Snow, Thanksgiving, Work, Christmas Trees

Snow: We did get stuck at home for one day, which turned out to be lovely. I was able to get some work done at a tea shop, and although the roads were frozen solid,
it was a clear day with blue skies and snowy mountains visible:


The next day the roads cleared out enough for me to get to work with a little extra walking, and for us to make our drive to Eugene.

Thanksgiving: It took 8 hours to get there, mostly due to traffic, but we made it to Eugene. We had a nice time visiting with friends, and a nice Thanksgiving with my family:
There really is a family resemblance, isn't there?

Work: Is basically the same as ever, though I'm simplifying my thoughts about my work environment a bit. What it boils down to, I think, is that I work with fairly passive, conflict-avoidant people, in an environment that is not very welcoming and warm. That's really the extent of it, and I think some people can be quite comfortable in that environment, but I don't fit in well, bottom line. I'm working on finding another position for when my current job ends, and I think I may have some good leads.

On the positive side I like the patients I work with. I am continually meeting new and interesting people with new and interesting situations, but amazingly, additions to my list of activities to avoid has petered out a bit. As it turns out, people do the same stupid things over and over again, and it seems there are only so many stupid things people can come up with to do.

A few seasonally related additions to the list, that are less about stupidity and more about unfortunate mishaps:
26. Be very, very careful cleaning your gutters.
27. Keep children away from the hot glass on fireplaces.
28. Do not serve hot cup-o-noodles to children, or leave them within reach.
I expect something related to christmas light hanging to show up soon.

Christmas trees: I'm deciding that my previous thoughts about Seattle are not applicable to the whole city, possibly just certain subgroups (see above). During the snowstorm I talked with some very nice people as we were all just trying to get home, and a few weeks ago I asked for directions on my bike, and another bike commuter went so far as to escort me to my route instead of just telling me directions. The holidays have also highlighted the cheerier side of the city. We bought a tree from a charity group that has a tree lot near our house, and I was struck by how friendly everyone was, both the people working and the tree-purchasers. A teenage boy helped us choose this lovely tree, that ended up being a perfect fit:

I'm feeling the holiday cheer :)

Cats and snow

Last week my sister and her partner flew in from Norway, and stayed with us for a while before heading down to Eugene (where they will be until just after christmas). We had a nice visit, but it seems that our cats were not too happy about having house guests. First, some background:

Our dear fat gray cat has always had some behavior problems-- her whole life she has thought that rugs and floor mats are a lot of fun to poop on (I will be forever apologetic to Elaine, discoverer of the first little poo burrito, rolled up in the kitchen floor mat when we were roommates back in 2001). It has been a particular problem since our move into our new place, and I think maybe it has been related to territory wars and being terrorized by our little tortoise shell demon (who is incredibly sweet to us, but not so much to anyone else). Our division of labor currently has Jeff in charge of cleaning up after the cats, and Jeff has been in a constant battle with the poo problem, equipped with an arsenal to clean up the aftermath, but also trying to figure out some way to prevent our cat from "coloring outside the lines," as it were, in the first place. Somehow, this poo on the rug trick seems to be a sport to her-- no matter what we try we can't cure her completely of this, though the compulsion will disappear for months, even years, at a time, and only happens sporadically. The only thing that has been consistent is that she will show us exactly what she thinks of us going on vacation, the day we get back.

So, when our guests arrived, the break in routine seemed to upset the cats, and the poo wars came to a head. For the first time since an unfortunate series of events back in 2002 (so sorry to Veronica, my roommate at the time, who was caught in the crossfire), our cat peed in a non-designated area (our laundry basket). This was the final straw, and Jeff has taken a more aggressive approach to the problem. We now have litterboxes all over the house (we are up to three separate indoor approved-for-poo locations), and Jeff installed a cat door (not generally recommended in a rental, but we are desperate). Jeff also bought a new cat toy in his attempt to broker a treaty. For the past 24 hours, so far so good. But it's anyone's guess how long the cease-fire will last.

On another note, do you know what cats love? Snow! Today it snowed a little bit! It didn't stick, but I'm hoping that maybe we'll get some accumulation tomorrow. Not so much that we get stuck on top of our hill (we don't currently have tire chains that fit our car), but enough that we can enjoy the pretty winter weather. It is predicted to be a cold snowy winter here this year, and I'm really hoping that will come true-- snow is such a fun thing in places where it doesn't snow much.

Hallowversary

Today is the 8th anniversary of my first date with Jeff. We have our wedding anniversary in August, but we have our "hallowversary" on the last day of October. We always seem to celebrate with candy, pumpkins, and costumes for the occasion :)

Our first date started out as a "not a date," when we decided to go together to a group-costume themed graduate student halloween party. Since the party was to be held on the weekend after halloween, we decided we would spend the evening of halloween making our costume. It quickly progressed to an "is this a date?," when our costume idea failed, and we decided to just forget it and watch a movie instead (Top Gun; obviously Jeff's choice). It then turned into an actual date when Jeff pulled a very sly (not at all sly) arm-across-the-couch move when I got up to get the movie out of the VCR, and when I came back to the couch I had to decide whether to sit far, or sit close. I chose to sit close, and eight years later, here we are :)

One thing I really missed when I was in San Diego was a real fall season. I know that some people say that the northwest only has two seasons (summer and rain), but that's just not true; fall is very distinct here. I am very much enjoying watching the leaves drift off of the trees in our yard, and having the opportunity to start wearing scarves and woolly socks again. Of course, being in a larger city it's not quite as easy to get out to a local farm for harvest activities (pumpkin picking, apples, etc.), so I still miss that. And I wish I could partake in the long-standing tradition of attending the mushroom festival, but alas, there is nothing quite like it for the city-dwellers up here (at least not that I know of).

I guess I will have to be content with knitting, drinking tea, and making apple pie (which I haven't done yet this fall, but doesn't it sound good? I promise pie to anyone who comes and visits).

Fall

As disappointing as the summer weather was up here, I have to say that I have been very impressed by our fall. There has been a surprising amount of autumn sunshine, and it's been fairly beautiful. Which I am very glad for, because now I can feel okay about all the rain that is predicted starting today-- it will feel cozy and fall-like instead of just gray and bleak.

I'm still working on finding some balance with work, and I realized that I have been doing an unusually large amount of DVD-watching and video-game playing. I think I'm still a little exhausted by all the new-ness of being in this city and at this job, and when I come home, I want mindlessness.

I also think that Jeff and I are still rebounding from our year apart, and so we spend a lot of time just sitting together, watching tv shows and movies, playing super mario on the wii, and doing crosswords. I realized how much we are still enjoying just being near each other when this morning we met on the stairs, me going up, him coming down, and we stopped. We were both changing location so we could be nearer to each other, even though the activities we were doing were totally independent. It made me smile :)

Culture Shock

One thing I did not expect to experience after moving to Seattle was culture shock. Somehow I assumed that the Northwest is all sort of the same, and that coming to Seattle would be like coming home. In some respects that has been true, but in some respects, Eugene and San Diego are a lot more similar to each other than they are to Seattle.

Maybe it isn't all of Seattle, maybe it's just where I work, but there are some things that I am finding it difficult to adjust to. The first is that I get a sense that conformity is valued much more here than I'm used to. If I give an opinion that is less than perfectly in line with the opinion of the person I'm talking to, I feel like the response is to try to convince me that I'm missing something, with a sort of frantic attempt to get everyone to agree. And I'm not talking matters of life and death, I'm talking about matters of intellectual inquiry, personal preferences, and lunch. I see a lot less open disagreement and discussion here than I'm used to, and a lot more discomfort when disagreements occur. I have yet to encounter an agree-to-disagree situation-- instead, it seems like every disagreement is treated as a problem that needs solving.

A second issue is greater reliance on hierarchy. Of course there is hierarchy in any environment, and it is a matter of respect to defer to more experienced individuals. But here I find that I am frequently explicitly reminded of my rank in ways that I am not used to.

A third issue is that straightforwardness does not seem to be valued as much as I am used to. I was actually told, by one supervisor, that although a job description exists for my position, he does not really want to "publicize" it (e.g., provide it to me). Thus, while there are specific expectations for my job, I need to try to do the job without knowing what they are. The idea is to "promote flexibility." There have been times where I feel like I am a character in a Kafka novel.

A fourth, highly related issue is that from my perspective, the way people talk about/perceive themselves here, and what they actually do, are not always well correlated. People talk about being relaxed, laid back, flexible, etc., but from my perspective people are a lot more intense here. As an example, one of my supervisors said that I really should let them know if I'm unable to fit all my responsibilities into the M-F, 8-6 (lunch break is rare, only if there's time) 40-hour week. Where I come from, 8:30-5 (with a 30-minute lunch break each day if possible), is a 40-hour week. I know that it's not uncommon for people in our field to work longer hours, but I'm used to people who work long hours being fully aware of it. Here, I get the sense that people really do think that 8-6 is an 8-hour day.

I'm working on adjusting, but in many ways I don't want to adjust. I keep hoping I'm misperceiving something, and I'll find out it was all just a miscommunication. Seattle-ites and former Seattle-ites, am I missing something? Is it just me???

Biking

As I mentioned in a prior post, I am not used to city commuting, and I'm not sure I'm really built for it. My bus commute to work is usually smooth, but going home on the bus has been rough. It takes me almost an hour to get home taking the bus, and by the time I get home I have generally been gone for 10 hours (8.5 hour work day, plus commute time), and by that point I do not feel like exercising. Lack of exercise makes me feel sluggish and cranky, and makes me resent my job and hate my bus ride (even though lately I have been careful to always catch the bus driven by a specific particularly good driver). And so I have been coming home all grumpy every day, which is not so nice for anyone, particularly Jeff.

Something had to change, so after some careful thought, planning, and safety equipment acquisition (lights, orange reflective vest, reflective tape/stickers), for the last week I've been taking my bike on the bus with me in the morning, then riding home from work. So far, it's been great. I get home about 15 minutes faster, and the exercise feels good. The timing of the exercise is perfect, because after a sometimes frustrating work day, I have the chance to shift focus, be outside, and use up any pent-up frustrations getting up my hill, before coming home to Jeff. So far I've had two fairly wet/rainy commutes, and it's been fine. We'll see how I do once the days get shorter, wetter, and colder, but I think with a few more lights I will be able to pull it off.


Here are a few additions to the list of lessons learned from work:

Addendum to #1: Even if the gun is decorative, and/or you never had any intention of ever firing the gun, the no guns in the house rule still applies. No matter how safety-conscious you are, accidents happen, for example while cleaning the gun.

18. Daily intake of 4.5 gallons of beer can lead to occasional loss of footing and subsequent falls.
19. Relatedly, ground-level falls (like from a standing position, or off of the toilet) can have serious consequences.
20. Activity involving gasoline near your face + lighting a cigarette = surefire disaster.
21. Also, as a general rule, gas cans don't belong on the coffee table.
22. Aprons are, in fact, safety equipment. Best to wear one when cooking with hot oil.
23. If your clothes catch fire, do not try to put them out with your bare hands. Stop, drop, and roll really is a better option.
24. Don't do IV drugs-- you probably know about some of the risks, but did you know about the increased risk for osteomyelitis, or necrotising soft-tissue infection? Because those are nasty.
25. Just don't do drugs in general. Especially meth. Especially in combination with other drugs. And alcohol. And guns/weapons/sharp objects. And fire. Because three or four of those together add up to one big mess.

My new list

One of the great/awful things about working at a hospital is that you get to see the consequences of others' mistakes. I was told when I started at this job that I would quickly start noting to myself things I will never do, and it's true, I've got quite a list already, with five major categories:

First, some of the more serious/grim ones:
1. No guns in the house. Ever. Even if they're locked up.
2. Never ever ever attempt suicide, even if it is just a "gesture" and you didn't really mean it. Because it's bad no matter what the outcome, but if you "fail" and survive, life is not going to be any easier with those new injuries/disabilities.

Second, practical advice you might not have thought of:
3. If you have any chronic medical conditions, like diabetes or obesity, do what you can to get those under control. Because a simple broken leg can turn into something seriously nasty if you don't.

Third is the "Lots of people do it but that doesn't make it a good idea," category:
4. Never forgo your seatbelt, even if you are going 5mph on gravel with no other cars around.
5. Never ride a motorcycle. But if you insist, do it only at reasonable speeds, wearing a helmet, completely alert and sober.
6. Never ride a dirt bike. Or a motorized street bike.
7. Never ever ride a 4-wheeler.
8. Never, ever, ever, ride an ATV.

Fourth is the "Seriously, what were you thinking?" category:
9. Don't weld while drunk.
10. Basically any kind of fire + drunk = really bad idea.
11. Also don't climb trees drunk.
12. Ditto for telephone/electrical poles.
13. Don't dive drunk. (Or drive drunk, but we all already knew that).
14. If you work a night job, which means you're really tired during the day, don't take a second job (during the day, when you're really tired) that involves working machinery, like oh, say, a meat grinder.
15. Never ever ever disable any of the safety features on anything, like for example, power saws.

And finally, the "Wait... what?" category:
16. Never get yourself into a situation where your pants catch fire and you are too drunk to notice.
17. Never try to launch a large object with a large home-made cannon. Even if you've done it before and it was really cool the first time.

And that was just from my first month :) I'm sure the list will grow...

Back to SD

Last weekend I was back in San Diego, briefly, to present a talk at the APA conference. I had the opportunity to see my advisor, and many former lab-mates, some of whom I hadn't seen in about 4 years. It was great to see everyone and catch up! I think there were a total of 10 of us in attendance at the conference at some point, and here are 8 (plus a pint-sized little off-shoot) having a picnic lunch:

I also visited with friends from internship, which was awesome. Unfortunately, I kept forgetting to take out my camera, so no pictures of fun times on the beach, out to lunch, at the zoo, and out to dinner. If there were pictures, they would include me very happily enjoying the company of Marina, Dana, Erik, and others, not to mention a speaker-phone call to Denise :)

When I got home, I was greeted by not one, but two Jeffs, as the second was in town to defend his dissertation and stayed with us for one night. Two Dr. Jeffs, one noticeably more tired than the other, the day after the defense:


Since my last post, I've been going kind of non-stop until this weekend (if you count conferencing/vacationing in SD as part of "going non-stop", which I do because traveling is exhausting). This weekend was a marked slow-down, which included lots of laundry-doing, quiet time at home, and a nice long sleep last night. I missed weekends like this all last year, with all the traveling back and forth between Seattle and SD. Jeff is getting ready to leave for a trip to visit family in a few days, but I won't be traveling for a while, and I'm looking forward to being home every weekend for the near future :)

Knitting on the bus

I started my new job last week, and so far so good. I haven't taken on a lot of responsibilities yet, but I think that will be changing quickly. For me, last week was primarily about getting administrative stuff taken care of, learning how to get around the building, and getting a general sense of what my schedule will be like. I have been told that once I really get started, the workload will hit quickly-- I'll basically be managing the psychology consult service for the entire hospital, so once I start carrying the pager there's no going back and not a lot of downtime (or so I hear). We'll see how it goes.

One other thing I've been adjusting to is my bus commute. It's about a 35 minute bus ride every morning, and about a 45-50 minute bus ride home from work, due to heavier traffic in the evening. On top of that, I have a 5 minute walk to and from the bus stop. So it's a bit different from my 12 minute drive to work last year, and worlds different from my 12 minute walk to work for the several years before that. I am so totally not used to being a commuter, and so far, that has been the most stressful part my new job.

On the other hand, I think it has the potential to be very relaxing. It's a single bus ride, no transfers, so I have long stretches of uninterrupted time for knitting and listening to podcasts/music/whatever I want, every single day. I am so far not taking full advantage of this; I've just been listening to the news each day, but I could certainly be getting some good books on tape to listen to. I have been doing some good knitting though. In my first week of work, my bus knitting has amounted to about half a sock (a relatively large sock, for Jeff). At this rate, I could probably do about a pair of socks or the equivalent every month, which is more knitting than I've ever really had time for. I'm going to try to really make this happen.

In other knitting-related news, I will also be re-joining my intern fantasy football league this year. Last fall I learned that knitting and football go really well together. This afternoon I worked on a team name (the Knit Kickers) and logo:

Note that the little footballs are photos of a knitted football. Game on!

Getting caught up

Just over a week ago I was in a car accident that left me a little rattled and down one side mirror, but otherwise intact. The other driver and I were both turning right from adjacent turn lanes, and she was confused and distracted and veered into my lane, side-swiping my car (fortunately at a relatively low speed). I was angry for about a minute, but the driver and her passengers were clearly more shaken up than I was, and sadly, were here from out of town (which explains the confusion at the complex intersection) to be with an imminently dying close relative (which explains the distraction). Even though I have no fault whatsoever, I still have to supply all the time and energy that goes into filing police reports, calling insurance companies, and getting cars fixed. But, c'est la vie. I'm not sure whether to feel unlucky for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or lucky for the fact that the accident was minor.

I'm less than a week away from starting my new job, and doing my best to get everything I possibly can done before that-- quite a range of things, from writing papers to buying shoes, going to the dentist, and going hiking, and just about everything in between.

In the fray, that whole post I promised about the end of internship and our trip up here has gotten lost. So, I'm just going to upload a bunch of photos, post the links here, and call it good :) These are my photos from throughout my internship year, and here are my pictures for the trip up to Seattle.

Slugging along

Currently my self-motivation is dragging a bit. I am trying to prepare my dissertation for submission for publication, and over the past several days, I have cut approximately 50 pages from the body, but still have many many pages to go before it is acceptably concise. Fifty pages may sound like a lot, but I have been spending way more time slacking than working. Sitting around the house, looking at funny things on the internet, obsessively checking craigslist trying to find myself a desk, and generally feeling like a big slug (appropriate to my new locale). It has been taking hours for my motivation to get high enough to finally leave the house to go to a coffee shop, where I can actually get work done.

Working in coffee shops is relatively new to me-- I used to be too easily distracted by noise and other people. But over the past year working in coffee shops was one of the few ways I could spend time outside of work with my busy internship friends Jeff and Denise, so I gave it a fresh try, and now I'm hooked. Now I'm not sure how I ever used to get work done at home. I've so far been to 4 different coffee/tea shops in my new neighborhood, including the one I'm at right now, and there are two more to try within easy walking distance of my house. Seattle totally trumps San Diego in this respect.

I have officially been in Seattle for a whole week! I swear I'll post some things about the end of internship, and the trip up here, very soon, but right now I'm focusing on being here in Seattle, and getting used to it. As much as I dislike changes and transitions, there are lots of things I like about being here.



Like this view, within walking distance of my house, and the guy who jumped into my picture of it :) Once I am done with this post, I'll get myself back to work for a bit. Then I'll hit the neighborhood farmer's market on the way home, where I can get peaches that are at least as good as the ones in SD, and raspberries and blueberries that are cheaper and better. No grapefruits, but I'll survive :)

Limbo

Five days ago we finished packing up the car and left San Diego. Since then, I've felt like I'm in limbo-- we're taking our time on our trip, visiting friends and family along the way, and at this moment I am in the coffee shop at Powell's, far from SD but not quite arrived in Seattle, and feeling a little bit like I don't know where my home is. Since setting out last Friday, I've had a little bit of deja vu--I'm retracing my steps from my trip down to SD, returning to familiar places, but at the same time feeling just like I did a year ago, unsure and unsettled, setting out on a new adventure.

It's been so nice to visit friends (I'll say more about that in another post, with pictures) and at the same time, I've been going in and out of feeling sad. Partly because I miss my SD friends, and partly because seeing old friends reminds me a bit that I don't see them as often as I'd like. Visiting Eugene was a little sad, because some very important people have left in the year that I was away, and it will be harder to see them than it used to be.

The whole thing is mixed, and is another one of those reminders that in order to have good things in life, you have to be willing to be sad about their absence, and that sadness is a reminder of what you love (ACT, anyone?).

So yeah, I'm feeling a little sappy and sentimental, but I'm sure that will pass :) And when it does, I'll post again with some details from the end of internship, and our fun trip!

A week of lasts

Today I walked to my local neighborhood farmer's market for the last time.

I have loved this weekly market, and even at times when everything else seemed to be going poorly, I could always count on getting a little pick-me-up by heading down my street on a Sunday morning. The positive atmosphere and my favorite local grapefruits would work together to make me feel better. I have eaten these grapefruits (almost always from the same farmer) about 95% of all mornings that I have lived here, and I will miss them.

Last Tuesday I had my last night in my bed, and Wednesday I said goodbye to all my furniture. I've been sleeping on an air mattress, and our large living room now contains only a little card table and some folding chairs, and the TV propped up on a built-in shelf. I am packing up my few belongings, hoping that they will all fit in my car, and avoiding thinking about what I may have to leave behind if my car is smaller than the huge pile I am hoping to stuff into it. I hate this state of limbo, but it will be over soon, and thankfully I'll be arriving home to a place that is 95% unpacked (for which I am soooo grateful).

Last week I had final sessions with 14 clients. Next week I say goodbye to 3 more. This is the last weekend I'll be spending in San Diego, but also the last weekend I'll be spending without my husband. While I am in the mix of being excited and sad, I have to remember that this week will not be the last time I see the new friends I have made here-- for some, I already know when we will see each other next-- and this makes things a bit easier.

I can feel the end/beginning creeping up on me, and one thing I am sure of, is that there will be lots of "last minute" stuff that pops up in the next 5 days!

Counting Down

After today, I have 8 days of internship left. As I am working on closing out my clients in those 8 days, I have a total of 18 hours of client contact left, between my individuals, intakes, and groups. Jeff will be arriving here on the 29th, and I am going to Seattle this weekend, for one last visit before moving exactly 2 weeks from today. So, all told, there are only 7 more days of long distance relationship left, and a total of 11 days left in San Diego (subtracting out this weekend, while I'm gone).

I am having those mixed feelings that come with endings and beginnings. Because while I'm ecstatic about returning to live with my husband again, and so excited about my new home, my new neighborhood, and my new job, I am also starting to get sad. I'll be leaving behind some incredible friends, a job I have actually really loved, and a city that I didn't realize I'd like as much as I do.

It's the curse of the good life-- when you have places and people you really care about, you are doomed to have a lot of pain when, inevitably, you have to separate.

New Home Part II

Here is a first image of our new home, and new little garden:

Isn't it cute?? I am so jealous that I wasn't there to help get the garden started! Also, now I am in even greater debt to my very sweet husband-- he spent most of the day working on the garden, and he did it all just for me. He was very clear that if he was going to be living there alone, he wouldn't have bothered to put in the work, but he was happy to do it because he knows I want a garden, and I won't be there in time to get it going myself. So once again I owe him big time. Although I think he is also proud of his accomplishment:


I am sooo excited about having garden space again! It's not a huge space, and our plants may face some challenges (mostly from shade), but we're going to give it an honest shot.

I got so excited about the garden this afternoon that I did something pretty silly. One of the very best things to plant in a garden is potatoes, but it's really almost too late to plant them, and there aren't any seed potatoes left at garden centers in Seattle-- I actually called around to find out. I really wanted to contribute to our garden effort, even though I'm a thousand miles away. So here's where the silly part comes in-- I ordered some seed potatoes online. They were pretty cheap, but they're relatively heavy, so by the time I paid the shipping (priority mail was the cheapest option), we *might* break even in terms of how much the seed potatoes cost and what our eventual yield from them would cost at the grocery store. And that's *if* they grow well enough being planted this late, and in our partial sun location.

But somehow it feels like it's worth it, because growing food is just so much fun-- I get a huge kick out of it, and I'm always a little amazed that it actually works. I sort of feel like this guy.

Future new home

Last week, Jeff moved into what will be our new home up in Seattle. He found us a very cute house to rent up near the top of Queen Anne hill, which is one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city. The house is walking distance from nice restaurants and shops, but the neighborhood is also very residential, which means we are also walking distance to parks, and it's quiet and homey. And, since the neighborhood is at the top of the tallest hill in Seattle, there are some lovely views.

The house itself is also incredible-- the largest home we've ever lived in, with tons of space for us, and a great little yard that has a bit of space for gardening. It's on a corner, set back from the street, so we don't have many neighbors to worry about, and don't really have to worry about traffic on the street either (our kitties will be safe in the yard). I have only seen the house one time, for just a few minutes, but I can't wait to move in.

With all that is good, there has to be some bad, and the main bad is that I'm not there yet and won't be for a month. The end of internship is approaching (3 weeks, 2 days!), but until then, Jeff is in the house all by his lonesome. This also means that he had to 1) find the house all by himself, 2) decide on it without having me to weigh in on it, 3) pack all of our stuff, 4) move all of our stuff all by himself (with the help of some movers for the big furniture, 5) unpack all of our stuff all by himself (still in progress), 6) deal with all of the other stuff that comes with moving, like address changes, setting up utilities, etc., all by himself, and 7) purchase furniture to fill in some of the extra space (still in progress, but Jeff also did an amazing job of finding us a really good deal on some badly needed living room furniture).

Basically what this adds up to is that I am one lucky woman. When it's time for me to leave San Diego, we'll just be packing up my car, driving north, and when we arrive, the house will be waiting. My dear husband did an amazing job finding this place, and an amazing job doing all the moving-related stuff on his own, and I owe him big time.

It's a good thing our new place is near the best doughnut shop in Seattle, because next time I'm up there (in two weeks; my last visit before moving) I'm going to have to start handing out rewards for jobs well done.

Random

1. Had a long-ish conversation tonight about the probability/possibility of life/society/radios on other planets with my husband, and was reminded how nerdy we both are but also how much fun it is to talk about random ridiculous things. That is one of the things I miss most while not living together-- fewer opportunities for these kinds of things to come up.

2. It is raining, just a tiny tiny drizzle, and I wonder if this may be the last rain I see here. I just drove a friend to the airport, and noticed the particular smell that happens while driving in San Diego when it drizzles, and wondered if I will ever smell that again. Because I might not!

3. I parked my car on the street after returning from the airport, and as I was walking up my block I saw TWO BABY SKUNKS! I have never seen a live skunk before in my life, and they are actually totally adorable. I was going to try to get close to get a picture on my cell phone, and fortunately they ran and hid before I could get near them. Because you know, that might not have been so smart.

4. There is sometimes a really funky smell in my neighborhood, that in my mind smells exactly like what a pencil eraser would smell like if you lit it on fire. It seems to emanate from the canyons, and I have often wondered what it is. Tonight I'm beginning to wonder if it might be skunk-related.

Hitting the re-set button

Whenever I start to feel like something is a little off, or not working right, or headed in the wrong direction, the phrase "hit the re-set button" always pops into my head. To me, that means take a step back, go back to the "you are here" spot on the map, and take a fresh look around, either literally or metaphorically, depending on what needs re-setting.

It's been a while since I posted here, and I think it's time to hit the re-set button on the blog. In this context, I think that means starting today, getting back into a more regular pattern of posts. And what better way to start than to have a whole post about re-sets?

Today I had to hit the button on a client. I had been seeing him for 9 sessions, and we had literally gotten nowhere on the problem he came in with. The therapy I was doing with him obviously was not addressing what he most needed help with. Re-set! Brand new plan, new direction, and a big sigh of relief for both of us.

Health-wise, I have been doing very well lately (up until the past week; see below), feeling about 90-95% normal, and very happy about it. However, while I was not feeling well I started to get into new habits and schedules, and my exercise routine was suffering. Re-set! A few weeks ago I started fresh and have gone back to jogging 3 times a week, and think I am gradually getting myself back into shape.

Unfortunately, the past week or so I've been feeling extra dizzy again, and have been having some nausea for the first time in a while. One accommodation I make for this involves getting up at least once an hour and taking a little walk up and down the hall. I don't know why this helps with the vertigo but it does, and when I asked my neurologist, he said it was kind of like hitting the re-set button. Oh yes indeed. Re-set!

And, finally, the biggest re-set of all is coming up in just 6 weeks. Believe it or not, that is how long I have before internship ends, and my dear husband arrives in San Diego to retrieve me. We will be taking about a week to drive from here to Seattle, and will make several stops along the way, so stay tuned and be ready to make some plans for us to visit if you live along the I-5 corridor!

Hangin in the airport

One hour ago I was happily on my way to Seattle for a visit with Jeff, on the plane in my awesome seat (just behind first class, window seat, no one next to me), plane speeding down the runway about to be airborne, when suddenly we came to a screeching halt. Apparently another plane spotted "something leaking from our engine." After a few minutes surrounded by emergency vehicles, we went back to the gate, got off the plane, and now I'm sitting here waiting for another plane to arrive for us to get on. We will probably be leaving around the time I was supposed to arrive. Short weekend visits do not need to be made shorter by airplanes leaking fuel!

Fun in the Sun

Jeff and I had an excellent spring break together, and this afternoon, Jeff went back to Seattle. I am always sad to see him go, but happy to have had time together. Our week was very eventful:

We did our taxes, which wasn't so fun, but it's done now, and that's the important thing.

We went to the Anza-Borrego desert, which is beautiful, and saw an amazing show of desert flowers (normally it's brown and dry, but after the rain it's actually sort of green in places, and the flowers bloom for a few weeks), cacti, and a real-life palm oasis:




We also took a bike ride around Mission Bay,

went to the Wild Animal park and saw a baby elephant,

hiked around Torrey Pines state park,

and spent time with friends.

All in all, an excellent use of a week together. And I'm starting to feel like a normal person again :)

Spring Break

I am taking a spring break this year. Jeff is coming down to visit on Saturday, and staying for a week, and I'm taking the whole week off of work. After almost two months of not feeling my best, I am ready for a vacation.

And honestly, the past few weeks I've been feeling a little burned out. I've been busier than usual, partly due to cramming people in around doctor's appointments and such, but partly because the influx of patients into our clinics appears to be seasonal, and we're in high season. And my clients have been more intense than usual (more people in crisis, considering suicide, becoming homeless, etc.). So I am really really ready for a vacation.

One more work day, and then it's sleeping in, enjoying the lovely SoCal spring, and spending every day with my husband for a week :)

Watch and wait

In the past couple of weeks, I've had some good news. First, some of my symptoms are starting to get better. I'm less tired, have less numbness, and feel less nauseous. I still have all those symptoms to some degree, and still have vertigo (which makes the room look like it's spinning), but I'm getting used to it, and primarily only have the vertigo in certain head positions, so it is manageable. So basically, I'm starting to feel better.

Second, I also got some more information about my brain condition, after meeting with a vascular neurosurgeon. The good news is that surgery is off the table for now. This is a huge relief, because any surgery has risks, and brainstem surgery has substantial risks. So no surgery = less anxiety for the moment.

The bad news is that some of my neurological symptoms are probably permanent, particularly the vertigo. There was definite evidence on the MRI of a bleed in my brain associated with my cavernoma, and this probably damaged some brain tissue, and unfortunately brain tissue doesn't regenerate as easily as some other body tissues do. The other bad news is that the cavernoma is still there and always will be, and will continue to pose a risk for re-bleeding, or other future "neurological events" leading to symptoms. If that does happen, I might end up with more symptoms, some of which might be transient, and some of which might be permanent.

The mixed news is that there is absolutely nothing I can do about this. On the one hand that kind of sucks. But on the other hand, it's also somewhat freeing. I have no major restrictions on my activity, don't have to engage in any special behaviors, and never have to worry that I'm doing something wrong or should be doing something differently related to my cavernoma. If something bad is going to happen, it will happen regardless of what I do, and I'll have to deal with it. That may mean surgery in the future, or not, and may mean that I have more problems in the future, or not. And all the worrying in the world will not change that, so all that's left to do is get on with the business of living my life.

Which, happily, I am able to do. I haven't really missed any work, and probably won't have to. I stopped jogging for a while, but today Jeff and I went for a slow, short jog to ease back into it. Jeff visited this weekend, and we went to the zoo, spent some time with friends, and relaxed. And as I've been feeling slightly shocked and anxious about my diagnosis, I've been reaching out and connecting with my support people, including some very good old (and less old) friends, and family. Thanks to all of you for just existing, because it makes everything easier to know you're all there :)

And just for fun, here is a picture from the zoo. If you look really really carefully, you may be able to spot a meerkat pile-up between the tree and the stump to the left of it. There are at least four meerkats there.

I have a fondness for photos of animals, where the animals are just barely visible (if at all). I have sort of a collection of them. They make me laugh in the same way that it's funny sometimes when a 3-year-old tells you what they just drew, because the picture both is and is not exactly what you are being told it is. So yes, this is a picture of meerkats :)

I must have a door in the back of my head...

Lately I've had the Dandy Warhols' song "Solid" stuck in my head a lot. It's probably because I recently found out that I actually do have something in the back of my head. Or, more accurately, in the back of my brain. But it's not a door.

Those of you who read Jeff's blog will already have some info about this, but I was recently diagnosed with something called a cavernoma (also goes by many other names, like cavernous malformation, cavernous angioma, CCM), in my brainstem (left pons, to be exact). There is more information about what that is here.

So what this means, is that I haven't been feeling so well lately. The vertigo I was having trouble with? Yeah, not actually what they thought it was, turns out it's a result of this thing in my brain. Which is also causing nausea, numbness, and general tiredness. It's not clear where it came from (I may have been born with it), but now that it has caused symptoms, it's turning into a real pain.

I'm still waiting to get more information from a specialist about what I'm going to have to do about this. It may be a watch-and-wait situation, or I may need surgery. But either way, it's disrupting my life a bit. I'm actually still going to work every day, doing most of my normal stuff, but I'm not feeling so well as I do it. And I'm more exhausted than usual, which means that I'm not really doing anything extra (except a little extra sleeping). The worst part though, is knowing that the cavernoma is there, that it might cause serious problems, and that it is not clear yet what the best course of action will be.

It's a weird thing to be going through, and even weirder that Jeff is in Seattle and I'm here. It's not horrible, but it's not ideal either. There are moments when it would be awfully nice to get a great big hug, and there isn't one readily available the way there would be if Jeff were here. But, on the flip side, I think I might be more affected by my symptoms if Jeff was here to take care of me. That might sound crazy, but the thing is, I generally feel better-- emotionally and physically-- when I'm doing things. And if Jeff were here, I might have been letting him take care of me from the start, and I might not have figured out that it's better to be moderately active. So maybe there is a bright side.

Just for fun, here is a picture of my brain, taken in 2003, that I think might actually show the cavernoma. I volunteered to have my brain scanned in the early days of the UO's fMRI machine, when they were testing some new software, and I was compensated for my time with a CD of images of my brain. I'm no medical expert, and I can't read MRI's, and this was a scan done for research purposes not for medical purposes, so take what I say here with a grain of salt. But, you see that bright white oval, over the spinal cord, just to the right of center (keeping in mind that left is right on brain MRIs) on this image? That might be it.


It doesn't look like much, and I didn't even notice it when I first looked at these images, years ago. Let's hope it doesn't cause too much trouble.

Post from work

Amazingly, I really can't think of anything I desperately need to be doing at work right now. Thanks to a couple of cancellations earlier this week I've had plenty of time to catch up on things, and now I've got two hours while I'm waiting for my next meeting. Unfortunately I'm also not feeling so well today-- I've had some vertigo for the past few days, which I've never had before, so I went to the doctor yesterday. They said it's nothing serious, just a condition that people sometimes experience which goes away mostly on it's own, but which may last for several weeks. Which actually really sucks, because I've been pretty nauseous today because of it, and "lost my breakfast" as you might say. I hope it goes away quickly...

The other thing about this condition? It mostly occurs in people over 60. Which has gotten me thinking about turning 30. Which is happening in two weeks (!) and I'm not quite sure I'm prepared. I know that there is no qualitative shift that occurs at 30, but I think other people do view 30-somethings as different from 20-somethings. Sometime last week I was reading an intake report on a client I was about to see, and this person was described by the assessor as "middle-aged." And do you know what that person's age was? 34 years old. I just about had a heart attack. I cannot be 4 years away from middle-aged. I am clearly a young adult, and will clearly be a young adult for the rest of my life. Right?

Also, I have a client who has three children and one more on the way, and I really think of her as a grown-up, like a real grown-up, not a young-adult faking being a real adult. I must have known this at some point and blocked it out, but I was reminded this week that she is (drumroll) 28 years old. I'm not sure I can handle this "getting older" thing. I will not turn into one of those people who lies about their age, but I can see myself being genuinely confused at some point, and checking the wrong box for age category on the census...

The good news? My strong, able-bodied, young-adult, 30-year-old husband will be visiting me this weekend, and can take care of my invalid self for a while. I actually genuinely believe right now that as soon as he arrives I'm going to feel 100% better, because I think us being apart ages me, a lot. So I have the vertigo of a 60-year-old right now, but once Jeff arrives it will take 30+ years off my age, and I'll be back to normal. The doctor might not agree, but I'd be willing to bet that a good hug will knock my vestibular system right back into balance.

Postdoc

So the rumors are true-- I have a postdoc. I will be working in rehabilitation psychology, on the psychology consult service at Harborview medical center in Seattle, which is a regional level-1 trauma center. So I'll be doing inpatient work with people who have serious injuries, working with the patients, their families, and their treatment teams. It is totally different from anything I've done before, but should be really interesting, exciting, and challenging. I'm looking forward to it! I will start sometime around the end of July or early August.

My internship ends on June 30th, so we are officially on the downward slope of this year Jeff and I are spending apart. And now I know what I'll be doing when it's over, so we can really start planning for my move up to Seattle! It's super exciting!

Tonight, unfortunately, is not an exciting Friday night, because I'm home sick with a bad cold. But soon I'll try to do a catch-up post about things that happened in the past few weeks besides travel difficulties :)

5:30pm airport post

I believe that in general, travel luck is normally distributed in the population of travelers, and among trips within each traveler. Ever since moving to San Diego, I have had nothing but good luck on my flights to Seattle to visit Jeff. On more than one occasion, I've ended up with an empty seat next to me on a "very full flight," and once they announced that there was only one open seat on the entire plane, and it turned out it was next to me. My flights have been on time, my seat-mates have been quiet and uninteresting (when I have them at all), and I've had smooth travels all around. I've been saying for a while that all this good luck makes me nervous because this much luck seems highly improbable, and it seems that with increasing trips, some regression to the mean should occur, possibly with a vengeance.

Well, I think payment for my good fortune has come due. After last weekend's shenanigans I thought I might be in the clear, but this afternoon as I was prepping to leave to go back to SD, I got an automated call announcing that my flight had been canceled. I immediately called to try to get re-booked, and the person I spoke with made some extremely incompetent mistakes (first trying to book me on a flight that had already departed, then trying to book me on a flight that would give me a 13 hour layover in PDX, then on a flight where my connection left 30 minutes before I would arrive to catch it, then finally, trying to re-book me on my canceled flight), before getting me booked on a flight with *2 connections* to travel a total distance of 900 miles.

I arrived at the airport, checked in, went to the gate, and then noticed that my original flight had suddenly popped back up on the departures board. They have uncanceled it (did you know that was possible? I didn't), but now it is delayed. So now I'm back on that flight, but I have an hour before departure, and I'll miss my original connection in SFO, so I'll be taking the next later flight, which gets me in around midnight assuming everything goes as it is supposed to at this point. The probability of that is anybody's guess.