Becoming Wendy

After a two-month hiatus, I'm back to Krav, and the time away shows. I got punched in the nose today, but that's okay, because I managed to get some hits in, too. (Mostly in the stomach, but it's a start, right?)

I look forward to the bruising along my radii. It's nice to have a mild pain like that, so long as it's not in the joints. (Oy, my joints.)

At any rate, I've been keeping a semi-secret from my internet audience, all seven of you. Partly because I was waiting for the people who needed-to-know to be told, partly because I was waiting for some more solid confirmation of timing, partly because ... I dunno. I thought maybe I should be telling more people personally. But I haven't gotten around to that, not with many of you, so now I'm doing it the impersonal way.

As of this writing, my little countdown thingy says I have 104 days left in California, and that's as close as any time to let you all know: I'm moving. To New York City, specifically. I finally guts (gutsed? gussied?) up and asked for the transfer I've been wanting for five years, and actually got a yes. So I have a job to go there to (and I'm really thankful for that), I have a place to stay until I find an apartment of my own, and I have something of a plan to get there.

And I have a map to get there, too. Because, this being me, I sure as hell plan on driving the whole way, and taking my time doing it, too. The whole month of September.


View Epic Road Trip of Awesome in a larger map

I'm not sure which part of this whole thing I'm more excited about: finally moving to NY, or finally driving cross-country. There's so much I've always wanted to see, and now I'm getting a chance to see some of it.

I've already contacted a few friends along the route to see if I can schmooze a place to stay for a night or two, but if you are sort of on the route, and I know you, and you would like me to try to drive by, feel free to shoot me an email and I'll see if I can work you in.

San Francisco friends, this means you've got just over three months left before you're rid of me. Take advantage to get a few kicks in before I go.

And New York friends, I'm finally coming home. I can't wait to see you and make you sick of me over a long period of time, instead of just a week or so.

Vacationitis

It's like senioritis, but for adults with real jobs. And I have it.

The last two or three days, I've been busy — oh, have I ever been busy — and that's a really good thing, because if I didn't have actual real work being shoved into my face every two minutes (or, at least, someone coming up to me to ask a question), I don't know how I would keep my mind actually tethered into my body. Instead of Wikipedia reading and extra-long coffee breaks, the vacationitis manifests itself currently by ignoring the perfectly good leftovers brought for lunch and insisting I take myself out to eat every day. I'll have to stick the poor curry I have in the work fridge right now into the freezer, so it will still be good when I get home.

Woe is me.

My flight to New York leaves tomorrow night, and since I plan on heading to the airport direct from work, I'm trying to force myself to tidy things up around the apartment, finish up with packing, and scouring all surfaces to rid them of every scrap of food that Unwanted Roommate Jim might try to survive on in my absence.

It's only going slightly successfully. At least the kitchen is clean.

What it really boils down to is how much I really want to come home to a clean apartment. I'm pretty darned sure that when I walk in the door next week, at about midnight, I will be ecstatic to find nothing to trip me up on the path from front door to bed.

Unfortunately, I have to get my mind on board with this concept, and my mind is currently 3,000 miles away. Give or take. Window shopping for apartments.

So it's a little problematic.

And I suppose writing on here isn't helping matters, either.

Tomorrow's going to be a long day. Time to go at least finish that packing, so I don't do something foolish like forget my Penny Press puzzle books. See (err, you know what I mean) you all when I get back to town next week.

If I come back.

The (mis)Adventure Part 2: Seattle; or, I Hate Arachnids

I have been telling people that this trip was both the most stressful and the most relaxing trip I've been on in a long time. That's probably a lie: I'm pretty sure my most stressful trip in recent memory was the one where I ended up in a hotel in Paris, caught in the middle of a fight between my pregnant sister and our mother. But this one had its fair share of stress, some (most) of which I could very easily have dealt with before leaving town, if I had just been brave enough to deal with it instead of a procrastinating mouse.

At any rate, what did I do in Seattle? Absolutely nothing. Nothing of any intrinsic touristy value, that is. I arrived Friday evening, and we pretty much just spent the weekend eating

and drinking

around the table, playing Sorry and a slew of other board games that they'd accumulated over the years.

(By the way: Sorry when you're drunk = teh AWESUM. I love being mean.)

I'd brought a bag full of (slowly fermenting) blackberries up from the Portland area (Steph and I had gone stabbing our hands into the bushes along the Willamette River), and my friends' property in Kirkland was surrounded by more berry bushes. On Saturday Uck and I decided to pick some more and experiment with jam. Thirty minutes or so of picking, another hour or so of boiling down, and we had these:



Eight jars of preserved goodness. Yes, on the right that does say Blackberry and Black Pepper — it was my idea to throw some ground pepper into the jam, and it came out surprisingly good. I'll have to try that again sometime.

When I arrived in Kirkland, after being ritually greeted by Windy ("TITS! Get in here now, young lady."), and presenting my gift cases of Anchor Steam (apparently Puget Sound is lacking in the good microbrews), I was asked the most important question of the weekend: "How do you feel about spiders?"

Later, I found out why that question was so important:



Now, this is not the largest uncaged spider I have ever come face-to-face with in the wild, but ugh! My sleeping pallet — for lack of a better term — was pretty much on the floor, in a room with lots of great hiding places for many-legged creatures to creep. After seeing this lovely palm-sized octoped, I spent a lot of insomniac hours jumping at every tickle before I finally gave up and just went with it.

Beyond a breaking point on around Tuesday (poor Emily had to deal with a grumpy, weepy me), the rest of the week was pretty smooth sailing. I saw Emily, of course

and spent that week working out of my company's Seattle office.

One of my favorite perks in working at this company is the fact that we have an office in nearly every major U.S. city, and a few offices overseas. And the nature of my current position means that I can pretty much work out of almost any one of them. Not everyone is fond of a working vacation, but I've (ab)used this privilege to my own advantage: I get to visit friends, spend some time on vacation, without using paid time off. Plus, I get to meet coworkers from around the country. It's ... well, it's really swell.

In this case, our Seattle office is the one my direct supervisor actually works out of, and it was fantastic to actually get some real face time with her. That, and the truly beautiful commute over Lake Washington every day, even with traffic, made me sorely tempted to just stay another week (or so) up in Seattle. Stupid duty calling in San Francisco.

The one touristy thing I did end up doing while in Seattle was visiting Pike's Place Market. Three times. (One of which was a mission! to buy salmon! That's not really being a tourist, right?)

And I did take pictures of this, which was parked in a lot between 2nd and 3rd Ave.:

Really great pulled pork, by the way. I went there twice for lunch in the week, it was that delicious. And by the way, the license plate? "SOMEPIG".

On Friday, my boss and some coworkers took me out for happy hour, and I ended up staying out until around 12:30 or so drinking and BSing. (Another great thing about working out of other offices on your vacation: you get to talk with people who actually understand what you're bitching excited about!)

The trip home was uneventful, except for the fact that I came thisclose to unknowingly transporting guns across state lines. Glad I didn't have to worry about that. I stopped over in Eugene, OR, to spend the night with my cousin and his girlfriend — thank you, Ryan! I had a great time, even if it was brief. I owe you ice cream — and then drove eight-plus hours straight in the rain on Sunday to make it home. Trust me, no matter how much you love your vacation, there's nothing to make you want to get home more than a workday's worth of driving in the pouring rain.

The (mis)Adventure Part 1: Oregon; or, How I Didn't Die of Dysentery on the Oregon Trail

I am home. And I survived, despite the actions of that darned Higher Being who is out to get me.

Have to wonder what I did to deserve that.

We left off last entry with the smashed toe. It was still hurting the next day, Labor Day, when I left for my trip, and by the time I'd been on the road several hours (and made it to Crater Lake), had turned a lovely shade of blackened-blue.



That picture isn't even the most colorful it got. Another 24 hours gave it even a wider palette of hue, but by then I was too busy with Not Dying of Dysentery on the Oregon Trail to take a picture.

(It wasn't really dysentery, but I did end up getting that stomach flu from my nephew. I made it all the way to Portland, and promptly threw up upon arriving at Steph's place. She must really love me.

Then again, maybe not so much.)

The drive up was beautiful, at least, and before my abdomen started feeling queasy, I spent some time at Crater Lake taking a bunch of pictures:


Basically reestablishing that Crater Lake is the most beautiful place in Creation.




There was a forest fire burning up the woods to the north of the Lake. Fortunately, not near enough to the route I had to take that it would delay my drive to Portland.

The roads to and from Crater Lake are beautiful, but the northern route — taking OR-138 through the Umpqua National Forest — feels like a drive into forever. Beautiful forever, to be sure, but forever. I didn't get a chance to take pictures (I was on a mission to get to Portland before it got too late), but if you do it, I highly recommend taking the time to meander through, and maybe spend the night at some lodge along the way.

At any rate. I didn't realize that all this time my body was busy incubating the most horrible 24-hour virus known to Sarahkind; the effects didn't start to be felt until about an hour outside of Milwaukie, where my friend lives, though I guess I should be thankful that everything stayed in until I actually got to a toilet. To be crude: I spent about 18 hours purging my digestive tract of every foreign substance. From both ends. (Fortunately not at the same time.) To be even cruder: by hour 12 or so, when there wasn't much of substance left to eject, it started to have the color and texture of baby poop.

Steph spent a lot of time laughing at the sounds I was making. I had to laugh, too, between the crying and the cursing of that Higher Being.

It took a few days to fully recover (my appetite), but I did manage to venture out for decent food, wandering around the Hawthorne area and, of course, a required pilgrimage to Powell's Books. Sadly another pictureless adventure, but it was also a short trip, since I think Steph got a little bored by hour two, whereas I could have probably lasted until closing the next day. I made it out with a paper-bagful of books, and a total cost to me of about $34 (thanks to Lauren for the $30 gift certificate he gave me last year!).

Most of the time with Steph was necessarily laid-back. My stomach couldn't take much food or drink, and I tired easily what with still recuperating. We did do one Big Night Out(tm) to Pok Pok and had a drink at the Gold Dust Meridian, and I was very pleased with myself for actually being able to enjoy the entire thing.

And I think that's it for now. Next time I'll cover the Washington portion of my trip, which involved less bodily suffering, and more dangerous close encounters. Stay tuned.

The Final Payment (cue the Europe, please)

I promised myself a lot of things this year. I have finally fulfilled one of those promises:



Yes, that is me scheduling the final payment on my credit card. I've had this debt for almost a decade — ever since I got that Discover card, my first real credit card, back in college. My college trip to Europe was on it, and my hotel rooms in New York; I've bought groceries with it, and transferred the debt to a card with a better interest rate, gotten close to paying it off only to put more purchases on there ... and now, finally, it's gone. That doesn't necessarily mean that I've completely learned to live within my means (thank you, Bank of Mom and Dad), but I would like to think it means that I've started down the road to financial stability.

Now if only I could pay off that student loan debt ... that would be a dream and a half. Only $34,000 or so to go on that one.