Little did I know when we started out on this hallowed journey toward Valhalla we'd wind up face-to-face with a mama Grizzly, defending her cubs who just happened to find the beef jerky in our now-clawed-open car just as satisfying as we did. Apparently Lola had done little to satiate their hunger earlier in the night when we discovered she'd gone missing on a routine potty break. With J wielding a hatchet behind me, the Grizzly now charging toward us with her snout wrinkled and teeth bared, I gripped the hunting knife in my white-knuckled hands and....
Got your attention yet? Good. Cause none of that happened although it would have been sweet if it did. Ditto if we had found ourselves in the path of some giant tornado, J, Lola and I strapped to a random pole on a Kansas farm by nothing but a leather belt, Twister-style. But that didn't happen either.
We encountered no killer mosquitoes, vengeful bears or creepy toothless truckers (okay, maybe a couple) on our "Ain't Nothing Wrong With Freedom, Man" Trip Across America (a name we borrowed from a Dennis Hopper line in Easy Rider). In fact, for such an unplanned cross-country jaunt it went surprisingly well, save for a slight...situation...near the South Dakota/Wyoming border. But even that was more funny than terrible (to me, at least. J: not so happy.) With that, here are the highlights of our journey:
After two days straight of driving on the road, taking turns sleeping while the other drove, fatigue began to set in somewhere in Iowa around midnight. And of course we happened to be on one long stretch of freeway that had NO exits for what seemed like a hundred miles or so. Just the road in front of us, dark cow pastures on either side. I could barely keep my eyes open. "Must...get...to...South Dakota..." I murmured, as exhaustion continued lulling my eyelids closed. J kept yelling at me to stay awake until we could pull over but after a while his yells were useless against my fatigue, so we switched places in the cab like a deranged Cirque de Soleil trapeze act while our truck roared down the freeway. I know what you're thinking and in hindsight I don't recommend anyone attempt this, but the alternative was either a.) die in a horrible truck accident by falling asleep at the wheel, or b.) die in a horrible truck accident by parking our vehicle on the narrow highway shoulder and risk getting hit by one of the many passing Big Rigs traveling at speeds of 85+ mph. Seriously.
When we finally found an off-ramp we pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of some hybrid truck stop slash dive bar. (There was nothing else around.) Nestled between parked Big Rigs, we pulled out our sleeping bags and climbed into the front seats of our Hyundai on the tow cart. The air reeked of cow manure and the smattering of semis parked in the lot had their engines running all night for what I think was air conditioning in their sleeping cabs, but I'm not sure. All I knew was that after two days of pounding hundreds of miles of pavement, all I wanted was a few hours of sleep beneath my polyester sleeping bag. As terrible as it sounds it was actually fun. I'd finally become a nomad.
During our second night in Iowa we drove through a town called Sac City and though it was all closed up for the evening, it was fascinating. Sac City is a sleepy little village only a few blocks long, built next to a two-lane thoroughfare that winds through the center of Iowa. There's a small high school (or K-12, I wasn't sure), a community center, a post office, a convenience store, a few charming storefronts selling antiques and other oddities, and a handful of locally owned eateries. Most driving through would probably find it un-amazing but something about it intrigued me enough to comment out loud that I'd love to come back and stay at a B&B. Someday we will go back.
Our first "real" stop -- meaning we actually hung out for a few hours in said place -- was Mitchell, South Dakota, home to the infamous Corn Palace. "How hokey," you might think. "A whole palace made of corn?" Yes. And it's phenomenal. It's not entirely made of corn anymore, though I think when it was first built it was (imagine the popcorn potential in such a place!). Anyway, while the Corn Palace was delightful I was even more intrigued by Mitchell itself. Mitchell was and is the kind of community Norman Rockwell painted in all those Saturday Evening Post covers. We wandered in and off the main street and were greeted with warm smiles from locals as they went about their daily business. Even stopping in a local coffee shop was fabulous -- the barista and cashier were genuine, happy and hospitable. It was a nice respite from what we'd grown accustomed to out East. I'm delighted that this kind of town still exists...the kind of place where everybody knows your name.
Next stop was Badlands, South Dakota, where we set up camp for a night. Badlands is a peculiar but stunning national park filled with craggy stalagmite-looking rock formations in the middle of the Dakota plains. Once inside the park it feels like you're on the moon. It's barren, solitary and captivating. The winds had picked up by the time we pulled our tent out that afternoon and it was high comedy helping J set up everything while 30mph winds whipped past our faces and gear. J tends to lose his patience in situations like these so I have some hilarious pictures of him as he struggled with pieces of tent that ended up wrapped around him like a superhero cape. Of course, it didn't help that I was howling with laughter as I continued taking pictures of his plight. He's such a lucky man to be married to me. ;)
The next day after Badlands we stopped at Wall Drug Store on our way to Black Hills National Forest. I know, I know, what's the big deal about some old drug store, right? Well, everything, actually. This particular drug store takes its name from the town of Wall, South Dakota, where it's located. Wall used to be known by locals as "the geographical center of nowhere," until a guy started Wall Drug Store and saved it through the Great Depression by using an advertising gimmick of offering "free ice water" to any customers. To this day Wall Drug still serves free ice water and 5-cent coffee (along with a plethora of cheesy South Dakota tourism merchandise and some of the best homemade fudge I've eaten in my life). Wall Drug is known around the world because of the hand-painted wooden signs that advertise their business globally. Apparently there are Wall Drug signs promoting free ice water in places like London, Kenya, and even in the Paris Metro. The more you know.
Later that day we cruised into the Black Hills National Forest near the South Dakota/Wyoming border. Herein is where our story takes a turn for the ridiculous, kiddies. We were uber excited as we drove past the ranger entrance. After all, the Black Hills are home to some fabulous sites: Mount Rushmore, Jewel Caves, the old outlaw town of Deadwood where Calamity Jane out-drank her male counterparts and Wild Bill Hickok was eventually gunned down. Oh and buffalo. We couldn't wait to see buffalo. Our plan was find a campsite, set up the tent, take the car off the hitch and use it to drive around the forest (the mountains would have been much harder to traverse in our Budget Truck). So we found a campsite and as J unloaded our gear I patiently waited, suddenly writhing like a spastic each time I'd hear a buzzing in my ear from one of the many wasps who had found our campsite just as splendid as we did.
Once J was finished he circled our car on its hitch, undoing the four chains that held it in place (two in the front, two in back). As he climbed into the car and started the engine I suppose I should have been paying more attention from my vantage point on the street because as soon he backed off the hitch there was a loud pop...or was it a crunch? I can't remember now but all I can recollect was that it was a hideous sound. An expensive sound.
"I think you bottomed out!" I yelled over the engine. But the minute he peered out the window and I watched the blood drain from his face, I saw exactly what the problem was. The left tire behind him was completely crooked, and was now turned at an obnoxious, wall-eyed angle. Apparently he'd forgotten to take the rear chains off and the left axle thing (don't you love how technical I am?) was completely bent.
Ugh.
The funny thing? After the initial shock wore off I just couldn't be angry. Of all places and times for something like that to happen -- Mount Rushmore was supposed to be the peak of our journey -- we now had a car that could barely move, much less make it up a steep mountain to see the Four Heads. How could I not laugh? We deliberated for a moment before I decided we should just pack up all our gear and try to see Mount Rushmore on our way out of the park that evening. The sun was already beginning to set and there was no sense staying at the campsite for two nights when we wouldn't have easy access to climb all those hills around us comfortably in a smaller car. So we left.
Mount Rushmore was, of course, magnificent and we got to catch a lighting ceremony around 9:30pm which made it even better. But by the time we pulled out of the parking lot there we were exhausted. It had been a long, hot day, filled with stops at famous drug stores and absent-minded wrecking of rear car axles. So we stopped in a tiny tourist town just a few miles down the winding forest road from the monument, but the first motel in said town cost $120 -- $120! For what looked like an inimical den full of bedbugs and tired slot machines -- so we decided to keep driving...the entire length of the Black Hills. At this time it was around 11pm and though we only had about 30 miles to get out of the national park, they were 30 miles of steep elevations and harrowing descents. Not the ideal setting for a full moving truck with car hitch.
It was silent during most of the ride, but there was palpable tension in the air. We each gritted our teeth, J behind the wheel, me in the passenger seat, as we silently hoped the truck wouldn't break down climbing one of the many mountains at 10mph, or even worse lose its brakes as we descended each 7% grade. We managed to drive through Deadwood on our way out, which was cool since it still remains an "outlaw"-style town with antiquated storefronts, saloons, hotels, restaurants and city streetlamps. I can't wait till we return and I can spend more than just 5 minutes there.
Finally, finally!, as the Budget truck was seemingly on its last knee, coughing and sputtering up the final behemoth of a mountain, we reached the main freeway and exited the Black Hills. The first town we came upon was a place called Spearfish and we ended up crashing at a Howard Johnson there (which, I should mention, had peculiar taxidermy fowl strategically placed on the walls above the check-in desk in the "lobby" if you could call it that. It was very Psycho, and I half-expected to see Norman Bates walk out from back, asking if we'd like a room and to possibly meet his mother. But there was no Norman Bates, only a middle-aged, tired-looking man with a thick Russian accent who knocked five bucks off the price of the room because he could tell I needed a break).
All I cared about was a.) taking a shower (it had been days since we bathed and though I was a trooper about the whole camping thing, even about the bugs, I couldn't wait to have access to soap and running water. Especially since temperatures had been hot the whole week. Yummy.), and b.) sleeping. That night I fully appreciated the merits of a hot shower and warm, clean bed. Too many of us take for granted those everyday things.
After we awoke in Spearfish and checked out of the HoJo we crossed the South Dakota border into Wyoming en route to Devils Tower. Devils Tower basically looks like a giant slab of clay that someone stuck in a forested area of the corner of the state. My description does not do it justice because it's magnificent. I think it's about 900 feet tall and deep grooves are etched up and down the length it, making it look like a giant bear sharpened its claws on all sides (which is actually the Indian legend about the monument). From our campsite we had a sweet view of the Tower and were even conveniently located next to a Prairie Dog town in the park, where hundreds of thousands of burrowing chipmunk-looking animals would "bark" (or more like squeak) at passing walkers and cars as they protected the openings of their burrows. Later that afternoon J decided he wanted to hike up around the base of the Tower, and though it was hot I trudged along, climbing to an elevation of probably around 300 feet, which gave us spectacular views of the land down below.
That night at Devils Tower it rained. Luckily our tent was waterproof but sometime after the rains stopped it began getting cold. Butt cold. The kind of cold where two hoodies and a pair of flannel pajama pants wasn't enough. I hunkered deep into my polyester Target sleeping bag, which wasn't equipped for such temperatures and would probably have been better suited as a slumber party bag on a living room floor. I remember hoping I wouldn't freeze to death sometime in the night, like Jack Nicholson did in the final scene of The Shining. All night long I'd wake up to my teeth chattering, I'd check on Lola beneath her blanket, and then try to fall back asleep as I wondered how many giant ants I'd squashed under our tent base as I lay there freezing to death.
But I survived. The next morning temps returned to normal and we packed up yet again, hoping to make it to Salt Lake City by nightfall. We crossed the state of Wyoming in almost a perfect diagonal, fighting fierce winds the entire way. J mentioned we were only getting 5 miles a gallon through most of that leg of the trip. Once we reached Salt Lake City we found a motel near the airport (we didn't know SLC at all and had no clue what area we were in, but things often look better at night). In the morning we were pleasantly amused with our surroundings. Especially when I witnessed a blatant drug deal go down at the gas station across the street around 8:30 in the morning. Oh and speaking of drug deals, I also watched one transpire at a gas station in Casper, Wyoming. My guess it was probably meth since it seems meth use in these cities is abnormally high (many anti-meth billboards dot main thoroughfares). Sad.
From Salt Lake City we blasted across the rest of Utah and the entire state of Nevada until we reached Reno. Our plan was to stay in Reno for the night but as we drove through the downtown casino area my heart sank with every block. Reno was just as seedy as people say. There were blocks upon blocks of broken down, abandoned motels, many filled with squatters and people who'd taken up residence in whatever rooms they could find. Old barbecues and car parts lay sitting outside dingy motel doors and front offices, many of these places actually advertising they had vacancies. The last thing I wanted was the contents of our truck stolen (we were, after all, carrying my three seasons of Mad Men, people), so we continued on the freeway past a few upscale housing developments until we reached a solitary resort and casino called Boomtown on a hill outside of Reno's lines. It seemed we stumbled upon a retiree's heaven. There were numerous luxury RVs parked outside and we were by the far the youngest couple on the casino floor. This I could handle. For $50 we got an excellent hotel room and had fun that night listening to a live motown band and gambling with a few dollars at the slot machines. It was a very Hunter S. Thompson-esque way of ending our cross-country roadtrip. Fear and Loathing in Boomtown.
The next morning we crossed the final state line and within 4 hours were home. Throughout our trip pounds of beef jerky were consumed, along with copious amounts of fast food and the occasional slurpee for good measure. And we even got to see a couple buffalo in South Dakota. All in all, it was an amazing trip.
I was going to post photos but this has become a novella, so I'll throw up photos in a pictorial essay in a day or two. I know I've been blogging erratically but once we're settled I'll be back to my normal blogging routine.
Oh and in case you were wondering, J just fixed our car (how I love being married to a man that knows cars.) The part was only $60 and his labor was free. Score. It took him 6 hours to get the two bolts off (they'd completely rusted through because of the DC humidity), but once they were off it took a mere 15 minutes to put the new piece on. I helped out, true to form, in a fabulous new floppy sunhat and heels, as I sat in the shade and kept him entertained with rousing conversation. Again, he's a lucky man.
Showing posts with label Lola. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lola. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The myth about marriage and law school
We did it!! Er, I mean J did it. He took his last final two days ago, which means law school is officially dunzo!
Through the last three years of dirty dishes, general clutter, the legal internships and the give-me-attention appeals, we made it. And I have to say that for everything I read online and everything that was told me about How Hard Law School Was Going To Be as the spouse not attending, I can let you all in on a little secret: Everything "they" say is nonsense. If you're married to a law student or an MBA student or anyone pursuing a graduate degree you will be fine. "They" will try to scare you at the beginning, and tell you that divorce rates are exponentially higher for law students, that you'll never see your husband/wife once the law books get cracked, that there will be a higher chance of infidelity (yes, I actually heard this) because of all those late study nights spent at the library or in study groups. Don't believe it. If your significant other was going to cheat, they wouldn't need a library or law school to do it in. As for never seeing your better half, that's a bit of an exaggeration. You will see them...maybe not as much as you'd like, but it's only three years.
Looking back on the last three years, they surprisingly weren't as hard as I anticipated them to be. Before we started this whole law school thing I was a little worried. Not because I didn't believe in us, but more because of all the myths I foolishly began listening to prior to his first semester back in 2007. Suddenly everyone was an expert, espousing wisdom about what life was going to be like for us once he started. I'm here to report that none of it is true. The best thing you can do if you're married to a law/medical/mba/etc. student is to block out all that outside noise.
It is true that certain chores like washing dishes or grocery shopping aren't always so 50/50 when married to a grad student. Unfortunately I'm terrible with chores so most of the time our kitchen sink always had dishes piled in it, and even when I had time to wash them all I still refused since the way I saw it I'd only made half of them dirty, so why did he earn a "get out of jail free" card just because he was a student? Yes, this was my rational. Back when I was a grad studentmy roommate washed all my dishes I washed my dishes, so what made him any different?
My mantra: "I didn't marry you to be your maid. Either help me or get used to the mess." This was repeated frequently and when he'd eventually finish studying we'd take turns washing the dishes (and came to the conclusion after about semester 3 of this that once he got a well-paying job we were definitely getting a part-time housekeeper).
That's not to say I didn't take into consideration Special Circumstances like an especially debilitating few weeks of finals, crunch time when J had dozens of articles to approve and edit for the Law Journal, or when he'd miss dinner multiple times in a row because he had to stay late drafting some motion for a judge. In special circumstances like these I wouldn't bother him about picking his clothes up off the floor or leaving dirty dishes in the sink. Why? Because I have the exact same habits so really, who am I to judge (oops, did I just admit that out loud?), but also it was just easier picking up some of his slack on my end since he was working his tushie off for the good of our future.
It took me 1.3 semesters to see that J was a special breed of law student: the I-came-here-because-I'm-enamored-with-law-so-I'm-going-to-take-advantage-of-every-opportunity sort of law student. These are the best and worst kind. Best because who doesn't get a little randy at the thought of such ambition and passion for a particular subject? But worst because when your ambitious tigerlily is out interning for judges and on mastheads of law journals and flying across the country to compete in mock trial competitions and sitting in on Supreme Court hearings in his free time just because "it's fun"... life as the law school wife can get a little, well, lonely. Especially the first year of law school, which also happened to be the first year of our marriage (we were literally married two months before he started classes). But that's why I had Lola, good friends, kickboxing, and the neverending task of writing that kept me up many nights long after he'd finished studying and gone to bed -- when he saw I couldn't spend time with him. And even with his schedule, I had to hand it to J. He still found time to spend quality time with me, no matter how full his plate was, and for that I thank him. It was a dance he perfected well over the last three years.
"But what about after school is over," some have asked. "He's going to be so busy in his Real-Life Firm Job. Won't that bother you?" Not at all. I figure if J and I could handle the long periods of time each semester when he'd be gone for 12 hours a day, then his "real-life" career is going to be a walk in the park. Why? Because I recognize he is helping to set the foundation of our family's future and, well, nothing can compete with the stress of a full course-load, internships and extracurricular activities every semester. Nope, not even a Big Law litigation career.
I feel like law school has broken me in and our relationship is bullet proof now. If I -- I mean "we" -- can survive this, then we can survive anything.
Congratulations to my Hoya Lawyah!!!
Commencement is on Sunday; we head out west two days later. Lots more pictures to come.
Through the last three years of dirty dishes, general clutter, the legal internships and the give-me-attention appeals, we made it. And I have to say that for everything I read online and everything that was told me about How Hard Law School Was Going To Be as the spouse not attending, I can let you all in on a little secret: Everything "they" say is nonsense. If you're married to a law student or an MBA student or anyone pursuing a graduate degree you will be fine. "They" will try to scare you at the beginning, and tell you that divorce rates are exponentially higher for law students, that you'll never see your husband/wife once the law books get cracked, that there will be a higher chance of infidelity (yes, I actually heard this) because of all those late study nights spent at the library or in study groups. Don't believe it. If your significant other was going to cheat, they wouldn't need a library or law school to do it in. As for never seeing your better half, that's a bit of an exaggeration. You will see them...maybe not as much as you'd like, but it's only three years.
Looking back on the last three years, they surprisingly weren't as hard as I anticipated them to be. Before we started this whole law school thing I was a little worried. Not because I didn't believe in us, but more because of all the myths I foolishly began listening to prior to his first semester back in 2007. Suddenly everyone was an expert, espousing wisdom about what life was going to be like for us once he started. I'm here to report that none of it is true. The best thing you can do if you're married to a law/medical/mba/etc. student is to block out all that outside noise.
It is true that certain chores like washing dishes or grocery shopping aren't always so 50/50 when married to a grad student. Unfortunately I'm terrible with chores so most of the time our kitchen sink always had dishes piled in it, and even when I had time to wash them all I still refused since the way I saw it I'd only made half of them dirty, so why did he earn a "get out of jail free" card just because he was a student? Yes, this was my rational. Back when I was a grad student
My mantra: "I didn't marry you to be your maid. Either help me or get used to the mess." This was repeated frequently and when he'd eventually finish studying we'd take turns washing the dishes (and came to the conclusion after about semester 3 of this that once he got a well-paying job we were definitely getting a part-time housekeeper).
That's not to say I didn't take into consideration Special Circumstances like an especially debilitating few weeks of finals, crunch time when J had dozens of articles to approve and edit for the Law Journal, or when he'd miss dinner multiple times in a row because he had to stay late drafting some motion for a judge. In special circumstances like these I wouldn't bother him about picking his clothes up off the floor or leaving dirty dishes in the sink. Why? Because I have the exact same habits so really, who am I to judge (oops, did I just admit that out loud?), but also it was just easier picking up some of his slack on my end since he was working his tushie off for the good of our future.
It took me 1.3 semesters to see that J was a special breed of law student: the I-came-here-because-I'm-enamored-with-law-so-I'm-going-to-take-advantage-of-every-opportunity sort of law student. These are the best and worst kind. Best because who doesn't get a little randy at the thought of such ambition and passion for a particular subject? But worst because when your ambitious tigerlily is out interning for judges and on mastheads of law journals and flying across the country to compete in mock trial competitions and sitting in on Supreme Court hearings in his free time just because "it's fun"... life as the law school wife can get a little, well, lonely. Especially the first year of law school, which also happened to be the first year of our marriage (we were literally married two months before he started classes). But that's why I had Lola, good friends, kickboxing, and the neverending task of writing that kept me up many nights long after he'd finished studying and gone to bed -- when he saw I couldn't spend time with him. And even with his schedule, I had to hand it to J. He still found time to spend quality time with me, no matter how full his plate was, and for that I thank him. It was a dance he perfected well over the last three years.
"But what about after school is over," some have asked. "He's going to be so busy in his Real-Life Firm Job. Won't that bother you?" Not at all. I figure if J and I could handle the long periods of time each semester when he'd be gone for 12 hours a day, then his "real-life" career is going to be a walk in the park. Why? Because I recognize he is helping to set the foundation of our family's future and, well, nothing can compete with the stress of a full course-load, internships and extracurricular activities every semester. Nope, not even a Big Law litigation career.
I feel like law school has broken me in and our relationship is bullet proof now. If I -- I mean "we" -- can survive this, then we can survive anything.
Congratulations to my Hoya Lawyah!!!
Commencement is on Sunday; we head out west two days later. Lots more pictures to come.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
"The time has come," the Walrus said
If we're lucky we'll end up speeding down some deserted two-lane highway on a makeshift moped in rural South Dakota, trying to outwit a maniacal Big Rig driver. It would be very "Dumb and Dumber" meets "Duel".So I realized when we flew back from Sacramento on Sunday night that we only have about three weeks left here in DC. THREE weeks. I've waited for this moment since September 2007, and for the last three years I've glanced at the calendar on my phone and grown irritated at how many blocks of months were still ahead of us. More nights than I can remember I would pop open a cold can of soda and stand by the fridge, longingly tracing my finger over the all those months left on the kitchen calendar under my Mrs. Robinson magnet. But somehow those blocks of month became strips of weeks, and now what's left are mere standalone days.
I know what it might sound like, that I was miserable here and I had no life other than to obsess over my moving date like a teenager obsesses over prom, but it was the contrary. As much as it pains me to admit it I've had lots of fun here, met some awesome people and have more than enough memories with J, with new-found friends, with DC, to tote into the next chapter of my life. But through all those good times the Lola calendar on our fridge was still a lingering reminder that my time here wasn't permanent. As slow as the days seemed to amble along, as slow as the months continued to pass, the calendar eventually tapered and now we're down to mere weeks. I've waited a long time for May of 2010 to arrive and the fact that it's finally here is completely surreal, kemosabes.
Reserving our moving truck last week was what finally made it sink in that we're leaving. Luckily I got an automatic 15% off code on the Budget Truck website and I was thisclose to signing up for their AARP discount but decided against it after a heated discussion with J about how we could totally get away with pretending like we were 60-year-old adults (J, always my ethical voice of reason, talked me out of it only after he called me "crazy" about 300 times. My response: "It's the crazy ones that get ahead in this world."). Never underestimate the power of strategically placed prosthetic makeup and a doctored drivers license.
Without that coveted senior discount, the truck cost about $1,600, including a hitch to pull the car. Now when I first conceived of this plan to drive cross-country, I didn't think it would entail a 16-foot Budget truck with car in tow. Originally we were going to send our mountains of boxes/few furniture items back using a Pod, and zip across the country in our compact four-door, with no more than clothes, a camping stove, a flat of Stagg chili from Costco, and a tent in the trunk. Nothing but Freebird (J), Sundown (me), and Tatonka (Lola -- of course her nickname would be "buffalo" from Dances With Wolves), with the open road ahead of us.
... But then I realized Pods are expensive ($2,000 not including fees), moving companies generally suck (as evidenced by my move to and from Boston a few years ago), and...well...taking pictures in front of Mount Rushmore near our 16-foot truck with attached car would just make the trip thatmuch more memorable. Gas should cost us about $800 total (our steed will be guzzling about 13 miles to the gallon), so our grand total in moving expenses will be about $2,400.
I suppose I should start packing up our casa but the closer our moving date is, the more I'd rather laze on the couch watching Mad Men. This doesn't bode well for the suddenly tight schedule we're on. Part of the problem is J (whose crack-the-whip nature when it comes to work can only be likened to Anthony Quinn as Zampano in Fellini's La Strada) can't currently help pack, and thus as soon as I begin packing I get distracted by some old book or photo album I forgot I had and before I know it three hours have gone by and I haven't filled a single box...though I'm wildly content I found my forgotten bottle of perfume or Afghan Hound notecards. (Confession: I'm a terrible procrastinator when moving is involved.)
J is waist-deep in finals week right now, which surprisingly doesn't bother me at all this semester. Maybe it's because a.) I'm used to it now, b.) we're leaving soon so I could care less what he does, or c.) he's already gotten 5 semesters of practice studying for these types of exams so this 6th semester is a total walk in the park.
Since he started law school I got used to hearing the "finals bell" knell in some far off place a few weeks before the end of each semester -- imagine a muffled foghorn in the distance, stirring me from my sleep -- and I knew that soon J would go into hiding with his books at the library or withdraw into himself here in the living room. This meant the only way I could get his attention to kill a spider, "talk about our hopes and dreams", or listen to my impression of the concierge downstairs was by instant messaging him in the same room since my repeated calls for him to look at me, listen to me, anything, fell on deaf ears. I learned that too much of these instant messages would mean he was headed out to the law library on campus, where smashed spiders and hysterical impersonations were of no concern. (Though I'd still finagle my way into his view by Skyping him. Repeatedly.)
But not this semester. This semester the library is a distant thought as J has barricaded himself in the kitchen and set up "office" at our tiny kitchen table, around a corner where I can't continually bother him in view. According to him I'm supposed to be packing, but I'd rather plan our trip online and figure out which national parks to camp at, which famous, giant balls of twine we should visit, how long we should spend at that infamous Corn Palace in South Dakota, and what time of day is best to photograph Devil's Tower (of Close Encounters of the Third Kind fame). Packing can wait.
I've got a little less than three whole weeks, after all.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
What makes home
Two days ago I drifted awake in my childhood bedroom. For a minute I had no idea where I was. By an act of God was I (finally) waking up in some seaside hotel room in Barcelona? Heaven? (The thought flickered when the glow-in-the-dark stars above me came more into focus.) Was I back in DC, surrounded by unpacked boxes, just waiting for the smell of my neighbor's chicken curry to waft down the hallway and under the gap beneath our front door? Then I heard what sounded like muffled warfare in Kuwait in the next room and instantly knew.
I was home.
And not only that, both my brother and sister were home too. (The simulated warfare was thanks to my video-game loving brother.) Just like in The Royal Tenenbaums my parents had, once again, found all three of their children living together under the same roof. At least for this week.
I smiled to myself in bed, wiping the sleep from my bleary eyes, half-surprised by the hot water pad lying next to me. My mother insisted the night before that I sleep with it to keep me warm, and I think in some odd way it's supposed to make me feel okay without J here. The strange thing is it almost does. Granted J is not made from rubber and poured full of boiling water every night, but the warmth was calming, like most things here are.
There's something so comforting about being home. Always has been. No matter how many places I've lived in and apartment keys I've carried, home to me has always been this house, where some centerpiece made of citrus fruits always adorns our dining room table, where there is no dearth of ice cream in the freezer, and where the same green lamp I've had since I was a kid sits on the new nightstand in my old bedroom.
To most the lamp would look like nothing more than a dated relic from the '70s, but I see so much when I look at it. It makes me think of slumber parties I had in elementary school of now faceless girls I can't remember the names of -- girls I thought would be my best friends my whole life, the lamp behind them shining as the only constant. Then I remember the familiar click, click of the light switch as I'd scramble to switch the lamp off when I'd hear one of my parents' approaching my bedroom door to scold me for staying up so late (in my defense I was reading -- even at 12 I was a book nerd). I remember, later, the lectures I'd have to listen to from my parents in high school, the lamp on behind me, as I'd roll my eyes and cross my arms in defiance against whatever it was they were reprimanding me about. (Usually it had to do with boys. Sigh.) They couldn't possibly understand, I'd think. When they were done talking they would leave and I'd remember how angry I was as I'd click that green lamp off for the night and fume. Then college came and I packed up most of my things, excited to embark on a new chapter of my life. The lamp was left on my nightstand, the clutter gone but it and other staples remaining. And it's still here, to this day. Some of the furniture has changed and the walls have been painted over and I'm older now and married, but the lamp remains. This is what makes home for me.
Of course, it wouldn't be home without a few stock occurrences, either. Like having my picture taken by my over-zealous, camera-wielding sister. Having pics taken is fine; I'm definitely not camera shy. But photogenic I am not. And the routine is always the same: She shows me her pictures seconds after they're taken, I balk at how disgusting I look (Josie Grosie, anyone?), and she disagrees. Seriously, I look good in 1 out of every 5 pictures, and that's on a good day. So I remind her to please not put them on Facebook because the last thing I want is them going public, then an hour later I get a new Facebook email: "You have 8 new photos tagged of you!" I sigh loudly, click over, and yup. There they all are. All of me in my talking-with-my-mouth-frozen-halfway-open-and-eyes-mid-blink glory, which usually looks something like this:
Anyway, once I was wide awake in bed and certain I wasn't in Barcelona or Heaven (I'd hope neither would include the staccato of distant machine guns I heard coming from my brother's room), I hopped out of bed and thrust open my blinds a la Carrie Bradshaw in Paris when she flings open her curtains on her hotel balcony and sees the Eiffel Tower. Except there was no Eiffel Tower here. Only California sunshine. Buckets full, streaming in through the window and slopped across the carpet I stood on. It was a beautiful day and I had had an excellent Friday the day before. I smelled the ocean in the air and smiled. Today was going to be excellent, I could just feel it. So I headed upstairs to the living room, the smell of the ocean reminding me that I really needed to pick up more Steinbeck, maybe I hadn't given him a proper chance when I ...
My foot suddenly landed in a giant, cold puddle on the top step. The blood ran from my face and I froze, slowly lifting my foot up. I looked down in horror at the glistening pool on the hardwood floor, a yellow puddle that had obviously been sitting there overnight, eating away at the wood like a termite in heat. Steinbeck, sunshine, everything fell from my mind as my lips were unable to form any cohesive words. My eyes rose from the puddle to Moxie, my sister's Maltese who some of you might remember pooped on her lap a couple months ago and who I'm convinced has some severe learning disorder. (At times Moxie reminds me of a schizophrenic mallard.) She sat in her bed nearby, beady black eyes fixed on me, looking quite content that her arch nemesis had stepped in her elaborate scheme.
And I was about to yell...but I couldn't. Maybe it was the sunshine coming in from the skylights above us. Maybe it was the fact that I couldn't be mad at a mentally disabled dog. Whatever it was I grimaced at her and hobbled back downstairs to my bathroom on one foot. As I sat on the lip of the tub, sudsing up my sole, I realized that whether I liked it or not, Moxie had become a part of our home. Just like Lola had done before her (although lets face it, if pitted in a game of intelligence Lola would be solving global warming while Moxie would be finding some lap to defecate in).
But that's what a home is. It's all the bad with the good. The hard times with the easy times. The beauty with the ugliness, the tragedy with the success, the sanguine with the gloom. Without each side it wouldn't be a complete home. So no matter how uncalled for some things are, like fights or yellow puddles, they're a part of the entire cocktail. And the inanimate constants, like my green lamp, are the reminders of it all.
I was home.
And not only that, both my brother and sister were home too. (The simulated warfare was thanks to my video-game loving brother.) Just like in The Royal Tenenbaums my parents had, once again, found all three of their children living together under the same roof. At least for this week.
I smiled to myself in bed, wiping the sleep from my bleary eyes, half-surprised by the hot water pad lying next to me. My mother insisted the night before that I sleep with it to keep me warm, and I think in some odd way it's supposed to make me feel okay without J here. The strange thing is it almost does. Granted J is not made from rubber and poured full of boiling water every night, but the warmth was calming, like most things here are.
There's something so comforting about being home. Always has been. No matter how many places I've lived in and apartment keys I've carried, home to me has always been this house, where some centerpiece made of citrus fruits always adorns our dining room table, where there is no dearth of ice cream in the freezer, and where the same green lamp I've had since I was a kid sits on the new nightstand in my old bedroom.
To most the lamp would look like nothing more than a dated relic from the '70s, but I see so much when I look at it. It makes me think of slumber parties I had in elementary school of now faceless girls I can't remember the names of -- girls I thought would be my best friends my whole life, the lamp behind them shining as the only constant. Then I remember the familiar click, click of the light switch as I'd scramble to switch the lamp off when I'd hear one of my parents' approaching my bedroom door to scold me for staying up so late (in my defense I was reading -- even at 12 I was a book nerd). I remember, later, the lectures I'd have to listen to from my parents in high school, the lamp on behind me, as I'd roll my eyes and cross my arms in defiance against whatever it was they were reprimanding me about. (Usually it had to do with boys. Sigh.) They couldn't possibly understand, I'd think. When they were done talking they would leave and I'd remember how angry I was as I'd click that green lamp off for the night and fume. Then college came and I packed up most of my things, excited to embark on a new chapter of my life. The lamp was left on my nightstand, the clutter gone but it and other staples remaining. And it's still here, to this day. Some of the furniture has changed and the walls have been painted over and I'm older now and married, but the lamp remains. This is what makes home for me.
Of course, it wouldn't be home without a few stock occurrences, either. Like having my picture taken by my over-zealous, camera-wielding sister. Having pics taken is fine; I'm definitely not camera shy. But photogenic I am not. And the routine is always the same: She shows me her pictures seconds after they're taken, I balk at how disgusting I look (Josie Grosie, anyone?), and she disagrees. Seriously, I look good in 1 out of every 5 pictures, and that's on a good day. So I remind her to please not put them on Facebook because the last thing I want is them going public, then an hour later I get a new Facebook email: "You have 8 new photos tagged of you!" I sigh loudly, click over, and yup. There they all are. All of me in my talking-with-my-mouth-frozen-halfway-open-and-eyes-mid-blink glory, which usually looks something like this:
Anyway, once I was wide awake in bed and certain I wasn't in Barcelona or Heaven (I'd hope neither would include the staccato of distant machine guns I heard coming from my brother's room), I hopped out of bed and thrust open my blinds a la Carrie Bradshaw in Paris when she flings open her curtains on her hotel balcony and sees the Eiffel Tower. Except there was no Eiffel Tower here. Only California sunshine. Buckets full, streaming in through the window and slopped across the carpet I stood on. It was a beautiful day and I had had an excellent Friday the day before. I smelled the ocean in the air and smiled. Today was going to be excellent, I could just feel it. So I headed upstairs to the living room, the smell of the ocean reminding me that I really needed to pick up more Steinbeck, maybe I hadn't given him a proper chance when I ...
My foot suddenly landed in a giant, cold puddle on the top step. The blood ran from my face and I froze, slowly lifting my foot up. I looked down in horror at the glistening pool on the hardwood floor, a yellow puddle that had obviously been sitting there overnight, eating away at the wood like a termite in heat. Steinbeck, sunshine, everything fell from my mind as my lips were unable to form any cohesive words. My eyes rose from the puddle to Moxie, my sister's Maltese who some of you might remember pooped on her lap a couple months ago and who I'm convinced has some severe learning disorder. (At times Moxie reminds me of a schizophrenic mallard.) She sat in her bed nearby, beady black eyes fixed on me, looking quite content that her arch nemesis had stepped in her elaborate scheme.
And I was about to yell...but I couldn't. Maybe it was the sunshine coming in from the skylights above us. Maybe it was the fact that I couldn't be mad at a mentally disabled dog. Whatever it was I grimaced at her and hobbled back downstairs to my bathroom on one foot. As I sat on the lip of the tub, sudsing up my sole, I realized that whether I liked it or not, Moxie had become a part of our home. Just like Lola had done before her (although lets face it, if pitted in a game of intelligence Lola would be solving global warming while Moxie would be finding some lap to defecate in).
But that's what a home is. It's all the bad with the good. The hard times with the easy times. The beauty with the ugliness, the tragedy with the success, the sanguine with the gloom. Without each side it wouldn't be a complete home. So no matter how uncalled for some things are, like fights or yellow puddles, they're a part of the entire cocktail. And the inanimate constants, like my green lamp, are the reminders of it all.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Snowpocalypse 2010 (or "The Move From Hell")
So I told myself I'd never utter such a stupid nickname for a pending snowstorm after I saw the the term "Snowpocalypse" sprout up on Twitter and the local news. I've lived in Boston, people. And let me tell you, you "hardcore" DC-ers haven't begun seeing snow until you're enduring blustery Nor-Easters with 5-degree windchill on what feels like a weekly basis.
"Ha! What idiots," I said to J over the phone the night before our move. "They're only forecasting a foot of snow and people are acting like it's Armageddon. People are so dramatic sometimes."
We'll show them, I thought. We'll move in it, as planned. Because we're renegades like that and nothing, not even inclement weather, can stop us in our tracks.
Oh how I was wrong.
Turns out the word snowpocalypse was an apropos way of describing the current conditions. And that saucy minx of an anchor I was watching on Channel 5 Local News? You know, that Ron Burgundy-wannabe with the frosted tips who looked like he'd spent way too much time at a hair salon slash tanning booth? Well he wasn't kidding when he said this was going to be a "doozy" of a snowstorm.
We woke up bright and early Friday morning and though the sky was a bleached white, there was nary a snowflake in sight. "I knew it," I thought, satisfied that I hadn't bought into all the hype. "We'll get a few flakes, people will panic, it'll be over before we know it."
Fast forward to a few hours later: J and I are sitting in our little Uhaul truck near the top of a snow-covered hill somewhere in DC, our back wheels furiously spinning, our truck going...nowhere.
J and I had just dropped off the first of two trips of furniture slash boxes. It took us two hours to unload the truck up in Maryland (thankfully this included all the big stuff like our couch and bed) and we were back on the road at around 8pm, navigating the 15-mile maze of DC streets to get back down to Arlington, Virginia. The sun had set hours ago; the snow and wind were picking up. No trucks were out plowing or salting the streets. The streets, in fact, hadn't even been prepped for the forecasts. Our truck kept sliding all over the place, but it was too late to turn back. We were exactly halfway between our two apartments, and we'd left Lola down in Arlington. We had to go back for the rest of our stuff, if not just for the furry little white kid.
So there we were, sliding sideways on a hill in an empty Uhaul truck. J stays cool under pressure, but I see it as an opportunity to play out my inner actress.
J (his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel): "GREAT. We're not moving. We're stuck. I knew this was going to happen..."
(silence)
Me: "TURN ON THE HAZARDS."
J: "What? Why are you shouting?"
Me: "Oh. I don't know."
J: "You were just waiting to say that, weren't you?"
(We laugh and peer around in the cab for something, anything, to help us. I'm not sleeping in a rental truck in the middle of a blizzard, no matter how comfortable these vinyl seat cushions are. I grab our empty 7-11 paper coffee cup, taking off the plastic lid as I hand the cup to him.)
Me: "Here. Start digging behind the back tires with this. I'll use the lid."
J: "Um, no? That won't do anything. The problem is there's ice under this snow. Nothing's been salted."
(Meanwhile the snow is picking up outside. I sigh loudly, like Sundance irritated that Butch Cassidy is -- once again -- being the "realist", and run outside to the rear right tire near the curb, using my foot to clear out some snow in front of it. I hop back in.)
Me: "Try that."
(He gasses it, the tires spin till we slide a few more inches and finally bump against the curb. We use the curb, as our tires are burning out, to inch up the hill. This, we thought, could take all night.)
Suffice to say, it didn't. We finally reached the top of that hill. The worst was behind us but it was just as scary (dare I say, exhilarating?) through the rest of DC. Down Constitution Ave., past the White House. It was desolate and empty and eerie, like we were on the set of The Road -- except there was no pushing of our wares in grocery carts or wearing of shoes fashioned out of trash bags. For all I know we could have been partially driving on a sidewalk since everything, I mean everything, was covered in a blanket of white.
Finally we crossed the Potomac River into Arlington and had one, final, steep hill to climb near the Air Force Memorial. J zig-zagged the steering wheel up the entire thing as the back tires spun out incessantly, leaving behind jagged tracks that looked like the pattern across Charlie Brown's shirt all the way up the snow-covered road. But it worked. We made it. We slid up as far as we could into our Archstone parking lot and rolled into an open space. J inspected the truck few minutes later and realized WHY we had such traction problems: The back tires were bald. The front ones -- the ones that zig-zagged us up that hill -- were fine. Sigh.
It took us 2 hours to go 15-miles. By the time we got back to Lola and our nearly empty apartment it was 9pm. Though I wanted to try and make a go of it with a second load of boxes, J said it just wasn't happening. Carpet picnic, anyone?
That night we set up a bedsheet and our down comforter on the floor, listened to the news on the radio and played Blackjack. (For anyone interested, I won. Muwahaha.) Oh and sleeping on the floor really isn't that bad, especially when you're using a shared seat cushion as a makeshift pillow.
We woke up the next morning and the conditions were even more severe. And the move? Well here's how the next few days of the snowstorm went down:
Day 2 (Saturday): Arlington. Completely snowed in. Conditions are abominable. Snow is blowing sideways, everything is covered in white. The main road by our apartment is completely unplowed and overrun with people bundled up and walking to CVS to get their fix of Swedish Fish and other gastronomic delights they forgot to stock up on. After a few hours of packing we join them. The rest of the day is spent packing, but this -- true to form -- always takes longer than usual.
Nighttime. Still snowing. We're exhausted...and cold. Heater has stopped working. Cold Domino's pizza is not helping our mood. We stand huddled in kitchen over oven to keep warm.
Snow eases up around evening. We must dig giant Uhaul out before snow turns to ice. We have no shovel. An hour later I'm convinced you haven't lived till you've used a plastic office trash can to dig out a vehicle. But they only go so far. J grabs a particle board from an Ikea desk we're leaving behind and digs the entire truck out with the 1' by 3' board. Bare-handed. This takes him about two hours.
Day 3 (Sunday): Why is there still so much clutter not packed up? Bobby pins and candles and souvenirs from Rio de Janiero still litter the floor. Our bodies ache from the two and a half hours of shoveling last night. Still more shoveling left to do, but luckily this afternoon a neighbor lets us borrow his snow shovel. Finally ready to start filling up truck, but first it must be turned around so we can get to the rear. Bald tires spin profusely on ice. People keep walking by and telling us we're crazy for moving this weekend. Yeah buddy, thanks for clarifying that. We totes planned all this, you know, because we like making moving thatmuch harder. We're masochists like that. Bastards.
An hour later we finally get vehicle out of spot. Starving. Walk to McDonald's for the second time in two days for dinner. Want to barf at how much fast food we've been eating in a 48-hour period (Domino's: 1, Five Guys: 2, Mickey D's: 2). We finish and walk back. Another three hours later of walking up and down snow-covered steps with heavy boxes and the truck is full. House is still a mess, but I convince J that the rest of our small mound of clutter will fit in our Hyundai tomorrow. He reluctantly agrees.
10pm: Pile into packed cab of truck, ready to head back up to Maryland. The wind has picked up, temperatures are now in the single digits. Tires screech against what is now thick ice. We're stuck -- again -- in our parking spot. I want to die.
11pm: Finally get car out of spot by chipping away at ice under tires with a screwdriver. Poor J's fingers are frozen and red. I get out of cab without gloves to spot the truck as he's backing out. When he's clear he drives away. I pick up a shelf we accidentally left behind in the snow and run after him, not knowing what he's doing.
11:05pm: Fingers are freezing and scaly. Have begun to cry. Can't find him anywhere. Finally spot him at the top of the lot. Turns out he was circling the parking lot, looking for me, too. He said he was just turning around and didn't see where I'd gone. I yell at him. This night can't get any worse.
12:30am: Highways are still unplowed and covered in ice. Takes us another 2 hours to go 15 miles but we finally get up to our apartment in Maryland. The walkway to the rear entrance of the complex is covered in a solid, uneven, pot-holed ramp of ice. The flat-bed cart they loaned us can barely traverse this course. The night has just gotten worse. We pile our things onto the rickety cart, little by little, and J pulls it up the ramp, our things sliding around and off the cart bed. It's official: We now definitely feel like vagrants in The Road. It's about 9 degrees; I can't feel my face.
3:45am: After 27 cart trips the truck is finally unloaded. Should have only taken an hour in normal temperatures. With icey ramp and cold it's taken us a lifetime. We're starving, and oh how convenient: the only place open near us is a -- wait for it -- McDonald's. I reluctantly order a hamburger, and choke as I force down each bite.
3:50am: I look at my nasty, cut, red fingers. Feel like Scarlett O'Hara in the second half of Gone With the Wind, when she makes a dress out of her green curtains to try and con money from Rhett Butler, only to be shot down when he sees her cut-up, blistered hands and says they aren't the hands of a lady. Note to self: Get a manicure after this is all over.
3:51am: Second note to self: There are no manicures in your budget. Slather on some cheap Vitamin E oil when you get a chance and quit complaining.
4:35am: Time for a nice hot shower. Turn water on...high-powered spray spews from shower nozzle like a pressure washer. Feels like I'm being given a prison shower. Skin feels like it is being peeled off with a thousand angry needles. There is only one setting on this nozzle and this is it. Note to self: Buy new shower head.
4:55 am: Bed is not in order. Someone kill me now. Consider passing out on floor, if there was any open floorspace between our piles of boxes to pass out on. There is not.
5:00am: Rip open bags like a crazy woman looking for bedding, toss linens on to mattress, and fade to black.
Day 4 (Monday): Ah, bliss, the last day of moving! Light at the end of the tunnel and hallelujahs and what have yous. The worst is behind us, we think. It has to be.
11:30am: Hyundai is covered in a couple feet of snow from not being moved for two days. We have no shovel. J says he "is not using the board again" and we're off to find a shovel...but every store is sold out. Are you there, God? It's me, Crystal. Please throw us a bone.
12:35pm: Standing in front of the empty shovel wall at Home Depot, we decide to buy a 4-inch wide trench digger. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Trench digger costs $25. I curse under my breath.
1:00pm: J starts digging out Hyundai with all the energy he can muster. Shovel, though not that wide, is more effective than we thought. But I suppose anything would be to a couple who previously used a trash can and a board.
1:15pm: We realize this is going to take longer than we thought. And we have until 6pm to clean slash turn in the key to our other apartment across town. Insert expletive here. I call apartment office, tell them what's going down and they agree to let me drop off the keys in a drop box that night. Crisis: averted.
2:34ish pm: Car is finally snow-free, but only after I shift it in neutral and J wedges himself between our car and adjacent Oldsmobile to push off on our front bumper and roll me away from snow bank. This results in him creating a human bridge between the Hyundai and Oldsmobile, which then results in him landing face-first into the snow once I roll away:
Hilarious.
3:10pm: Return Uhaul truck. Ecstatic to finally have the thing off our hands. Now off to Arlington for the last time, to pick up the rest of our things and clean.
4:00pm to 10ish pm: Pack. Even more. Working through our severe exhaustion makes us feel like we are eternally condemned to hard labor, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up that mountain only to watch it roll down every time. Sometime during this 4-hour block we make a quick trip to McDonald's (again!) for dinner. While we're gone Lola gets into our kitchen trash and eats a whole waxy rind of Swiss cheese. I take solace in knowing that we both ate shit for dinner.
10:05pm: Light bulbs and random pairs of scissors surface here and there; a bride's maid dress I never wore; a barbecue; a Christmas tree stand (which, out of frustration, J later throws off the balcony like a large frisbee into the snow); a giant French clock that I refuse to part with. All these things we didn't account for thinking they'd fit in the car. The clutter is never-ending. As we amass the last of our things in the center of the empty living room we realize we should have included much of it on the truck bed since our Hyundai is so tiny. I want to punch myself in the face (and nickname myself Sisyphus).
10:35pm: I start vacuuming. Vacuum belt breaks. In a perfect world I'd pick up the vacuum cleaner and hurl it through the window, which I start to do but then stop myself. It would come out of my deposit, after all. Floor is in desperate need of vacuuming; most stores are closed. Then it dawns on me -- there's a Target nearby open till 11. Finally, a light at the end of the Godforsaken tunnel. We pile into car and head out, hoping they have the right belt.
11:45pm: Became side-tracked by the Valentine's Day aisle at Target, but we are back home with two vacuum belts in hand. J puts one on; it breaks right away. We're down to last belt. Sweat beads slide down our fatigued faces as we hope this one will stay in tact. It does. Victory.
12am to 3:30am: Cleaning.
3:30am: Start packing car. Yup, J was right. Not everything is fitting. Have to leave barbecue slash bride's maid dress slash Christmas tree stand slash myriad other things behind. Feels like we are literally throwing our money away. Not a good feeling, but hey, at this point we can't even feel our own swollen, blistered fingers. That's not a good feeling either.
3:35am: Lola gets diarrhea. She should have thought twice before giving in to her weakness for Swiss cheese.
4:30am: Car is crammed full. Every square inch is taken up by something, be it a computer printer, bags of clothes, or tubes of gift wrap. J tells me my giant French clock won't fit. I refuse to believe this and shove it in the inch-tall gap over everything in the back. He says if we get into a car accident the thing is taking our heads off. I say I'd rather not have a head then leave my French clock behind. He is speechless. Lola looks at me, then him, probably trying to tell us she'd like some Pepto Bismol.
4:45am: Time to drop keys off. We put them in the drop-off envelope and J is about to lick the edge to seal when he sees little hairs and linties stuck all over it. "That's been on the floor. Don't look at me, I'm not licking it," I say. We just want to get the hell out of there. He shuts his eyes, about to lick it anyway and deal with the consequences later, but then decides to just spit on it. Seals perfectly. We drop off and we're outta there.
5:30am: Though it's still freezing the roads are a bit clearer. When we reach our new apartment we leave everything in the locked car and head up. "What if someone steals something?" I ask. "For all I care they can take the car and drive it off a cliff," J replies.
6:00am: Sleep. Finally. End.
So that's my story. Like all good stories it starts with a moving truck and ends with a flatulent poodle. We woke up the next afternoon (yesterday) at about 3pm. J's fingers were swollen and he couldn't make a fist. Our legs were so sore we could barely move; my eyes were puffy from the cold and exhaustion. Not quite conducive to blogging, but we're better today...
"Ha! What idiots," I said to J over the phone the night before our move. "They're only forecasting a foot of snow and people are acting like it's Armageddon. People are so dramatic sometimes."
We'll show them, I thought. We'll move in it, as planned. Because we're renegades like that and nothing, not even inclement weather, can stop us in our tracks.
Oh how I was wrong.
Turns out the word snowpocalypse was an apropos way of describing the current conditions. And that saucy minx of an anchor I was watching on Channel 5 Local News? You know, that Ron Burgundy-wannabe with the frosted tips who looked like he'd spent way too much time at a hair salon slash tanning booth? Well he wasn't kidding when he said this was going to be a "doozy" of a snowstorm.
We woke up bright and early Friday morning and though the sky was a bleached white, there was nary a snowflake in sight. "I knew it," I thought, satisfied that I hadn't bought into all the hype. "We'll get a few flakes, people will panic, it'll be over before we know it."
Fast forward to a few hours later: J and I are sitting in our little Uhaul truck near the top of a snow-covered hill somewhere in DC, our back wheels furiously spinning, our truck going...nowhere.
J and I had just dropped off the first of two trips of furniture slash boxes. It took us two hours to unload the truck up in Maryland (thankfully this included all the big stuff like our couch and bed) and we were back on the road at around 8pm, navigating the 15-mile maze of DC streets to get back down to Arlington, Virginia. The sun had set hours ago; the snow and wind were picking up. No trucks were out plowing or salting the streets. The streets, in fact, hadn't even been prepped for the forecasts. Our truck kept sliding all over the place, but it was too late to turn back. We were exactly halfway between our two apartments, and we'd left Lola down in Arlington. We had to go back for the rest of our stuff, if not just for the furry little white kid.
So there we were, sliding sideways on a hill in an empty Uhaul truck. J stays cool under pressure, but I see it as an opportunity to play out my inner actress.
J (his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel): "GREAT. We're not moving. We're stuck. I knew this was going to happen..."
(silence)
Me: "TURN ON THE HAZARDS."
J: "What? Why are you shouting?"
Me: "Oh. I don't know."
J: "You were just waiting to say that, weren't you?"
(We laugh and peer around in the cab for something, anything, to help us. I'm not sleeping in a rental truck in the middle of a blizzard, no matter how comfortable these vinyl seat cushions are. I grab our empty 7-11 paper coffee cup, taking off the plastic lid as I hand the cup to him.)
Me: "Here. Start digging behind the back tires with this. I'll use the lid."
J: "Um, no? That won't do anything. The problem is there's ice under this snow. Nothing's been salted."
(Meanwhile the snow is picking up outside. I sigh loudly, like Sundance irritated that Butch Cassidy is -- once again -- being the "realist", and run outside to the rear right tire near the curb, using my foot to clear out some snow in front of it. I hop back in.)
Me: "Try that."
(He gasses it, the tires spin till we slide a few more inches and finally bump against the curb. We use the curb, as our tires are burning out, to inch up the hill. This, we thought, could take all night.)
Suffice to say, it didn't. We finally reached the top of that hill. The worst was behind us but it was just as scary (dare I say, exhilarating?) through the rest of DC. Down Constitution Ave., past the White House. It was desolate and empty and eerie, like we were on the set of The Road -- except there was no pushing of our wares in grocery carts or wearing of shoes fashioned out of trash bags. For all I know we could have been partially driving on a sidewalk since everything, I mean everything, was covered in a blanket of white.
Finally we crossed the Potomac River into Arlington and had one, final, steep hill to climb near the Air Force Memorial. J zig-zagged the steering wheel up the entire thing as the back tires spun out incessantly, leaving behind jagged tracks that looked like the pattern across Charlie Brown's shirt all the way up the snow-covered road. But it worked. We made it. We slid up as far as we could into our Archstone parking lot and rolled into an open space. J inspected the truck few minutes later and realized WHY we had such traction problems: The back tires were bald. The front ones -- the ones that zig-zagged us up that hill -- were fine. Sigh.
It took us 2 hours to go 15-miles. By the time we got back to Lola and our nearly empty apartment it was 9pm. Though I wanted to try and make a go of it with a second load of boxes, J said it just wasn't happening. Carpet picnic, anyone?
That night we set up a bedsheet and our down comforter on the floor, listened to the news on the radio and played Blackjack. (For anyone interested, I won. Muwahaha.) Oh and sleeping on the floor really isn't that bad, especially when you're using a shared seat cushion as a makeshift pillow.
We woke up the next morning and the conditions were even more severe. And the move? Well here's how the next few days of the snowstorm went down:
Day 2 (Saturday): Arlington. Completely snowed in. Conditions are abominable. Snow is blowing sideways, everything is covered in white. The main road by our apartment is completely unplowed and overrun with people bundled up and walking to CVS to get their fix of Swedish Fish and other gastronomic delights they forgot to stock up on. After a few hours of packing we join them. The rest of the day is spent packing, but this -- true to form -- always takes longer than usual.
Nighttime. Still snowing. We're exhausted...and cold. Heater has stopped working. Cold Domino's pizza is not helping our mood. We stand huddled in kitchen over oven to keep warm.
Snow eases up around evening. We must dig giant Uhaul out before snow turns to ice. We have no shovel. An hour later I'm convinced you haven't lived till you've used a plastic office trash can to dig out a vehicle. But they only go so far. J grabs a particle board from an Ikea desk we're leaving behind and digs the entire truck out with the 1' by 3' board. Bare-handed. This takes him about two hours.
Day 3 (Sunday): Why is there still so much clutter not packed up? Bobby pins and candles and souvenirs from Rio de Janiero still litter the floor. Our bodies ache from the two and a half hours of shoveling last night. Still more shoveling left to do, but luckily this afternoon a neighbor lets us borrow his snow shovel. Finally ready to start filling up truck, but first it must be turned around so we can get to the rear. Bald tires spin profusely on ice. People keep walking by and telling us we're crazy for moving this weekend. Yeah buddy, thanks for clarifying that. We totes planned all this, you know, because we like making moving thatmuch harder. We're masochists like that. Bastards.
An hour later we finally get vehicle out of spot. Starving. Walk to McDonald's for the second time in two days for dinner. Want to barf at how much fast food we've been eating in a 48-hour period (Domino's: 1, Five Guys: 2, Mickey D's: 2). We finish and walk back. Another three hours later of walking up and down snow-covered steps with heavy boxes and the truck is full. House is still a mess, but I convince J that the rest of our small mound of clutter will fit in our Hyundai tomorrow. He reluctantly agrees.
10pm: Pile into packed cab of truck, ready to head back up to Maryland. The wind has picked up, temperatures are now in the single digits. Tires screech against what is now thick ice. We're stuck -- again -- in our parking spot. I want to die.
11pm: Finally get car out of spot by chipping away at ice under tires with a screwdriver. Poor J's fingers are frozen and red. I get out of cab without gloves to spot the truck as he's backing out. When he's clear he drives away. I pick up a shelf we accidentally left behind in the snow and run after him, not knowing what he's doing.
11:05pm: Fingers are freezing and scaly. Have begun to cry. Can't find him anywhere. Finally spot him at the top of the lot. Turns out he was circling the parking lot, looking for me, too. He said he was just turning around and didn't see where I'd gone. I yell at him. This night can't get any worse.
12:30am: Highways are still unplowed and covered in ice. Takes us another 2 hours to go 15 miles but we finally get up to our apartment in Maryland. The walkway to the rear entrance of the complex is covered in a solid, uneven, pot-holed ramp of ice. The flat-bed cart they loaned us can barely traverse this course. The night has just gotten worse. We pile our things onto the rickety cart, little by little, and J pulls it up the ramp, our things sliding around and off the cart bed. It's official: We now definitely feel like vagrants in The Road. It's about 9 degrees; I can't feel my face.
3:45am: After 27 cart trips the truck is finally unloaded. Should have only taken an hour in normal temperatures. With icey ramp and cold it's taken us a lifetime. We're starving, and oh how convenient: the only place open near us is a -- wait for it -- McDonald's. I reluctantly order a hamburger, and choke as I force down each bite.
3:50am: I look at my nasty, cut, red fingers. Feel like Scarlett O'Hara in the second half of Gone With the Wind, when she makes a dress out of her green curtains to try and con money from Rhett Butler, only to be shot down when he sees her cut-up, blistered hands and says they aren't the hands of a lady. Note to self: Get a manicure after this is all over.
3:51am: Second note to self: There are no manicures in your budget. Slather on some cheap Vitamin E oil when you get a chance and quit complaining.
4:35am: Time for a nice hot shower. Turn water on...high-powered spray spews from shower nozzle like a pressure washer. Feels like I'm being given a prison shower. Skin feels like it is being peeled off with a thousand angry needles. There is only one setting on this nozzle and this is it. Note to self: Buy new shower head.
4:55 am: Bed is not in order. Someone kill me now. Consider passing out on floor, if there was any open floorspace between our piles of boxes to pass out on. There is not.
5:00am: Rip open bags like a crazy woman looking for bedding, toss linens on to mattress, and fade to black.
Day 4 (Monday): Ah, bliss, the last day of moving! Light at the end of the tunnel and hallelujahs and what have yous. The worst is behind us, we think. It has to be.
11:30am: Hyundai is covered in a couple feet of snow from not being moved for two days. We have no shovel. J says he "is not using the board again" and we're off to find a shovel...but every store is sold out. Are you there, God? It's me, Crystal. Please throw us a bone.
12:35pm: Standing in front of the empty shovel wall at Home Depot, we decide to buy a 4-inch wide trench digger. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Trench digger costs $25. I curse under my breath.
1:00pm: J starts digging out Hyundai with all the energy he can muster. Shovel, though not that wide, is more effective than we thought. But I suppose anything would be to a couple who previously used a trash can and a board.
1:15pm: We realize this is going to take longer than we thought. And we have until 6pm to clean slash turn in the key to our other apartment across town. Insert expletive here. I call apartment office, tell them what's going down and they agree to let me drop off the keys in a drop box that night. Crisis: averted.
2:34ish pm: Car is finally snow-free, but only after I shift it in neutral and J wedges himself between our car and adjacent Oldsmobile to push off on our front bumper and roll me away from snow bank. This results in him creating a human bridge between the Hyundai and Oldsmobile, which then results in him landing face-first into the snow once I roll away:
Hilarious.3:10pm: Return Uhaul truck. Ecstatic to finally have the thing off our hands. Now off to Arlington for the last time, to pick up the rest of our things and clean.
4:00pm to 10ish pm: Pack. Even more. Working through our severe exhaustion makes us feel like we are eternally condemned to hard labor, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up that mountain only to watch it roll down every time. Sometime during this 4-hour block we make a quick trip to McDonald's (again!) for dinner. While we're gone Lola gets into our kitchen trash and eats a whole waxy rind of Swiss cheese. I take solace in knowing that we both ate shit for dinner.
10:05pm: Light bulbs and random pairs of scissors surface here and there; a bride's maid dress I never wore; a barbecue; a Christmas tree stand (which, out of frustration, J later throws off the balcony like a large frisbee into the snow); a giant French clock that I refuse to part with. All these things we didn't account for thinking they'd fit in the car. The clutter is never-ending. As we amass the last of our things in the center of the empty living room we realize we should have included much of it on the truck bed since our Hyundai is so tiny. I want to punch myself in the face (and nickname myself Sisyphus).
10:35pm: I start vacuuming. Vacuum belt breaks. In a perfect world I'd pick up the vacuum cleaner and hurl it through the window, which I start to do but then stop myself. It would come out of my deposit, after all. Floor is in desperate need of vacuuming; most stores are closed. Then it dawns on me -- there's a Target nearby open till 11. Finally, a light at the end of the Godforsaken tunnel. We pile into car and head out, hoping they have the right belt.
11:45pm: Became side-tracked by the Valentine's Day aisle at Target, but we are back home with two vacuum belts in hand. J puts one on; it breaks right away. We're down to last belt. Sweat beads slide down our fatigued faces as we hope this one will stay in tact. It does. Victory.
12am to 3:30am: Cleaning.
3:30am: Start packing car. Yup, J was right. Not everything is fitting. Have to leave barbecue slash bride's maid dress slash Christmas tree stand slash myriad other things behind. Feels like we are literally throwing our money away. Not a good feeling, but hey, at this point we can't even feel our own swollen, blistered fingers. That's not a good feeling either.
3:35am: Lola gets diarrhea. She should have thought twice before giving in to her weakness for Swiss cheese.
4:30am: Car is crammed full. Every square inch is taken up by something, be it a computer printer, bags of clothes, or tubes of gift wrap. J tells me my giant French clock won't fit. I refuse to believe this and shove it in the inch-tall gap over everything in the back. He says if we get into a car accident the thing is taking our heads off. I say I'd rather not have a head then leave my French clock behind. He is speechless. Lola looks at me, then him, probably trying to tell us she'd like some Pepto Bismol.
4:45am: Time to drop keys off. We put them in the drop-off envelope and J is about to lick the edge to seal when he sees little hairs and linties stuck all over it. "That's been on the floor. Don't look at me, I'm not licking it," I say. We just want to get the hell out of there. He shuts his eyes, about to lick it anyway and deal with the consequences later, but then decides to just spit on it. Seals perfectly. We drop off and we're outta there.
5:30am: Though it's still freezing the roads are a bit clearer. When we reach our new apartment we leave everything in the locked car and head up. "What if someone steals something?" I ask. "For all I care they can take the car and drive it off a cliff," J replies.
6:00am: Sleep. Finally. End.
So that's my story. Like all good stories it starts with a moving truck and ends with a flatulent poodle. We woke up the next afternoon (yesterday) at about 3pm. J's fingers were swollen and he couldn't make a fist. Our legs were so sore we could barely move; my eyes were puffy from the cold and exhaustion. Not quite conducive to blogging, but we're better today...
Thursday, February 4, 2010
These...are the days of our lives
Breaking the news that we have to move.Tomorrow is moving day. And as I sit here surrounded by boxes, using the last of my Internet before the Comcast Nazis shut it off at midnight tonight, I can't help but feel a little sad.
I'm used to moving. In the last five years I've lived at six -- yes, six -- different addresses including this one. Packing up and leaving is modus operandi for me though always a little bittersweet. But this time that sucrose savoriness lingers a bit more than usual and I have a sneaking suspicion that it's because this is where J and I started out as a married version of "us."
When we left the west coast with 16 boxes and the rings on our fingers we didn't know what would be in store over the next three years of our lives here. Would he survive law school? Would I survive law school? Would we get to take weekend jaunts over to Europe now that we lived on a closer coast and plane tickets had to be cheaper? (The answers to these questions, consecutively, are yes, yes, and no.) We still have four months left in the DC area, and I suppose this post would be better suited for when we leave for good, but we've lived at this address for two years and I think it deserves some accolades.
This apartment has been the setting for some pretty fabulous memories, including intimate fondue dinners and epic tickling wars, dinner parties, Friday movie nights (thanks, Netflix) and dancing with J to the Bee Gees after he'd get home late and exhausted from class and still make an effort to make me laugh, a testament to what a good man he is. Oh and it was also here where monumental arguments between us would take place, making Lola -- who's very sensitive to volume and tone -- cower under the dinner table in fear. (Don't worry, pup: You know as well as we do that these arguments always end in laughter over how ridiculous we're being.)
It was in this apartment where we first brought Moneypenny home after adopting her, where my sister (who stayed with us summer of 2008 for her internship) ended up sleeping on the floor of our bedroom for a month after barricading the doorway because she was terrified of cats. (Suffice to say, as obese as Moneypenny was she still cleared our tall cardboard box hurdle. Hilarity ensued.) This is where I was first introduced to the Wii (grr), the best Bordeaux I've ever tasted, and everything jurisprudence-related (whether I wanted to know it or not) as told to me by J. This is where I woke up on the morning of Obama's inauguration, when we walked from our front door down to and across the Memorial Bridge, so we could stand on the National Mall with thousands of others in freezing conditions to hear the man give his speech.
It was in this apartment where I first discovered what would become my overarching obsession: Mad Men. It was here where, when I'd finally had enough, I made a career decision that two years ago I never would have dreamed of taking. This is where I started my life over because I realized it was never too late to push the "reset" button. This is where I competed in (and won!) my first Nanowrimo. And this is where I finished my first novel:
Did I think we were going to stay here forever? Of course not. It's an Archstone for Christ's sake; the clientele is as variable as Madonna's next musical persona. And I know that everyone has sentimental, sappy memories woven within rental walls, but these are mine and they're worth noting before Comcast clips the end of an era.
Anyway, at this point in our marriage we are without a home, complete unknowns, like rolling stones -- which is all fine with me. J brought up a good point the other night: We've built our life to be completely mobile, to pack up and leave whenever we need to wherever our next destination is. I'm glad that I could happily agree.
I think I've mastered the art of never getting too comfortable in one place. You just never know when you'll have to leave. Some might find this sad or scary; others may find it exhilarating. I think of it more as the latter. Every time you move you're embarking on another adventure. Even though I'm married I'm still young, malleable and open to change, which is the way I've been for the last 27 years. I hope I stay open to forms of change for the rest of my life, because I think that's what rounds you out as a person. If I dug my heels in at every opportunity to remain status quo I wouldn't be as happy, and I'd miss out on things I never tried.
Take moving to DC. It was definitely not on my to-do list (I'd lived here before for a congressional internship and had had my fill then), but I came back because of J and though it isn't my favorite place in the world it also hasn't been altogether terrible. If I hadn't come back, for instance, I never would have realized that this is truly the land of the personalized license plate. If I didn't live here I would never get to be cut off by the pretentious Mister "MasGolf" in his navy blue BMW almost every morning on Constitution Ave. while taking J to school. Or, after getting cut off, inevitably find myself behind Mister "JoeBama" in the brand new yellow Beetle. Again, DC has not been horrible. It's just another place that's been filled with new experiences and new friends that have shaped who I am. Contrary to what J might think, I have no regrets.
(Well, okay, one teensy regret: I have yet to live in a foreign country. I mean really live, not study abroad or visit or anything like that. I hope this'll change later this year when, money and careers permitting, we take up living in Buenos Aires for August. Oh, how I want to be an ex-pat, even for short-term. *Crosses fingers.*)
Anyway, as I mentioned in an earlier post, to save money our last four months here we decided to discontinue cable at our new apartment (funny social commentary that we own a 42'' plasma television but no cable). Luckily I've found a few places online that stream the shows (probably illegally) I watch but it's not my fault that laws in Malaysia and India aren't as strict as ours. We'll have Internet, but only God knows when since J just contacted Comcast today about scheduling an appointment, meaning we'll probably be connected in, oh, about three weeks.
So, until we meet again -- quite possibly sooner than later using free WiFi at a coffeeshop -- I'm off to Silver Spring, Maryland in a Uhaul truck tomorrow in the region's second-biggest snowstorm this winter. Let the good times roll.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Countdown to 2010
"My other vehicle is the Mahayana."Oh kiddies, looks like I've gone and become a blogging cliche this holiday season aka "where the heck have I been"? Seven posts in one month? Abhorrent. But such is the way of life when you're back home and drama is on full broil in the family kitchen! And with that, let's get to it:
Banished am I from my parents' home. Well, maybe not I, but J is. Drama went down in true telenovela fashion a day before Christmas Eve. It was like some sick mashup of Terms of Endearment meets American Beauty. It was raw, coarse and -- had it been a reality show on A&E after some show like Hoarders or Intervention, perhaps titled "Life in the 'Burbs" -- it would have had the possibility of winning awards, I tell you. Don't want to divulge all the private deets but in short J ended up losing it and yelling at my mom after she and I got into an argument, J and I leave -- me crying -- with our luggage in hand, a complicated ballet of words were exchanged between he and my mother, and now my whole family doesn't want to see or speak to my husband. Joy.
The best part? It takes me about, oh, 0.5 seconds to get over anything. I forgive too easily. For my family? Not so much. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes months, even years, for them to allow J back into the home. And this is after J saw the err of his ways and apologized on Christmas Day. Didn't matter; damage had been done. Sigh. I wish there was a way to go back and erase these kind of things.
First night spent in exile: J's brother's bachelor pad. And by bachelor pad I mean a shack of a two-bedroom nearly condemned house near the beach that gives new meaning to the word "squalor." The kind of pad a bachelor rents when he has no plans of ever finding a girl (which is funny since J's bro does have a great girlfriend ... who I don't think has ever seen the place).
I suppose it wouldn't be that bad if the unfinished hardwood floors didn't have cracks in some areas where you could see all the way to the dirt foundation beneath and there wasn't 1.5 inches of dog hair covering the few filthy throw rugs in the place. Oh and also if it didn't smell like a giant sweaty foot and have a jagged bathroom entryway that's been cut through the laundry room wall, allowing you semi-privacy as you pee behind the black silk sheet that's been tacked up to resemble some sort of door sans lock. (The bathroom also has a surfeit of dead and living daddy long legs on counter tops and shower corners, along with a rickety panel window of which one of the panels has been broken and mask-taped with a square of cardboard that has also, curiously, been punched open, allowing that chilly ocean air in late-night when the tinkle fairies call.)
Ah, and to round it all out a peculiar hobbit of a man named Chip is the one renting the other room. Chip has no job, spends all day watching television in his room with his roommate's dog, Gonzo, and didn't seem at all embarrassed by the state of things in his house -- even the light orange patina of dried urine around the base of the toilet on the floor. Think Spike from Notting Hill. But bald and with a convicted felon's goatee, minus the British charm.
Basically I couldn't help but laugh and cry that first night as a refugee. But it got better the second night when we realized my mother-in-law had a foldout couch in her living room. The thought of taking another shower in flip-flops and lying awake terrified all night that a cricket or wolf spider would crawl across my face was a bit too much to handle. My brother-in-law -- who was visiting Disneyland all Xmas weekend with his girlfriend -- meant well, but I just. Couldn't. Do it.
So here I am, currently staying with my mother-in-law who is a true salt-of-the-earth hippie. Crammed into every corner of her one-bedroom apartment are hundreds of bottles of different oils to bring inner peace and harmony, along with tambourines, painted stones and stacks of books on meditation and spiritual growth. Next to two sink spouts and a shower faucet "Love & Gratitude" has been written in small letters on the walls. To remind her (and anyone who reads them) to think positive thoughts and live with an "attitude of gratitude" every day of life. At first I didn't get it, chalking it up to another hippie way of life (a way I've always wanted to follow), but it's actually grown on me. Love & gratitude, anyone?
Sometimes I find myself half-expecting John, Paul, Ringo and George to walk through the front door for a Hare Krishna sitar session. But instead I sit here analyzing the state of things as I drink ginger tea with "joy" and "possibility" oils (compliments of mother-in-law) in the absence of cable. I may finally be unleashing my inner hippie but Real Housewives of OC, oh how I've missed you.
Maybe this happened for a reason, I've thought, living in this den of meditation. Everyone (including my brother who points it out on a regular basis) knows how short my fuse is, how little people have to do to make me impatient or irritated. Sometimes I feel like Melvin Udall in As Good As it Gets. I know I need to learn to tamp down my irritation/anger/impatience. Perhaps sitting here quietly with coconut shell musical instruments, flower petals and painted stones, eating only raw foods and occasionally playing my mother-in-law's bongo drums is the way to do it.
I've been visiting my family every day or two. It's weird now, because they're normal again around me -- almost as if nothing happened. But then I realize J isn't at our dinner table and none of them want to see him right now and it makes me sad and frustrated. "Why can't you all just move on from it??" I want to yell. I loathe that giant pink elephant in the room. But I understand why it's there, and I know that everyone deals with these things in their own time. I just hope it doesn't take too long. After all, he's a part of my life permanently, so they'll have to forgive him sooner or later.
Of course, all this had to happen just before our family trip up to Sacramento for New Year's. You know, the one J was supposed to come on. Well I want to see my relatives up north and New Year's is a special holiday for my family, so he and I will be apart this year. I'm glad he has family down here to spend that time with so he won't be alone, but it looks like I won't be getting a New Year's kiss ... except maybe from Lola (yuck, fish breath, nevermind). I guess it's not that big of deal since post-college the holiday has lost its luster. With every year that passes it just seems more depressing, like time slipping away. (And we all know there are other, more important holidays anyway, like my absolute favorite: Valentine's Day. Missing that with J would be an utter travesty.)
So that's that. I hope all of you have a frabjous New Year's and I'll see you on the other side!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Random thought
"A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Monday, June 15, 2009
A little love goes a long way
Lola at the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC.When I first moved to Boston the summer after college, I didn't know a soul. I had gotten accepted to a handful of grad schools and decided I'd give Boston a whirl; I had spent some time there as a kid and remembered it as a swingin' city.
I love moving to new places and making new friends, so life couldn't have been more perfect when I arrived at Logan Airport that balmy July day with my suitcase in hand, ready to take on the world ... er, the sprawling New England city. A few months before, my parents and I had bought a tres chic two-bedroom apartment on Commonwealth Ave. for me to live in, so once I landed I hopped in a cab and headed "home". It was on the first floor of an older 4-story, red-brick building, complete with a real stoop. (In California we don't really have stoops -- the only one I was familiar with was Carrie Bradshaw's in Sex and the City.) Hardwood floors, bay windows in the living room overlooking the street below, a black and white-tiled kitchen just like out of the Clue boardgame. I felt like I had stepped onto the set of some 1940s post-WWII flick, and half-expected Gene Kelly to come tap-dancing through my front door, leering at me on his way in. Needless to say, I was delighted by all the old-world charm that evaded so much of the architecture in my home state.
I got to work painting my bedroom walls a warm shade of "Tuscan Sunlight", my living room walls two different shades of olive, picking out decor and reveling in the fact that I, yes I, now had an actual stoop. (This fact didn't settle in until a few months later. Even then I would sneak the occasional peek out my bay windows, make sure my trusty stoop was still there and smile.). Shortly after I arrived in Boston, I began meeting some pretty cool cats in my apartment building and at school, many of whom are still my good friends today.
All was peachy keen till things started getting ... well, let's put it this way: I don't do well by myself at night in large dwellings. Once-charming kitchens begin looking ominous by moonlight after I've watched The Sixth Sense, and turning out all the lights in a big, lonely apartment with nothing but the errant creak keeping me company (and freaking me out) as I lay frozen in bed doesn't bode well with someone who possesses such an overactive imagination. The problem was (and always will be) that not only am I a tad superstitious, but I also believe in ghosts. (Unfollow me now if you must, but bear with me otherwise!)
I know it's ridiculous and so juvenile, but I'm terrified of spirits, the paranormal, ghosts -- basically anything that has to do with the dead. Couple that with the fact that I love a good scary movie and/or book, and well, that's a cocktail I probably shouldn't mix but always end up sipping. Usually when I'm sitting alone at 1am with nothing to do. Call it masochistic, but sometimes it's just fun to freak yourself out ... right? This is much easier to do than you'd think in a building built in the 1940s. Sometimes my mind would get the best of me: Who lived in this apartment before me? And before them?? What if something horrible happened in this very foyer?! All of a sudden, that stoop wasn't so endearing anymore.
So went my first few weeks. I hadn't planned on getting a roommate since everyone I knew in Boston was already in a lease, then it hit me: Why don't I adopt a dog? Note: I didn't just adopt on a whim solely because I was petrified of being alone at night; I had grown up with a poodle in my family and had been planning on getting a dog sometime after college. But the night I had to muster all my courage to get a cup of water from the kitchen, hoping I wouldn't run into the creepy twins from The Shining asking me to come play with them, I knew I needed a dog. Stat.
During high school I volunteered at the SPCA, so it's always been important to me to adopt homeless dogs. Right away I found a solid organization who rescued dogs of all shapes and sizes from the putrid confines of (what should be illegal) puppy mills. There is much to be criticized about puppy mills if you aren't familiar, but I'll write about them soon, I promise. Anyway, I called the foundation, who told me they'd be rescuing a group of poodles soon among other breeds, and they asked what color/age/sex I wanted after they ran a background check on me. I told them I wanted a white female poodle and that I would take an older one (since the puppies always find homes more easily).
About two weeks later, I waited in the organization's driveway along with countless other families who were waiting to pick up their dogs. A large U-Haul pulled in shortly after -- it had driven through the night from North Carolina after sweeping up dozens of abused dogs from a puppy mill -- and once they opened the truck bed, displaying the many cages of confused animals, we all watched and waited anxiously.
When they handed me my Lola, she was a pitiful sight. First off, her name wasn't originally Lola, it was Ms. Say It Ain't So (basically a breeding name akin to nothing more). Naturally she did not respond to Ms. Say It Ain't So (would you?), and had been severely abused. She was a toy poodle who came to me completely shaved from her recent vet visit and was obviously malnourished, as her ribs showed through like two small washboards.
The foundation told me that she had lived her entire four years of life in a cage since birth, and had been used to produce litters in horrific, inhumane conditions. All she knew was crate wire below her paw pads. She had never been treated with love, was terrified of humans (especially men) and had obviously been hit -- probably by a man -- more than once. How anyone could hit a 10-lb. fluffy thing is beyond me. She had no clue how to walk on a leash, had never been house trained, never walked on grass, and never been in a car -- save for her 14-hour U-Haul ride. Everything was new to her and though it took me a good three weeks to begin building her trust, it was worth every second of my patience. I slowly taught her how to walk on a leash, quickly house-trained her, and even got her to love walking up and down that stoop as much as I did (milkbones helped -- with her, not me). I wasn't scared of my apartment at night anymore. Being with Lola and educating her in the ways of love, gourmet cooking and The Beatles miraculously took my mind off anything Stephen King-esque.
Flash forward to now, and Lola Belle Watkins is my partner in crime. She's quiet, well-behaved and sometimes a little too shy, but that's okay. Love often says I spoil her too much, but with all the bad stuff that's happened in her past, she deserves to be spoiled. She's going on nine years old this year, and she's become a definitive part of my family. After grad school, she and I moved back to California -- where my whole family fell in love with her -- and subsequently to DC, where sometimes (when he thinks I'm not watching) Love spoils her even more than I do. If that's possible.
Here are some of my favorite pictures of her:
Story time for the kiddies. Love recounting his day to Lola and Moneypenny, our recently adopted cat. They seem to approve.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
