Sleeting on my parade

I was so excited that D would be visiting this weekend.

It's his last trip to Little U. on the Prairie, so we were going to do some pre-move prep around the apartment and just enjoy a quiet few days together while I plowed through my small mountain of work. Cook a little, talk a little, curl up on the couch with a movie, whatever.

And then we found out that Sunday is Easter.

My family doesn't celebrate the holiday, but his does, and they're within driving distance. So this means we'll be getting up super early Sunday morning to make the trip for brunch at his parents' place and then we'll drive back in the afternoon. Don't get me wrong; D's folks are fine people, but April is a really stressful month on campus and I am not in the mood to share my much missed other half while I'm already having to put the needs of my students and my classwork above my own personal ones. Like getting enough sleep and doing things that are good for my mental health. So forgive me if I'm feeling a bit unenthusiastic about giving up part of what was supposed to be "just us" time?

Grrrr, I hate feeling selfish.

D and I have decided that it's okay for me to hole up, before the actual Easter meal, in a quiet place to work once we get to his parents' house, but it's still really frustrating to be unable to try to make the best of the situation by at least enjoying time with the people we're visiting. But staying on campus is equally if not more unappealing. Being left out, intentional or otherwise, feels sad -- hasn't changed since the earliest memories I have about preschool playground politics. So I'm going.

It'd just better not sleet anymore -- another wintry system moved through the area yesterday, and while we didn't get much ice at Little U., roads had to be closed in other parts of the state. What has happened to spring?

At least it seems to be making its way into Seattle. Troubadour Mom sent paperwhite bulbs to us that we planted over spring break. In two weeks, their stems have shot up quite quickly. They should be ready to bloom in a few more, with the exception of the odd flowers that have already opened:


We're not sure what other bulb got mixed in with the shipment, but there you go. We'll take whatever spring we can get! D reports that our irises are perking up in the warm weather too (they've been wintering on the balcony of our apartment), so stay tuned for updates on Ralph, Tessa, Carmen, and Lolita. Can't wait to plant them when we get to our new home ...

Have salt, will travel

Airports. Not the best places to sleep, but in terms of providing basic office services, they're not bad.

I got stranded in Dallas on Friday because of the blizzard that settled over the Texas panhandle, home of Troubadour Mom and Dad (Troubadour Mom had a birthday last week, so it was a nice reason to visit):

Image courtesy of weather.com

I expected flights to be canceled, given the numerous warnings the National Weather Service was putting out days in advance about whiteout conditions, so I packed a good chunk of work and enough cereal to cover me for two extra breakfasts (that's the one meal that's more difficult to get from airport vendors in a form that will fit my dietary restrictions).

Around the time I was finishing lunch, D called me to say our realtor needed my signature on the post-inspection repairs agreed to by the seller of our house -- preferably before the weekend. Hmm, what to do? I knew I could get to my e-mail for the documents, but where was I going to find a printer and a fax machine without being a member of any airline's elite travelers' club (with the private lounges and conference rooms for business executives on the go)?

Well, it turns out that the people who work at the information kiosks scattered around DFW's terminals have access to their own office technology. For free. They set me up with everything I needed, and within an hour of D's call, he had the forms in hand to add his own signature to.

I wish I could say the rest of my day was as productive. I nodded off more than I graded while sitting in the airport's low-slung faux-leather chairs -- I'd only had three hours of sleep on the previous night -- and by the time the last flight out was scrubbed, all I wanted was a good workout, some dinner, and a real bed. I got all of that at a hotel a few miles away after getting tickets for the next morning.

Saturday, 6 a.m.: first three flights of the day to Panhandle canceled. Grrrr.

Being slightly better rested, I plopped myself down by a plug in a wall (I've gotten pretty good at spotting these in airports since acquiring my laptop) and started editing my thesis prospectus -- it had been hanging over my head since before spring break, which is when I wrote the first draft. I also got to know the large herd of travelers also hoping to get to Panhandle. The first plane cleared to go was around 2 p.m., so we wandered in a pack thereafter, peeling off a few at a time whenever standby seats were available on flights to points northwest. I was eighteenth on the list, so I did quite a bit of wandering, but it allowed me to take breaks between editing sessions. We'd install ourselves at a gate, wait for it to board, and if we didn't get seats, we'd pack up and move on en masse to the gate for the next departure.

I finally landed in Panhandle shortly before 6 p.m., just in time for a belated birthday dinner. After cake (a sliver for me), I gave Mom the gift I'd been carrying with me for two days:


She loved it.

Just the fax, ma'am

I've decided that trying to buy a house while not physically in the city where it's located is a bit of a pain. The technical snafus D and I ran into this week while attempting to get signatures on various documents (in all kinds of file types, from all manner of faulty printers) are too numerous to list. But in the end, it will be worth it: say hello to our new front door.

Yes, our offer that we put in was accepted! D and I are still in shock -- we expected a lot more resistance from the seller, but within four hours of submitting our bid, our realtor called us back with the good news. I don't think I quite believed it until I saw the fax with the agreement on it. And even then ...

!!!

So we've gotten the initial disclosure forms from the seller as well as the inspection report (from which the photo above is excerpted) and are waiting to hear back about certain items for which we've requested repairs (hence the need to get signatures back to our realtor as the next stage of negotiations begins). The bones of the house are in good shape, so there's nothing serious on the list. If all goes well with closing, we'll be able to move in before my final visit at the beginning of May. Here's to finally having a place where we can put down some roots!

Now, back to prepping for tomorrow's classes (today's at this point). Yes, I'm still thoroughly distracted from all the excitement, but I have to at least try ...

Still percolating

Well, the owners of the house we placed a bid on weren't keen on negotiating even after our second offer. They didn't bother to call back, not even after their realtor spent a good two hours trying to reason with them (goes to show that our offer was indeed a decent one). Oh well. We know there were at least two other families considering bidding on the house if our bid wasn't accepted, but as of today, the place is still on the market with no new offers. We'll just let the owners sit for a bit -- we figure in a few weeks, if they don't get anything better (if at all), they may come back to us.

So this weekend, we went back out to look at MORE houses. And we've found another one we like that may end up being an even better deal, depending on how much we can talk the price down. So here we go for another round. D is e-mailing our realtor to get the paperwork in order as I'm writing.

Everything else in the whole house-buying process has gone well so far. D met with our intended loan officer on Wednesday and gave her all the required documents for review. Sounds like we're in good shape there. Whether it's because of our credit scores or the influences described in this article, which coincidentally appeared in my newsfeed that same day, we won't know. But we're happy either way.

Negotiations

A lot has happened in the last week.

When I landed in Seattle on Friday, I didn't have much planned -- just a lunch date with D and then an afternoon of grading before officially starting spring break. Then I checked my e-mail and discovered that the house at the top of our list of places to watch had dropped its price by a tidy sum.

D and I were intending to put together an offer for the No. 2 house on our list (in terms of size, it didn't look like it would last us as long, but the price was better in comparison before the change on the other house). We weren't quite ready to make a decision on lenders at the end of my last visit, but D's done a lot of research since then and we had our choices narrowed down. So when the price drop came through, we decided to act on that house right away -- we figured we probably weren't the only ones watching and waiting.

We spent the weekend getting all our paperwork in order and put in a bid on Sunday. As we predicted, a competing offer was submitted Monday morning by someone else, so D and I did some thinking and decided we'd give the owners a price cap in the looming bidding war and then wait out the rest of the day (our deadline for a response was 9 p.m. our time). About ten minutes before our offer was to expire, we got a call from our realtor, who told us that the other offer had been withdrawn and that the owners had a counteroffer for us.

It turns out the owners were only willing to budge a tiny amount -- so we decided this morning to make an offer -- a final one -- at the value of our price cap in the bidding war that never happened. We've done our homework and know it's a reasonable price. So we shall see what happens next.

(Yes, I'm deliberately keeping this post as neutral as possible until we have more information. There's all kinds of back story that can't be posted until this is over.)

On a subject I can safely emote on, we took care of a Quaker parakeet named Sammy this weekend for a friend of D's who had to be out of town, and now I'm smitten. I know I said I wanted a kitty, but this bird leaves me seriously torn about what kind of pet to get.

I think what was so appealing about Sammy was his curiosity and his response to our attention. We really had to work to earn his trust, but that was what made the (brief) relationship we cultivated with him so rewarding. He was pretty nippy at first (chomping hard enough to break the skin), but we understood that he was in an unfamiliar environment and felt leery of us. So we worked on him with pieces of celery offered through the bars of his cage until he calmed down. Eventually, he was willing to climb onto D's arm without drawing blood. He still tried to bite anything that moved suddenly (sometimes our hands, trying to brush his beak away from our necks, which he liked to nip), but he got comfortable enough with us that he would perch on our shoulders and chirp back to us when we whistled and offered him treats.

Sammy's owner lets him loose at home most of the time, so as he grew to trust us, we started taking him out of his cage more and more, which he liked. We figured out that TV excited him -- he started shrieking at the people talking on the screen and darted back and forth on D's arms and shoulders (pausing only briefly to groom D, which included yanking out some of D's chin stubble!). The real breakthrough, though, was when we turned on some music. D had noticed before that Sammy got talkative listening to the dishwasher at his owner's apartment, which has a rhythmic thump to it when the arm spins. So we found an internet radio station that plays techno/dance and turned up the speakers. Immediately, Sammy started chattering away, spouting random phrases including "Good boy," "Pretty birdie," and "Here, kitty kitty kitty"(!).

It was great fun watching D interact with Sammy -- D had an African grey parrot and a Nanday conure when he was a kid, so I imagine this weekend brought back good memories for him. We spent part of Saturday evening giving Sammy some playtime, and I managed to get some pictures. Here are the ones that actually remained in focus.

Every kidney has a silver lining?*

So after dinner Thursday, just as I was posting my previous entry, I noticed that my back was hurting -- odd because I've never had back problems, and I've never known blogging to be a strenuous activity involving large muscle groups, etc. "Hmm," I said to myself. "Perhaps this is some weird kind of indigestion?" I curled up on the couch to see if it would help, but no dice. Ditto my attempts to massage whatever sinews seemed to be knotting up somewhere to the right of my spine.

Almost Dr. Sis (the one in med school) happened to call at that moment. At this point, I was fairly uncomfortable but not sure if I was overreacting to some silly back spasms. "What do you think this is?" I asked her.

"Well, it could be your pancreas, at which point, that's a surgical emergency," she said. "If it gets worse, go to the ER."

Oh. Okay.

Ten minutes later, I was in enough pain to make it difficult to move in any fashion, so I called up a friend, who drove me directly to the hospital. Good thing we went when we did, as there was a sudden influx of walk-ins after I was admitted. As it was, I waited an hour to be treated, and by the time the doctor got to me, I was in tears.

Fortunately, the diagnosis was pretty straightforward: "You have a kidney stone," the doctor said, after a quick trip to the CT scanner (aided by some truly wonderful IV drugs that took all the pain away). No surgery needed either, thank goodness. I was sent home with a prescription for more painkillers, advice to drink tons of fluids, and orders to follow up with my regular doctor in a few days.

So the weekend was less productive than I'd hoped it would be -- even though I was only technically in pain for not quite three hours Thursday night, I was completely exhausted on Friday and didn't really feel back to normal until Monday. My stack of student papers, to be graded by Thursday, is still much larger than it should be. And my birthday, which fell within those recovery days, slipped by rather quietly. (I did get lovely phone calls from my family, but because I didn't want to worry my parents, who were traveling, and my other sister, who was dealing with a nasty paper herself, I didn't mention the ER visit.)

There is a VERY positive side to this: on Friday of this week, I leave for Seattle again. Imagine if that kidney stone had chosen to wreak havoc while I was 30,000 feet over Montana. There would have been no option but to divert the plane to get me to a hospital (you can't confirm the presence of kidney stones without a scan, and there are too many other scary things that could be wrong if you leave the diagnosis at a guess, even if you can administer painkillers to treat the symptoms). So I'm okay with the way things turned out. Relieved, in fact (no pun intended).

I'll leave you with a picture, courtesy of Almost Dr. Sis, who created this diagram of how a nephron works when she was studying for her board exams last year (click on it for a close-up). Truly amazing what these tiny things do and how a small imbalance in their regulation can cause so much distress.


*Credit goes to Almost Dr. Sis for the title too. That was her response after I told her how the Thursday night (mis)adventure turned out.

To whom it may concern

It has been discovered that a small brown kitten with cream-colored mitts hopped into my luggage in Seattle and is now making himself at home at Little U. on the Prairie. He says to his owner:

"She promised me a dish of cream and more fish than I could shake a stick at. I couldn't say no."

In truth, I did no such thing, but this little guy just wants to help me wish D a very happy birthday. Which is why I borrowed him -- he normally naps in D's home office near the paper shredder. I found him just under ten years ago and gave him to D when we first started doing the long-distance thing (for dating, not marriage). Why? Because he goes by the name of Pounce (each Beanie Baby comes with a handle, printed inside the tag), which is also the name of a card game D taught me -- it became a favorite between us before we'd even considered a long-term relationship.

So, D, I promise you'll get him back when I come home for spring break. One week to go! Oh, and Pounce says he wants to hit a sushi bar for his pains but I think we can convince him that a home-cooked bouillabaisse would be just as tasty ...

Getting closer

... to having one of these!

I'm sure you're asking, "Hey, weren't you looking for a house?" and yes, we still are. Today, we checked out several of the ones D and I screened from the list he saw two weeks ago (remember the Valentine's Day viewing marathon?). And we have prospects. Real, honest-to-goodness potential places with price points we're willing to consider, with some negotiation.

The next month could be very, very interesting.

But what about the kitty? Well, we promised ourselves that when we finally got a house, we would get a cat, and now that we may actually have a home in our near future, I can almost feel its little paws kneading my lap. In fact, we're hoping to adopt two cats at the same time so they'll have companionship when we're not home (which will certainly be the case for a good part of the day since D and I hope for both of us to have jobs after I finish this degree).

So the details. Without giving actual identifying information away, of course:

The first place we saw today was one D really liked because of the detailing in the molding (baseboards, crown, bordering the doors and windows, etc.). Most of the places that were built in this area lack molding in some if not all of these spots. So D was quite taken with the quality of the construction and the materials used. I agreed that it was nicely done, but the kitchen had some problems -- a glass-topped electric stove (troublesome for cooking because the heat isn't well maintained) with poor ventilation and no way to install a fume hood without going through some serious renovations. The family room also needed a built-in bookcase to be knocked out in order for us to be able to put our couches and TV in a formation that makes sense (not blocking main pathways, doors, etc.). The master suite was fine, as were the numerous other bedrooms, but overall, the layout didn't feel right to me. "This isn't home," I said as we headed to our next location.

The second place had fewer bedrooms (one less) but had a lovely kitchen. The master bathroom needed to have its carpet replaced by tile, which also led us to think about other improvements we might prefer in that space -- redoing the shower, perhaps. The entire home smelled a bit diapery too, but that's because the family living there has two very young children not yet toilet-trained. I imagine that'll go away (not like pet odors). All in all, a nice space laid out in a way that flowed well. Even the office attached to the master bedroom didn't seem odd (even though it sounds a little unusual). The space is separated by French doors that we can put curtains over -- it could become a nice library nook, I think.

The third place is kind of fuzzy to me, which is not the best sign -- if you can't picture yourself in the space, it's probably not "home" either. This one is located on a nice cul-de-sac where our kids would eventually be able to play, and the back of the house opens onto an enclosed yard as well. Good kitchen, decent master bedroom, despite some slightly odd window placement. What feels weird in the layout, though, is the living room and family room. They're side by side, with a large picture hole cut into the wall between them. This means there's an openness to the space (good) but the areas are in some ways required to coordinate visually (limiting). I kind of imagine my living room being more formal than the family room, so to solve this problem, I'd probably just use the family room for sitting and turn the living room into a library (line the area with bookshelves and maybe one smaller sofa?). Blocking up the hole would make the two spaces feel tight, so that's not really an ideal fix. Anyway, because of this, it feels like I'm trying to force my lifestyle to fit the home, which is not what I want.

The fourth place is a townhome. It is new construction, and the floor plan makes incredibly good use of space. But I'm having a hard time picturing children in it. The main floor is great for entertaining -- the kitchen is open to the living and dining areas, which are fluid. But where would kids be able to play while D and I are cooking? Not feasibly around the good furniture. There is a small office on the main floor behind the kitchen, which could be used as a playroom, but it's small, and I imagine it would be confining for any active kid. There's a bedroom in the basement of the townhome that could be used, but again, it's not where kids can be supervised when they're young. There's no good place for them to play outdoors either as the community will have traffic going in and out of it (no lawns or yards adjacent to the property). So, as I said to D, the place is a phenomenal retreat for us, but it would delay when I'd want to have children. I'd want to put it off until we were ready to buy our next house.

The fifth place we saw is also new construction, but it's priced higher than the range we'd been looking in -- D just likes the builder. The home we're considering there is larger than anything else we've looked at, so the price is justified, but we'll still have to see how much it can be talked down. The house's layout is also a bit busy -- living, kitchen, and dining open to each other in ways that are a little disorienting as you're walking through the space. As D put it after we left, "You need to feel grounded wherever you are in the house." We both certainly had moments of "What space am I occupying and where should I be going next?" as we were touring.

The last place under consideration isn't one we saw today. It's in a great neighborhood but is a bit smaller than the other places we've been looking at. We'd have to buy some sort of butcher block to add counter space to the kitchen. Other than that, no real complaints. This home has been on the market for a very long time now, though, which makes us wonder if there's something we don't know about it.

Our next step is to meet with our realtor when I come back for spring break and come up with our strategy for putting in bids. I think we'll pursue House No. 2, then Nos. 6, 3 and 5 (in that order). In the meantime, we need to get a loan preapproval letter, which D is shopping around for. I'm in disbelief that we may actually have a home before I come back from Little U. on the Prairie. What a dream that would be! Oh, let the housing gods be with us.

Time for dinner now. D is trying a new recipe for chicken stew, and he insisted that I should blog so he could do the cooking as a treat. Whatever's on the stove smells delicious ...

Things that are hard to believe

So about time slowing to a crawl -- it sped back up again on Friday and continued to move at Mach 2 until I finally finished teaching today. Holy SMOOK, as my mother would say (rhymes with book because she has a slight accent, which is really cute). When we were driving my car to Little U. on the Prairie a little over a year and a half ago, we got passed by a semi, which startled her and elicited said phrase.

My students are done with their first papers, after much last-minute consultation. I was a wee bit cranky after office hours yesterday because I had students sending me drafts to look at, less than 24 hours before the final versions were due (I sent them back, telling their owners that it would be impossible for me to provide reasonable feedback in time for them to revise). I also had students dropping in asking me to tell them if their work was "good enough yet." I make no grade wagers, people! One student, after I began reviewing his draft with him and making suggestions, even had the nerve to ask me to write down what I was saying. I was so incensed that I didn't respond -- nothing good would have come out of my mouth at that point -- and merely underlined a word or two as a reminder of what we'd focused on (also to keep me from launching into a diatribe on Kids These Days and Their Issues of Entitlement). I'm still reeling from my disbelief. I'm not that much older than they are -- how is it that I (and my peers of similar age) inherently understood when we were undergrads that this is a completely inappropriate request?

Okay, enough of that; I hate saying things that put my students in a poor light, but this one was just too much.

I turned in my own essay on Wednesday (cannot believe I got it done in the midst of all the paper craziness). So now I can finally think about packing! And indeed there's quite a bit -- D and I have more or less decided that I'll do most of the boxing for the move in May as it will save us a lot of money. I'd like to transport what I can in the next few visits so there's less to deal with in the middle of finals week. Clothing seems like a good idea. Also all the foods I can't eat but don't want to waste. We have friends coming to visit from Idaho during part of my spring break who will love the Honey Bunches of Oats and cinnamon streusel Frosted Mini-Wheats I've stashed away.

I'll leave you with this series of photos from a tulip plant a friend of mine brought me when I had her over for brunch last weekend. I took these over the last four days as they bloomed just to mark the progress of something else besides my essay. Here's to a quick end to winter!

Guess what time it is?

Well, actually, now I don't have to.

Lately, I've been especially busy working on a research paper for one class, writing my essay for the other, and grading. Most often, I do all of that on my laptop, and it's easy to forget to look at the clock -- well, less so for that last item, but I do occasionally get mired down trying to understand what some of my students are trying to say in their papers. So I'll miss the specific time after eating a meal when I'm supposed to check my blood sugar to make sure it hasn't done something bad.

Enter the desktop alarm clock gadget (above) from the Windows Live Gallery. D found it for me yesterday, and I'm completely smitten. You can choose what music it plays when the alarm goes off, and you can put it anywhere on your screen. So now I have the perfect little reminder, and I don't have to worry about forgetting to test -- or be preoccupied with remembering while I'm supposed to be concentrating on work.

Also on the subject of time and distractions: I will be packing to go to Seattle again in exactly one week, and it feels like the earth's rotation has suddenly hit a very slow crawl. I got home today after teaching and felt enormously blah thinking about the wait. Maybe it's because of the weather (freezing with no end in sight); maybe it's because I experimented with another soup recipe that I ended up liking only marginally (but I don't want to waste food, so I've been eating it for dinner over the last three days). Either way, I'm cranky and want a change. Tonight, I did make some improvements on the soup -- it's another cauliflower-based one that was supposed to be seasoned with curry powder, but since I realized at the last minute that I didn't have any, I went with celery seed as well as ginger and garlic powders instead. The ginger didn't quite work out (I thought it might be all right since there were carrots puréed into the mix). Anyway, it turns out that a generous grating of parmesan cheese cuts the ginger flavor down to size. And tomorrow, I can move on at last to something different.

Sigh -- I want to take the night off but I can't even think of anything I'd rather be doing (besides the impossible, curling up on the couch with D after dinner to talk or just sit in happy silence). Arrgh.

On endurance

I know it's been a while since I last mentioned the house hunt D and I started this past summer. We've been watching sales in our area since the economy took its nosedive after September, and it's been unclear what the local market is doing. Sales are generally slower in the winter, yet homes are still selling at more than 95 percent of their list price in the neighborhoods we're considering.

Of course, the percentages are fudged a bit as they're calculated on what the most recent price was -- not what it was before it was lowered and relisted. So we're still trying to get a handle on how much negotiating room we have. It is a buyer's market, but if there's something we like, we don't want to lowball our offer so much that we get shut out and end up losing to someone else's bid. Supposedly, if we come back too quickly with a higher offer, we'll be setting ourselves up for tougher negotiations. Says my dad: "Just don't blink." Sounds like a game of chicken to me.

We've been checking in on the market every few weeks, by which I mean that one of us sets up a time to look at properties with the realtor from the listings she's been sending us, and then we evaluate what seems to be available at the price we're considering. What you get for your dollar seems to be improving somewhat, but it's not ideal yet. I went out during my Thanksgiving break while I was in town and saw seven places in about five hours. A bit tiring, trying to remember floorplans and construction quality, etc., for each site. Or so I thought. This past Saturday, D went out again and saw eighteen homes in eight hours. And then he reported everything he saw to me in amazing detail, drawing maps and diagrams to boot! "I think I wore her out," D said (referring to our realtor). This is a first -- she's a dynamo. He was unfazed, though, and went looking at seven more places on his own on Sunday. The plan is to go back to our top picks when I'm in town at the end of the month.

It's been a couple days of digging deep for willpower on many fronts. I'm working on an essay that's due in a week, one I'm actually excited about for the first time in many months, but it's slow going. My workshop is being led by a really excellent visiting professor, which is helping a lot with the motivation. She's been terrific at guiding discussion on other essays so far, which wasn't my experience during the fall under someone else (and I wasn't alone in that). I'm glad to have a fresh start this semester and a sense of hope for this particular piece -- I just wish I could see the structure for it more clearly. For now, the work is more of a meditation. I guess that's all right as long it finds some sort of ending point.

I also knocked out comments and grades on my students' latest writing assignment over the weekend. Thank goodness for enrollment caps! It's definitely more work having two sections, but it does mean I get to teach my lessons twice. Since I see my classes back to back, I get to figure out what worked well and what I need to tweak after the first run. It's nice to have the chance to do that, especially when you can see marked improvement in how students respond the second time around.

As for things health related, I'm making some progress there too. I used to do 45 minutes of cardio at a pretty decent clip each day on the elliptical machine, with intervals of high resistance to make it more challenging. Needless to say, after the switch to low-carb foods, that wasn't something I could maintain anymore (no quick energy available). It was frustrating -- I had to cut my workouts to 30 minutes on low resistance the whole time (and even that was tough to get through). But in the last week, I've been able to raise the resistance by one level, which means my body is adjusting. Perhaps another notch up in a few weeks? We'll see.

Okay, break time's over. Time to get back to the essay.

Quotes for the day

End of the week at last. It's been a particularly tiring one since I've been holding extra office hours for my students, who are consulting with me on their first formal papers for the semester. The time spent will be worth it, I know, as I've already helped a good number of them focus their work (which will mean better papers in the end and a nicer grading experience for all involved). But now I'm exhausted!

After I got home today, I did manage to schedule a survey of my apartment for next week with a moving company, which is very exciting. One little bit closer to being back with D! The person doing the assessment will be here Wednesday morning to see what I've got at my place and to run some estimates on the cost -- with or without packing services, with or without shipping my car, etc. The ballpark quote the company gave me isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and if I can save money by packing things myself (all but the really fragile stuff), that will be good. I don't mind that part; I just hate the heavy lifting.

I think we've decided that I won't be driving the car back unless I can find someone to do it with me. It's very tempting to go it alone anyway, though. There's something attractively symbolic about the idea of that journey back to Seattle through the mountains and across the Continental Divide. The picture I've had of this homecoming for the last year and a half is an earthbound one, an arrival that allows me to pass beneath the sentinel gaze of the Cascades -- not the airport's TSA. The image at left is one that D took about 80 miles east of home as the crow flies (it's more like 120 miles by highway). How lovely a welcome that would be, to be shepherded home in the end by the firs I've missed. As much as I've enjoyed seeing Seattle from the window of a plane, I'm not especially taken with the idea of a reunion at Sea-Tac. It feels too transient: everyone there is going somewhere else and the jets momentarily on the tarmac are really denizens of the air. The trees, though, are rooted -- willingly.

D and I have had what feels like too many years of wandering from one corner of the U.S. to another, with career shifts to match. I'm ready for an end to that, especially when it comes to choosing a profession to stick with for more than 24 months. At the same time, I think the work it took to get us to where we are is important, and I don't want to negate that. I'd probably be much less certain about my job interests without having had the graduate school experience and the chance to take another crack at teaching. The first attempt (seventh graders in the Bronx) was a near disaster, and I ran away into editing (at a newspaper in Texas) but didn't feel challenged enough. So here I am.

I had to read Mary Catherine Bateson's Peripheral Visions for one of my classes this semester, and there's a really great passage in it that addresses the idea of indirect and broken trajectories. I'll end with it here, just because it makes these last few years feel like they've had purpose, even if they've been hard.

In my recent work on the ways women combine commitments to career and family, I have been struck by how commonly women zigzag from stage to stage without a long-term plan, improvising along the way, building the future from "something old and something new." For men and women, résumés full of change show resiliency and creativity, the strength to welcome new learning, yet personnel directors often discriminate against anyone whose résumé does not show a clear progression. Quite a common question in job interviews is "What do you want to be doing in five years?" "Something I cannot now imagine" is not yet a winning answer. Accepting that logic, young people worry about getting "on track," yet their years of experimentation and short-term jobs are becoming longer. If only to offer an alternative, we need to tell the other stories, the stories of shifting identities and interrupted paths, and to celebrate the triumphs of adaptation.

On the elasticity of time

Mmmm good visit. It was over too soon, but we filled it with so much that the weekend actually seemed longer by the end than we expected it to be. Definitely a positive thing, but talk about messing with your body clock (and never mind the jet lag)!

There were several new things to see. First, the latest addition to our living/dining area:


This is an original scroll painting that a good friend of mine brought back after she visited China last year. We took it to the local frame store (the same one that provided something fun for one of our other decorating projects back in January) and had it mounted in a shadow box. This is the first piece of large-scale original art we've ever owned, so it was exciting to have it finally ready for proper display. Apparently, D had to borrow a coworker (and the coworker's truck) to get the painting back to our place and up on the wall. Now our space really is starting to look like a home and not a temporary residence!

Next, the birthday project, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Back when we were getting the painting mounted, we also ordered a frame to use for a jewelry board, which D offered to help make as a gift to me. The frame I chose arrived last week, so we went shopping for fabric to cover the foam insert that goes inside. (The idea is to stick sturdy pins into the board so you can hang necklaces, bracelets, etc., on them instead of having everything get tangled in a jewelry box.) We found a wonderful store that specializes in material for home decorating and quilting, so the fabrics were really luxe and just the thing to use as a background for displaying pretty baubles. There were so many options at such good prices (especially what we pulled from the scrap pile) that we ended up picking out several swatches. So now the jewelry board has its own wardrobe:


The fabric currently in the frame is brocade and the other samples are dupioni silk, the majority of which were D's finds. I think D was almost having more fun than I was digging through the offerings -- it's the artist in him that I love.

There were new things to taste as well over the weekend. D and I hadn't had Indian food for a long time, so after he picked me up from the airport on Friday, we went out for lunch at a place D discovered not far from his office. To my delight, it seems that most curries are not a problem for my new diet (have to watch the rice and naan, though).

In our own kitchen, we tested out a cornish hen recipe on Saturday and a Hungarian goulash on Sunday; both were excellent. They also require significant cooking time! The hen has to be slow roasted and the goulash requires a lot of simmering. Maybe this is why we felt like we had a longer weekend than we'd anticipated -- watched pots and all that. But we were certainly never bored, so it was a good sort of time stretch.

There were some old things I got to revisit on this trip too, several of which I hadn't seen in years. I flew on United this time because I had a voucher I had to use -- it was from last March's flight fiasco -- so that meant connecting through a completely different terminal in O'Hare. When I was little, my family did most of its traveling on United, and often this required us to use the underground passage to get from one concourse to another. If you've ever been through this tunnel, you'll recognize it now:


I used to love the rainbow of neon lights zipping along the ceiling with the moving walkways below (I thought those were as much fun as the rides at Disney World). Going through the passage this time was a reminder of that. In Seattle, too, I got a little nostalgia jolt -- I landed at a gate that requires you to take an underground train to get to the main airport building. I had completely forgotten that I had been there before until I saw the waiting area. Something about the floor tile pattern (strange, I know) and the dim lighting dredged up the memory: my family had come through this part of the airport en route to Vancouver when I was thirteen. Funny to look back and see myself then, a kid with no idea she'd be returning to Seattle years later, married and hoping to settle there for a long time.

All this because of a travel voucher ...

My return trip didn't evoke such old memories, but it did have a surprise for me and D when we stepped outside this morning: snow. We knew it was in the forecast, but it wasn't supposed to arrive until Monday evening. So the blanket of white on our mountain was a bit unexpected (though certainly not unfamiliar to me this winter on campus). I guess you might call this an old experience in a new context? It's the first time I got to see a fresh snowfall there, and with the lightly coated branches of the trees arching over the back roads we took to the airport, it was quite lovely. I thought I was sick of frozen precipitation -- enough to believe I didn't want to see it anywhere at any time for the remainder of the winter -- but I guess I was wrong.


So anyway, I'm safely back in my other place of residence. It's after 11 p.m. in Seattle, which means it's way past my bedtime here. If only I could make the next few hours of sleep feel like more than they'll be ...

An early valentine

Four years ago, D and I got engaged in a little stone pavilion overlooking Central Park. The day was warm, so the weekend crowds were out in force and the snow on the ground was turning to slush. D still bemoans the latter effect -- he wanted to kneel when he proposed -- but I'm very glad he didn't. I'm shy, and we would have had quite the audience.

Romantic that he is, D had managed to acquire a rose (he still hasn't told me from where), which he then concealed in his jacket while we were out and about in Manhattan. When the moment was right, he pulled the flower from its hiding place. I think I was so distracted by the magic trick that I didn't realize D had tied the engagement ring he'd chosen to the stem. (And there was also the whole "Will you marry me?" bit that had me slightly giddy!)

Since then, oddly enough, we haven't really had this day together to commemorate -- after I finished teaching that June, I moved to Texas and worked on the night desk of a newspaper for two years, during which D and I never had a day off in common (his job was Monday to Friday; mine was Friday to Tuesday). Then I got into graduate school, D got his job offer, and here we are. Fortunately, I'll be on a plane in a few hours for a long weekend in Seattle, which will make up for having to give up today. I think a celebratory date is in the works for Saturday. Whether it's a night out or a night in, I have no preference; it will just be nice to have the uninterrupted 24 hours together. How I've forgotten until now those awful seven-day work weeks in Texas. Compared to that option, I think this commute is actually more manageable, which is saying something.

Packing calls. More from Seattle (or after it)!

Process vs. outcome

Just to show that personality tests can be a source of interesting contradictions, let me direct you to these results from another quiz I came across. Apparently, on the spectrum of famous female icons, I rate as a Marilyn Monroe. I won't quote at length about what that entails -- see the profile for all the specifics -- but I will say that despite my more "masculine" brain, I definitely experience the "constant push and pull involved in trying to make up my mind" and "procrastinating because of fear of failure" that they mention. More often than I'd like! Well, I guess the previous quiz wasn't testing for how I came to my decisions ...

Speaking of choices, if you're ever wondering whether to use low-fat cheese instead of the full-fat kind in soups that call for them, don't skimp. I had my first not-so-great results from a recipe I tried last night for a cauliflower-cheddar soup. After you've puréed the cauliflower (enhanced with onions and fresh garlic), you're supposed to add the cheese and let it melt into the broth and vegetables. Low-fat cheese -- as recommended by the cookbook I got this out of -- doesn't quite melt into those gooey ribbons of comforting deliciousness you expect. It curdles, or something like it. Don't get me wrong; it's entirely edible and tastes absolutely fine. But it looks a lot less palatable. Oh well, something to remember for next time.

Four days and then Seattle! D and I are trying to make plans for our little weekend. We have a Netflix movie all lined up for delivery and a small craft project we want to work on -- we're making something that's a combination Christmas and birthday gift for me, and the first part we need has arrived. Pictures to come, of course.

Decisions, decisions

I got an e-mail a week or two ago from someone I'm mentoring -- she's considering various graduate programs in a number of related fields (education, literature, social science, or something interdisciplinary, as she puts it), and she wanted to know if she should (a) "apply to places that loosely make sense" for her particular interests because she's "sure about wanting to go into academia/teaching at the collegiate level" or (b) "put off applying to places until [she's] found the 'perfect' program to apply to ..."

Hmmm. I don't think either of those scenarios is the better option. The idea of applying to something that "loosely makes sense" raises a big red flag for me -- when I was shopping around for graduate schools, I saw an enormous range of programs within my field alone, and I know that some would not have suited me at all because of my particular interests and the interests of the faculty I wanted to work with. The other option of waiting to find the "perfect" program sounds all right -- but I have a distinct feeling that my mentee hasn't determined what she wants out of a graduate program. Until she sits down and really figures out what she's going after in terms of the whole experience and outcome, I'm thinking she won't be able to assess whether a program is the "perfect" fit for her (or if such a thing exists for her).

I've also talked to way too many disillusioned graduate students who are working on a second graduate degree because the first program they entered didn't end up letting them do what they had hoped or believed it would, even after much investigation -- only now, they've discovered that the next program is no better for other reasons. Clearly, what may look "perfect" may turn out to have substantial flaws. But I guess that information really can't help my mentee with her decision beyond serving as a precaution when she's doing her preliminary shopping.

My mentee also asked me, "What's the academic world really like? Do you feel super-competitive in your field ... ?" I think I smiled a little ruefully when I got to these questions. To be "competitive," I'm going to need more than an MFA (I was told this in no uncertain terms by the first-year advisor of my program within the first month of my arrival). It's funny to look back at how I was feeling over the summer about that situation. I think finding a home in teaching has made a huge difference -- I know now that working with students is in itself exciting for me. Will it be community colleges for me, then? Quite possibly, if they'll take me. We'll just have to see what's out there when I finish here and hope that the economy decides to play nicely. If there isn't anything viable, well, D and I will figure out our options then, but I think we've earned the right to say we'll wait it out in the same city.

(I say this with conviction now, but believe me, underneath it there's still fear that we'll be forced to return to some form of commuting again. Gaaah. For some really excellent thoughts on that aspect of career development, check out the conversation in the comments over at Medieval Woman's place in response to this post.)

Somehow, I don't think these were the answers my mentee was looking for.

Okay, let's end this on a lighter note -- so around the same time that my mentee e-mailed me, I found this little quiz online. It tells you where you fall on the "male-female brain continuum" based on your ability to perform certain mental tasks, and I'm amused to report that my gray matter is apparently quite masculine:


Does this mean that I make good decisions? No clue. But at least I know this quiz thinks they're ballsy ones ...

Matters of (low-carb) taste

So January has essentially been a month of recipe testing, and it's yielded some yummy results that both D and I can eat. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you're suddenly not allowed to eat most bread products, it's very exciting.


One of the first things we tried was a chicken and mushroom casserole (above) that contains no pasta and uses only a little whole-grain bread as a bottom crust to sop up the delicious juices that come out during baking. I do have to say that the recipe, which came out of Martha Stewart Living, is more time consuming than I'd like (mainly because pan-frying very thick chicken breasts isn't a quick process), but I imagine that chicken leftovers could be recycled here to speed things up considerably. Speaking of recycling, the casserole gets even tastier the day after you make it because the flavors have had time to soak into the bread. Mmmm comfort food -- and one less meal to cook.

Fondue is one of D's favorite meals (he lived for several years in Switzerland, where he had his share of the authentic stuff), so we had one night of that while I was home during break. Alas, what to substitute for all the bread? Cauliflower. Cooked until just al dente, it holds up when you dip it into the cheese and it's actually good for you. Well, okay, fondue is not good for you no matter how you look at it, but at least the vegetable component makes up somewhat for the damage, no?

Now that I'm back at school and eating by myself, I'm doing more large-batch prep for consumption over several days. Soup is a staple still -- the canned versions I used to use for convenience are no longer okay for me since most contain thickeners, but the ones I make on my own are perfectly fine. I discovered a soy milk that is really low in sugar (unlike most regular kinds of soy or cow's milk), so this week's menu has included a cream of broccoli soup as well as a crab and scallop chowder. Very nice when the wind chill is -25.

The world of products made with sugar substitutes has also become a realm for exploration, although we try not to eat too much of the stuff that comes from there just because we don't know what the long-term effects of sucralose and aspartame will be. For an occasional treat, there's this nonalcoholic sparkling drink:


The orange mango taste is incredible -- especially for the fruit-deprived -- and reminds me of the Nantucket Nectars I used to drink when I was living out east. Unfortunately, this stuff, produced by a label called Talking Rain, is only available to me in Washington. Another reason to be the one doing the traveling this semester! D can't bring this to me in his carry-on luggage since such liquids are on TSA's no-fly list (unless you buy them for ridiculous prices from inside the airport). And checking carbonated beverages just seems like a really bad idea, between rough baggage handling and non-pressurized cargo holds.

Okay, time to grade the quiz I gave on Tuesday. Can't believe the week will be over for me tomorrow -- at this rate, this semester may be over even sooner than I thought.

One week down, fifteen to go

It seems that the end of vacation is always hectic -- in the few days before I had to return to campus again, D and I crammed in eye appointments, our will signing, and rumba lessons(!). Fortunately, all had good outcomes.

The eye appointment for me was important as we don't know how long I've been prediabetic, so getting my retinas looked at was something we didn't want to put off until spring break. (That's when I get to meet my new endocrinologist; for now, my regular doctor is going to keep tabs on me.) As for the will signing, that was something we'd had planned -- we finally got the draft process underway during my Thanksgiving break, after much delay -- so it was good to cross that one off our to-do list as well. And the rumba lessons? Impromptu and entirely for fun. We haven't done any ballroom dancing since our wedding, and the inexpensive group lessons we found at a club downtown looked like an easy way to get started again (they do cha-cha, salsa, foxtrot, waltz, and several other types of dance too). We may do it again next time I'm in town.

The one thing that was truly unplanned during vacation happened the night before I had to leave. For some reason, the fire alarm in our apartment building went off in the middle of the evening and had to be shut off by the fire department. No explanation as to what set it off -- normally, someone's smoke detector within a single unit has to be tripped before the building-wide system goes into effect.

D and I had no idea whether there was actually a fire or not, so we grabbed the most important things we had -- largely, irreplaceable data stored on our laptops and backup CDs! Oh, the embarrassing value on (and faith in) technology we have. Here we are, waiting for the all-clear signal from the firemen in the parking lot. You can see D's shadow next to mine, which is the one holding the camera up.


The trip back was uneventful. The sky was clear as we headed for the airport -- unusual for this time of year -- which gave me a glimpse of the moon before sunrise over the foothills we live in. They mark the gateway to the larger mountain ranges east of us.


I also got a full shot of Mount Rainier from the airport at dawn -- also unusual for this time of year since its peak is usually wreathed in mist.


And once we were in the air, just before I fell asleep for the rest of the flight, I took a picture of the Cascades below us. I can't wait to be heading in the opposite direction over them again (less than two weeks until the next trip!).


Speaking of countdowns, I am now officially through my first week of the spring semester, which means there are fifteen left until the much-anticipated end (for the foreseeable future) of long-distancing. Oh yes, we're definitely marking off the days. Not because I don't like teaching -- I was actually way more excited about what I was going to do with my students on the first day of the semester than I was about my own classes. I'm just very much ready to be moved out of here, for obvious reasons, and also to be done with regular coursework. I haven't been able to focus on the bigger picture of the thesis because of all the nitty-gritty hoops I've had to jump through in these last three semesters. I think getting away from all the distractions will help a lot. If I can just nail down that prospectus ...

How sweet!

While I was on my way back to Little U. on the Prairie, Medieval Woman gave me an Inspiration Award! What a lovely surprise -- thank you!

Of course, there are a few rules I must post with it.

The obligations upon accepting the award are to extend the compliment by doing the following:

1) Put the logo of the award (above) on your blog if you can make it work with your format.

2) Link to the person from whom you received the award.

3) Nominate seven or more blogs.

4) Put the links of those blogs on your blog.

5) Leave a message on their blogs to tell them.

So here are my nominations:

• French Fancy, the namesake blog of a Londoner who now lives in Brittany, France, and writes about life on the other side of the English Channel -- including her progress toward her B.A. in Humanities from the Open University. I admire anyone who takes it upon himself/herself to pursue education through distance learning. It's not easy to be your own motivator, and Ms. FF does a terrific job.


• A Lady Scientist, the blog of a fourth-year Ph.D. student in biochemistry who is, in her words, "navigating the so-called 'Two Body Problem.'"


• Hypoglycemiagirl, the blog of another fellow commuter currently living in Sweden while juggling what she calls "an academic four-body problem"(!).


• The Firefly Photo Files, the blog of a photography enthusiast from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, that features his beautiful travel and nature shots with personal commentary. There's nothing like looking at other people's art to make you want to do more yourself.


• Making This Home, written by an American blogger living in Berlin, Germany, while she and her husband remodel parts of their 480-square-foot apartment with do-it-yourself aplomb.

These last two are actually links to collections of blogs on specific topics. I couldn't choose just one from each place -- it's the community each site represents, perhaps, that is inspiring ...

• Diabetes Daily, a forum with feeds from people living with the disease that's become particularly relevant to me in the last few weeks. While I'm not fully diabetic yet (and hope not to be), I'm learning how to handle many of the same things these bloggers are dealing with, and reading their posts on day-to-day life has been really helpful.


• Authors' Blogs, a forum with links to the blogs of aspiring and published writers.

Now, time to go home and start grading. And so it begins again ...

Frames of reference

We've been busy this week! D seems to have caught some of my enthusiasm, and he's joined me in the quest to make his office turned walk-in closet back into an office. All the random papers formerly piled up on the desk, chairs, and floor have been filed away; the actual closet's contents have been rearranged and consolidated so the door can be opened and closed; D's art has been framed and mounted on the walls; and a floor lamp has been moved in so the room can have more light. Now D can't help walking in every day after work just to enjoy his new space. There are a few last things that need different homes, but beyond that, the office is complete. Unbelievable.

Our reorganization unearthed some items that have turned into fun little additions elsewhere in our apartment. First, our former Texas license plate (I've blurred out the identifying information):


I work out on this elliptical every day when I'm here -- I originally bought it when I moved to the Lone Star State to be with D back in 2005. Seemed like an appropriate place to display our old plate with all the mileage this machine has racked up since then. It practically needs a name now that it has its own tags.

Next, something a bit naughtier but hopefully amusing. The background: a local frame shop was having a sale (buy one frame, get the second of equal or lesser value for a penny), so we picked up this little cream model when we were getting others for D's art. We had no plans for it -- I just thought it was cute. Then D found a coaster in the office that he'd brought back from a conference a while ago. It was a perfect fit.


Now where to hang it? Well, our guests inevitably have to ask us where the bathroom is as it's not obvious from the long hallway that comes off our living room. What better place to put a sign that says this?


Okay, no more bad jokes today, I promise. Our next exhibit on the tour brings us to the bedroom:


What, you don't know what you're supposed to be looking at? Good! We took a giant piece of whiteboard from the office (no room for it) and turned the white side to the wall, leaving the conveniently mahogany colored backing facing out. It's now our trompe l'oeil headboard until we're ready to buy real bedroom furniture.


Lastly, my favorite project, which was finally made possible once I could access the printer in the office: pictures for our photo coasters. You may recognize some of them from earlier posts or the slideshow in the sidebar.



We took all of the shots ourselves, and they can be changed to suit the season. For now, we have the Seattle and Puget Sound set (top) and the botanical garden flowers set (bottom).

We've also been hard at work in the kitchen testing some new recipes, but I'll save that for another post. Time to add more miles to the Texas steed ...

Time to get creative

For those of you wondering where the pretty card in my last post came from, it's actually handmade. My sister (the one heading into her last semester of college) is amazing with scissors and paper, and she put together all of the cards she gave to the family. A few more examples of her work:




I think my favorite is the snowman, but the scarf, hat, and mittens on the card below it run a close second.

D's side of the family was hard at work on an art project too during the week before Christmas. As I mentioned while writing from his parents' place, D engineered a gingerbread cathedral -- one that took almost an entire week to construct. The results were quite solid:




There wasn't enough time to decorate the walls completely, but D and his brothers did manage to create the "stained glass" by melting down crushed bits of Jolly Rancher candy in greased cookie molds. Lighted from inside the cathedral, the windows really do suggest the real thing. The roof shingles are made from cut-up Twizzlers.

Before we took off on our road trip, D's brothers planned to finish off the decor with gargoyles made from gummy bears and Swedish Fish. Guess I'll find out how far the project got when I return to pick up my car in a little over a week. I suspect many of the would-be adornments will have met a different fate!

So where have I been applying my creative energies, you ask? Well, most of it has gone primarily toward sprucing up our apartment in the last day or two, by which I mean finding more storage and organizational space than truly exists. Goodwill, here we come! I'm giving up on selling much more on Amazon and Craigslist (another project from last summer that yielded a few successes but not enough to help us reclaim that much square footage). I think I'm trying to prepare for what may be a stay of indeterminate length in our sweet but small place while we wait for the housing market to turn up a potential home for us. Prices are looking better, but they're still ridiculously high compared to what people paid five years ago. In this economy, we're not biting. Yet.

The rest of my creativity is being channeled toward the kitchen -- namely, how to rework my diet. No, this is not one of those "new year, new you" fads. I finally got some answers as to why I was so tired last semester: I'm prediabetic. This is such a weird term -- "So you're not diabetic, what's the big deal?" you might ask. Well, it means my body can't handle sugar well, and if I don't make changes in my diet, full-blown diabetes will be right around the corner. (There's more to it than that, obviously, but I'll leave the scientific explanation to my other sister, the one in medical school.) It's especially frustrating because I exercise every day, eat balanced meals most of the time, and maintain a healthful weight. There's no arguing with genetics sometimes, though, the main culprit in this instance.

The good news is that since cutting out refined sugars from my diet, I've been feeling much, much better. I'm also getting pretty adept at doing finger sticks to test my blood glucose levels. The one thing I haven't figured out, however, is how to work fresh fruits into meals. They cause my readings to skyrocket, even in tiny portions, and I miss them terribly.

D has been great about all of this. In a sort of ironic fashion, he's a reactive hypoglycemic (at the opposite end of the sugar-problem spectrum), so he's familiar with the testing and diet restrictions. We're working on finding low-carb recipes to try out before I go back to school. Any suggestions are very, very welcome! The more, the better. I'd like some variety in my new regimen of eggs, nuts, and meats ...

A sprint to the finish

Hello, Seattle, it's good to be back.

Yes, we made it out of Texas on the original flights we booked -- though for a few moments along the way, it wasn't clear that it was going to work out. More travel drama? But of course. Fortunately, this is the last of it as all our airport-hopping is done (until I return to school in two weeks), and the ending to the story includes a pleasant surprise, so I figure it's worth mentioning.

D and I had a fine week at my parents' place. The weather in the panhandle is pretty capricious (as the locals say, if you don't like it, just wait five minutes), so we enjoyed brisk temperatures and balmy ones all within a few days. When my sister left about 36 hours before we did, it was 75 degrees out. On the morning of our departure, it was just above freezing.

The crew at the airport didn't know it had gotten into the 20s the night before, so the electrical system had to be warmed up, which delayed our flight to Dallas. We had a tight connection to our Seattle flight to begin with, so D and I were more than a little antsy when we landed. Then, our plane had to wait for another to pull out from a neighboring gate -- it never did, but we lost about ten minutes sitting on the tarmac. By the time we got into the terminal, we had less than 15 minutes to get from one concourse to another.

We made a dash for it and got to our connecting gate just as the agent closed the flight in her computer. "It's gone," she said with that all-too-familiar sorry-but-I-can't-help-you look we've seen more and more in the last year of travel snafus. At that moment, though, another agent at the counter spoke up. "We're delayed for mechanical problems," he said. "We've got seats for you."

As it turns out, they were in first-class.

D and I have never flown anything but coach together -- not even for our honeymoon -- so this was a first in more ways than one. We had no idea how our names got put in for upgrades on our original tickets, but after all the craziness in the last two weeks of cancellations, we weren't about to say no. Once the mechanical issue was resolved, we were on our way. And that, if you're still reading, is how we finally made it home.