing to take the chance?  No.    

Columbo died.  That makes me sad.  My mom used to love that show.  She probably still does, it‘s just that there aren’t new episodes anymore.  Now there probably never will be.

In the course of my nursing career, I have had the opportunity to care for multiple patients that have been the victims of cat bites.  All these bites have come at the mouths of their own pets, and the infections are usually pretty severe. When asked about the situation surrounding the bite, the answer is always the same: “Well, she likes to petted until she doesn’t.  Then she bites.”  It takes all the restraint I have in this body of mine not to berate them for keeping an animal in their home that bites them.  And bites them repeatedly, I might add, as the bite that gets them hospitalized is not normally the first bite, nor will it be the last since most of these cat owners dismiss the biting as mere “normal” cat behavior and will keep the offending animal until it inevitably passes away.  I would like to point out that some of these cat bite infections have been so severe that they required amputation of the digit that was bitten.  And still they plan on keeping the cat.  I would never tolerate an animal in my home that bites me, and I don’t understand why anyone else would either.  For all you cat owners out there, I will never again touch your cat, for fear that it might be one those that “likes to be petted until she doesn’t,” because if your cat were ever to bite me, I would not be held responsible for snapping its neck right in front of you, and then I would make you pay for my hospitalization and possible amputation.

As gleefully as we’re adjusting to the city of Palo Alto, I wish we could say the same for the hospital.  I feel that the hospital staffing was misrepresented during our interview, and I feel like because of what I was told, I had really high expectations of what working at a hospital in California was going to be like, particularly one affiliated with an ivy league school.  California has mandated nurse-to-patient ratios to ensure safe patient care.  Which all sounds really good in theory.  What they don’t tell you is that in giving us these ratios, they take away our support staff.  On night shifts we don’t have nursing assistants, so that means that every pillow fluffing, every poop in the bed, every glass of water, every blood pressure reading, has to be attended to by me.  And I‘m not saying that I’m above doing any of those things, because whether or not I have a nursing assistant, I’m still the one held responsible for making sure that my patients are clean and comfortable...not to mention fed, medicated, bandaged, and any other care that they might require while they’re in the hospital.  I do feel that personal care is just as important as medical care.  If a person doesn’t feel clean, comfortable or well-rested, they’re not going to feel good no matter how much pain and nausea medication they’re getting.  It’s a whole body kind of thing, but whole body things can be time consuming, and with 5 patients by myself, whole body care is impossible.  It is.  It’s unrealistic for me to expect that I can provide adequate whole body care by myself to 5 sick patients in a 12-hour period...and to document it all besides.  It just doesn’t happen.  And why any hospital would think that is possible is beyond me.  Probably because their bean counters are telling them it’s possible.  And really, are they saving that much money?  I was told that a new nurse starting out here makes $54 an hour.  As a traveler, I don’t make even close to that...more than $20 less than that actually.  When compared with a nurse that has as much experience as I do, it’s probably more like $30 less, but that’s neither here nor there.  My point is, nursing assistants are paid less than registered nurses.  Wouldn’t it be more prudent to pay someone less to help out with the things that don’t require a college degree, rather than have a degreed person doing everything themselves?  Not that those patient care activities are a waste of my time, but it’s just not good utilization of my time or my expertise, especially when we’re dealing with really sick people that have a lot of pressing medical needs.  Maybe us travelers are their answer to “paying someone less” to do bedside care.  Maybe they should hire more of us since they’re getting us so cheap (according to a staffer we overheard talking to some new orientees).  Personally, it’s an outrage.  When family members get in my face about why this thing wasn’t done and why that thing wasn’t done and why the water pitcher was empty, my first reaction is to get defensive, because I truly am doing the best that I can with what I have to work with.  I have to prioritize, and frankly, water pitchers are kind of low on my list of priorities.  On the other hand, I know exactly where they’re coming from.  It’s hard to sit there in the bed as the patient, or at the bedside as a family member, and feel completely helpless and to feel like things aren’t being done the way you think they ought to be.  Patients and family members don’t care that I have other patients to take care of, and why should they?  This is their life, their health, their money.  They came to the hospital to get better, and they expect to get better.  Can I really fault them for that?  After hearing about how great it is to work out here, I find myself rather unimpressed.  They work their nurses to death out here, and they maintain that they gave the nurses exactly what they asked for when they asked for mandated patient ratios.  So when I think about all the negative press that the nurses and their union got in the Twin Cities last summer, particularly when the media focus was on money, I can’t help but be disgusted by the media and all those people that didn’t support the nurses.  I’d like to see what they have to say when they or their family members get sick and need to be hospitalized and they can have the hospital experience first-hand.  Healthcare is a serious issue, and despite hospitals claiming that the patient comes first, I frequently feel like the patient comes last, especially if they don’t have insurance.  That’s the reality of it.  Quite frankly, the longer I work in healthcare, the more disgusted I am by it.  I wish there was something else I was good at or liked to do, because I would consider a career change.  Don’t get me wrong, I love being a nurse and I love helping people, but I feel like I’m beating myself up against a wall.

Whoo!  Rant rant rant!  There’s my bit on healthcare.  I could go on for days about this, but at the risk of sounding like a harpy, I won’t.  Simon and I had initially planned on staying out here for about 5 months, which is 2 months longer than our current contract.  We’re not so sure about that now.  Maybe things will get better.  Maybe we’ll adjust.  I guess time will tell.  If we had to decide today if we would stay longer or not, we would not.  So that means I need to quit shopping.  Today is the day I will start buying only things I can eat.  I guess it’s a good thing I bought that new pair of shoes yesterday!  

Anyway, that’s all for now.  Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Florida to Minnesota to California

So I realized that I haven’t written in a while.  I’ve tried.  Really, I have.  The past few months have left me pretty uninspired to write, which is weird, because there was a lot going on.  I’ll quickly recap, and then get to the guts of some good, long-winded “Stef-style” writing.  Hold on to your butts!

I have this thing about internet research.  Doesn’t matter what I’m buying, I have to research it.  The days of impulse buying have come and gone for me...well, mostly.  I can still drop a hundred or two at the mall on a whim, but I’ve gotten better about that as well.  I guess I’ve realized that with my lifestyle and the limited space it requires at any given moment, I can’t have multiples of everything like I used to, and it’s better to buy things that are higher quality and will last through trip after trip across the country.  So in essence, I’m probably spending about the same, but I’m buying things that won’t need to be replaced as often.  The goal is to rid myself of things that need to be replaced.  If that ever happens, I’ll let you know.  There are times that the internet research gets a little out of hand though.  For instance, I researched for DAYS to find the perfect pet beds for my dogs (nevermind the fact that they were completely content to lie on a blanket on the floor).  To be honest, I thought that if I found them the perfect beds, it would keep them off the couches and the bed.  Sadly, it didn’t.  But all those days weren’t wasted, as I found some pet beds that come without any stuffing; the idea is that you stuff them with old bedding, pillows, clothing, etc.  So now rather than keeping something slightly ratty around just because it’s still somewhat useful, I just throw it in the pet bed.  Cuts down on trash, the whole thing is reusable and washable, and it’s thick and soft for the pups...they happen to be getting up there in years, so it’s nice to have something comfy for them.  Unfortunately, they still prefer the couches and human bed.

In the same breath about spending more on less things, I recently kicked my Aveda habit.  Yes, I know it’s sustainably grown and the ingredients are fair-traded...I understand all that, and I really support that business model.  I just don’t think my hair really cares if I’m using $20 shampoo or $2 shampoo...my bank account surely does though.  So now I’m back to using drugstore shampoo, and I really can’t tell the difference.  In all honesty, the drugstore brands lather more, and whether that’s a good, bad, or indifferent thing, I like lots of lather.  I feel like I’m cleaner, even if I might not be.  

There were some things going on with the government a few months back...something about a shut down.  No idea what that’s about.  I don’t know what was going on in Libya, and I vaguely remember seeing something on TV about Osama being killed (or was he?).  I’m out of the loop as to what’s going on here at home and abroad.  I kinda like it that way...gives me less things that are beyond my control to be angry about.  The last thing I remember seeing on the news was something about a spillway being opened in Louisiana, flooding out about 25,000 people to save the swampy dumpster that is New Orleans.  I think New Orleans and all of the Mississippi delta should just be returned to the river and be done with it.  Honestly.  I was so upset by that spillway stuff that I decided to quit watching the news.  And now I don’t have a TV, so I really have no choice in the matter.  I know that bad things are happening to good people everyday, all over the world...I don’t need some talking head from CBS to give me the gist of it.  The scope of badness is so big that I can’t even wrap my head around it, so I’ve given up trying.  Maybe that makes me irresponsible, selfish, and ignorant, I guess I don‘t really know.  

In March some friends and I went on a shortie cruise from Miami to the Bahamas.  I figured that the days of drunken nudity, peeing in random places, and sexual adventures with other people in the room were behind me.  Well...they’re not.  Or they weren’t then.  I honestly thought I was just too old for that behavior.  It’s kind of refreshing to know that I’m not.  It’s also kind of refreshing to know that that kind of behavior only happens once in a blue moon (thank goodness!).  Another great thing about the cruise (besides the fruity drinks) was that I didn’t get seasick.  Not once!  I get motion sickness just from riding in the back seat of a car...put me on a boat and it’s usually a recipe for profuse vomiting and Dramamine overdose.  Apparently being on a boat over 800 feet long is the key to a vomit-free vacation.  I did have an unfortunate seasickness episode about a month later when Simon and I went snorkeling in the Keys.  A lot of people questioned my logic in not taking Dramamine beforehand, as did I...a little bit.  For one, I was a little cocky about my motion sickness, given the success of the cruise.  For two, I’m not a strong swimmer, and even though Dramamine has a non-drowsy formula, it still makes me groggy, and I didn’t feel like being out in the ocean in 35 feet of water with fish and sharks everywhere was the greatest place to be groggy.  So I went in the water for about 10 minutes.  Got nauseated, got back on the boat and puked for the next 2 hours.  My friend Carmen told me to keep eating because if you’re going to puke, it feels better when you have something to puke up.  I thought she was nuts and figured the vomiting would stop once my stomach was empty.  It didn’t.  The nausea is independent of the stomach contents, and continues long after the stomach is empty.  And let me tell you, puking up undigested pieces of watermelon feels and tastes a whole lot better than violently heaving up small amounts of bile.  

During our last month in Florida, Ellen, Fred, Simon and I made the obligatory trek to Universal Studios.  What a nightmare.  Honestly, I was appalled by the place and will not be going back.  Ever.  I was under the impression that Universal Studios (US from here on out) was a theme park, a place to take the kiddos so they could go on rides.  I would have to say with almost complete certainty that the gift shops outnumbered the rides 6:1.  How fun is a gift shop?  And some of the rides actually exited into gift shops, offering all sorts of cheap trinkets for kids to scream about when they get off the rides.  Oh, and some rides had height restrictions.  But if you were with a child, you could go on them.  What’s up with that??  I wanted to throw a fit like a spoiled child because I was told I was too tall to go on the Jurassic Park pterodactyl ride, when there were clearly adults taller than me soaring over my head on it, the obligatory child sitting next to them squealing with delight.  I wanted to be squealing with delight, without having to have first pushed a child out of my uterus.  We also saw a few kids playing Nintendo DS while they were there.  One would think that a theme park would offer enough entertainment that the DS would be unnecessary.  Perhaps the kids got the memo that there really aren’t all that many rides at US...or that there is a 45 minute wait (at least!) for each ride.  Or maybe it’s because our society is rapidly disintegrating into a race of people that are in need of constant stimulation, where even a theme park isn’t enough entertainment (don’t get me started on that one, we’ll be here all day).  The food stands smelled like vomit, although no vomit was actually seen.  The only vomit that almost made an appearance was my own after riding one of the rides at Harry Potter.  Yes, I had 75 minutes of waiting in line and passing multiple signs warning riders with motion sickness not to ride.  But dammit, I was going on that ride.  And I did.  And had I eaten anything before going on the ride, I would have been wearing it afterwards.  Don’t get me wrong, the ride was amazing and so well done...I would recommend it to anyone.  I honestly think it would have been worth the vomit.  Despite the waiting in line, Harry Potter was pretty cool to see.  The lines for the gift shops were ridiculous, so unfortunately we didn’t make it in.  The butter beer and pumpkin juice were really gross...and expensive.  When you think about it, US is a well-oiled machine...you pay $80 to get in, $80 for the optional express-pass allowing you to sneak to the head of the lines for most of the rides (not even worth going on rides if you don’t have the pass...take it from me after getting out of lines multiple times...no Dr. Seuss ride is worth a 45 minute wait, I don’t care how fast it goes), gift shops galore, and food and drinks all over $6 a piece.  And you know, we only saw one screaming child the whole time we were there.  Simon and I were probably the surliest people in the whole park, which surprised me to no end.  How child after child endured line after line after line with no meltdown is beyond me, because I was mere seconds from meltdown multiple times that day.  One good thing that came out of going was the spotting of the elusive FUPA pack.  It’s a fanny pack worn in the front.  Most of the women and some of the men were wearing them at US.  Sometimes it was hard to tell if people were wearing FUPA packs or not...particularly if they were a bit girthy around the middle.

I love crunchy peanut butter.  I feel like crunchy peanut butter should be in a bigger jar but cost the same as creamy peanut butter because you go through it faster.  Those nuts take up a lot of space, and I didn’t take that into account when buying the smaller sized jar of it.  So now I have the big jar, and life is good.

So when I mentioned earlier about buying more expensive things but buying less of them, I didn’t really attach that logic to glasses.  While in Florida, I bought three more pair of glasses.  That puts the count up to 16 pairs of glasses.  Not all of them are in circulation, of course...my prescription has changed, I broke a pair, got tired of another, some are scratched, etc.  And really, Target’s in-store specials on glasses are just too good to pass up.  And really, I don’t accessorize any other way than with glasses and the occasional hat, so if I think about how much money I could be spending on jewelry and spend it on glasses instead, I’m probably still coming out ahead.  Right?  Maybe?  Let’s not think about that one for too long...

I bought a digital SLR camera off a buddy of mine who was upgrading, and after two classes and a lot of under/over exposed pictures, I think I’ve finally got the hang of it.  Mostly.  I’m not good with portraits of people during sunset.  I don’t know what it is, either they’re under-exposed or over-exposed.  I have a book titled Understanding Exposures that probably outlines exactly what to do with sunset portraits, but I have yet to flip through it.  I can see it right now on the coffee table, begging to be read.  I’ll get around to it one of these days.  I’m enjoying the camera a lot though.  It takes some really good pictures (when I have the settings right).  It’s nice to be able to fall back on a trusty point-and-shoot now and then though.

So that brings me to now.  Here I sit in Palo Alto, California, set to start my new job at Stanford this week.  I’m excited!  After a month of heartache over not getting a job in Boston, I finally came to grips with working in California.  I know, I know...as if California was such a horrible back-up.  I had really good reasons for wanting to go to Boston initially, and once I get set on something, I get a little obsessed with it (see internet research paragraph above).  After a lot of reassurance by Simon and my eternally patient recruiter, Michelle, I finally got it into my head that California would be great.  And so far it is.  Palo Alto is a beautiful city...it’s so green and there are blooming plants everywhere.  It’s been a bit of an adjustment for the old sinuses, but other than that, I’m really enjoying the scenery.  Simon and I begged and pleaded, cajoled and harassed to get the apartment that we wanted, which is only a short 3 mile commute to work.  We’ll probably be able to bike or scoot pretty much everyday to work, which is awesome.  We’ve never lived this close to work before.  The apartment and the complex itself is very small and quaint.  It was a bit of an adjustment going from a 3 bed/3 bath townhouse to a 1 bed/1 bath apartment with only 750 sq feet, but it’s cozy...and it’s a lot less to clean...for Simon.  I’m a picker-upper, he’s a cleaner.  One of the best features of the apartment is that it’s right across the street from a Starbucks.  I know.  I’m in heaven.  There’s also a Target and a Trader Joe’s within minutes of the apartment, so most of my creature comforts are within walking distance.  We tooled around downtown Palo Alto over the weekend and it’s such a neat area...lots of shops and restaurants and things to do and see.  The people watching is also pretty good.  I’ve noticed that a fair amount of women here wear yoga clothing when they’re out and about.  Other than that, people all look pretty different.  It’s easy to blend in and to wear whatever...I feel like no one would be surprised by anything anyone else happened to be wearing.  The houses around town are really cute and seem to be very kept up.  I happened across a real estate paper and found out that you pretty much can’t get a house in Palo Alto for under a million dollars.  I about soiled myself, because a lot of the homes don’t look like what I would expect a million dollar home to look like.  Even the townhouses and condos are above and beyond what I could ever hope to afford.  So the apartments are expensive, the houses are expensive...where do the people who work at Starbucks and Burger King live?  In a one-bedroom apartment with 8 other people?  Craziness, I tell you!  I’m also excited to work for what I hope is a top-notch health system.  After 6 months of disarray in Florida, it’ll be nice to work in a place that has all its ducks in a row.  I hope so anyway...probably shouldn’t be too eager to put Stanford on a pedestal until I actually get in there and experience it for myself. 

The drive to California was a LONG one, but we broke it up by taking a little detour through Phoenix to visit my brother Chris and his wife Darna, their current roommate Adam...and of course my little nephew Jett.  :)  He is the cutest, if I do say so myself.  He’s at a fun age where he’s crawling around and exploring.  He’s so smiley and happy...just an all-around fun little guy to be around.  He’s growing so fast!  I hate to miss all the milestones, and it’s sad to think that he’ll be walking and probably talking by the next time that I see him.  Well, it’s not sad...it’s great that he’ll be doing those things, just sad that I won’t be around to see him going through all those changes from baby to toddler and whatnot.  I took some photos during our trip, and as soon as I have consistent internet (our neighbors are too smart to have unsecured internet access for us to steal), I’ll put ‘em up!

Missing out on things has got to be one of the hardest parts of this job.  I know that it’s fun and I get to see a lot of the country and have new experiences and make new friends all the time, but I can’t help but think about what I’m missing back home.  I suppose that’s normal.  I joke about how I’ll move back home when my parents get too old to take care of themselves, but the thought of that makes me sad.  I want to enjoy them while they’re still active and healthy and able to get around on their own.  I don’t want to miss their best years (that’s why they need to retire and come visit!!  Hahaha!).  It’s hard to be away when friends and family are getting married and having babies, going on camping trips and celebrating birthdays and holidays.  Too often when I’m home I have to pick and choose who I’m going to visit, and who’s going to have to wait until next time.  It’s hard and it’s draining and sometimes it’s a heavy weight that I carry around.  I know that this is my life and I need to make it what I want it to be, and for the most part I’m very happy with the path I’ve taken.  Honestly, I can’t beat living in Florida in the winter, northern California in the summer, and wherever-the-heck else I want to live any other time of the year.  Apart from there being no Target in Vermont and Trader Joe’s in Florida, I’ve been living pretty good.  Sometimes I just miss having my people with me.  Although, with “my people” being in multiple states, I can’t very well take them all with me.  :)  Don’t think I haven’t tried!  Must be having one of those homesick moments.  Good thing I’m starting work this week, it’ll keep me occupied!   

That’s all for now!