I will admit it. I am a total procrastinator. I was that girl who would watch reruns of Law and Order until 11:00 PM the night before a major paper was due and then be up all night constructing the sucker. Thank God I had fabulous friends who would meet me at my dorm door to get my paper and turn it in for me while I slept through class. Somehow I always pulled high grades out of my ass at the last minute. I even became a bit superstitious about it. A few times I would actually plan out my semester project weeks in advance. 9/10 times I would get a lower grade. Something about waiting until the last minute brought me luck or I performed extremely well under a deadline. I suppose my ritual of procrastinating drove people nuts (hi mom!). Alas, it works for me.
Why am I bringing this up, you ask? Well, remember that whole move thing going down in a few weeks? Yeah, didn't pack a single box the whole weekend. Instead I spent Saturday in my pj's reading a book. Sunday was just too dang pretty to be inside laboring, so instead we took Edgar on a 14 mile canoe trip down the Blue River in Southern Indiana right outside Louisville, Kentucky. That is a 2.5 hour car ride one way from our house. Edgar did fantastic. He loved the rapids and swam around the river whenever we stopped on the bank. The only bad part was he ate something funky on the bank. Of course as we were yelling, "Edgar! Edgar!," he wolfed it down faster, resembling a snake swallowing his prey whole. Whatever that tasty morsel was, it didn't agree with him. By Monday, he's having some soft stool and was a pooped puppy (pun intended). I spent the day cleaning the house. I figured I couldn't start packing the mess until the mess was organized. This was my rationale and to be honest, a coping mechanism I employed frequently before papers or projects were due. Organize the exterior while you organize the interior thoughts.
On Tuesday morning, we awoke to find several diarrhea spots around the bedroom, including in the bed. It went from bad to worse. He then threw up three times and continued to have the runs although there were copious amounts of blood as well. By now, I'm thanking my lucky stars we already had a vet appointment to check on his skin infection from a few weeks ago. While I was trying to calm him down from all of the spewing of both ends (ok, and calm me down too) I was petting his back only to then find a tick! I am completely freaking out about this now. It was what pushed me over the edge. All of a sudden I kept deteriorating from a calm professional ex-vet tech to a raving mother panicking about her child. J did his best to ignore the lunatic he married and kept his wits about him. All the while, he's muttering under his breath that he is definitely not ready for kids.
I finally got Edgar to the vet only to have him admitted to the hospital. They got the tick out, started IV fluids, and gave a bunch of different meds. While I knew it was the best place for him, I was a bit off kilter. By the afternoon it was clear he was going to have to stay the night and we transferred him to the emergency vet hospital with staff 24/7. It was necessary as he chewed out his catheter in one arm already and they were hosing him down every 30 min or so. They diagnosed him with Hemorrhaging Gastroenteritis. Very scary for a little dude. At this point I'm just weeping on and off and J's asking what I did with his wife and could he get her back, please. The next morning Edgar was transferred back to the other hospital. I think I drove the clinic crazy as I called every 3 or 4 hours. By 5:00 on Wednesday, he was discharged to home with a new special bland diet, several meds, instruction sheets, and a very very expensive vet bill.
As you can see, Wednesday evening was shot for packing as I was just focused on being a mom. And well, yesterday night after work I was on call, so that was obviously out. Tonight we're going to try to catch In The Mode, an exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art borrowed from LA as it is their last night of the exhibition. See? Packing still postponed. Perhaps tomorrow I'll start with the cardboard boxes. Too bad I'm not getting graded. That would be motivation enough for me.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wicked Good
When I was in undergrad my fellow poli sci girlfriends and I took an International Relations course, which was required, and taught by a very energetic professor. She would come to class with UN helmets on the day we were supposed to learn about, well, the UN. Her class was worth getting up for only because it was a comedy routine. There are two things I remember about this class: 1) I know what OPEC stands for, and 2) I learned what a Boston accent sounded like for the first time.
One day she began talking about the Quber missile crisis. The three of us stopped scribing our notes and looked puzzled at one another. Quber? It took another two lectures for us to figure out she was talking about the Cuba missile crisis of the 60's. She was from Boston.
In 3 short weeks, J, Edgar, and I will be packing up and moving to the land of "Ha-vahd," where somehow all "r's" were lost in the English language. J landed a fellowship at the famed crimson establishment and well, its just not something you pass up. So we're trading in the life of playing cornhole (yes, it is a game) and race car ya ya's for the land that is NOT brought to you by the letter R...unless the word ends with an "A" and then you add the "r". (e.g. Cuba-r and Idea-r)
We went out to find housing just two weeks ago. Lemme put it this way, it was an "adventure." I had done my research before going. Because rent is so expensive, real estate agents make their money by charging a fee if they are the ones who show you the property. The fee is usually equal to one month of rent. J and I had less than 48 hours to find housing so we were really pushed for time. I called and found a couple of agents who seemed like they were more than willing to do research for properties matching our requests and take the day to show us around.
Our first appointment on Saturday morning was 1.5 hours late. He showed up in an old SUV with the engine light on, the gas warning tank light blinking, and no seat belt. He lead us to the charming neighborhood of Beacon Hill. Envision brick lined sidewalks and brownstones. Beautiful right? And a pretty penny. Our first "showing" was up a narrow staircase to the front door. This led down a 30 foot hallway with oddly enough, an intercom in the middle. Now why you need that is beyond me. There were two tiny bedrooms at the end of the hallway, a bath, and one tiny kitchen with a window that overlooked the conduit system for the heat. They wanted something like $1700 for that. We figured we only could go up from here.
We couldn't get into the second place and so our guide dropped us off while he was (surprise, surprise) late for another showing with people who were calling him. J and I wandered a bit around the neighborhood to find that the old coal delivery doors are actually now turned into people's front doors because the real estate is so prime. Its like Alice in Wonderland and I seriously needed something to drink quickly.
Our next agent picked us up in his Audi and drove like a maniac out to Alewife (hey, you've got to love the name) while chatting on his cell the whole time trying to make a deal. We saw the "full service, luxury building" with a 24-hour concierge (what in the hell will I need a concierge for anyway?) but only after the leasing manager took our drivers licenses hostage first. As if we were going to lock the door behind him and say, "Dibs! This apartment is mine!" Then after the tour he said they didn't allow dogs. Um, ok, deal breaker.
We drove back to the city and into a place called Brookline to another "luxury" building. Again, what the hell will I need a concierge for? There a quick talking Asian leasing agent was so busy she took a bunch of us and our agents on a group tour to see the "large one bedroom" (600 sq. feet) which came with a parking spot (for a mere $400/month) in addition to the $2700/month rent. I was depressed driving up to the white 1960's building and smelling what other tenants were cooking while walking down the hallways. I seriously wanted to cry by now.
The last place he took us was back in Beacon Hill and the tenant refused to let us enter. At that point, the agent said he ran out of places to show us and proceeded to line up another showing for another client over the phone in the Fenway area. Highly discouraged by the "hospitality" of the agents, J and I wandered down the street looking for lunch at 3:00. We tried the French restaurant by MGH only to be greeted with a, "Veer closed! You read door! Closed!" and shooing motions. I responded, "See, we don't need to go to Paris. We just experienced it first hand here!" We ended up at a tavern for a large beer and lunch. There I began to call whatever craigslist leads I had to schedule our own damn appointments.
32 oz of Samuel Adams later, we hopped on the T and rode out to Cambridge to meet another agent. I couldn't help but believe that she is my stereotype for what we will find out there. Here was a young mid-20's female who used words like "ubiquitous" in regular sentences, had two liberal art degrees in music management and music theory, didn't know what to do so got her real estate license and is now thinking she might go back for some "post-bachelors" classes for pre-med. Oh, and by the way, NPR was her station of choice in her father's minivan with the handicap sticker.
She showed us a place for $1700/month that literally had a 3 ft by 3 ft HOLE in the kitchen floor. Yes, a burned HOLE...for $1700 and no parking, no air, no washer/dryer, no dishwasher, no disposal, no nothing. But it did have its bathroom linoleum peeling away from the edge of the bathtub. After showing this to us, the agent had the audacity to ask, "So, do you want to jump on this?" Um, gee, let me really think about this one. Once she dropped us off at the T she called us back to say that it was an exclusive listing and we couldn't call the landlord directly to haggle with him. I think its safe to say we wouldn't be doing that. Then, we watched a drug deal go down. As you can tell, our first impressions of our new city weren't going so well.
Our last showing of the day was out in Allston where we took the T and then caught the bus to land at a loft apartment across the street from the fire station. It was beautiful, but really small. I mean really, really, small. However, it was the best thing we saw all day. At this point we missed our dinner reservations which I envisioned us getting a bottle of champagne to celebrate our new digs. Oh, not so much. We ended up in the hotel restaurant at 10:00 PM just trying to get by.
The next morning, we ate again in the hotel and had the same waiter from our previous breakfast. He asked about our progress to which we said, "It sucks." After breakfast, we took a taxi out to Watertown, Massachusetts. There we saw a duplex. Hardwood floors, a fireplace, crown molding, picture rail, claw foot tub, built in cabinetry in the butler's pantry, and a small yard. I was ready to throw the landlord any amount of money possible to secure this place. I didn't care it was an hour commute in or that it had oil heat. Stick a fork in me, I'm done. She said that she had another couple of parties that were seriously interested and she had to do due diligence checking out references, etc.. She would email us applications and would let us know by the end of the week.
We took the bus back to the T and then off to another agent to see two more places. The first resembled that awful 1960's building only think 1980's and the second was a "triple decker," where we would be on floor two. It was a bit basic (think no amenities), but definitely a possibility. It was also close to the T.
By now, we're both feeling a lot more encouraged and grabbed Indian buffet for lunch to celebrate before getting on the plane. I spent the next week filling out applications, tracking down credit references, finding personal references, and whatnot trying to secure the place in Watertown. I finally heard on Saturday that we got it. Hot damn! Since that time J and I have been wandering around talking to Edgar saying things like, "You're going to be a Beantown Bubba!" However, endorphins wear off quickly as task lists grow. Resign from work (check). Pack. Sell car. Find movers. Complete house sell here. Set up utilities. Rent uhall if needed. Get medication refills. As you can see the list is growing.
While many will be out this weekend by the pool celebrating the 80 degree weather and race day down at the Brickyard. I will be amidst cardboard boxes, Goodwill piles, and trying to keep calm.
One day she began talking about the Quber missile crisis. The three of us stopped scribing our notes and looked puzzled at one another. Quber? It took another two lectures for us to figure out she was talking about the Cuba missile crisis of the 60's. She was from Boston.
In 3 short weeks, J, Edgar, and I will be packing up and moving to the land of "Ha-vahd," where somehow all "r's" were lost in the English language. J landed a fellowship at the famed crimson establishment and well, its just not something you pass up. So we're trading in the life of playing cornhole (yes, it is a game) and race car ya ya's for the land that is NOT brought to you by the letter R...unless the word ends with an "A" and then you add the "r". (e.g. Cuba-r and Idea-r)
We went out to find housing just two weeks ago. Lemme put it this way, it was an "adventure." I had done my research before going. Because rent is so expensive, real estate agents make their money by charging a fee if they are the ones who show you the property. The fee is usually equal to one month of rent. J and I had less than 48 hours to find housing so we were really pushed for time. I called and found a couple of agents who seemed like they were more than willing to do research for properties matching our requests and take the day to show us around.
Our first appointment on Saturday morning was 1.5 hours late. He showed up in an old SUV with the engine light on, the gas warning tank light blinking, and no seat belt. He lead us to the charming neighborhood of Beacon Hill. Envision brick lined sidewalks and brownstones. Beautiful right? And a pretty penny. Our first "showing" was up a narrow staircase to the front door. This led down a 30 foot hallway with oddly enough, an intercom in the middle. Now why you need that is beyond me. There were two tiny bedrooms at the end of the hallway, a bath, and one tiny kitchen with a window that overlooked the conduit system for the heat. They wanted something like $1700 for that. We figured we only could go up from here.
We couldn't get into the second place and so our guide dropped us off while he was (surprise, surprise) late for another showing with people who were calling him. J and I wandered a bit around the neighborhood to find that the old coal delivery doors are actually now turned into people's front doors because the real estate is so prime. Its like Alice in Wonderland and I seriously needed something to drink quickly.
Our next agent picked us up in his Audi and drove like a maniac out to Alewife (hey, you've got to love the name) while chatting on his cell the whole time trying to make a deal. We saw the "full service, luxury building" with a 24-hour concierge (what in the hell will I need a concierge for anyway?) but only after the leasing manager took our drivers licenses hostage first. As if we were going to lock the door behind him and say, "Dibs! This apartment is mine!" Then after the tour he said they didn't allow dogs. Um, ok, deal breaker.
We drove back to the city and into a place called Brookline to another "luxury" building. Again, what the hell will I need a concierge for? There a quick talking Asian leasing agent was so busy she took a bunch of us and our agents on a group tour to see the "large one bedroom" (600 sq. feet) which came with a parking spot (for a mere $400/month) in addition to the $2700/month rent. I was depressed driving up to the white 1960's building and smelling what other tenants were cooking while walking down the hallways. I seriously wanted to cry by now.
The last place he took us was back in Beacon Hill and the tenant refused to let us enter. At that point, the agent said he ran out of places to show us and proceeded to line up another showing for another client over the phone in the Fenway area. Highly discouraged by the "hospitality" of the agents, J and I wandered down the street looking for lunch at 3:00. We tried the French restaurant by MGH only to be greeted with a, "Veer closed! You read door! Closed!" and shooing motions. I responded, "See, we don't need to go to Paris. We just experienced it first hand here!" We ended up at a tavern for a large beer and lunch. There I began to call whatever craigslist leads I had to schedule our own damn appointments.
32 oz of Samuel Adams later, we hopped on the T and rode out to Cambridge to meet another agent. I couldn't help but believe that she is my stereotype for what we will find out there. Here was a young mid-20's female who used words like "ubiquitous" in regular sentences, had two liberal art degrees in music management and music theory, didn't know what to do so got her real estate license and is now thinking she might go back for some "post-bachelors" classes for pre-med. Oh, and by the way, NPR was her station of choice in her father's minivan with the handicap sticker.
She showed us a place for $1700/month that literally had a 3 ft by 3 ft HOLE in the kitchen floor. Yes, a burned HOLE...for $1700 and no parking, no air, no washer/dryer, no dishwasher, no disposal, no nothing. But it did have its bathroom linoleum peeling away from the edge of the bathtub. After showing this to us, the agent had the audacity to ask, "So, do you want to jump on this?" Um, gee, let me really think about this one. Once she dropped us off at the T she called us back to say that it was an exclusive listing and we couldn't call the landlord directly to haggle with him. I think its safe to say we wouldn't be doing that. Then, we watched a drug deal go down. As you can tell, our first impressions of our new city weren't going so well.
Our last showing of the day was out in Allston where we took the T and then caught the bus to land at a loft apartment across the street from the fire station. It was beautiful, but really small. I mean really, really, small. However, it was the best thing we saw all day. At this point we missed our dinner reservations which I envisioned us getting a bottle of champagne to celebrate our new digs. Oh, not so much. We ended up in the hotel restaurant at 10:00 PM just trying to get by.
The next morning, we ate again in the hotel and had the same waiter from our previous breakfast. He asked about our progress to which we said, "It sucks." After breakfast, we took a taxi out to Watertown, Massachusetts. There we saw a duplex. Hardwood floors, a fireplace, crown molding, picture rail, claw foot tub, built in cabinetry in the butler's pantry, and a small yard. I was ready to throw the landlord any amount of money possible to secure this place. I didn't care it was an hour commute in or that it had oil heat. Stick a fork in me, I'm done. She said that she had another couple of parties that were seriously interested and she had to do due diligence checking out references, etc.. She would email us applications and would let us know by the end of the week.
We took the bus back to the T and then off to another agent to see two more places. The first resembled that awful 1960's building only think 1980's and the second was a "triple decker," where we would be on floor two. It was a bit basic (think no amenities), but definitely a possibility. It was also close to the T.
By now, we're both feeling a lot more encouraged and grabbed Indian buffet for lunch to celebrate before getting on the plane. I spent the next week filling out applications, tracking down credit references, finding personal references, and whatnot trying to secure the place in Watertown. I finally heard on Saturday that we got it. Hot damn! Since that time J and I have been wandering around talking to Edgar saying things like, "You're going to be a Beantown Bubba!" However, endorphins wear off quickly as task lists grow. Resign from work (check). Pack. Sell car. Find movers. Complete house sell here. Set up utilities. Rent uhall if needed. Get medication refills. As you can see the list is growing.
While many will be out this weekend by the pool celebrating the 80 degree weather and race day down at the Brickyard. I will be amidst cardboard boxes, Goodwill piles, and trying to keep calm.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Two Stories
I know, I know, its been awhile. Man, do I have some stories to tell you! Sometimes life is like that where events just line up all at once and then you go through dry spells. I guess what I can do is summarize a few of my updates first.
1) We (ok, really just I) fixed the blue screen of death on the second computer. I figured it had been long enough waiting for my husband to tinker with it with all of his free time. Read: there is no free time. The sucker had been down since Feburary 6th. Yes, you read correctly: Feburary 6th (but who's counting, right?). I did some research to see who was reputable and hired Bruce from Computer Housecalls to come out without the consent of my husband. I wanted it to be a surprise. 2.5 hours later of Bruce scratching his head from all of the security measures put into place he commented, "Well, if this doctor thing doesn't work out, your husband could have a job being a systems administrator for Fort Knox. I've never seen such security measures on a private computer in my life and I've been in the business for 13 years." I had to laugh. My guy encrypted the system network as a Macintosh (we have PC's), made it invisible for everyone but our computers, and had "creative" passwords on everything that were somewhere around 30 characters long. Yup, this is my husband, God love him. Poor Bruce was so confounded with J's security measures that were protecting our banal photos of Edgar and some spreadsheets from our wedding 2 years ago, that somehow all of our data was lost. He felt terrible and after admitted sleepless nights and another 1.5 hours, he refunded some of our money. He was a great guy who had integrity and I would totally recommend him. Its not his fault that he was disarmed from our own private version of Fort Knox. Some of you may be wondering how J felt about my surprise. "Violated." Yup, that was exactly what he said.
2) My Godmother was back visiting her family and spent time with my mom a couple of weeks ago. She was telling her how upset her children were that she wrote her will and decided to donate her body to science. They were upset that they wouldn't have a place to go visit her...like in the ground. (God, that's creepy) Upon this, my mom shared a story of her own.
Back when my grandfather died (Pop, the one with Alzheimer's, back in Oct 2005), he had his body donated to the local medical school for research. Apparently last Christmas my Aunt got a UPS delivery with all of her other Christmas packages, this one labeled from the University of Utah. Pop's ashes had arrived in a neat small, but dense, box. She has a wicked sense of humor and called my mom to say, "Well, Daddy's here." All 3 sisters swore each other to secrecy not to tell Ginny as it was around Christmas and they didn't want to upset her. Pop got put in the basement next to the wine and canned goods. A few months later, Ginny began to perseverate on where in the hell her husband was. After all, it had been over two years. Well, she called the school of medicine who informed her that my Aunt had indeed signed for his remains. Ginny, also with the wicked sense of humor, called my Aunt to say, "I hear you have an unusual house guest." It took my Aunt a minute to figure out what she was talking about, because by now, Pop's ashes were just hanging out and quite easily forgotten. Ginny was apparently quite upset that none of the girls told her as she had a "right to know, dammit." I don't think she wants to visit the ashes per say, but apparently Pop is just going to hang out next to the cases of wine, old bundt pans, and whatnot until Ginny's remains get returned from the medical school as well and then, we're all supposed to spread them somewhere together.
I've asked that my husband also donate my body to science like the rest of my family. His response was, "Hell, no." He used to be an anatomy instructor and really does not want me to be hung up in a cold locker by my ears until they use me. I figure, why not? God, just don't bury me. This is ironic as I have a death fear of fire, but I couldn't imagine being in the ground where its dark, dank, and icky.
1) We (ok, really just I) fixed the blue screen of death on the second computer. I figured it had been long enough waiting for my husband to tinker with it with all of his free time. Read: there is no free time. The sucker had been down since Feburary 6th. Yes, you read correctly: Feburary 6th (but who's counting, right?). I did some research to see who was reputable and hired Bruce from Computer Housecalls to come out without the consent of my husband. I wanted it to be a surprise. 2.5 hours later of Bruce scratching his head from all of the security measures put into place he commented, "Well, if this doctor thing doesn't work out, your husband could have a job being a systems administrator for Fort Knox. I've never seen such security measures on a private computer in my life and I've been in the business for 13 years." I had to laugh. My guy encrypted the system network as a Macintosh (we have PC's), made it invisible for everyone but our computers, and had "creative" passwords on everything that were somewhere around 30 characters long. Yup, this is my husband, God love him. Poor Bruce was so confounded with J's security measures that were protecting our banal photos of Edgar and some spreadsheets from our wedding 2 years ago, that somehow all of our data was lost. He felt terrible and after admitted sleepless nights and another 1.5 hours, he refunded some of our money. He was a great guy who had integrity and I would totally recommend him. Its not his fault that he was disarmed from our own private version of Fort Knox. Some of you may be wondering how J felt about my surprise. "Violated." Yup, that was exactly what he said.
2) My Godmother was back visiting her family and spent time with my mom a couple of weeks ago. She was telling her how upset her children were that she wrote her will and decided to donate her body to science. They were upset that they wouldn't have a place to go visit her...like in the ground. (God, that's creepy) Upon this, my mom shared a story of her own.
Back when my grandfather died (Pop, the one with Alzheimer's, back in Oct 2005), he had his body donated to the local medical school for research. Apparently last Christmas my Aunt got a UPS delivery with all of her other Christmas packages, this one labeled from the University of Utah. Pop's ashes had arrived in a neat small, but dense, box. She has a wicked sense of humor and called my mom to say, "Well, Daddy's here." All 3 sisters swore each other to secrecy not to tell Ginny as it was around Christmas and they didn't want to upset her. Pop got put in the basement next to the wine and canned goods. A few months later, Ginny began to perseverate on where in the hell her husband was. After all, it had been over two years. Well, she called the school of medicine who informed her that my Aunt had indeed signed for his remains. Ginny, also with the wicked sense of humor, called my Aunt to say, "I hear you have an unusual house guest." It took my Aunt a minute to figure out what she was talking about, because by now, Pop's ashes were just hanging out and quite easily forgotten. Ginny was apparently quite upset that none of the girls told her as she had a "right to know, dammit." I don't think she wants to visit the ashes per say, but apparently Pop is just going to hang out next to the cases of wine, old bundt pans, and whatnot until Ginny's remains get returned from the medical school as well and then, we're all supposed to spread them somewhere together.
I've asked that my husband also donate my body to science like the rest of my family. His response was, "Hell, no." He used to be an anatomy instructor and really does not want me to be hung up in a cold locker by my ears until they use me. I figure, why not? God, just don't bury me. This is ironic as I have a death fear of fire, but I couldn't imagine being in the ground where its dark, dank, and icky.
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