Christmas of Firsts

This was the first Christmas I ever...

- spent with Dan. Last year he was at sea doing secret squirrel Coast Guard stuff, and while we celebrated Christmas during one of the few days he had off last December, it sucked pretty hardcore to be away from him on Christmas day.

 - had pizza for Christmas dinner.  Most people have turkey, some have ham, we had a large cheese pizza and a side of chicken wings.  I was fully prepared to make a real, big-kid Christmas dinner, but Dan convinced me to wait until Sunday.  In his family, it's tradition to sit at home in your p.j.'s all day on Christmas and play with the new toys Santa brought you.  Then on the 26th, head to your family's house for the big dinner.  So I absolutely sat in my p.j.'s all day, played with my Christmas presents and opted to make our big dinner of ham, pineapple stuffing and potatoes on the 26th.

 - watched Goonies.  Don't judge me.  I was only 3 when that movie came out, and I didn't watch anything but Disney movies until I was about 10.  By the way, mom, that shit wasn't cool.  You should have rented cooler movies for me to watch.

 - watched Top Gun.  Again, don't judge me.  And see previous bullet point for explanation.  Dan is constantly amazed at the number of "classic, must-see" movies I've never seen.  So I bought him these two on blu-ray for Christmas and we had a "Jamie needs to catch up on the last 20 years of cinematic excellence" marathon.

 - received a piece of a Quaker Oats box as a Christmas present.  Dan ordered me an album for Christmas, and when he found out it wouldn't arrive in time, he printed out the album's cover art, with a note saying when it would arrive, scotch taped it to a piece of Quaker Oats box and wrapped it in Christmas paper.  Gotta say, it was the most creative gift I ever unwrapped:)

 - didn't go home to Kansas to spend Christmas with my family.  Typically at Christmas I get shuttled from house to house, help my Grandma wrap hoards of gifts, then go into a diabetic coma after eating sugary goodies for a week straight.  And that's all tons of fun, but staying home was definitely nice and relaxing.  At least it was relaxing between the hourly work-related fire drills.  And Dad, the invitation still stands for next year!

Thanksgiving! The Live Blog

9:03 pm: The night before

Something I noticed between shoving piles of delicious food into my face at my Grandma's Thanksgiving dinners was that she always had the pies ready before anything else.  In fact, she baked them the day before!  Clever granny.  As Dan and I embark on our first Thanksgiving together (and without the fam), I thought, "I too must implement this ingenious bit of time management skills!"  And so, when I finally stopped working my 'real job' at 9:00 tonight, I set to work baking my first ever fresh-from-scratch-(almost) Apple Pie.  So I cheated a little and bought ready-made crusts...it happens.
I peeled and sliced the apples, mixed the ingredients and threw them into the pie crust.  On a whim I topped off the filling with a few dabs of Orange Blossom Honey.  Then it was time to cover it up with the top crust.  A few days ago I thought it would be cool to cut designs into the top of the pie.  Then Dan convinced me to do a weave like you see in all those cookbooks from 1976.  Now I don't so much give a shit.  So I slapped on the top crust, sans any fanciness, only to discover it, uh, wasn't exactly proportionate.  It seemed much bigger than the bottom crust.  No bother!  I just peeled off the excess and sealed 'er up.  Cut a few slits in the top and into the oven it went for 40-50 minutes.


9:30 pm: Turkey-lurky for me, turkey-lurky for you
Time to brine the turkey!  I did this once before with Champagne.  It didn't really taste much different than any other turkey I'd had, but I decided to do it again merely for the cool-kid factor of cooking with Champagne.


9:40 pm: Ten minutes later
Realize turkey is still, in fact, quite frozen.  No Champagne brine this year.  But then I realize this means I can drink the Champagne, and I feel much better.


9:50 pm: Time to take a peek at the pie!
It looks lumpy.  Quite lumpy.  In fact, I didn't know pies could look like that.  Even though I know it's nearly midnight in Kansas, I post the following message to my aunt's Facebook: I'm baking an apple pie right now, my first ever.  The top is lumpy.  Is the top supposed to be lumpy?  I don't think so.  And I put honey in it.  The recipe didn't call for honey.  But I put in some honey.  Maybe that wasn't such a great idea.  It's probably burning from the inside out.  Crap.  This is what you're missing.


10:15 pm: That's the pie?
I google "How to tell if an apple pie is done" and by the search results determine that my apple pie is done.  I remove it from the oven and discover part of my crust has sprung a leak and the filling is seeping out into the pie dish.  Perhaps that excess top crust I so hastily ripped off was there for a reason.  This kind of shit would never happen to Sara Lee.


7:30 am: Thanksgiving!
The puppies let us sleep in a whole hour - yeah!  First order of business is to call the fam back in Kansas to see if they're surviving.  The phone gets passed around for an hour while I attempt to get the turkey out of the fridge, make some coffe and start cooking the appetizers (meatballs and deviled eggs!)  


9:30 am: I forgot to get ice cream.
Open my laptop to update a few things and make the mistake of checking my work email.  One hour and multiple angry emails later, work "crisis" is averted.  (The use of quotation marks around the word crisis indicates that even though others viewed this as a crisis I, in fact, could not have cared less.)

Dan took the doggies to the dog park and stopped at the store to get vanilla ice cream for our apple "pie" (use of quotations around the word pie indicates that it doesn't really look like a pie.)  There's another person already in the aisle grabbing a tub of vanilla ice cream when he gets there.  They stop, look at Dan and say, "Apple pie?"

10:23 am: Let's eat turkey in a big brown shoe!
The turkey is finally thawed enough that I can clean it and take out the neck and giblets.  According to multiple videos on You Tube, these are usually stored in a plastic bag inside the cavity that you can easily pull out.  There's no plastic bag in my turkey's cavity.  Shit.  I make Dan shine a flashlight into the turkey so I can see what's going on down there.  "There's the neck," he says, "grab it and pull it out!"  Of course, like I do this all the time.  I pull the neck out while simultaneously making a few gagging noises. "Where are the giblets?" I ask.  "Look up it's ass," he said.  Technically, I was already looking up it's ass, but I knew what he meant.  I flipped the bird over and found another hole with a handy-dandy bag of giblets for me to pull out and throw away.  That Dan, he's so smart.  Into the oven goes the bird!

12:30 pm: As in Blanche Devereaux?
I decide to scrap the macaroni and cheese bake as nothing over 1" tall will fit in the oven with that bird in there.  I prep the taters and get those boiling for mashed potatoes then move on to snapping the green beans.  I purchased 2lbs of fresh green beans at the farmers market a couple weeks ago and put them in the freezer so they'd stay good until Thanksgiving.  The idea was to thaw them, snap them, then sauté them like I do all the time with fresh green beans.  But when they were done thawing, the beans were soggy.  Whoops.  Dan's mom informed us via phone from Pennsylvania that you're supposed to blanch vegetables before freezing them in order to keep them crisp.  The only Blanche I'm aware of is the one on Golden Girls.  Lesson learned.  I make an executive decision to turn sautéed green beans into green bean casserole and send Dan back to the store for fried onions.  Now I just have to find a dish to make it in that's less than 1" tall.

1:27 pm: Sorry 'bout that taters:(
I seemed to have inadvertently whipped the potatoes into submission.  But, upon further inspection they are quite tasty.  So I decide to pass it off like that's what mashed potatoes are supposed to look like.

1:42 pm: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...hey, what's with the Green Bean Casserole?
Ok, so the executive decision to switch to green bean casserole probably would have worked better if I'd gotten new green beans.  Apparently the soggy ones were retaining water and in the course of baking, transferred said water to the fried onions, which turned soggy, but the green beans ended up crisper than before.  I find this odd, and very unappealing, but the dogs seem to love it.

2:15 pm: You better start googling it.
I inform Dan it's his job to carve the turkey.  He plays it off like he has no idea how to do this, so I tell him to google it quick because everything is done.  He knew exactly how to carve it...slacker.

2:30 pm: Time to eat!
We declare the turkey to be delicious and the potatoes to be perfect (as long as you close your eyes).  At this point Camper has been trolling the kitchen for a solid 5 hours.  I reward him with a piece of the delicious turkey and he takes 3 of my fingers with it.  Ouch.

All-in-all they day seemed to be successful for my first Thanksgiving without the fam.  I only ruined one dish and only sent Dan to the store twice.  If only one of those times hadn't been to get an ingredient for the dish I later ruined:-/  Sorry hun!

Now, let's see about this deformed apple/pie/cobbler/baked thing-a-ma-jig...

At least I'll get unemployment.

Things I've said in front of the new HR Rep at work before I knew she was HR and I totally thought she worked in accounting:

1. "Fuck"

2. "What the fuck?"

3. "You piece of shit avatars!  I hate you virtual fucks!"

4. "Why the hell is there so much talking!?"

5. Susan to Jamie: "I don't want to talk to you anymore." Jamie to Susan: "And I don't want to hear you talking to me anymore."

6. Susan to the office: "What would be good for a Halloween lunch?" Jamie to Susan: "Not coming to work."

7. "I CAN'T WORK LIKE THIS ANYMORE!!"

8. "Gaaaaaaaaaaaaay...1st!"  (In imitation of a Facebook comment)

9.  "What the fuck, dude?"

10. "Who does this hoe think she is?!"

11. "Yer breakin' my balls, dude."

12. "Eff this shit, yo! Let's drink!"

And lucky number 13...

"Just don't name it 'Furry Patrol.'"

BURDS!

I was planning on writing all about our experience at Fleet Week in San Francisco this past weekend.  How we took the Ferry (which is really just a floating day care that plays fast and loose with arrival times), how we walked along the Piers (which oddly enough are not numbered in sequential order), how the military confiscated pepper spray from my purse before allowing me to partake in their barbeque event...But instead, you'll be hearing from Camper again.  Why? Because several readers requested a new post from him and because his life just seems way more interesting than mine right now.

Hay peepholes.  How youz?  I fine.  I poop beter now cuz momz makes us fud evry nite and it tayst likes kandy and I don’t has to eets dry stuff no mores.  Dah only problems iz she takes way too long maken it and I done like waitin.  So I has to keep tellin her “Hurriez up!  I iz waitin!”  Den she always put Sierra fud down first and makin me wait sum more.  Das krap.  So to gets back at her, sumtimes I liks her face in dah middles of dah nite and wakes her up.  Hehehe, she done like it. 

Saturday we wents to dad’s work.  Dey gots lots uh weird birds waddling arownd and I ran all overs makin dose birds runaway even tho moms was hooked to me.  She ran too.

Yesterdays hoomans waz gone all day longs.  And we waz so bored.  We finally goes to doggie park after fud.  But evry time I runs up to a dog to says hi, der hoomans freek out and takes ‘em home.  Whatevers, I just tryin to say hi and chew on ‘em to see whats dey tayste like.

Today dad stayed wit us all dayz.  We went to doggie parks 2 timez.  At da sekon park, der waz a hooman pointen at sum birds on dah oder side of dah fence and so I looks and saw dem.  Dey waz just like dah onez at dads work so I know I kan chase dem and makem runs evrwhers.  So I jumps over dah fence and starts chasin em, but den dad jumps over dah fence and starts chasin too.  I done kno he like chasin too, and he also likes yellin loud.  We runz all overs and all dah way downs to dah water.  But den after runnin fur a wilz, he takes me back to dah park.

Den after dat we come home and hoomans talkin bout sumthin called groomen toomarowz.  I done kno what it iz, but dads taken us wen he get home.  I bet it iz gonna be fun wit lots uh birds and skwerls to run afters.  I tell you laterz what happens at deh groomen.

Camper

Things I've Learned Since Dan's Been Gone

Dan is gone to Kentucky for two weeks and we're currently at the half-way mark of his absence.  At this time it's unsure if I'll manage to survive the remaining half.  But if I do, I'm promised a t-shirt that reads "I ♥ KY."  Here's what I've learned in the week so far:

1. Street sweeping is a sham.  It says you can't park on our street from 3 am - 6 am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  I walked the dogs from 6:15 - 6:25 am on Tuesday morning and watched the street sweeper sweep the adjacent street, and approach the intersection to our street, only to turn the other way leaving piles of dirt, leaves and garbage and up and down the empty street.  Jackass.  I coulda parked there you know!

2.  These dogs are trying to kill me.  How do I know this?  Because of their poop.

  2a. Sierra has decided the park accross the street from our apartment is her park.  She doesn't understand why stranger dogs would be walking in her park.  Ever.  So when they do, she not-so-politely instructs them to get the f*ck out while pulling my arm out of the socket.  Sometimes she waits until I'm bent over, picking up her poo, then lunges for the other dog.  This results in poo flying in multiple directions.

  2b. Camper has explosive diarrhea.  Lets move on...

3. I much prefer walking/taking the train to driving.  You never have to parallel park a train.  Though parallel parking Dan's truck feels like I'm trying to parallel park a train.  On the upside, I'm sure I've given people in the neighborhood plenty of parking enduced entertainment.

4. Was I supposed to eat this week?  Dammit.

5. We are EXTREMELY lucky to have such wonderful neighbors and friends.  So far this week Teresa has walked the dogs each afternoon, cleaned up explosive diarrhea, rescued my palm tree from certain disaster, and fed Camper his special tummy diet.  After all that, she deserves a day at the spa.  I'll probably just give her some baked goods.

"What plant?" Photo courtesy of Teresa Goodwin.

6.  I don't like Dan being gone.

Guest Blogger: Camper!

Dear friends, family and blog-follwers:  Sorry for the delay in new musings.  Life, for the time being, seems to have taken hold of all my time and will not share it with me.  As a special treat for waiting so long, I'm bringing in a guest blogger.  He's had quite an exciting last few weeks and would just love to tell you all about it.  But please forgive his spelling errors.  He is, after all, a dog.

Hello Hoomans!

Camper hard at work writing.

It's me, Camper!  The noowist and purtiest edishun to deh Evans-Ball familee.  I'm gunna post this week's blog cuz I been doowin all sorts uh kewl stuffs.  A cupple weeks ago I went to dah Point Isabel Dog Park for the furst time evah!  It waz soooo amazun my doggie head almost ES-PLOH-DED!!  I WANTED TO RUN EVEREE WHERES!!  But meh hoomans wuld not takes off dah leesh.  Unkewl.  But after a lil bit, dey dropped meh leesh!!  Cuz at home dey says meh name, I come to dem and get treets.  But I not gunna come to dem at deh park, cus ders too much goins on!!  So I runs throo deh park and out to where deh hooman cars are, just to sees wats happenin.  Den meh hoomans catched up and dey was all outta breath like they waz runnin.  Dunno why.

Den a weeks later I goes back to Point Isabel.  Only dis time, dey not drop my leesh.  Bummers.  But dey puts me on a reelly reelly longer leesh, so I canz run around wile deys holds me.  It wuz sooooo MUCH FUNZ!!  But sumtimes I forget dey still has da leesh and I starts to run far, den dah leesh jerk me round in a sircle and all deh hoomans laffed at meh.  I gunna pees on deh floor laters for dat.  Hehehehehe.

Den sumthin SOOPER KEWL happind.  I learns how to open deh front door!  And I didn't need thums ur nothin!  Our front door has a handle insted of a nob and thanx to sum sooper great fire codes, deh door unloks when you pulls on deh handle!  So wile mom and dad were out, I wents over to dah park to chase birds and eat deh bread krazy old peeple feeds to dem.  Den the naybor hoomans came with der doggie, Shiloh and day tooks me home and told mom and dad on me.  Den dad tooks dah door apart and it done open any moors.

Dats just a fews of the way good stuffs I been doin'.  I reely likes it here!  K, bye.

Too tired for titles.

Does anyone remember about a month ago when I was sitting around all day long only leaving the house to walk the dog or visit the neighbors?  I do.  And I also remember thinking, “One day soon I’m going to wish I had this much free time to lounge around.”  But at the time I didn’t care because all that free time was making me INSANE.  Literally.  Just ask Dan.

Well, that day where I wish to have that free time again is here.  It is here and it is a bitch.  Don’t get me wrong, I love having projects, and being productive, and I always push myself to do more. But I've found my threshold. In the past seven days I…

Went with Dan and our pups on an overnight camping trip to Mount Umunhum near Los Gatos, CA.  We went with B.A.S.H., otherwise known as the Bay Area Siberian Husky Club.  We met all kinds of great new peeps and pups, watched the doggies pull stuff around for fun and slept in the back of the truck.  See my Facebook album for more on that.

Had my first product launch at work.  We successfully launched Katy Perry Revenge this week, a music gaming iPhone/iPod app with all Katy Perry music and graphics.  It’s very pink and bubbly.  On the upside we managed to keep the release of the game under wraps (sort-of) and we didn’t break anything such as servers, the game, our computers or each other.  On the downside I’ve been randomly bursting out into Katy Perry songs and Dan doesn’t seem to be much of a fan.

Met with Whitney Nichole, a Bay Area singer/songwriter who has just recorded her first full-length album and will be releasing it in a few months.  Through one of my previous instructors, Whitney contacted me for assistance in getting word out to the people about her new album.  How flattering!  Let’s hope I don’t screw it up.  She’s a super cool chick with a great sound who put Ludacris to shame when she and her sister recently covered the tune “Break Your Heart” during a live show at the Hotel Utah in San Fran.  Keep an eye on her; this could get epic…

Finished the week out at the Eat Real Festival at Jack London Square in Downtown Oakland.  It was a festival of food.  Literally.  There were food trucks and tents from local eateries, breweries, wineries and ice creameries all over the Bay Area.  We went with our friends/neighbors Elliot and Teresa.  I ate a burrito the size of my head that was so delicious I wanted to marry it and drank beer from a mason jar.  On the way home Elliot forced us into the Ben & Jerry's where Dan had a tender moment with a scoop of Peanut Butter Cookie Dough ice cream and I had a strawberry ice cream cone which was, again, as big as my head.  I'm now entering a food coma.  My kind of festival.  

Generally speaking this is where I’d leave you with some funny/witty/sum-it-all-up words of wisdom.  But since I didn’t bother writing a title, why bother writing a conclusion.  The end.

Hey blue eyes. Wanna come home with me?

Camper!

Yes, I did use this line on a guy today.  Sort-of.  Dan used it on him too.  He's about 2.5 feet tall, is really hairy, and has sparkly blue eyes.  His name is Camper and he's a husky that we just adopted from the sled dog rescue organization Norsled, here in the Bay Area.  We've been talking about/searching/wanting another dog ever since Sierra had to leave all her puppy roommates back in Florida.  She and Camper had lots of fun running around the park, and Camper also had fun finding an opening in the fence to run through.  Snap!  It may be a while before we can trust him off the leash.  But he's a very happy pup and (we think) about a year or so old.  He was handed over to the folks at Norsled in mid-July after being found roaming the mean streets of Modesto.  Actually, I'm not sure Modesto's streets are all that mean as I've never been there, but either way, that's where he was found.  He'd been staying with his foster mom and dad, Heron and Arturo, and their husky, Kira, for a little over a week when we scooped him up.

Sierra seemed to be a bit...er...confused as to why Camper stayed with us after his foster family left.  We tried explaining to her that she's Camper's big sister now and should be happy to have him here, but she doesn't seem to want to share her toys, bed, food, water or humans with him.  I guess maybe something got lost in the translation.

The Toy Stand-Off of 2010

We said, "Sierra, we brought home a new pup for you to play with all the time!  He's sweet, and happy and gives lots of kisses."

She heard, "Sierra, we hate you and in order to make your life miserable we brought home this new guy.  We're gonna give him all your toys, food, water and bed.  Deal with it."

Anyway, Camper seems to be enjoying his new home, at least that's what we infer from all the tail-wagging and kissing.  And Sierra's, well, dealing with it.  Lesson for the day:  Don't assume big sisters will jump on the little brother bandwagon right away, and don't google "activities for huskies in oakland california" unless you're a 250 pound single person looking to speed date.  Seriously.

Stay quiet, stay quiet, stay quiet...BLAH!

This past week was my first full week of work in, uh, a while.  And basically it would be really great if one: I actually liked my job and two: I was at least remotely successful and didn't completely screw things up.  The first one - done.  The place has great energy and everyone is super nice and loads of fun.  I mean, these people make games for a living, it has to be awesome, right?  I walked in day one, they handed me a brand new MacBook Pro laptop and instructed me to think up some fun ideas for new games, and play a bunch of existing games online and on my iPhone as research.  Anybody wanna play a little game called "I Win"? Because I win at accomplishing number one: emjoying my job.

So I hypothesized that the best way to accomplish the second task would be to keep my head down, work hard and STAY SILENT.  Easy...yeah right.  If you read this, you know me and also know I can usually stay silent for about 2.6 seconds before blurting out whatever goofy, inappropriate thought is in my head.  I think I managed to keep a professional facade going at work for about a day and a half until I met my downfall: the power cord.  I kept getting tangled in the power cord of my wonderful, shiny new laptop every time I got up out of my seat.  Thankfully, Apple designed the power cord for the MacBook with a magnet on the end that pulls out of the laptop when the cord is pulled on.  So, ideally, when I get tangled up in the cord on the way out of my seat, it would pull out of the laptop and everything, including me, stays in one piece.  Ideally.

But in at least one, particularly heinous altercation, I got up out of my seat and became instantly entangled in my power cord.  One foot in the air, hands full with notebook and coffee, I tried to pull my leg free unsuccessfully.  Perched on one foot, waving the other one around, I tried to break loose for almost a full 30 seconds before I blurted out "I'm gonna break my damn neck!  Stupid friggin' power cord.  Magnetic release my ass!"

I don't think I realized I'd said anything out loud until at least 2-3 people erupted into laughter at my exclamation.  I guess this means the plan to keep my head down and stay quiet is out, but at least it seems everyone is good humored enough to not hold my, um, we'll call it "bluntness" against me:)  We shall see...

Anyone missing a well-dressed drunk?

I woke up this morning to an email from our Property Manager, Beverly.  Typically emails from Beverly mean one of two things: surprise building maintenance, or we owe money.  Oh how wrong I was.  How amazingly, and hilariously wrong.  Some background information you need to know before I tell you what her email entailed:


We live in a building that has apartments and lofts.  We have a loft, which is on the first floor and has it's own entrance from the street.  People who live on floors two through four have regular apartments and must enter through the front lobby of the building.  We only go into the lobby to check our mail and dump our trash, so for the most part, we're spared the "joys" of apartment living.  Below is an excerpt of the email, detailing such "joys" which we have, thankfully, been spared:


"Good morning,
For the past few days, there has been an unusual amount of messes left around the building. Most surprisingly what was found this morning, a pile of feces between the 2nd and ground floor stairwell on the 10th St. side."

Yes people...feces.  Apparently when you gotta go, you gotta go.  Oh, but there's more:

"Earlier this morning, one of the residents found a drunk man passed out in front of a unit on the 4th floor. Please see attached photos and if you know who he is or if you saw anything last night, please let me know."

PHOTOS WERE ATTACHED!!!  I nearly lost my mind from giddy enjoyment at the misfortune of this seemingly mature, well-dressed gentleman.  The poor guy got all snazed  up only to pass out in the hallway of a strange building while his friends partied on, a stranger pooed in the stairwell, and an angry neighbor snapped his picture, which is now on the internet.  Now THAT is a Saturday night.

Apartment Fever

As you probably know, I finally received a job offer from a company I’ve been interviewing with since May.  However, that was two weeks ago and I have yet to actually start working thanks to the longest background check known to mankind.  I think they were tracing my history all the way back to when my ancestors emigrated from Europe.  The wait to begin has been brutal…I feel like a starving person watching a dangling smorgasbord, and so does my bank account.  Speaking of smorgasbords, with my abundance of spare time I’ve been cooking and baking up a storm, and then eating up a storm.   So far today, for no other reason than shear boredom, I’ve eaten Captain Crunch, two huge brownies, salami, cheese, pickles and three cups of coffee.  Ew, I kinda want to barf from just writing that combination of food. 

The obvious solution is to go out and explore our new city and surroundings.  Which is a great idea – in theory.  But finances allow me to explore only what is within walking distance from our apartment, and you can’t really “explore” shops and restaurants with no money.  Well, I suppose you could, but it’s just not very much fun.  So I mostly just explore sidewalks while gazing longingly at people sipping drinks, chatting over hors d’oeuvres and proudly carrying around their full shopping bags.  It’s enough to drive a girl right over the friggin’ edge!

BUT NO MORE – AAAAAHHHHH!!!  After seven interviews with five different people, the company being bought out in the middle of my interview process, filling out two rounds of applications, a two-week long background check and a lost social security card I’M FINALLY GOING TO WORK!!!!

Now, who wants to bet all of my blog posts from now on will be filled with ranting about work ;-)

Fun With Neighbors

You can’t pick your neighbors, and when you live in an urban setting your neighbors multiply while the square footage shrinks.  Over the past month, we’ve learned quite a bit about our neighbors.  Some good, some bad, and some just not right.  As our loft is a first floor corner unit, we often see various neighborhood peeps walking by.  We also hear a lot of interesting conversations courtesy of our open windows.  The most…uh….fascinating are the conversations people have with themselves while waiting on the corner for the light to change.  Then there’s the pudgy Philippine-Asian-Super Creep that lives in the house behind our building who, instead of walking down the street and talking to himself, stands on his stoop and talks to himself.  Which makes walking by SUPER enjoyable.  Sometimes he even does a little dance and hops from foot to foot, which really only adds to the enjoyment of passersby. 

Not all our neighbors are crazy though (thank God).  We also met the loveable, happy pup Shiloh and his human counterparts Elliot and Theresa.  We first encountered the trio soon after Elliot and Theresa had adopted their new family member and were walking down our street (they live in the same building).  We just happened to recognize Shiloh from a local Petfinder.com advertisement and struck up a conversation.  Since then we’ve gone on puppy play dates, they’ve had us over for dinner and even lent us some glasses and mugs to use as ours are now lost and gone forever thanks to those wonderful movers.  

But now, it’s time to tell you about the most horrible urban neighbor ever known to man: the street sweeper.  It’s bossy and dictates where you park on what days, it’s loud and shows absolutely no regard for whether or not you’re sleeping, it’s loud, and it’s frigging loud. 

Alas, thus is our new urban life; the good, the bad and the downright crazy.

Doggie Days of summer!

As most of you know we recently uprooted our pretty pup, Sierra, from her big fenced in yard, forced her to ride in a truck for 10 days cross-country, teasing her with pastures, fields and forests across the Midwest only to end up in the middle of a concrete jungle in California.  She expressed her unhappiness by looking at us as though she’d like to snack on our faces for lunch and consistently shedding her fur like a stressed geriatric.  So, we tried to appease her by taking her on daily outings to the area parks. 

Fortunately we have a city park right across the street, about 50 feet from our front door…that technically doesn’t allow dogs.  But, that doesn’t stop us from taking her there to pee, poo, chase squirrels and entertain the very loud elderly gentlemen who congregate there at sunrise to drink coffee and yell at each other from across the park.  Such a nice way to wake up each morning.  We also tried taking her to the dedicated dog park about 5 minutes away.  Visits here include a lot of sniffing and little pooing, but hardly any running or playing.  This must be what parents feel like when their kids stand alone in the corner of the playground.  And poop.

So, we ventured out from the city parks to some regional parks around East Bay where Sierra could run around without being attached at the hip (literally and figuratively) to her humans.  These larger parks have tons of space for our four-legged social outcast to run free, some hiking trails for her often lazy humans to exercise and beautiful shorelines and views.  The parks we frequent include Oyster Bay, Albany Bulb and Point Isabel. 

Oyster Bay was actually converted from an old landfill, which is an impressive use of an unimpressive property.  Sierra's favorite part is the jackrabbits who run around the park burrowing holes and tunnels.  Don't say anything, but they totally mess with her. They pop their heads up out of the ground, whistle at her then jet back down under the surface only to pop back up at a different hole (whack-a-mole style).  She's mystified by it.

The Albany Bulb has its very own doggie beach (photos courtesy of a stranger on Flickr who didn’t protect their photo rights – thanks!), which Sierra very tentatively approaches when we throw a stick in the water for her to catch.  Usually she only wades in ankle deep and waits for the waves to bring her the stick.  The Bulb also offers many interesting and intricate trails with hidden gems of hippy artwork (and possibly hippy shacks) among the landscape.  

But our favorite park is Point Isabel, which offers leisurely trails (with no threat of hippy interaction) and amazing views (uh, on a clear day) of the San Francisco skyline, the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.  Not to mention the café/shop that sells goodies for humans and doggies!  SOLD!  Sierra gets butts to smell and fields to run in, and her humans get deliciously warm coffee on those cold, blustery July mornings - no, really.

We were very proud of finding our doggie so many fun places to visit, and even thought she might be coming around to the idea of her new home.  Then the Fourth of July came and we realized our conveniently located loft/apartment meant we were conveniently located near a few of the local fireworks shows and our newly happy pup spent the entire night sleeping (and shaking) in the closet, with the doors closed.  Damn.  I hope dogs are as resilient as kids.

This seems expensive for a camp sight.

Day 18 of living out of the same suitcase with no furniture or household items to speak of.  How did it come to this?  I’m so glad you asked.  Here’s some fun with calendars to get you up-to-date.

Tuesday, June 8^th – Movers pick up all of our belongings.  We are left with a spare mattress, a television, 2 bowls, 2 spoons, 2 forks, a dog and one suitcase each.

Saturday, June 12^th – We sell the spare mattress and head west.

Sunday, June 20^th – Pull up to new apartment, unload television, bowls, spoons, forks, dog, suitcases and are reduced to sleeping/eating/sitting on an air mattress until the movers show up with our stuff.

Monday, June 21^st – Dan places 647 calls to the moving company where it is apparently a national holiday because no one is working or answering the phone.

Tuesday, June 22^nd – A representative from the moving company calls to inform us they are unaware their contract reads “Must deliver household goods no later than 5 pm on Friday, June 25^th”, but they MIGHT be able to deliver our stuff by Friday, July 2^nd.

Friday, June 25^th – Dan professes his dire hatred for the air mattress and opts to sit in the dog bed on the floor instead.  The contract deadline for delivery silently passes by.

Saturday, June 26^th – A different representative from the moving company calls in the early morning hours to confirm our phone number and new address (in case it has changed in the last 4 days) but knows nothing of when our belongings will arrive. 

Sunday, June 27^th - I hunt down every person responsible for moving our stuff, kidnap them, hold them captive in the back of a truck for approximately one month with nothing but a television, 2 bowls, 2 spoons, 2 forks and an air mattress and see how they like it.

Monday, June 28^th – I go to jail.  But at least I have a cot to sit on.  

Passenger's Log

If Star Trek taught us anything it's that we should keep a detailed recording of our travels and explorations.  Following is such a recording of our travel from coast to coast which ended at 6:00 pm Pacific Time last night.

Passenger's Log
Start location: Merritt Island, FL
End location: Oakland, CA
Vehicle: Toyota Tundra towing a Mercury Milan on a questionable U-Haul tow dolly.
Travel Time: 8 days

64: Average MPH for the total trip

3,518: total miles traveled 

11: states traveled through 

2: hours spent wandering through the Grand Canyon

4: days in Kansas spent catching up with my family and being puked on by a baby

1: birthday party thrown for me with 1 butterfly balloon and 1 ‘Happy Birthday’ banner; 0: number of butterfly balloons and banners that should be at a 28-year-old’s birthday party

83: questions my Grandma asked Dan upon meeting him for the first time

24: hours spent in picturesque Durango, CO

45: minutes spent waiting on a new truck tire, at J/P Tires in Durango

6: Number of Dan’s family members throughout Colorado who kept us company and/or put us up for a night.  Thank you Beth, Joe, Judy, John, Frank and Char!

1: dog who joined us in the hot tub at Dan’s Uncle Frank and Aunt Char’s house, without realizing there was water in there

4: number of times the taillight fell out of the U-Haul tow dolly

375: number of times I thought the dolly was going to fall apart into a trillion pieces

16: times the dog looked at me like she wanted to chew my face off for making her go on such an epic trip

1: Native American that cursed and yelled at Dan for not buying a dream catcher in a McDonald’s parking lot in Navajo Country

8: times I thought I would kill us all driving through Downtown Atlanta

3: pairs of pants that still fit me after all that highway fast food and family gatherings; 4: pairs of pants that don’t

45: times Dan mentioned gas mileage (per day) (ok, not really)

46: times Jamie had to stop to go to the bathroom  

0: times I thought about turning back (sorry Jess)

3: weary travelers who finally made it home

Adios Florida!

Today is my last official day as a Floridian and tomorrow Dan and I embark on our cross-country road trip for California!  Coast-to-coast!!  Am I crazy?  Don’t answer. 

Things I will not miss about Florida:

1) Walking out the door at 7 am and breaking out into an immediate, full-body sweat.

2) I-4 and the five thousand toll roads I am forced to drive on to get in and out of the city.

3) Strip malls

4) Strip malls

5) Theme parks, all of them and everything about them.

6) Sunburns even after repetitive and liberal applications of sun block.

Things I will miss about Florida:

1) Redneck dive bars, specifically Kings Duck Inn where the draft beer is so cold there are icicles floating in it!!

2) Park Ave CD’s and their willingness to special order anything my heart (and ears) desire.

3) Mellow Mushroom Pizza (perhaps I’ll open a franchise in California) 

5) Jess Egan

6) Jess Egan’s food

Jess, if I give you my new address will you mail me Thanksgiving dinner?

"How 'bout 50 cents?"...How about you beat it?

Know what a cross-country move from a two-bedroom house with a garage to a loft with a parking space forces you to do?  Sell all your stuff.  Which is exactly what we tried to do this weekend.  We spent the entire week combing through closets trying to decide which of our beloved belongings to part with.  Some were much easier to part with than others.  For instance, the Singer sewing machine I’ve been lugging from house to house for the last three years only to use it twice: easy to sell.  However, that pretty lamp I pined for at Target for months before being able to buy it: difficult to sell.  I was sure all my pangs of sentiment would go flying right out the window once some stranger laid cold hard cash in my hand.  But strangers are strangely reluctant to lay cold hard cash in your hand for your hand-me-downs.  Especially when 80% of your customers are over 80 years old.  Those old farts don’t need anything!!  They just shop garage sales for something to do and for the fun of haggling.  They walk away happy as can be after paying fifty cents for something you paid five dollars for two months ago.  Oy.  And as if haggling with geriatrics for the entire morning wasn’t bad enough, it was about 95 degrees outside with one billion percent humidity.  That’s totally accurate, I saw it on the weather channel.  Thankfully Dan’s Uncle Bob and Aunt Debbie were here to keep us company and help us bitch about the heat. 

After two days we sold almost everything and what was leftover we took to Goodwill.  Or rather, Dan sold it and took it to Goodwill.  Standing in the heat for long periods of time could cause me to totally lose my mind, so I had to take a few breaks and sit in the house.  Just a few...

As the weekend closes our closets have become empty, our pockets a little more full, but our laundry room still has a washer and dryer in it that we’re trying to sell.  Anyone interested??? 

Speed dating with apartments.

Ain’t change grand?  Or is it love?  Either way, the sarcasm applies to how I feel about this week.  Dan and I flew to the Bay Area this week to find our new home in only five days time.  In theory, it sounded easy peasy.  In reality, not so much.  We started looking in East Bay (uh…for those of you geographically challenged, that’s east of San Francisco, across the bay), which had lots of options for people who hate dogs and loving paying to do your own laundry because hardly anywhere allowed pets or came with a washer and dryer.  Side note: I find it interesting that landlords will allow you to have a child in your apartment, but not a 40lb furry friend.  I suspect the kid would be louder and do more damage.  They’d probably end up peeing on the floor too. 

We narrowed our search to Downtown Oakland and the Lake Merritt area.  Both have lots to do and offer easy public transport into the city.  By the way, did anyone lose their ghetto?  If so, you may try looking for it in Oakland.  They have a few there.

A funny thing about living in the Bay Area, people who live in San Fran say, “Oh you HAVE to live in the city, no one ever goes out to East Bay.” People who live in East Bay say, “It’s so not worth living in the city, everyone’s flocking to East Bay.”  Oy.  We thought for about a minute to switch our home hunting efforts to the city.  After all, San Francisco is very pet friendly, there’s tons of shops, restaurants, parks…and it’s a good thing because the apartments are so small you don’t have room to actually live there.

By the end of the week we settled on a loft in Downtown Oakland (pics below).  It was the purtiest one we found, with the most amenities and space for the cash-money.  Plus there’s about 573 coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and a train station (that goes into the city) within walking distance.   Take that snobby San Fran dwellers!

You're doing what?!

In the summer of 2005 I moved from my rural home in eastern Kansas to the city of Orlando, Florida.  What did I know about Orlando? I knew it was hot, that it rained once a day and that it offered a wide variety of vacation options for you and your family.  I went there looking to broaden my horizons, experience new things and to see how people live outside the farm.  What I found was a bunch of white dudes from the northeast driving around in their big expensive cars, throwing parties in their big expensive houses and showing off their super skinny, expensive wives.  Alas, Orlando was not all bad.  I also found Park Ave CDs, Brian’s Restaurant, the Winter Park Farmer’s Market, and Jess Egan (the only known offspring of June Cleaver and Martha Stewart).  But then, Orlando, you went too far.  You built one too many strip malls.  You franchised one too many Starbucks.  You almost had me back when you opened two H&M locations, but then you put them at opposite ends of the city and nowhere near my house.  Orlando, I gave you five years of my life; you gave me some good times, some good friends, and probably skin cancer from all the sunburns, but that remains to be seen.

And so, I am venturing out again to find a new place to call home and to see how people live outside of strip malls.  My new home will be in the land of the Bay Area in California.  Or more specifically the East Bay/Oakland area, which is across the Golden Gate bridge from San Francisco.  (I'm poor and the price per square footage on rental units is much less there compared to San Francisco.)

Return here each week as I chronicle the epic move from coast to coast (LITERALLY!) and all my new experiences as a Californian!