for your viewing pleasure...

A few random pictures from our road trip.

"Why do you like sprinkles on your ice cream?"

"Hmmmm... because I've never tried them before!"

Monument Valley

Does anyone get what this picture is referring to?

another day

Today I've decided that our house has "character" and that it's in a good location halfway between downtown and the tony suburb where Derek's office is located.

We found two good things today. First, the thrift stores around here are great. The latent thrift store scrounging hipster (dormant since college) in both my husband and myself is rearing it's little head. Wait until you see the little green grandma chair I bought today for two dollars. Yeah.

There's also a wonderful farmer's market downtown, three days a week. Most of the vendors are Amish, Mennonite, and hippies, and we'll be shopping there every week for veggies, bread, and dairy, since lately we've both vowed to eat locally as much as possible.

welcome to dayton

So far, it is about what I expected. Not terrible, not great. The only disappointment has been that our little rental condo is not as nice as we thought it would be. If it were in Bklyn or Queens, we would be living in a castle. But living all the way out here (beyond the suburbs, just a little, people) I realize I kind of wanted, oh, I don't know, the nicest little rental condo in the world. Something like that. So it is disappointing that the floors, though hard wood, are ancient and scratched up like many an apt in which I lived in Bklyn, that the tile in the bathroom and kitchen is ATROCIOUS, and even that it is off a thorough fare populated by fast food restaurants and a*to zone. I haven't really explored the neighborhood yet though, so I shouldn't really complain. Well, we'll live here for a year and if we HATE it we can move even if we stay in Dayton for another year.

I'm freaking out a lot about what I'm going to actually DO with myself, all pregnant and not very job-marketable, but I'll start doing research and eventually I'll figure it out.

They always make movies and shows about people coming to the Big City and being shocked. They should make something about people who are used to places like NY and LA coming to middle America. Watch our faces turn green for hours after we ate at a T*co B*ll in Indiana. Watch our eyes widen in Kansas when we realize that we have only laid our eyes on white people for the past twenty four hours. Wimps.

The best thing that's going on is that Ace seems to be in some sort of remission. We had quite a scare about a week before we left LA. He'd lost 30% of his body weight in three months and was losing his appetite and becoming lethargic. The vet gave us a big talk about how traumatic the move could be for him and how we should consider euthanizing him before leaving LA. Then, at the last minute, she wrote out a prescription for the miracle medicine, which seems to have caused this remission of sorts. Every day on the road trip he curled up and slept in his little cage while we drove, then greeted each hotel room with purrs. He was a little freaked upon arriving in the empty house in Dayton, but I fell asleep listenning to him purr and woke up listenning to him purr. The only thing he completely rejects is the stairs, which he either can't or won't walk easily. We had an initial fantasy about putting his litter box in the basement, but that's not happening. He gets to be carried up the stairs, because he just stands there at the bottom looking at us accusingly as if saying: what?! I'm 95 years old and you expect me to do this NOW???

traveling by road while pregnant

States I peed in:

California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio

(I promise I'll write more tomorrow. Not about pee.)

wild west

The H*liday *nn in Durango, Colorado seemed to be out of regular rooms, so here we are in a suite which is bigger than either of our two recent apartments. We drove all day on two lane highways from the North Rim, the more remote area of the Grand Canyon, through deserts and Monument Valley, and suddenly about twenty minutes into Colorado we drove up into the mountains and the land became rich and green. I am amazed by the vast and diverse landscape of the west.

I haven't had cell reception for two and a half days and have no idea when I'll have internet access again, but Derek and I are having a wonderful time. So is Ace.

bye LA

We're packed and about to be moved. We'll leave at some point today and sleep somewhere in Nevada or Arizona tonight. I don't know how much, if at all, I'll be able to post from the road, so hopefully I'll be speaking to people instead.

For Bri

Crap, I just realized I have only 17 minutes left to blog if I want to make it in time for the end of Ms. Bri's birthday on the east coast! I'm sorry Bri. I know our glorious phone call doesn't quite count. But you already know how much I love you.

The rest of the day has consisted of frantic, scatter-brained, and sort of panicky sorting and packing. You know, when you start doing something and in the middle of it you realize you need to do something else so you go do that thing before you finish the other thing and then you forget what the hell you were doing and feel even more panicked. Somehow, it is all coming together. I'm anxious for Derek to be home but he's sitting in the Denver airport facing delays and I just hope he makes it here before the packers!

Anyway, Happy Birthday Bri! I'll try to keep posting on the exciting road trip. We'll have a computer but will we have internet access.... that is the question.

call me!

Derek has abandoned me for Dayton for four days! He has to go to a staff retreat in the woods somewhere in Ohio before starting his new job. He returns on Thursday, we pack out on Friday, and leave Saturday for our exciting cross country drive! I actually am excited, as we plan to do a lot of sight seeing and scenic driving along the way. Now I must get through the next four days. It hasn't begun well, after driving my dearest to the airport very early in the morning, I'm feeling a bit ill and burst into tears after reading something that reminded me in an extremely round-about way of my grandmother.

I have a lot of errands to run over the next few days, and also would like to get in some last minute LA enjoyment. (Since it's absolutely too hot to do anything else, there are a couple of museums I'd still like to see.) However, I'm not always so good at getting myself not to lounge about depressed and procrastinating when I have unstructured time, so I think I will prioritize my tasks and put myself on a schedule. This will be a good exercise for me, since I will have so much unstructured time after the move, and will hate myself if this time is spent lounging and uselessly tooling around the internet.

I think the move is starting to finally feel like a reality for me, and bringing all sorts of mixed feelings. I'm still excited in many ways, because: I no longer have to work at a job I dislike; I get to be closer to people on the east coast; I get to go to Brooklyn for TEN GLORIOUS DAYS; I get to live in a two bedroom townhouse; I get to have a baby (knock on wood). But I'm getting a little bit worried that I will feel isolated there, and wonder how to combat that feeling. Will I feel isolated after the baby is born? Before? Will we meet people that we can connect with, especially through Derek's job, which is a little intellectual community in the midst of a small midwestern city. I honestly think, however, that in some ways, I will be less isolated there than I am here in LA. Although we do have several friends here, none are the close kind of friends that you would call on to, I don't know, keep you company when you are stuck at home with an infant at your breast. And we are so very far away from the people who we are close to in that way. For example, my sister can drive to Dayton in a couple of hours, and she's already coming right after we get there to help us settle in. And go to my midwife appointment! This is not to say that I expect droves of you to appear in Dayton, but just to say that the distance is more easily negotiated, and the lack of time difference will mean that it's so much easier to talk on the phone. So maybe in some ways I will actually feel less isolated.

Countdown

And it is.... two more days!!! My last day at my non-beloved job is tomorrow.
I have been counting down the days to unemployment since I found out we were moving to Dayton. Eight weeks, six weeks, etc. This has been the sad state of my career this year. I've been so miserable, driving around the valley (and sometimes deep, deep into the big-box-store littered desert) and not doing therapy. I've never, ever, been so excited to leave a job before. There has always been something bittersweet, even at the job I became unhappy at in Bklyn (my second to last job), I had good friends there, felt connected to my clients, and I was doing good work. This time, I feel nothing. I don't even feel like I learned anything this year. Okay, I am glad that I had three wonderful and very funny office mates. And we saved a ton of money because my salary was pretty good. But that is it.
I am now off to be barefoot and pregnant in the Midwest and that sounds like a better option. That is the sad state of things.
Sometimes I get freaked out and worried that my career is going down the tubes, the longer I step off the harder it will be to get back on. I loved what I was doing in Brooklyn before we left. I adored the agency I worked for and really believed in the work. I even loved the neighborhood I worked in, and I could walk there from my house. (in good weather) It was great. I worry that I will never find another job that I love. I know that is a very drastic and dramatic statement, but all the same, I do worry.

update

I wish I had a scanner because I swear to God in the sonogram picture we received yesterday the baby is smiling and waving at the camera. It must have still been excited about meeting it's lovely aunties (and uncles) over the weekend.

In other news, I've already gained about ten pounds!!! In case you were wondering, the recommended weight gain during the first trimester is three pounds. Heh. My doctor said she wasn't concerned so I'll try to not be concerned as well. I swear it's all in the boobs.