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.