Cats and Dogs Living Together!

Sandy is in town for a visit.  We've put out extra blankets and pillows for her, plus we hit up the special grocers down the street to get her favorite beer and candies.  I'm going to work from home for the next couple of days so we can all spend some quality time together, too. *sigh*

I've been texting all my friends and family that we have plenty of beer, wine, and Halloween candy so we are set for a few days at least. To hear it from the reporters, there's, like, a 99% chance we'll lose power for at least a day this week.  We've put out our hand-crank flashlight and radio, but the temperature is dropping...quickly.  I roasted chicken tonight at 475* and left the oven open to cool.  It's been less than 2hrs and already all that delicious-smelling heat has dissipated.  For those new to this blog, I don't do cold.  Nope, not me.  Not my thing.  I lack the ability to maintain my body temperature on my own power and require supplemental heat to keep from turning purple: My Beloved, a hot water bottle, a four-legged friend, electric blanket.  Fughetabout the rain, the loss of power...the dropping temperature is what's going to make this storm a problem for my first-world self.

Schools have been cancelled for Monday and Tuesday, and I can still, at 9:30pm, hear planes taking off from PHL trying to get everyone out of Dodge before it's too late.  The forecasters promise I should be able to make it into the office tomorrow, but also promise that I won't be able to make it home.  We're no where near a flood area or body of water (thank jeebus), but do have gorgeous, leaf-laden trees all around us.  If I can keep My Beloved from worrying himself sick about either the roof leaking (more) or a tree branch crashing into the house, it will be a miracle.  [The mere mention of water damage makes him vagal. There is a house a few blocks over that had a huge tree crash through the roof into the master bedroom in a recent, windy rainstorm.  Just driving past the tell-tale blue tarp'd site, My Beloved sucks his teeth and curls his toes the same way I do when I see blood or hear a gruesome tale of surgery. ]

So, wherever you are tonight, I hope you are safe, dry, well-fed, and with someone who will share a little of their body heat!

The Journey Is the Success

The hard part is not (just) finding a new job.  It's the patience to spend time every night looking, writing, and researching.

Oh, and the rejection.  Mustn't forget managing the rejection.  There's plenty of that at this party, folks, so feel free to put an extra handful in your candy bag this Halloween. I got it in spades.

This Made Me Feel Better

I wish I could be so well spoken.

Oh, Were You Waiting For Me To Say Something?

Believe it or not, one of my personal goals for 2012 was to write more.  #epicfail, as my BIL would say.  There's a couple of things I'm working on right now, but mostly I'm treading water until graduation in May. (At least, that's the excuse I've been giving myself to not work harder at making real change.) If I've been a bit silent here it's because I've been putting all my energy into poundin' the water and hollerin' like hell to put off the sharks to another day.

In the meantime, here's one of my most favorite songs interpreted by Bon Iver.  I think he's an interesting artist, like Rothko.  Sometimes I totally get his works, like I was struck by a tuning fork.  Other times, I think the guy is out to lunch.  I suppose that's always the way with art, no?

Jiggity-Jig

For as much as I love to travel, there's no place like home.  I am of the age when doing laundry is soothing and helps center my internal compass.

After taking the red-eye home from the West, My Beloved met me at the airport with a fistful of daisies (my fav).  I could spot his sexy slouch from hundreds of feet away as I staggered towards the exit (me + less than 5hrs of sleep while at 30K feet = ankles too swollen for walking).  It felt like coming to the surface after the longest attempt to swim the length of the pool underwater.  I was happy I did it, but ooh that oxygen felt so sweet: my lungs instinctively inhaled.  There is nothing, nothing in the world better than being greeted at the end of a long journey by a warm hug from arms that wraps all the way around me.

After almost four days, the swelling in my feet has subsided, but I still can't help breaking into a wide smile when I come into a room and he's there.  I have been looking at public health fellowships and such, some of them with the option for remote-ish travel or that are stationed in nearby states and would require temporary relocation.  It wouldn't be so hard for six weeks or so, I told myself as I daydreamed about developing health education programs in Sudan.  We did it in college, we could do it again.  

Clearly, I am crazy.

Yes, of course we could do it, don't be silly.  But I am also of the age when the "novelty" of sacrifice smacks of ungratefulness.  

GPOYW

Last night, My Beloved was asking if there was anything special I wanted for my birthday.  I asked if we could celebrate it like it was any other year.  And then I dreamt he'd surprised me with a 3-day weekend to Playa del Carmen.

My subconscious knows how to live.

May 2006
Bonefishing (on spinners for cryin' out loud!) in Boca Paila

Raise Your Hand if You Recognize This?

When I was a tween or teen, my mother brought one of these home.  I asked her what is was, and she explained that it was a splatter screen for keeping grease in the cooking pan and off the stove.  I noticed that one edge of the screen was ripped out already, and asked her what happened*.  She got this funny look on her face and explained that my kid sister has asked her what it was, too.  Mom told her it was for spanking little girls and playfully bopped her on the butt, which made it rip. In my memory, Mom kept that same ripped splatter screen for eons.    

There is five years between me and Kid Sister, but my older sister is only so by 18 months.  When my mother speaks of raising my older sister while pregnant with me, and then raising two infants simultaneously, her eyes shutter a little and she is at a loss for language to articulate the complete exhaustion she experienced.   When Kid Sister came along, Older Sister and I were a little more self-sufficient.  Mom got to really enjoy having a baby in a way she missed out on with the first two.  I could tell even then at the tender age of 5, 6, and 7 that she cherished having a baby.  (The fact that Kid Sister is pretty darn adorable didn't hurt either.)

My mother is a world-renowned saver, recycler, and repurpose-er, so it is no surprise she held on to a perfectly functional, although slightly blemished tool.  She is also neat as a pin, and it is possible the funny look on her face was a little regret that her jest ended in breaking a brand new purchase.  Tonight when this memory came flooding back as I spied my own splatter screen tucked in the cabinet, I recognized that look as one of a mix of all these things, but also pride and love.  Pride because she had been so witty on her feet (Dad is usually the jester in the family).  And love because it was a laugh she shared with Kid Sister. 

*Or words to that effect.  I don't recall exactly how old I was when this happened.  If I was closer to the teen end of that age spectrum, it is regrettably more likely that I asked her, with all the haughty disdain and world-weariness of a Superior speaking to an Inferior, if she was aware that she had bought a defective product. 

Be With the One You Love

I'm traveling! Again!  Oh, how I love airports. (<-may read facetious but totally sincere)

I was invited to speak at a conference in SFO this month.  The conference ends on Friday so, since I'll be on the West coast already, I'm hopping a jetliner to PDX to visit my kid sister and her posse.  Giddy doesn't begin to describe me!

My SIL and BIL are on vacation at the same time, which means My Beloved and I are on cat-sitting duty.  They live quite far away, however, so cat-sitting include overnight stays.  It just worked out that between my trip out West and My Beloved's o/n stay with the cats that there will be 6 nights and 7 days when we are apart.

This may be a new record for us.

We fell in love long distance which stoked a craving for each other's company that borders on the unhealthy.  Since we have been married, we have tried to stick to a 2-night rule, meaning we're never apart more than 2 consecutive nights.  Sometimes that turns into 3 or even 4, but this is definitely on the outside of comfortable longing.

My Beloved adores his sister and her cats, and I, of course, bleed for my family, too.  We got the "love the one you're with" part down fine.  It's this "be with the one you love" part that we will struggle with this month.

Happy Place

After days and days of pea-soup weather, a band of reckless storms swept out the area and the rest of the Northeast last night. This morning, I am finally able to enjoy a nice cuppa Lady Grey on the back deck.  The sky is a piercing blue, cloudless, and the crickets, instead of circadian, are in full song.  I am alternately torn between staying here all day to relish it or spending the day washing the windows.  Those competing desires pretty much sum up my whole life right now!

GPOYW

Lunchtime on the trail!

Mmmm....three day old PB&J on a whole wheat wrap.  Moist.

What those of you with a keen eye will note in this photo is the excruciating pain in my feet.  My bunions have blossomed in the intervening years since I last wore my boots.  That custom fit I worked so hard to achieve is for a much younger woman's last, no longer mine.  I ended up hiking out in my sandals.  Good times!